#41 Managua (Bello Horizonte)

June 17, 2013

Hey family,

So what’s been going on this week? It sounds like you all had a sweet fathers day, and that the fishing was good. That’s always great to hear. I really loved the pictures, and it looks like it was a total blast. I remember for my first p-day here in Nicaragua, we went to the beach and went fishing off of the rocks in a port named Corinto. It was awesome, but all we had was a reel and hooks, nothing else. Obviously we didn’t catch anything, but it was fun. I’m glad that it was a success. Also it sounds like you have a sweet new grill. That’s good, because we used the other grill a ton. Is this new one like a big stainless steel one? Either way, cool stuff.

So I guess the big news that you're all wondering is what was up with the changes. Here is the story: So on Tuesday night we went out contacting with the new missionaries. I was with a Latino missionary and we contacted some families. I showed him around and showed him how to contact. He was pretty surprised at some of my techniques. It was awesome. Like sometimes, I'll ask people for help with the addresses, or sometimes I'll ask how to get to the supermarket, stuff like that. He was like "whoa elder, that’s awesome." Ok, well yeah, I’m already getting off topic. So we contacted, and went to a meeting with the bishop that we have every Tuesday at 5:30pm. While I was there, I got a phone call from my DL. Obviously it was about the changes. So I put my cell phone on speaker phone, and we all sat there, and the DL said that I had changes. So I was like "Ok, that’s expected. I’ve been here a long time, and I’m pretty ready to leave". But anyways, the bishop was all put out, and kind of sad. I think that he really likes me. So he pulled out his phone and started texting a bunch, and then called someone and left the room. But anyways, after all of that, we had our meeting, and it went well. While I was still in the church, I went to get a drink of water, and I got a phone call from my ZL and he said something like "Elder Stark, President Arredondo just called me, and he reversed the changes, so you will be staying in Bello for another change". I was super shocked, and I am 99% sure that the bishop had left the room and had called President Arredondo. But yeah, I just kind of rolled with it, and it was cool. It was also nice not having to pack, because my suitcases weigh a ton. 

So we got to the changes meeting and a little ways into the meeting President Arredondo made me stand up again in front of the mission and said something like "Elder Stark, your bishop has again requested that I don’t change you. But I know that you have a lot of time in your area, so I will leave you there until the 27th of June, and then I will take you out of your area on Emergency Changes." Crazy stuff. So yeah, it looks like I have 10 more days here in Bello Horizonte, and then I'll be leaving. Even more funny, is that right now we are in a trio. President Arredondo assigned another missionary, and right now we are 3. His name is Elder T from Alaska. So yeah, it’s pretty crazy right now, but I'm still happy to be here.

Oh, and this change is the last change of our mission president, so it was interesting. He is leaving the 28th of June, and the new President (Pres. Collado) will take over on that date. I think that we are going to have another big mission conference in a week where the official change will take place.

So the missionary work here continues to go along as normal. We don’t have a ton of families teaching, so we have been contacting nonstop for several days now. Its tough, and whenever we are contacting, there is always a psychological border you have to overcome. Like to contact someone who is sitting down relaxing is easy, and to talk to them is easy too. But it’s sometimes a little freaky when someone is walking in the street, and you have to stop them in their tracks, and then they are always a little ticked off. But such is the life. Sometimes we will contact 10+ families in a day, and we won’t find any new person. It’s pretty tough, but yeah, you can know that we are working hard. 

