October 21, 2013
Hey family,
Thanks a ton for your letter. It’s super, super
awesome to hear from you all, and its fun thinking about what it must be like
in the US. I have a really hard time remembering what it’s like back home, so
Skyping this December will be even more freaky than before. So yeah, life is
going well. We've just been working a lot and sweating like pigs. It seems so
hot here, and it doesn’t seem to be raining as much. This week it didn’t rain
at all, except for like 10 minutes yesterday. So yeah, I think that the rainy
season is leaving, and the hot summer season is coming in. That should be fun.
But yeah, like I said, it’s crazy to think that I’m on my last year of being in
the mission. Very crazy. It blows my mind to think that a year ago tomorrow; I was
talking to you all in the airport getting ready to leave for Nicaragua. Today I
was looking through my suit pocket, and I found a receipt from the McDonald’s
in the Salt Lake City airport when I left the MTC. I bought a hot cake and a
small Dr. Pepper, and paid with a $20. Funny stuff.
So it sounds like everything is pretty much just the
same back at home. I’m really stoked to hear what goes down with stake
conference and the new stake presidency. That should be really cool. The
coolest thing though is that Dad will be meeting with Elder Nelson. That is a
really awesome experience. Don’t forget to write in your journal about that so
you don’t forget it.
I have an investigator named S that should be getting
baptized in a week or so. He is dating a girl who is a member, and his plan is
to get married and sealed in the temple. So that should be cool. Sometimes here
we have baptism services where just like 5 members arrive, and the baptism
service is like a 15 minute experience. That’s is pretty lousy, and isn’t very
exciting. It would be sweet to have some speeches by the members and to have
some cool conversion stories by converts. Every convert needs to be nourished
by the good word, have a friend, and have an assignment.
So how's Bailey doing in his mission prep? Is he
stoked or kind of doesn’t know what to expect? When I entered the MTC I didn’t
really know what to expect, but it turns out that I loved it, and coming to the
field was awesome. I think that it was good that I left home for a year before
going on the mission, because it gave me a taste of what its like without the
mama-cita washing my clothes. Speaking of that... I’ve got a bunch of white
shirts that I’ve still got to wash. I didn’t get a chance to wash my clothes
today, so we'll see what happens. I just threw all of my whites in a bucket of
water and dumped a bag of bleach into it. Hopefully they come out clean! I
would have washed all of my clothes today, but the water has been out all day,
so we don’t have any water, and plus our washboard is pretty dirty... yeah...
But anyways, washing the clothes in a bucket isn’t too bad. I've gotten pretty
good at it.
So here are some funny things that have happened this
week. One night, my comp and I were walking past the police station by the
park, and a ghetto little motorcycle, without any lights, came flying by us
with three grown men on it (the one on the back was almost falling off). So
this was pretty normal, but it came flying into the police station, and the guy
driving and the guy on the back jumped off, and helped the guy in the middle
get off. The guy in the middle had been arrested, and the other two guys were
police officers. I was just watching thinking... "Do the police really use
that tiny ghetto motorcycle to arrest people? And do they really just put their
recently arrested convicts in-between them and drive like maniacs over to the
police station?" So yeah, don’t get arrested in Nicaragua.
The other story happens to be a little more spiritual.
We went to teach E (our recent convert) and his wife V. We hadn’t been able to
teach V in a while because she works like 12 hours a day, and comes home and
goes right to sleep. So on Saturday, we went and taught them both, and before
the lesson we were set on putting a baptism date with V. But V has been kind of
hesitant, so it was a little unsure. But anyways, we taught them Lesson 2 the
plan of salvation, and it wasn’t looking like we'd be able to put the date. It
just didn’t feel right. But anyway, as we were finishing up the lesson (we were
teaching them on their patio by the way), the Elder’s Quorum President of the
ward showed up and joined in the lesson. He testified about families and it got
all spiritual, and then the spirit gave us the green light to put the baptism
date. So it was awesome. We put the date for the 2nd of November, so hopefully
we'll be able to complete this family and get them all baptized. That'd be
awesome. On Sunday, E got the Priesthood, and he should be able to baptize his
wife and child.
Speaking of Sunday, we had 8 investigators in church.
We brought an 82-year-old guy who is a great-grandpa, and also we brought another
family. With the 82-year-old guy, he loved the church, and the topic of church
was "family history". So he is pretty old and shaky, but after the 3rd
hour, we took him and E into the family history center, and we looked up their
genealogy. We found a ton of records, and found the marriage act of the
82-year-old guy named R, and we found the marriage act of E’s parents. It’s
awesome, and the 82-year-old guy was almost crying because he didn’t know who
his grandparents were, but we helped him find them. He was so jittery and
happy. So that was awesome. After church, we went with him in a moto-taxi and
took him home. Cool stuff.
So today in the morning, my companion and I went to
the mission office, and I got my package!!! I’m actually wearing the In-N-Out
shirt right now, and it’s already soaked from all of my sweaty sweat. The
package looks awesome, and I’m stoked to make the Reese's dessert. Oh, and while
we were in the mission office, I asked the President Collado if we could go to
the distribution center, cause my companion needed some things, and he said
yes. So all day today I’ve spent traveling around in a bus in the south
mission. Pretty crazy. The south mish is pretty rich ya know? There is a
"Cinemark" and a "Holiday Inn". Crazy huh?
Well, I hope that you're all having a great week. Let
me know what’s up. I love you all.
Elder Stark
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