Hey family,
Well this has been a good week for me. I
was really glad to hear that it was good for you all too. It sounds like there
have been some lacrosse games which I bet are fun. I see fairly often, people
with old lacrosse jerseys or shirts. It’s funny because a lot of old US
clothing somehow works its way down here.
So this week I tried to take a bunch of
pictures and videos when I had my camera with me. I bet most of them are just
boring or whatever, but it should give you something to look at. So it sounds
like Henry is enjoying the "bear grills side" of him. He is totally
getting into fires and survival or whatever? That’s pretty good that he knew
how to purify water. This week has been super jarrón azul, and I have
been working in all of the other areas, because my companionship already
baptized a family. So I’ve just been on divisions all week and whatnot. It’s
fun though helping the other people. So I was with my DL in a lesson. I just
got a new DL from El Salvador. So we were teaching or something like that, and
he asked the people, "hey can you get us some water, because we are really
thirsty". So the lady brought out some water, and it was in some cup with
like ants and stuff in the water. I think that there was like some floating
stuff in it that I didn’t know what it was. I just pretty much was like
"well.... I hope this doesn’t kill me" and then I just drank the
water. Later that night I woke up and was about to throw up, but then I just
took some stuff called Sal Andrews that made the barf feeling go away. So it’s
all good. I think my body has gotten pretty used to the water here. Usually in
about every lesson, they will bring out water, and we just drink it. Its kind
of a joke that they give us water purifiers in the MTC, because they break
after like 3 months here.
OH side note... Did you say that the Survivor show
filmed here was in San Juan del Sur? If so, well that’s pretty funny. San Juan
del Sur is like the most cushy/American/laid back/tourist place in Nicaragua.
They need to go to the Atlantic side of the country where there are gorillas
and tigers and crazy things.
So here is a cool story. Earlier this
week I was praying for someone to baptize. Pretty much all of
our possibilities were empty, so we didn’t have any baptisms
scheduled for this Saturday. So I was praying that we could find someone to
baptize on Saturday, or that someone would be lead to us. So as we were walking
to our food cita on Tuesday, some guy stopped us in the street and told us his
name and said he was from San Juan (south mission). He gave us a business card
with someone’s name on it and number and address. The guy told us that this
lady was ready for baptism, and that we had to go visit her. So it was really
awesome. On Tuesday, we tried to call this woman (her name is G.) but she
didn’t answer. On Wednesday we got a call back from her. She said we could
visit, and at like 1pm we went and visited her. We found this woman, and she
was in a wheel chair. She is around 30 I think and has a 2-year-old boy. So we
began to teach this woman, and she said that she was in an accident and lost
her husband and now is paralyzed in the legs. So she was in a pretty
unfortunate situation. We sat down and the first thing she asked us after
telling her situation was, "how can I become a member of your
church?" I explained that anyone can attend church, but to be a member and
to receive all of the blessings, you need to be baptized. Then I invited her to
be baptized Saturday (in 3 days). She 100% accepted and we bore testimony, gave
her a blessing, and left. When we came back the next day, we taught lesson 1
(the restoration) and watched the video. After, she said, "I knew that God
wouldn’t create all of this confusion in the world between the churches"
and then said something like, "I’m really glad that there are prophets in
the earth today". So this lady was pure golden, and accepted everything
that we taught. We came back on Saturday, brought the DL along and he did the
interview. Right after the interview our DL, Elder G came back and said that we
were going to do the baptism right now. So I got on the phone and called the
bishop and told him that we were going to the church and were going to baptize.
We got to the church, filled the font, and both my comp and I got dressed. We
had a little service, and we both picked up this lady and got her into the
water and I said the prayer really quick and we baptized her. Because she can’t
use her legs, they are just like dead weight, and she was a lot heavier than
you’d think. But we put her in the water and had her on our knees and then I
said the prayer and we baptized her. After, we brought her into the bathroom
and the sister missionaries got her changed. Right after, we gave her the Holy
Ghost, and it was literally the best baptism of my mission so far.
(Oh, cool side note, Elder Christopherson the apostle said that for this week,
Nicaragua can do the confirmations right after the baptism, because on Sunday
there was the Honduras temple dedication, and generally you do the confirmation
on Sunday. But we got permission from on high to do the confirmation right
after the ordinance). So yeah, this lady was 100% an answer to the prayer I had
earlier in the week. We got some reference, taught her like 2 times, and then
within 4 days of getting the reference, baptized the woman. She had already
been to church and everything a couple years back. So it was awesome. I didn’t
have my camera when we did the baptism, but one of the sister missionaries took
some pictures, and maybe ill get them to you all later. Very cool.