So here is a pretty cool story. On Saturday we were in the supermarket doing some shopping. We also found the other Elders from Ducuali there, and we chatted it up with them for a while. So we were there, and I decided that I wanted to buy a little bag of skittles. There is pretty much any type of American food that you can buy here, but it’s sometimes a little spendy. So I was looking at the prices of the skittles (19 córdobas by the way), and while I was looking at the prices, the building started to shake pretty bad, and everyone started screaming and panicking. Everyone just mobbed their way to the doors, and there were alarms going off and stuff. I remember that there were all kinds of groceries falling off the shelves and it seemed like something from a movie. I think that some of the ceiling panels fell from the roof too. But yeah, obviously it was an earthquake, and it was pretty crazy. I think that it is the first time that I've ever felt an earthquake, and it seemed like something from a movie. Everything was normal, and all of the sudden in a matter of seconds, everything just snapped and it got crazy. The funnier thing is that all of us Elders just kind of stood there together with dumb looks on our faces and waited it out while everyone else was panicking/crying/rushing out of the building. Fun stuff. And a couple times throughout the day there were aftershocks, and the ground would shake some more. I think there were 3 earthquakes in all that day. Our Elders Quorum president told us that the quake happened in the Pacific Ocean and it was a 6.3 (not that I really know what that means). But yeah, it was a cool experience. Most of the people here are still really scared of earthquakes, because of the huge quake that happened here in '73 that destroyed all of Managua and killed thousands. Whenever you talk to old people here, they will always say stuff like "I remember how Managua was, before the earthquake".

We didn’t have any families in church. It was brutal. We went on divisions, and left Elder T in the church with a member, while Elder P and I went out looking for the families. We have a super cool family with a baptism date for the 22nd, but in order to be baptized on this date, they had to go to church today. We found them in their house, and they REALLY didn’t want to go. They were just giving all of these excuses, and it was really sad. We waited there for 2 hours in the sun, and it was tough. I was really sad, and so was my comp. It’s tough to do a bunch of work, and sacrifice everything, and then just see it go down the drain. But at least I know that I'm working super hard, and that I'm doing my part. It’s kind of like what Dad has said before about agency. Obviously I can’t make the decisions for the other people. But yeah... anyways. I spent 6 hours in the sun on Sunday morning, and it was tough, but that’s just how it is. After church, I stood up in the ward council meeting and said to the members (we were planning an activity next week where the mission president is going to come and talk to our ward), "You all need to bring your friends, neighbors, family, and everyone who isn’t a member. We are working our tails off, and we were in the sun for 6 hours, and still didn’t get a single family in the church. So if you can please bring some of your friends, that would be a HUGE help to us as the missionaries.” The ward pretty much doesn’t help us at all, and after I said that and sat down, everyone was just kind of silent for a while. I really hope too that we can get a little more help from our ward. 

So I am doing well here. It’s tough a lot of times, but we are always making jokes and laughing which helps a lot. I hope that you are always doing well at home. I’m always praying for you all, and that all goes well. Yeah it’s pretty crazy that I’m coming up on 1 year here. Oh, and to answer the question of dad, there are not any Americans here or Euros. There might be in the south in the touristy areas, but here, NO. Days and weeks will pass by without seeing a white person. But the people here tell me that in places down south like Granada or Masaya or San Juan del Sur that there are tons of cheles there. But yeah, if you come here, I can show you the REAL Nicaragua. (or whatever you want)

Well, it’s good that there are tons of missionaries from Edinburgh Ward going out. That’s cool too that Jake S came home. It seems like he just left. Also it’s crazy to me that Elder Rodgers just has a little while longer. The time seems to go by really quick sometimes. Hopefully you can send out tons of missionaries from our ward. Oh and I got that package that you sent me Mom. It was the best!! I've totally been chowing down on the Cliffbars, and they are really good. I also loved the Edinburgh Ward program. I think I was pretty trunky after reading it. It was very cool. You've got to be grateful that we live in a place where the church is so developed.  But more than anything, I think the thing that I loved the most in the package was the General Conference Ensign in English. It’s super, super awesome, and right after opening the package, I just sat down and read/highlighted/studied like 4 talks. It’s the best. I didn’t get the chance to see hardly any of the conference, and it is so, so, so, so awesome. I hope that you are studying it too and getting the same enjoyment as I'm getting. Good stuff.

Well family, I love you all, and I’m always really glad to get your emails each week. I hope that Father’s Day was good, and that you're all happy. I’m working hard, and having a good time. So yeah, thanks for the email, and I'll talk to you next week.

