November 14, 2011

Hey family!!!!


Hope things are going pretty well over there!! I appreciate the inspiring letter from dad. I enjoyed reading it and helps me stay strong knowing that he is so positive. Anyways, i am still alive!

First, I thought I would answer some of the questions from dad.... Right now, there are 4 of us living in our house. It is by far one of the nicest houses I have lived in on the mission. It is not on stilts... its actually on top of a little western union store. So we are actually on one of the safest parts of the city. Me and my companion spend most of our time visiting recent converts and members all over the city. Usually its helping them develop testimonies and get to church. Most of that time is specific focused on helping possible priesthood holders recieve the priesthood or young men get excited to go on missionas. We also do a lot of activities at the church, we teach institute class, and also an english class. I think my favorite part is we also get to help other missionaries in their area and get to know members all over puerto. We constantly are invited to lunch, which is pretty cool, since both me and my companion stink at cooking. Normally it is a big plate of rice with a side of fish or chicken or turtle (yes, turtle is very popular to eat here). Hmm... I would say that some of my favorite things to eat are what they normally eat for dinner here (here lunch is the main meal of the day, breakfast and dinner are pretty light). I have learned to love tortillas de harina and rice and beans, a lot of the time, they do it as a stir fry, mixing it with onions and seasonings... sometimes eggs. And i also like when they fry platinos... which is kinda like a banana. A lot of the time, I am in the kitchen talking or helping the members cook, so i have learned to make some of the things. So maybe i will cook them for you when i get back!

Alright, so this week has been pretty cool. We survived the lockdown.... Daniel Ortega won and there were not too many riots, especially in our part of town. Actually, during the time of elections, selling alcohol is prohibited... so we joke around that election time might have been one of the safest times of the year since there are no drunks in the streets.... While we stayed inside our house this week, the owners noticed we were kinda bored and lend us a dvd and tv for a couple days, so we could watch church movies....

So then after elections, our mission president flew over to have a conference. It was pretty cool, he aught us a little, visited around, and also interviewed some of the members so that they could receive the melquisidic priesthood. I especially enjoyed my interview with him. There was one thing that he said that stood out to me while he was teaching. He said many of us look at hard times in the world as a burden or challenge. For the saints, it should be the exact opposite. Hard times give huge opportunities for the righteous to prosper.

Anyways, things are pretty awesome here... another week of changes are going up so we will see what happens. I am now one the missionaries with the most time in puertocabezas so who knows what will happen. Keep up the bright spirits. I love you and hope you have a good week!

June 27, 2011

hey family!!!             June 27,2011

We decided to write a little early today, heres my letter about whats been going on over here!

Things have been pretty awesome. This was kinda a crazy week and super busy but actually a ton of fun. We had a fathers day activity last saturday and it was super fun. We got members and investigators from all over puerto to come down. We had food and had some activities. As missionaries, we stayed up the night before planned 3 funny skits to perform. They were pretty funny and i think we impressed the people with our acting skills =) It was also a cool time to sit back and watch how much the church has grown here in the past year. It really is a miracle.

Then later that night we had a baptism with a family that we have been teaching since i got here. They are super cool and we were excited to finally get them baptized. Their baptismal date was for two weeks ago but it fell through, and then last week the wife had to travel to bluefields. We kinda had a scare though because when we arrived at the house to go to the church, the husband was not home! He told his wife he had to work. We ran over to where he worked to see how late he will be, and the manager said that David had  not been come into work for the past couple days! We kinda got scared, wondering if he had been lying about where he has been... but after a prayer and some patience, it turned out he was finishing up a side job for his friend and was only a little bit more late. They were both super excited to be baptized.

So last night, I got to try one of the best puerto cabezas foods i have yet to try. It was a soup with cow meat that had been roasted with coconut juice. It was super good. I thanked the lady as we headed out. The lady asked me if it was the first time i had tried it, i said yes. "oh well then you will for sure be sick tomorrow". she told me. I was glad for her honestly. I feel pretty good right now though. Maybe she thought i was new to nicaragua.

All is weel here! I love you all and hope all is going well. Every single one of you are still in my prayers!

June 13, 2011

June 13, 2011


This week has been pretty crazy. My companion left and I was stuck without a companion for a couple days, so i just did divisions. It has rained a ton but i have managed to keep on going. The people here are more willing to let us come in when we are covered in rainª Then this last friday we had a huge conference for all the recent converts in puerto cabezas. It ended up being pretty successful. We got a lot of members to come, a lot i had not seen in church beforeª

Then on thursday i got my companionª I was pretty excited. His name is Elder Sarceno. He is super cool. He is from texas but speaks spanish perfectly. He grew up in the states but his parents are from guatemala and hounduras. So he has been speaking spanish in the home since he was a baby. We get a long super well. He is pretty smart but also pretty quiet. We are going to learn mesquito together here and hopefully have a few changes in the area! It has been kinda crazy. Together we are learning the area since neither of us have much time in puerto cabezas. So it has kinda been an adventure.

