June 30, 2014
Hey family,
Well another week has passed by. I now only have 4
p-days left, because the last p-day I’ll be in Managua. That is really crazy to
think about. Elder Taylor and I are really good friends, and we call each other
each night to chat it up about going home. We were together for the first 5
months of the mission, and now we've been together again for our last 5 months.
Pretty cool. Our rule is that we work during the day, but p-days, and in the
evenings we can get trunky. Funny stuff. He called me this morning and was just
talking about going home. It’s pretty crazy.
Well, I fell pretty good to be honest. I’m pretty
stoked to see you guys, and it still doesn’t really seem real, that it’s almost
coming to an end. We'll see if it hits me in 3 weeks. But yeah, basically we're
working hard. Actually, that’s kind of an understatement. We've been working
really hard. Each night it’s tough to stay awake for very long. I feel pretty
happy with the work that we're doing.
So the funny thing is that we were teaching a family
and they had a sweet bird (here they're called loras). They are the kind of
birds that talk a ton. So I was playing with the bird while I was teaching, and
the bird really liked me. So it jumped up on my shoulder and wouldn’t come off.
It was pretty distracting, and I was just trying to focus on teaching about the
book of Mormon, but the bird kept playing with my hair and stuff and it was
hard to focus. Funny stuff. I secretly gave my comp my camera and had him take
a picture of me.
So this week we had a lot of success in my district.
We baptized three families. And the week before we baptized three more
families. It’s pretty awesome. I've just been running around every Thursday and
Saturday trying to do all of these interviews and its sweet to see all of the
success. I’m pretty happy. So my district now is El Naranjo 1, El Naranjo 2,
Tezoatega, and Tonola. I've got 2 wards and 1 branch. It’s pretty sweet. I was
in Tonola on Thursday doing divisions and doing the interviews for the family and
other converts that they baptized up there. It was sweet. The crazy thing was
that there wasn’t any power in the whole city in the night. That town hasn’t
had electricity for almost a week. So at like 8ish we had to go back home
because there wasn’t any power. I don’t know if you understand what that’s
like, but ZERO power. Not even street lamps or house lights. Nothing. It’s
pitch black, like as if you were in the mountains. Luckily my cell phone has a
sweet flashlight built in, but yeah, it was dark and raining super hard. I had
to do a baptism interview in the pitch black. I couldn’t even see the guy I was
interviewing, even though he was sitting right in front of me. Crazy experience.
So my comp is doing pretty good. He's really cool and
we get along well. It’s crazy that he's from Belize. Nobody here knows where
Belize is. They are always really confused when he says that. But he talks like
a Mexican and its funny. He also speaks perfect English, but has a thick Latino
accent so sometimes it’s a little tricky to understand. He lives on the
Guatemala border of Belize so he also speaks perfect Spanish. I was looking at
his passport the other day, and its pretty cool. But yeah, we get along well
and my comp likes to work hard. So that’s good.
Today for p day we went to a new chapel and the sister
missionaries made scones. I hadn’t had a scone in a really long time. They were
good, and we played some volleyball. I got pretty sun burnt, but that’s normal.
After that, we went and got some smoothies and I was looking at getting a new
pair of shoes, but they didn’t have any in my size. The nicas have small feet.
I was kind of ticked that they didn’t have any in my size. I don’t even have
that big of feet, just 43's... Whatever.
Oh and yesterday I spoke in Sacrament meeting. We got
to church and they asked me to speak. I think that the person who was going to
speak bailed out. But it was fun to speak. I really enjoy it, and I like being
able to share the gospel. The topic that they gave me was "baptism",
so it was really easy. There were a bunch of investigators, and I got up and
read in Mosiah 18 where it says "if you have the desire to be baptized,
what impedes you in doing so?" or something to that effect. I don’t really
know how it goes in English. But yeah, I invited everyone visiting to be
baptized. Pretty cool. Everyone was really happy with the talk, and I got a ton
of compliments. Tons of people were also saying that my Spanish is perfect and
that I didn’t make any errors. Pretty cool :)
Oh so in the other area here in Naranjo, one of the
sisters ended her mission. So a new sister came. It’s the Hermana Alan who was
in my district in Nagarote. Really cool. She is always telling me about
Nagarote and how it was going over there when I left. She said that everyone
there still loves me a ton and is always asking about me. She also said (I
thought that this was pretty funny) that President Jose publicly announced in
sacrament meeting that I’d be coming back on the 10th of august for church. I
think that everyone is getting pretty hyped up in Nagarote. I thought that it
was funny that he announced it from the pulpit. But yeah, they are doing great
over there. Apparently the attendance in Nagarote is now in the 80's. Very
awesome. When I arrived I remember that one Sunday we only had like 40ish
people.
So I’m getting really excited to see you guys. I’m
working hard and we're going to have some success this next month. I hope that
you're all well, and I love you all. Thanks for everything!
Elder Stark
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