Love,

Elder Stark

#40 Managua (Bello Horizonte)

June 10, 2013

Hello family,

Well this week has gone pretty well. We have just been doing the same ol' stuff, and nothing much has changed. We found a new computer lab that’s super awesome. It doesn’t have A/C, so I’m sweating like a pig, but the computers are brand new and they're very fast, which is worth it. Good stuff. Right now I have a ton of pictures uploading to Dropbox, so you should have some good material. I'm pretty sure that it’s my last p-day here in Bello Horizonte, and I’m going to copy all of the pictures from my comp's camera, so I’ll try to upload those too.

It sounds like the week has been pretty normal and mellow there at home. All kinds of day camps and young men’s activities then? Sounds fun. Sometimes it blows my mind to think that right now you are all on summer vacation, and that you're having a ton of crazy activities in the hot weather. Here is about the exact same 24/7, and supposedly we're in winter right now, but it just feels the same. Hot, hot, hot. But yeah, I’m glad that all is well. I’m doing very well here too, and its all-pretty normal. 

So not too much has changed here like I said. We have been contacting a ton, and working very very hard. I really don’t want to leave my area here with crappy families, so I’ve been trying to work extra hard to leave Elder P with some good families. Our hard work paid off, and we had a family in church this Sunday. Their names are E and J, and they super cool. They are a very young couple, and have been together for about 6 months, and I’m pretty sure (judging by how old they appear) that is 21, and that she is 18. They are really cool, and are super humble. They are living in a very humble house, and are very poor, but are also very humble, and accept everything that we say. I am very sure that they will be the next family baptized here in Bello Horizonte. The funny thing is that I have walked by their house about a million times, and I had contacted them a couple months ago, but they weren't very positive. But this week, we contacted them again, and they were way positive. It’s just funny to see that some random house that I have passed by tons of times has the next family that will be baptized. But yeah, so far we have taught them only lesson 1, and it was pretty cool. Their house is really small, and is about the size of my bedroom in Idaho. And in that house lives 9 people. So there wasn’t room to teach them in the house, so we taught them outside. We all just sat down on the ground or on the wall of a canal, which passes by the house, and just taught them there. It was a very cool and very spiritual lesson. I love the people here, because it’s pretty often (after teaching the restoration) that the people will say "I already believe that that's true, because it sounds very logical". I love the people for that reason; they are really simple. If something sounds reasonable, they will believe it. And I think... for that reason... its a lot easier to baptize here than in other countries.

We found another family that we've been teaching a little. The funny thing here is that ALL... literally ALL of the men served in the war here in the 80's. So for like 30 minutes, we just sat there and listened to this grizzly old guy tell some crazy war stories. It’s pretty awesome, and also very entertaining. The Nicas have the stuff, because they can tell a good story that will leave you laughing, and with your jaw open. So I have heard just about every type of war story. This guy was talking about how like 30 years ago here, there were gorillas and all kinds of monkeys and stuff, and how while he was in the army a gorilla tried to attack someone, and someone shot the gorilla but the bullet just bounced off the gorillas head... yeah... stories like that. Every man here has some type of crazy story like that. M (our convert) said that while he was in the army, he talked about how they would march for days and days without food, and then one time they arrived in a valley with a bunch of cocco, but after eating everyone had some crazy vomiting and stuff like that.

Oh speaking of vomiting, for the first time in several months I was sick again (for like 18 hours). I woke up on Saturday and went to the bathroom and barfed for a while. It was horrible, and trust me, I’m not sick very often here. I’ve gotten pretty used to the food, and I don’t know why I got the 12-hour stomach flu, but sometimes those things happen. But I’m doing great, so don’t worry about me. I think that maybe its because we ate a ton of popcorn the night before. The night before we had ¨cine Mormon" which translates to "Mormon movie theater". As an activity to help the ward attendance, we, as the missionaries of the ward, did this movie night. All day, my comp and I and the sister missionaries were in the church kitchen making popcorn and it was pretty fun. We do contacting all day, every day, and it was fun to do something different. So we made a ton of popcorn, and there were around 60 people there, including a lot of my converts and investigators. Also, E and J (the new family) arrived on their own, which was just awesome. So yeah, Saturday was pretty fun because we did something different, and because the activity was a success. But I blame all of the popcorn, because I barfed the next day. Funny stuff...

