#79 Nagarote

March 10, 2014

Hey familita!!!!!!

Now that I have been in the mission a long time, I don’t really ever get trunky at all when I read your letters, but for some reason today I feel a little trunkified reading the weekly letter that you sent me. It's weird. Today for p-day I took one of the areas of my district (La Paz Centro) to Miramar to the ocean. It was awesome, and I just spent the day hanging around with Elder G, who is from Idaho. Maybe that’s why I feel trunky. He is going home in 3 weeks, and just talks about getting back to Idaho. Crazy stuff. It blows my mind to think that in less that 5 months I’ll be ending my mission too. Really crazy. I can’t believe that the time flies by so quick. Also it blew my mind that Eli is going to get married. It seems like just yesterday that we were all driving around the box van working that summer. I haven't ever even met his special lady friend. Is she cool? I don’t even know what she looks like. Really, this is crazy stuff for me. 

Oh yeah so p-day was really fun today. We woke up pretty early, and I called the elders in La Paz Centro. My comp and I took a moto-taxi to Pali and then jumped on a bus, and got off in a place called Izapa. Then we bummed around there for a long time, because the bus that goes to Miramar only passes by once every two hours. So I just laid down at the bus stop for a while, and finally the Paz Centro showed up. So we just hung around outside a little market. We were literally just on the side of the highway doing nothing in the Nicaraguan heat, and it was brutal. I imagine that its really hard for you all to understand what it’s like here, but basically it’s just really, really hot. But if you can find some shade, it’s pretty nice because there is always a little breeze, which feels nice. So we were just waiting around in the shade and we saw a gringo with a surfboard and we started to make jokes about him and started talking in an Australian accent. There was a Nica guy waiting at the bus stop, and he just started busting up. He thought that we were hilarious. Funny stuff. So finally the bus came, and we jumped on and we were on the bus for a good 40 minutes or so, and we missed the city where we had to get off. So yeah, finally after waiting for a long time the bus stopped. The driver got out and smoked a couple cigarettes, then jumped back in, turned the bus around, and we got to Miramar. We just bummed around the beach and took some pictures and got our feet wet in the ocean. I think that I’m all sun burnt again. But yeah, it was fun. Then we just found a little store and sat down for a while and drank some cokes while we waited for the bus to come back. So yeah, that’s what I did today for p-day. And NO, I don’t wash my own clothes. I pay some lady to wash them for me. It’s a lot easier that way.

In La Paz Centro, they baptized five people on Saturday, so I spent most of Friday morning running around in Momotombo (that’s the little pueblo at the base of the volcano) doing interviews for these people. Cool stuff. We were waiting for a moto taxi to come back to La Paz Centro, but the moto drivers were telling us that there were some cops who were stopping all of the traffic on the road to Momotombo and were haggling money from everyone passing by. So the moto driver was like, "I’ll take you, but I need to take the back route". We just said yes and jumped in, but the back route was crazy. It was in the middle of nowhere and was a 45-minute ride in this Moto taxi. We even got stuck behind a giant herd of oxen, and that delayed our journey. But finally we got back. That was kind of interesting.

So anyway, life has been good. We taught like 30 lessons this week, and have had our plates full with stuff to do. Plus, we've been getting up at 5:30am and I’ve been getting to sleep at like 11 each night because I need to report a ton of numbers each day. So yeah, I’m a little sleepy but it’s not too bad. All in all, it’s going pretty well. This coming week is stake conference and we have 5 people in our branch to ordain to the Melchizedek priesthood, including some of my converts. It’s awesome, and I know that they'll be good leaders! So yeah, I’m happy here. The church attendance was good this week (68 people).  

So yeah, I imagine that it’s pretty nice back in Idaho. It’s really hot here. The sand on the beach was so hot that it started to burn our feet. It was crazy. But yeah, I am glad to hear from all of you guys, and I’m glad to know that you're all doing well. Hopefully mom can get better soon. Its no fun being sick. I woke up on Saturday and felt pretty sick, but after I started working for a few hours it kind of went away. So anyways, I love you all. Let me know what’s up!

Elder Stark