November 25, 2013
Hey family,
Well this week flew by. I personally only had like 2
or 3 days this week to work in my area. It felt really, really weird to be
doing things other than knocking doors and teaching people. I´ll explain. On
Tuesday we had training for the new missionaries and their trainers. It was
pretty cool and we spent the day with President Collado. I felt really weird
the whole training. Now that the president took away the change meetings, it’s
pretty rare to see anyone outside of your zone. So yeah, seeing all of these
new missionaries was weird. I feel like I don’t know anyone anymore. Everyone
that I used to know has now gone home, and it seems like the mission is full of
new missionaries that I’ve never met. It's weird. But yeah, we spent the day
with the president on Tuesday. On Wednesday I was on divisions all day with an
elder from El Salvador named Elder R, so that was pretty fun. It’s fun going on
transfers and hanging out with other guys. Thursday I worked in my area, and in
the evening I got a call from some of the mission leaders saying that I was
chosen to translate for some American doctors. Basically, there is a church
supported group of doctors and surgeons from the US that go on these
humanitarian trips to poor countries and help out the future missionaries. So
in La Estaca Universitaria (that’s really, really deep in the south mission by
the way), there were a TON of gringo doctors that were getting the future
missionaries for all of Nicaragua ready for their missions. And barely any of
them speak Spanish. So I speak Spanish pretty well, and I was chosen with a
couple other elders to head down to the south mission and spend the day with
these doctors and translate for them. It was THE BEST!!!! We took a bus like an
hour into the south mission and got to the chapel in Universitaria and spent
the day there. There were over a hundred doctors there (all gringos by the
way), and I was selected to translate for the surgeons. So I spent the day in
an operating room that was set up in the church. There were 5 oral surgeons,
and I translated for them. It was really, really awesome! Before the mission I
really had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, but after spending the day
with those guys, I think that maybe I’d go into oral surgery. So yeah, I watched
up close like 15 elders walk in, get all 4 of their wisdom teeth ripped out,
and then walk out. It was pretty cool. One of the future missionaries was
freaked out of his mind, and was breaking down in tears. So I convinced him (I
was the only one that spoke Spanish), that he had to get his wisdom teeth taken
out, and he still was freaked out. So the surgeon and I gave him a blessing,
and then he calmed down really quickly and got better. The surgeon worked
really fast, and took out all of his teeth in literally 3 minutes. It was
really cool. So yeah, Friday was one of the coolest days of my mission. It was
really freaky to see so many Americans. I hadn’t seen an American in a really
long time (that wasn’t a missionary), and it was just so weird. The culture is
so different, and I was really freaked out.
Oh, and on Sunday, we baptized V and E Jr. They are
the wife and son of E who is the big guy that we baptized about a month ago.
Everyone in the zone is really happy with my comp and me because the zone has
been in a hole a little (the zone hasn’t been baptizing a lot), and with this
baptism, the mission counts it as a ¨family baptized¨. So yeah, that was really
cool. The ward mission leader whose name is L R did the baptism for E, and I
baptized V. Normally I’d let my companion do the baptism because he´s new, but
V made us draw names and mine came up. So yeah... it was fun. I have some cool
pictures that I sent home.
Oh. So the big news is that I’m leaving Managua
tomorrow. Tomorrow are changes, and I’m going to a zone called Leon. Supposedly
its one of the hottest zones in the mission... so we´ll see what happens. The
heat is really getting bad because we´re coming out of winter and going into
summer. I’m going to an area called Nagarote. It’s about an hour outside of
Leon and an hour outside of Managua. Right in the middle of nowhere. They are
making me the district leader over Nagarote, so that should be cool. Anyways,
I’m pretty stoked. It will be really interesting to finally get out of Managua
and get into ¨el campo¨. It will also be really weird being super far away from
anything. Nagarote is a small town and there is no church. They just meet in a
rented house, and supposedly there are very few members there. So yeah... next
week´s email should be exciting. I am stoked to see how it is. Today I spent
the whole day washing all of my clothes and getting my stuff ready.
Well family, I love you. Oh... cool story before I
wrap this email up. I took out a little money to fix my shoes and send the package
home. So I dropped off my shoes with some member and paid her some money (200
cordobas) to find a way to get them fixed. So on Saturday I went to her house
to get my shoes. She had them in a plastic bag, and took them out to show me.
She had gone to the market and had them put a giant boot sole on them. They
literally have turned from normal dress shoes into a hybrid dress shoe-boot
creation. It’s really awesome!!!!! On Saturday I used them, and I got a ton of
compliments from investigators and members. Like literally, for a Nica, having
a really thick, heavy sole on your shoe is something worthy of a compliment. So
yeah, I sent some pictures of that home. Enjoy!!! I love you all and hope that
all is well. Audios familita!
Elder Stark
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