Wheeewww... This week went by really fast with little success and a TON of work. But let’s not dwell on the negative, or as Pres Monson says, ''Rather than dwelling on the negative, if we will take a step back and consider the blessings in our lives, including seemingly small, sometimes overlooked blessings, we can find greater happiness.'' So let’s look at the blessing that I have found joy in this week! So the week started and in our house, there are 4 missionaries living there. And we don't have enough beds for all of us. So 2 of us are sleeping on beds and the other 2 are sleeping in hammocks. So when the week started, my comp, who was sleeping in the hammock, told me that it was time to switch. He had been sleeping in the hammock for about a month so it was my turn. So I am thankful for the chance that I had to sleep in the bed and now I am thankful for the few comfortable positions I can find while trying to sleep in the hammock. I'm also thankful that the weather here is just cool enough during the night that it isn't too hot or too cold. So all this week, we have worked super hard, walking to all sides of our area, looking for families to teach and help them progress. So unfortunately, my feet are taking the worst of it and are struggling to hang on. But the work of the Lord is always calling and my feet can wait until nighttime to rest! One of our families that we were teaching didn't turn out so well. We went one day to teach them and they were really open and receiving the lesson really well. They had a date of baptism and it was the day that we were there teaching. So we started to teach and we read 3 Nephi 11, verse for verse. At the end we talked about the importance of baptism and asked them if they were ready to make that promise with the Lord that day. All the sudden, this family turned from really happy, to grumpy and accepting. They said that they didn't feel like they were ready and didn't want to be pressured into doing anything to join our church. We had been working with this family for more than a month and they were really positive. So we don't know what happened to make them shut down on us and not want to do anything to progress. We still go visit them every once in a while (because they live with the lady that cleans our clothes) and we are still good friends with them. We are visiting about 13 other families and it’s really hard to visit all of them within a week, that is if they are even home and not busy. We found another family the other day (the neighbors of the family that turned us down) and we brought them to church yesterday and we have taught them about 3 times. My comp and our District Leader taught them after they went to church and they accepted the invitation to be baptized. We have the baptism set up for tomorrow night. So we will be visiting them tonight to follow up on how they are and if they actually are going to follow through with their commitment to be baptized! Out of a week of little success and with the Change Meeting being on Wednesday, we were able to see some sunlight and some blessing of all our work we have done here. I'm so thankful for my companion and for the determination he has to work here in the mission. If he has changes, I will be a little sad to lose his motivation drive that he has but I have learned a lot from him and hope to become better by using what I have learned. I probably won’t have changes but I won’t know until tomorrow night! And you guys won’t know til next Monday!
So I was thinking about some of the different things that are here in Nicaragua and I wanted to talk about a few of them.
So the schools here are all run through the different cities. So the school with be of Villa Flor, Bello Horizonte, Los Laurelles, etc.. And all of them have a dress code or uniforms. The Boys have to wear a white shirt with black pants and black shoes. The Girls have to wear a white shirt with a dark blue skirt, long white socks, and black shoes. They also have weird time limits here for when someone goes to school depending on the age. Like the older kids go really early in the morning, the younger ones go really late in the afternoon, and the ones in between go at 12ish in the middle of the day. So for the last week or so, the school here just started. So my comp and I look a lot like students when we are walking around, only we have a name tag and a tie. If we were ever looking to blend in, we would only need to take off the tag and the tie and we would look like students. Well my comp would, I would still stick out because it would be weird for a gringo to be going to classes here :)
In Utah, I never saw many drunk people, only on TV or in Ogden when we were walking late at night. But here, you can see tons of drunks every single minute of the day. Beer here is super cheap and anyone who is older than 14 has been drunk at least once. We have to be careful around these people because the drunks can be pretty crazy... We have a drunk guy that lives next door to us that drinks a lot. He is also mentally crazy. So when he is sober, he is just really weird but when he is drunk, he likes to parade down the streets, singing, yelling at dogs, cars, or random people on the street. He likes to sit in front of his house and talk to his flowers too. We past one day and he was fighting with his flowers over what soccer team was better. He then calmed down and started to kiss the flowers... Now, if being drunk and a little crazy can make you do that, it makes you wonder why people still do it.
The different religions here really like people to know when they have meetings and cults. The Evangelicals like to drive the streets with megaphones announcing when and where the meetings are and inviting all to come. The Catholics don't do much but they like to keep to themselves in their church all day every day. The Jehovah Witnesses walk around with umbrellas and are always dressed really nice because it’s a requirement to join their church. The Evangelicals like to have prayer meetings at 4 in the morning every Saturday. And lucky for us, a group of them live across from us... It’s interesting to see the different ways that the different religions go about showing their faith and love to the Lord and God.
I am so glad to be here in Nicaragua, living in the culture and bringing people to come unto Christ!!!
“Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words.”
St. Francis of Assisi
¡¡¡Les Quiero!!!
ELDER DAUGHERTY
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