June 24, 2013
Hey family,
Thanks for the email. One of the best parts of the
week is getting to the computer lab, and seeing that I have a big email from
you all. It’s always fun to hear what’s going on at home, even if sometimes
what you're writing sounds boring to you.
So this past week has been very busy. The reason the
President left me here in this area was to keep the bishop happy, and to do
this big activity, which happened on Friday. So yeah, all week from Monday
until Friday, I was in overdrive mode, and we were working like animals. It was
brutal, and we would spend days and days inviting everyone to this activity. So
yeah, that’s where most of my time went this week. You wouldn't believe how
busy our schedules are sometimes as missionaries, and yeah, sometimes it’s
really hard to find time to do all of the things. Contacting, teaching,
visiting less active members, visiting the converts, going to zone meetings,
going to bishop meetings. It’s no wonder that the days go by so quickly.
President Arredondo would tell us that we should work so hard so that by night
we would be ready to die, and that we would get resurrected the next day. It’s
a true principal, and that’s how I’ve felt this week. I know that this is one
of the highest baptizing missions in the world, but I literally think that this
is the hardest mission in the world.
But anyway, each Tuesday we have a bishop meeting,
between just us missionaries, the bishop, and mission leader for the ward. We
plan out the baptisms each Saturday of converts. Also we explain to the bishop
who our families are that we're teaching, and he'll usually visit them during
the week (This is really good advice dad. If you can visit the investigators of
the missionaries, it’s good for the investigators to get to know the church
leaders, and to see that we're not some cult or something. Also you can make
some new friends, and make a good first impression.) In the bishop meeting, we will discuss the
people with problems, and how we can help them. So yeah, Dad, if you want to
start to do some kind of meeting like this with the missionaries, that would
probably help you get control of the missionary work in the Edinburgh ward. On
Wednesday or something, I was reading in the Ensign that mom sent me. I was
studying a talk by Elder Anderson, and it says, "We also pray for our own
opportunities to share the gospel". I was thinking about the members in
our coul-de-sac, and how many of them are members. I don’t know if it was
inspiration or anything, but I can’t remember us ever inviting the non-members
in our coul-de-sac to church. Maybe you can give them all an invitation to
church, or maybe you can visit them with the sister missionaries. Just some
thoughts. I would bet anything that the non-members in our street have noticed
that like 50% of the houses on the street are members, and I would bet that
they have some questions. Just a thought. Also, I can’t remember ever having a
convert baptism in the Edinburgh ward, so maybe you can make a challenge to the
members that during the month; every member could have an "FHE" (aka,
lesson) with the missionaries, and with their neighbors. LESSONS + MEMBERS =
BAPTISMS. Always. Just from what I saw in the broadcast yesterday, it seemed
like the First Presidency wants to put more of the work on the shoulders of the
members. Good stuff. I wish it were like that here.
So life is going well here. These past 2 weeks, I have
seen President Arredondo more times than I have in my whole mission. Its
crazy!!! On Wednesday, we had the official farewell of President Arredondo. The
entire mission was there, and it was super special. It was cool, and everyone
was crying and everything. There were also a TON of return missionaries from
all over the world, who had served here with President Arredondo. It was extra
cool, because when the meeting began, Sister Arredondo said "Can Elder
Stark please translate for this family from the US?” So yeah, all of the return
missionaries were on the stand with President, and the family of one of the
missionaries was at the meeting too. They didn’t speak a bit of Spanish, and
they were pretty lost. So for 3 hours, I was sitting with this family
translating everything for them. It was totally crazy, and was actually pretty
hard. Like once you get pretty good at a language, you can just think in that
language. But to try to listen in Spanish, think in Spanish & English, and
talk English. It’s actually pretty tricky, but it was really fun. After the
meeting, I sat there for like 30 minutes and talked to the dad of this return missionary.
He was totally talking about everything, and what it was like visiting this
country. They had rented a car, and were driving around the whole country. I
learned some cool tips that he said, which you could use when you come here.