But anyways, life is going well here. I’m having a good time, and I am pretty excited for changes. I feel bittersweet about leaving my area here because I have dedicated 5 months of my life here, walking down the streets, and teaching everyone. But I know that I will have the chance to go to some other area, and to have more success in another part of Nicaragua. I’m hoping that I’ll leave Managua and go to "el campo" which means "the field" aka, pobre land. I really want to go to the mountains or something like that, but we'll see. Whatever happens, happens. So yeah, I want you to know that I’m working hard, and that all is well here. I really am beginning to feel like this place is my home, because it all just feels so normal. My comp and I, instead of playing "slug bug", we play "naked baby". Every time we see a naked baby, the first person to notice it gets to hit the other person super hard in the arm. Naked baby = 1 hit. Naked man = 2 hits. Naked woman = 3 hits. As you can see, the most common would be naked baby. But 2 days ago, I saw a naked woman (which is rare) and I slugged my comp 3 times in the arm. A couple days before, my comp spotted some naked dude walking down the street, and he got 2 good punches into my arm. As you can see, it’s a different world down here. But, to me it just feels normal.

Well family, I love you and hope that all is well. Have a good week, and let me know what’s going on. 

Lots of love,

Elder Stark

#39 Managua (Bello Horizonte)

June 3, 2013

Hey family,

Thanks as always for the email. Managua is pretty normal, and nothing really has changed. Except for one thing. The rain began. Last Monday, after I got done writing home, we went to the supermarket and as we left, it was just pounding rain. It was crazy how much water falls from the sky here.  I’ve never seen anything like it... I have been taking some video of the rain here and there so that you can all see what it’s like. But it feels really, really good, and I’ve been putting that umbrella that mom gave me to good use. Also, that dry bag that Aunt Laura gave me has been VERY helpful, and I use it every day. So yeah, when it rains the people pretty much just all go inside, so the contacting becomes very hard. But that’s just how it is. Also the temperature has dropped a little, and when we go to sleep at night, it feels really good, especially when it’s raining. There is something very nice about sleeping under a tin roof with the clatter of the rain.

We changed houses this week. We are now living with our Elders quorum president, and he is way cool. He served a mission in El Salvador in the same mission as Elder Schriever, and he talks about his mission all of the time. My comp and I are always joking that we make him trunky. But yeah, it’s nice to live with members. Our new room is EVEN SMALLER, and it is (according to my feet size) 10 feet by 12 feet. Pretty small, but its nice and we're really happy. Also, the house is completely concrete, but above sits a tin house that’s pretty ghetto. I took some cool pictures from above. There is nothing up there, but it’s really scary, and we have plans to study up there. We refer to it as the "monster house". Cool.

Oh, and this week the ZLs went to the mission office, and surprisingly I got a package from the Arnell family in our ward. It was really nice, and has some goodies and cool Idaho post cards. I took a picture of myself with the package, and you can show them the picture for some proof that it actually arrived here. But yeah, it was nice, so if you can please tell them thanks, that would be nice. I think I'll write them a hand written letter, but in the meantime, can you tell them thanks from me?

So this Sunday, all we had was 1 investigator in the church. We were pretty sad that we didn’t have a family. Right now we're struggling to find new families to teach. But sometimes, there are just weeks like that. So yeah, we’ve been doing a lot of contacting, and not a ton of teaching. Also, we're trying to better our retention of the recent converts. It’s hard to baptize, and it’s even harder to convert the people. So that’s where we stand right now. Also this week, our family progressing (J and O) dropped us. It’s the first time in my mission that a family has dropped us. Usually we do the dropping when we see that they can’t progress. We went and visited one day, and the Hermana O told us "I don’t want people thinking that I’m Christian, because I’m not, I’m Catholic. And I’m going to die Catholic. So you can just get off my porch, and leave, because I’m never going to your church again." It was really harsh, and I tried to say something and she just said, "Shut up, and leave. I don’t want anything to do with you two". So yeah, that kind of sucked, but everyone has their agency, and I feel like we gave that family a very fair chance to accept the gospel. It’s pretty sad, but I know that we will just keep working and find a new family to baptize. Well, even though we only had one investigator in church, my converts W and C went. It was fast and testimony meeting, and after being a little pushy, I got W to go up with me and we bore our testimonies. It was awesome, and it’s super cool to have some good converts in the ward. And W’s testimony was great. While I was trying to convince him to go, he said to me "I don’t want to go up, because I feel pretty nervous." and I just responded "WELL SO DO I!!” He laughed, but still felt pretty nervous. So finally, I just stood up and began to walk towards the pulpit, and then before I knew it, W was behind me. Super awesome. After he asked me, "Did I do a good job?" Great stuff.

