Hey familia,
Well i was glad to get your letter
again. Thats too bad about mary and henry being sick. Hopefully, they will get
better soon. Barfing is no fun. I have only barfed twice since coming here, but
both times, it was horrible. Luckily, i havent been sick in a while. Ive just
been drinking the Managua Water. It seems pretty safe, and all of the Nicas
promise me that its safe. I dont really know whether to take their word for it,
or no. But either way, its all good. Im healthy and getting fatter. We have
McDonalds and Pizza Hut. About every third night or so, we go and get
McFlurries. They are really good. The culture of "fast food" is a
pretty funny one here. Like to be a Nicaragüense who goes and eats
fast food is a sophisticated thing. They will dress up in buttondown shirts,
and nice pants, and take their wife to pizza hut or mcdonalds. Its considered a
"rich person" thing to eat at the american fast food places. In my
mind, its just like another fast food resturant, but here its a big deal.
Well thats cool that you got to go to
the temple. I would love to go there, but sadly there isnt one here in
Nicaragua. I guess (this is just hear-say by the way), apparently when Elder
Nelson the apostle visited here last year, he visited with Daniel Ortega about
building a temple. I dont really know the facts, but it would be sweet if
someday there were a temple here. Its a pretty big sacrifice for some of the
members to travel to Guatamala to use the temple. But its definatly worth it.
They actually just dedicated a temple in Honduras thats a little closer, so
hopefully the members can go there.
So i liked the story about Rusty and the
squirell insident. Hopefully he had some fun. I really miss rusty. The food cita
that we use is some Recent Converts. They are pretty awesome, and they have a
huge pitbull. Its fun visiting there, because at the houses of the members, we
can relax a little, and act a little more normal. Most of the time in the
streets, we have to act appropriate, but in the members house, we can relax a
little more. So they have this huge dog, and i wrestle with it sometimes. I can
get it pretty wriled up, like i can do with rusty. Then the dog tries to jump
on me, and its huge. Usually it will almost knock me over. Either way, its a
pretty fun dog. Its name is clay. So we have been thinking that our food cita
has been progresivly getting worse. Like we eat a lot of white rice, and avena.
Avena means oatmeal. They will fill up a glass of water, and put like a 1/4 cup
of oatmeal in it. Then you mix it up and drink it. I litterally drink avena
like every day.
Not much else has happened that was
exciting. We were going to go on splits with the ZL to visit one of our
families who we are teaching. So he called me on my cell (ive got my own cell
phone here. Pretty cool huh?) and said to meet us at the Rotonda Bello
Horizonte. So we were walking there, and we found them sitting at the bus stop.
There also happened to be a fight going on infront of us, and a guy was trying
to beat his wife. So Elder V went and broke them up. Sadly, there had been a
news camera watching the fight, and after Elder V broke it up, the camera went
and was trying to interview him. The news reporters are really agresive here,
and they pretty much cornered him in a corner, and make him talk with a camera
pointed in his face. They were asking him questions like "do you think its
bad to hit women...". Really stupid questions. So he was like "no no
no, vamos a salir y trabajar. No puedo hablar". But they forced like a 30
second interview out of him. It was pretty funny after, but during the interview
he was like covering his plaque, and was chosing his words carefully. But it
was funny, and for like the next 20 minutes, thats all we talked about. Funny
stuff.
So thats about all of the funny things
that happened this week. Oh this week we went to an icecream parlor. I
hadnt had really good icecream in a long long time, because the Eskimo icecream
here isnt super good. But we went there, and i got a milkshake. IT was super
spendy, but it was good. Brownie Dinamita. I think thats the first real
milkshake ive had in like over 5 months. I really enjoyed it, and maybe ill get
another someday. I think the place was called POPs.
So today, right before i wrote this, we
went to the center of distribution. We had to get some special permission,
because its actually in the office of the south mission. But we got permission,
and for a little bit, we were in the south mission. The south mission is super
fachento (rich), and there are like holaday inns, and a hilton in, and office
building. Its pretty nice, and its a lot nicer than the Norte Mission. But it
was cool. I got a bunch of new clothing for super cheap. You can get a pair for
like 11 cordobas (or like 45 cents US). I also got some books, and some videos
for super cheap. When we were there, we saw Hermana Arredondo in the office of
the south mission talking to the pres there. So we talked to here for a little,
and came back.
Well, in terms of the missionary work,
its going well. We are always out and working hard. Litterally, at any given
moment, im out in the streets contacting or teaching. Sadly we didnt have a
family in the church this week because they all fell at the last minute. But we
had an old lady that we contacted the other day. So it was alright. Im really
having a fun time being here. Its tough work, but the time is starting to fly.
Before i know it, i find my self laying in bed again, looking at the ceiling
and saying to myself "wow, that was a fast day". Im feeling pretty
good about my spanish, and i can teach and contact and work well. All is going
good.
Oh the changes here are a week from
wednesday. Im pretty excited, and changes are really fun. Well, thats about all
that is going on. One day, we were striking out in the contacts, so we decided
to visit the MA's (menos activos). We taught one woman who hadnt been to church
in several years, and she promised to go this week. She had problems with
drinking, so we promied her that she could stop, and we prayed. After the
prayer she was crying and everyting. Pretty spiritual. Oh and then like 20
minutes later we had a guy crying infront of us too. He was MA, but he was also
super opposed to the church. We told him that we wanted to teach him, and he
began to storm out of the house saying things about how he doesnt want anyting
to do with the church. But we asked to just teach him for like 5 minutes, and
he rather angerly said OK. So we taught him, and he was super mad at us. But
then we got him calmed down, and talked very carefully to him. We bore some
testimony and it was really cool. The spirit was super strong and the guy
started crying. So in like 15 mintues, we witnessed this really tough guy who
was angry and didnt want anything transform into a good guy who was feeling the
spirit. Cool stuff.
Well, thats about all. Audios,
Elder Stark
[Movie of getting a drink on P-day]
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| Jake with Danish name tag |
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| House Dog "Bengie" |
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| Getting at drink on P day |
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