So here is where I’ll get more spiritual and whatnot.
We had the ward activity, which we had planned, and it was about the life of
Joseph Smith. And also President Arredondo was going to be there, so we were on
high alert. That’s why we were working so hard this week like I said before. So
on Friday, we had several families of investigators that said that they would
come to the activity, but they all fell through. It was horrible. And plus, at
6pm, when the thing was supposed to start, there were only 15 people there. Now
imagine how I felt. Pres. left me here, just for this activity, and when he
shows up, there is like 15 people there, when there are like 600 people in the
ward membership. It was brutal. But the members were gradually starting to
arrive. So Elder P and Elder T left, and I went with the ward mission leader,
who is an 18-year-old kid. We all just left the meeting, and began to contact
every person that passed by on the street corner by the church. Everyone
rejected us, and I was kind of sad. But I was just praying that we could have
at least one family of investigators at the meeting. So as we entered the
church again, we saw that a lot of members had arrived. There were about 70
there, which is REALLY, REALLY good for here in Nicaragua. But still no family
of investigators. So I just sat down with some less actives, and then I saw in
the doorway, one of our families that we had been teaching. The day before, the
family had told us "we don’t want to receive you any more, because we
don’t like your church. So you don’t need to bother visiting us any more".
But somehow, Heavenly Father heard our prayers, and put the spiritual
impressions in the mind of this family (who the day before had completely
dropped us), and the family arrived at the activity. This is REALLY REALLY
amazing, because this never happens. Families don’t just show up to church. To
get a family to the church, we usually have to sit outside their house for
hours, until they finally give in, and come. So to see that this family had
arrived on their own was completely amazing. It was literally like a complete
miracle. So, when we ended the activity, we had 80 people there, and of those
people, 8 of them were my investigators. It was really nice, and was
successful.
So here is the other miracle that happened this week.
On Sunday, it was another brutal day, and we didn’t have any family investigators
in the church. We had 2 or 3 investigators, but no family. But after the
sacrament meeting, someone introduced me to a native Miskito guy. The guy said,
"My name is M, and I’m from Puerto Cabezas. I want to be a Christian, and
I want to be baptized". So we called the missionaries de la costa, and
they said that this guy was legit. So then we talked to the bishop, got him
interviewed, and then went and right after the 3rd hour ended, we filled up the
font and baptized him. So within 2 hours of meeting this guy, he was in the
water being baptized. It was way cool, and then after the baptism, he bore his
testimony and it was really powerful. The guy spoke all right Spanish, because
his first language is Miskito, the indigenous language here. I would have never
known that yesterday we were going to baptize...
Oh and after the baptism at 2:45, we ran and got our
suit coats, and went to Wespan to the church there for the meeting. The
broadcast was at 4, but President Arredondo held a mini mission conference with
the Managua zones there before the broadcast. It was cool, and we got to the
church at 2:45, but the church was locked. And it was raining. Then on the
other side of the street we saw the president in his car, and he was like
"come on over!!!” So we all jumped into his car, and it is super nice. It’s
just a Honda minivan, but it was the first time in my mission that I’ve been in
a car with leather seats and A/C. It was super cool, and I took a funny video
for evidence that we had been in the car of President Arredondo.
But yeah, the broadcast was awesome, and they said
some cool new stuff. I don’t know if I’ll ever have the chance to use a
computer like they explained in the broadcast. Nobody here has computers, and
only the teenagers have Facebook. So I doubt that I’ll ever use that in my
mission. The phone system here is "pay as you go", and most people
have phones. So maybe they'll give us text messaging. We don’t have texting
here. I doubt that many of the things that they announced in the conference
will apply here. So we'll just see...
Well, that’s about all that’s happened this week. I
have changes on the 27th, so we'll see where I go. If I get a chance to use a
computer during the week, I’ll send you a quick email telling you where I’m
going. But that’s about all. I love you all, and hope that all is well.
Love,
Elder Stark
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