¡Tengan a ¡Feliz Año Nuevo!!

Merry Late Christmas! and a Happy New Year!!!

So I’ve been thinking about my Christmases these past years and I realized that this was my 4th Christmas and will be my 4th New Year’s Day in a different country. The past three have been in Mexico! I hope Uncle Jon and Aunt Teresa are having a successful time there and I wish them Feliz Navidad y Feliz Año Nuevo!! I really wish I was there in Mexico building a house for someone and doing service but I realize that I am doing the same thing here in Nicaragua, just in a different manner. I am helping others build an Eternal Family and doing the greatest service I could do by preaching the Gospel.

So now about my week!! We had a good time this week finding new families and new people to teach and bring to church! However, when Sunday arrived, none of them were able to show up... BUT!!! We had 11 people in the church! A new record!! Each week we are getting better and better! I hope that it continues to rise and that we don’t have room in our little Chapel for people to sit!! I will try to take photos of the church this week so you guys can see how small and simple it is. But as we went along our day Sunday morning, passing by all the people that we had talked to during the week, inviting them to come to church with us, none of them were able to go, or said they were going to go and didn’t show up. As the time for church to start arrived, we started to head to the church so we could get the meeting started and a man, F L, stopped us and talked to us on the street outside the last house we had visited. So since it was Sunday, we invited him to come to church and he agreed!!! This was the first time we have had someone accept the invitation and actually did it! So we walked to the church, had an awesome meeting, (My companion and I spoke), and had Sunday school about the Book of Mormon. After church ended, we told F L that we would visit him later that night. He agreed and left. We showed up later that night with the intention of teaching him the 3rd lesson (Gospel of Jesus Christ) and inviting him to be baptized. Because he lives solo, the possibility for baptism was a lot higher than normal because we didn’t have to worry about getting him married to anyone. So we went next door to the neighbor, who is a member, to teach the lesson. We started and the lesson was going very very well. We started talking about baptism and the importance of it and we were just about to ask him to be baptized when he stated something that we hear from a lot of people. He said ''I have already been baptized''. We thought that he had been baptized in a different church so we started to explain why having the right type of baptism is the correct way. Then he said ''I’ve already been baptized into your church''. We stopped; somewhat stunned.... and asked him if he was sure that he was baptized into our church. He said yes and told us the story of how he met the missionaries in Esteli (a different city in Nicaragua) and was baptized by them. All of our hopes for this baptism went down the tube right then! We then redirected the lesson to talk about enduring to the end!! I read a good Conference Talk by Elder Uchtdorf called ''Waiting on the road to Damascus'' that talks a little about this. We were all excited to get a baptism but we didn’t get it, instead we helped a less active member remember why his covenants with the Lord are important and how to continue on the right path. We also figured out this week and J won’t be able to be baptized just yet.... He killed someone awhile back... So the process is a bit more difficult and needs to be more sincere than normal. So we will be working with him for a while. Which means that his family will be waiting to be baptized as well because they want to do it as a family. Our other family, F y A, we decided to stop teaching them. We tried to visit them last night to tell them this but it didn’t go as planned. We stopped outside their house and they had a light on inside. We were deciding exactly what to say to them, and then when we turned to walk into their yard to talk to them. They had turned the light off and wouldn’t answer to our calls. Apparently they didn’t want to talk to us. We really wanted to help them but it seems that they are avoiding us or something. We will see what we can do to visit them again to see what’s up.

I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas and I hope that everyone will have a great New Year’s Day!! Take this New Year and become a new person!!

Here is a link to the talk by Elder Uchtdorf:

Waiting on the Road to Damascus.

¡¡¡Les Amo!!!

ELDER DAUGHERTY