So I’m glad that you all had a good vacation in Hawaii, and that you all made it back home. It’s awesome that the summer vacation is now up and running, and that you all have a little time to relax. I hope that Bailey can find a job, and that Owen can keep working hard and keeping the house clean. I was pretty blessed to have the chance to work for Uncle Mark, and to have the chance to save up for my mission. Hopefully Bailey can get a good job and save up some moolah.

So changes are a week from Wednesday. I am like 99% sure I’m leaving. I’m a little bored in my area, because I feel like I’ve contacted every family, and I know the streets better than I know myself. On  P day I went to a paca (thrift store) and it turns out that all of the stuff in this thrift store is from the US, from Deseret Industry. I found a ton of discs of General Conference, and just about every church movie every made. It was cool, and I bought some church videos to watch. They're in English, which is cool. The one sad thing to see is that all the stuff that DI sends here to Nicaragua just gets put into some thrift store with high prices. I’m sure that some Nicaraguan dude is making a lot of money from the donated stuff.

Well family, thanks for the letter, and I hope that this week is a good one. It’s fun that you're all out of school and can take a break. I hope that all is well, and I'll write you all next week.

Love,

Elder Stark

#38 Managua (Bello Horizonte)

May 27, 2013

Hey my dear Hawaiian Familia,

So you're all living it up on Oahu now?? That’s pretty sweet. My old comp had lived in Hawaii for the past year while he went to BYU-H, and he told me all about it 24/7. So I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what its like there. I’m pretty jealous, but yeah, I’ve got pretty much the same climate that you all have right now. They only difference is that I’m sweating it out 24/7 in my white shirt and tie (not in my short-shorts...) But yeah, I bet when you've been in Idaho for such a long time, the tropical climate feels good. Here I just feel normal. I am sweating all of the time, but you reach a point where you just get used to it. Oh, and to answer the questions about the rain here. The rainy season is just starting to pick up. Don’t believe anything that Google says, because there is only a little rain so far. But on Tuesday it rained for the first time in like 7 months. It was awesome, and I felt like it was just dumping buckets from heaven, but the people assured me that it was just "sprinkling". It was awesome though for me, because I was soaking wet, and my shirt magically turned from white to brown. Also, it was about the first time in many months that I had actually felt a tiny bit chilly. It’s super cool. There are always these huge black clouds on the skyline, but the rain never seems to arrive. I’m just hoping that the rainy season will really start to kick in, but who knows. I imagine that in the next few weeks though, it will start to get really wet. 

So to me, its pretty funny to think that you're all getting super excited about the tropical fruits and whatnot. Like pineapple and all that stuff is super normal here. I’m a pretty big fan of buying pineapples and just chowing down on them for lunch. Also, mangos here are really common, and you can find them in just about any tree. People will literally come out of their houses, and just give us a huge handful of mangos. We chow down on fruit 24/7.

So it sounds like you're all having a sweet vacation, swimming and cruising around in a car, and sleeping in a condo. It totally sounds like you're having some very touristy like experiences. I was smiling when I read the letter, because it just sounds super touristy (you know, taking tours and whatnot). IF you ever want the REAL experience, just come down here. Like, the idea of a sea turtle on the beach swarmed by iphones. Funny stuff. I have seen pictures of missionaries from Puerto Cabezas, and when the big sea turtles land on the beach, the indigenous people just go out with a machete and start chopping the turtles to pieces. It’s a different experience her, but it’s great. I really hope that I get transferred to Puerto this change. I’m about 100% sure that I'll get changed. We'll see.

