#88 El Naranjo

May 19, 2014

Hey family,

Well this week has been pretty good. We've been working pretty hard and getting all of our investigators pumped up to get baptized. On the 1st of June we should baptize another family named A and E. They also came to church yesterday for the second time and they are stoked to get married and baptized. It should be cool. Anyways, I’m doing pretty well here. We have some cool people that we're teaching, and its fun to be here in Chinandega. The other cool news is that another of the families that we're teaching has been receiving the lessons for like 8 months now because they've been waiting for a divorce to come through, and couldn’t get married. The husband was married to someone else, and couldn’t get married to his current wife. But the good news is that soon the divorce should come through and it will be fun to see them get married and baptized. I’m pretty stoked.

So this week at like 8pm at night we were walking around our area, and everyone was already asleep. We didn’t have much to do. Anyway, we were passing by a house where the Sister missionaries have been visiting, and they invited us in. It was kind of funny to be visiting the investigators of the Hermana’s. But anyway, we sat down and chatted with them for a bit. Then they offered us food. As usual, we said yeah and they brought out the rice. It was arroz aguado (soggy rice??) and it had some chicken. Anyway, I was chowing down on my rice and got to the chicken. I had thought that it was like a drumstick piece of chicken, but actually it was the chicken foot! Funny stuff. It was totally different, and I had never eaten a chicken foot. The skin is all scaly and weird, and I just popped it into my mouth and chewed it for a while. It wasn’t too bad. And then I found another chunk of chicken in my soggy rice. I was convinced that surely it couldn’t be worse than the chicken foot, so I pulled it out with my spoon and quickly realized that it was the chicken head! Pretty hilarious. I had no idea how to eat it, So I wacked it with my spoon and all the brains came out... Pretty weird. I just pulled off the scalp skin and ate that, and ate as much as looked edible. Kind of a funny story. I would have taken a picture, but they people were watching us eat.

Ah, so the cool news is that this week we finally bought our gas tank. It was like 50 bucks, but it has been well worth it. We've made Mexican tacos, hamburgers, Sloppy Joes, eggs, homemade corn tortillas, pupusas and peanut butter crepes. The Sloppy Joes were easily the best of all the foods. I was actually on divisions with another elder (getting on the chele party), so my comp hasn’t tried the sloppy Joes yet. But today we went to the super market and bought 2 bottles of bbq sauce and 6 pounds of ground beef. The funny part is that we bought the "economic ground beef". So if you can imagine economic ground beef in the states, just imagine what the economic type is like here in Nicaragua. Funny stuff. But yeah, we've been cooking it up, and its really fun. But yeah, it’s been fun and we're really enjoying our time here. 

Well, I'll try to send some photos home. Today for p-day we went to the beach and played some football. While we were just kicking the ball around, tons of Nicas ran over and took their shirts off and were like "let’s play". We were kind of bummed about that, because they came and kicked our butts. But yeah, it was fun playing some football on the beach and getting super sun burned. But anyway, I have been having a great time, and we're having a lot of success here. It’s fun and our investigators are doing great! I love you all, and hope that you're all doing well. Hopefully Owen can get better at ice-skating! Just kidding :). Well hey, have a great week, and let me know what’s up.

Con amor,

Elder Stark