Well, that is about the coolest story
from the week. The other cool thing that happened was on Sunday was the
Tegucigalpa, Honduras temple dedication. I think that it’s the first temple in
Honduras, and it’s definitely a lot closer to Nicaragua than Guatemala. So it’s
super cool. Church here was canceled on Sunday, and we didn’t have to worry
about bringing investigators to church. So for a little bit this week, we got
to focus on the RCs. On Saturday night, there was a huge cultural celebration
in Honduras that was on national television. It was really cool. Then on Sunday,
we went to the first session. It was awesome, and the person who dedicated it
was President Uchdorf. Also Elder Holland was there. So we got to watch it, and
for a little while, the chapel in Wespan where I was, became an extension of
the temple. I know for a fact that in the US we really take the temple for
granted, so you should all go a bunch. I would love more than anything to go to
the temple, and for that little hour and a half I had in the chapel of Wespan
on Sunday, well, it was just awesome. There were some good talks, and they
prayer was super awesome. At the end, we all sang
"el espíritu de Dios" and the chapel just came alive. It
was really awesome, and the spirit was super strong, maybe the strongest of my
mission. Also, the Centro America area presidency was there in the temple, and
I’ve met Elder Martino and Elder Amado, so it was funny to see them in their
white suits. Ok so here is the funniest part of the dedication. President Uchdorf
was doing the "sealing of the corner stone thing" and he was like
putting the mortar around the last block of the building. He invited the area
presidency to help, and then some niños, and other important people. Ok here is
the funny part. So Uchdorf says in English "ok, now where are those 3
pilots that landed us here in the country". And then like 3 guys in the
crowd raised their hands. He said, "come over here and help us out."
So Uchdorf had the pilots that flew them there help seal in the corner stone.
Classic Uchdorf. The Nicas in the chapel watching all of this on TV didn’t know
what was going on, because Uchdorf was talking really fast in English, and the
interpreter couldn’t keep up, but us American missionaries were laughing pretty
hard. I only attended the first session, because there were some families in
another area that we were trying to baptize. So I was on splits with the DL
helping him. But my comp said that during the last session, Holland got up and
took off his glasses and gave like a 5 minute testimony in Spanish. According
to all of the missionaries who saw it, they all said that it was the most
awesome thing that they had ever seen.
Well not much happened other than the
most awesome baptism in the world, and the temple dedication. So on the last
session of the temple dedication, we (the DL and I) arrived at the church, but
the session already started, and so we just sat on the curb outside the church
and waited for a little.
So yeah, the temple thing was awesome. I
hope that someday there is a temple here. But anyways, the temple in Honduras
should help more Nicas get their endowments, which is good. Yeah, you should
all go to the temple, because we live super close and there is really no excuse
for not going 24/7.
Yesterday after the temple dedication we
stopped by the lake, and one of the Elders with us promised us that there was a
crazy hike to the lake. So us, the other elders, and the sister missionaries
walked to the lake and did like a 5-minute hike. We arrived at the lake, and
took some pictures. It was nasty the lake, but the pictures were cool.
So for P-day today we woke up and went
to the area of the ZLs. They said that there was an area where we could go race
go-karts. So we were all pretty hyped up, and we boarded some ghetto school bus
and went somewhere far. The ZLs didn’t really know exactly where this place
was. So we got off the bus, and took a moto taxi somewhere. NEW RECORD: 10
fully grown adults in a moto taxi. I took some video and it was crazy. So we
got off somewhere, and then we figured out that we were in the south mission.
So the ZLs were like "ok... we should probably go back". So we never
found the go-kart place, and that was about the extent of our expedition as a zone.
It was fun though. Then we just went back to the area of the ZLs and ate some pupusas
at a restaurant. It was all good.
Well this is about the extent of the
week. I think that tomorrow we take the noobies out contacting, and then
Wednesday we have changes. I really have no idea if I’ll get changed. So next
week you'll all know. Maybe I’ll still be here, or maybe ill be
somewhere else... who knows?
Thanks for the email. I have the
pictures uploading to dropbox but the internet is slow today. So yeah... cool
beans. Take it easy and read your scriptures.
Elder Stark
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