So it sounds like you're all having some sweet experiences. I really liked the story about the church and the cool talks, and the people passing the sacrament in the flip-flops. Sounds very cool. Super spiritual and all that stuff. I imagine that this vacation is the best!! I remember when we went to Belize, and how good it felt to just walk around in the warm climate, and to see different things, and to just relax. I really love those kinds of trips.  I hope that Bailey is having a good time, and it loving every minute of it. I'd love to go there some day.

So this week has been pretty normal for me. Just filled with hard work, contacting, teaching, and trying to help our converts/investigators. We have been focusing a lot on the older people J and O. I've already told you about them, but we try to wake up early in the morning and give service to them in the cemetery. The water situation is lousy in the cemetery. There are a ton of gardeners, and they all have these pioneer style handcarts that they use to haul around 55 gallon drums. There is only a little water, and the water pressure is really horrible. So there is just a big line, and not a lot of water pressure. And it takes a long time to fill these big drums. So J and O: they're pretty cool, but they're super old. I put a baptism date with them for the 8th of June, so I hope that they can get baptized then. Good stuff. They're super old and poor, and earn about $3-4 each day, so a lot of times they don’t have food. We try to buy them a loaf of bread each time we visit them. So now we don’t have any more mission money and I've had to tap into my bank account and withdraw a little to buy some food for Elder P and myself (sorry!!!). So right now we are just focusing on J and O. Even though we are contacting a ton, it feels like it’s been hard to find new families to teach. So we're just focusing on the people that we have right now. 

This Sunday, J and O couldn't go to church. They had a lot of work to do in the cemetery, and just couldn’t go. So we didn’t have any investigators in church this Sunday. Also, none of the Recent Converts could go, so it was a little tough. We have 19 recent converts, and not a single one of them could go. It was a little frustrating, but I learned that as much as I want people to keep the commandments and go to church, I can’t make the decisions for them. It’s rough as a missionary when your converts can’t go to church, but they need to learn to make their own decisions. But my converts M and M are still super cool. The M’s mom died this week, so that was rough, and she just wanted some time to stay at home. And M was working.... But anyways, we are working on bettering the retention here in Bello Horizonte. Sometimes I just wish that it could be the same here as it is in Idaho. A 20% retention of the members is pretty bad... So I want to try and fix that. We'll see what happens.

So I hope that all is well in Hawaii, and also in Idaho. I’m glad that you're all happy, and I'm doing pretty well here too. My comp and I made some good jokes this week, and we were trying to film a video. I sent a lot of pictures home, and some of our footage. So you can watch that. Funny stuff. I get along well with my comp, and we've had several months together, so it’s all going well. I sure hope that my next comp is cool too. The zone is not doing too hot with the families baptized, but we are off the hook, because we're one of the few areas that has baptized. So I’m glad that there isn’t some leader breathing down my back. And we've got the old couple ready for baptism in June. So I’m pretty happy. I’m pretty excited too to see how the new mission president is. Changes are 2 weeks from Wednesday. Fun stuff.

So all is well here, and we are pretty much just doing the same work, day in and day out. Today I had a scary dream that I got changed to the Boise Idaho mission, and was serving super close to home. It freaked me out, and I woke up freaked out, but it was awesome to look around my room and see that I was still in Managua, Nicaragua. Very relieving. 

So I am having a great time, and I hope that you are too. Be sure to take a bunch of pictures and videos on your vacations, so that you have something to remember. I have a package with some stuff that I want to send home. I don’t know when I will have a chance to send it, but its loaded with a sweet manbag that I bought a couple months ago (the only problem is that it ripped, but I did some sweet repairs, and sewed it back), and a hammock (we were there for like 5 minutes arguing with the sales man. It started out at 250 cordobas, but we FINALLY haggled it down to 100 cordobas), and all of my Spanish books from the MTC which I never use. 

I love you all, and hope that you're having the time of your lives. Take it easy and be safe.

ELDER STARK