#81 Nagarote

Hey family,

Well.... I’m pretty darn trunky now..... I really wasn't expecting that when I opened my email. I just opened my email and the first thing I see is "TRUNKY PAPERS". The hilarious thing is that just like 2 hours ago I was in Leon eating lunch with Elder G (he is going home in 8 days) and we were both totally getting trunky and talking about our trunky papers. I had commented to him saying something like "hey ya know, I think I’ll be getting my trunky papers soon.” Deja vu. Anyways, I still have 4 more months to party it up here in Nicaragua. I'm doing really well, and I love life.

Anyways, we had some success with our investigators, but not as much as the week before. The week before we had 9 investigators in church and 2 families in church. This week we didn’t have any families, but we did have two investigators. We'll probably have a couple baptisms this week. Anyway, I really love it here though with my converts, especially J and Y. I seriously can’t believe how awesome they are. They are the best. We've been visiting them about 3 times a week, and it’s awesome. They really love us a ton. Also, they have decided to start feeding the 4 of us missionaries here each Friday. It was awesome. On Friday they totally went the extra mile and came home from work early, bought super nice food, and made a really nice dinner. It was the best. 

So this week passed by really quickly. We had a meeting for trainers and new missionaries in Managua on Tuesday, so all of Tuesday I wasn’t working in my area. I was just sitting in a meeting and listening. I think that this has been like my 10th meeting for trainers, and I feel like it's kind of the same old spiel every time. Anyway, I imagine that this was the last meeting for trainers that I’ll have in my mission. With only 3 changes left, I don’t think that I’ll train again.  The meeting ended super late, and we had to get back to Nagarote. (I was the only person in a big group of 9 missionaries that had a Managua bus card), So I went and put a giant recharge on my bus card, and we all jumped on a Managua bus trying to get back to the Mercado Israel. It was like 6:30pm and the 114 bus was really, really packed. Plus, I had a couple packages for people in my district, so yeah, it was an adventure. After a long bus ride being pressed up with about a million people, we finally got to the Mercado Israel. It’s surprising to me, cause I know Managua better than almost any other missionary, so I was kind of like the designated "tour guide.” Anyway, we all finally got to the microbuses and jumped on one, and waited for like an hour longer, and then it left. We were going to jump off in Nagarote, but it was super late, so we just decided to go all the way until we got to Leon and then we slept with the ZL’s. In the morning there was a zone meeting, and it was cool. A Samoan missionary did the Hakka, and yeah... that was about it. 

Today for P-day we went to Managua to get my comp’s cedula (ID). Then we jumped on a bus and went to Leon and got some pizza, then came back. Today I’ve been in the buses about 6 hours, its pretty exhausting. But yeah, life is really good. While we were eating pizza, between the 4 of us, we ordered two pizzas. Then after eating about 1 and a half pizza, we got super full. So we ask for the ticket, and then we started pulling the cash out of our pockets. It turns out that we didn’t even have close to enough money to pay for the two giant pizzas that we had ordered. So I used my debit card to pay for the amount lacking. I think that it was like $10. But anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for always keeping a little money on my card. We all had an "oh crap" moment when we realized that we didn’t have enough money, so that kind of saved us. Thanks :).

But yeah, thanks for your email. I hope that you are all well, and that life is good at home. I sent some pictures home. I hope that you like them. Lots of love,

Elder Stark