The funny story that happened was last tuesday. I was on divisions with an elder since i did not have a companion. Things were kinda crazy because no one had companions in my house, so everyone was moved around. When we got home from the days work, we noticed no one else had come to the house. We figured that the others had decided to sleep in one of the other house for the night and we would have the house to ourselves. We cooked some dinner and went to bed around 10. I was super tired so i went straight to sleep but a couple hours later, I had woken up to a huge banging noise outside. I didnt think much of it, so i went back to sleep. The banging continued. I then noticed that it was still pouring rain outside and the power must have gone out. I could still hear the banging.. it sounded like it came from outside of our house. After a little bit, I decided to get up and see what it was (my comp was still fast asleep). I walked to the front door of the balcony and noticed someone was banging on the door! (remember it is middle of the night, power is out, and it is raining. I peered over the window, and noticed it was two missionaries waiting outside trying to get our attention! I opened the door and they jumped inside saying they had been banging for a while!

haha anyways that night we learned 2 things. we needed to communicate better who was sleeping where. And we also learned we have a pretty secure house!

I got the package you sent!  thanks, I am enjoying the treats and letters.  having contact solution is good too!

Things are so good here! To answer moms question about what my pday is like.. im not sure! the past pdays we have done something different every day! Today i got my haircut and we walked around the market for a little bit. maybe go out to eat a little later. I love you guys and hope all is well!

June 6, 2011

June 6, 2011


Hope things are going pretty well over there! things are going pretty well over here... To answer your question, there are 6 people in our house. The house is on stilts, but not like the picture i sent you, it is a lot nicer. We have running water and electricity (when there is power). And it is pretty clean! We have a lady that cleans the house. My companion is Elder Silva, everyone has a set companion. But elder silva is leaving puerto for the change conference this Wednesday! so i will receive a new companion to explore this new area. I have not received the package with contact solution... maybe my new companion will bring it with him when he flies out here. There are also rumors that we might fly out to Managua this next month for a meeting with the area presidency, so I will get it then... but yeah! things are going really well here!

There is a lot going on here.. and i dont really know where to start. So keep asking me questions! this week went well. I am getting to know the area. Its a little stressful, because my comp is leaving tomorrow for managua, and i barley know the people here. There are 70 recent convert members in my area!! But the portion of people i have met have started to warm up to me. Oh and I started studying the language of miskitu this week! NAKISMA! Anyways, i dont know if I have any crazy stories to share, but here is a little bit about the people we have been working with this week.

The first is Edger. He is pretty awesome, and actually speaks english better than his spanish! He grew up in california, but now lives with his mom (he is 30 years old) here in puerto cabezas. His family in the states send money, so he has one of the biggest houses in the area. We have worked a ton with him, partly because the first time missionaries met him, we had the impression that he would be an amazing leader here. He has been studying with the missionaries for more than a month now. Serves whenever he can and has read a lot of church literature. This last week, we have been trying to help him drop smoking. We have tried so many things and have had amazing lessons. When the missionaries met him a month ago, he was smoking a few packs a day. Now he only smokes 2 cigarettes a day! The hard part has been getting him from 2 to 0. It was a cool experience because while we were walking down the streets one day, my comp and i both received the idea we needed to make a bracelet for the smoking hand of edward. We didnt know exactly how, but we found it kinda weird that we both got the idea at the same time. So we went to the house and cut up pieces of an old white shirt. I then attempted to braid the strands.. it turned out pretty cool! haha anyways well see if the idea works then next week.

The other funny story about Edger was that he has satellite tv. I brought it up one day that maybe he has byu tv, a channel for the church. One sunday he came up to me and told me he found it! He said he had been watching it all day. When we went over to his house the following day, he showed us a evanhelist preacher channel! haha he was disappointed to know that he had been watching the wrong religion.

I love you all! you are in my prayers! I hope all is well. keep up the awesome work

May 23 and May 30, 2011

May 23, 2011
Dear family!!


Sounds like things are pretty good over there. Todays letter might be short cause i dont have to much time on the computer today. are you ready for this? I have emgergency changes again! Last night at dinner we got a call from zone leaders that they are closing my area! Both me and my companion had to pack to leave our house this morning at 3 for manangua. We didnt say goodbye to anyone, except tell the family we live with that we were leaving in the morning and as far as we know, there are no missionaries coming back! I think they are moving a bunch of people around today, because there are a lot of people finishing up their mission but not a lot are coming in the conference in two weeks, so they are setting things right now to prepare for changes. So we will see what happens. We dont really know what is happening, but like always, there are a lot of rumors swarming around. Iv had a lot of people coming up to tell me im gonna fly out to puerto cabezas... we will see!

So things are crazy right now, but this last week has been pretty awesome. I have really enjoyed the time i have had with my companion. This past week, we had probably the most dramatic baptism that i have had yet. We had a family preparing to be baptized (the family of Isias, if you remember that story from last week). We were kinda racing against time. We had to get a copy of the birth certificate for the wife, so they could get married. So on monday, we traveled to a nearby city to go to the building to do so. But when we got there, the lady turned us away... She said that we could not do it because we were not nicaragua citizens. The next day we went again, but this time with an elder that was from nicaragua (The wife and her husband both work and were not able to do it themselves). But this time, she turned us away because he was not over 21! As we were walking away frustrated for the second time, the other elder said he had an idea and ran over to the taxi. Elder Burgener and I were confused as we watched him talk to the taxi driver and give him money. The taxi driver turned off the car and walked into the building. He then came out and with a receipt. We found out that Elder Brenes had paid the taxi driver to run in and sign the document for us! This ended up being a blessing, because if we had waited another day, we would not have received the birth certificate in time.
Then on the saturday of the baptism and wedding, we were sitting in on a baptism for another companionship when we see Isias walking outside. We ran and talked to him. He told us that problems had come up and he would not be able to make it to the baptism tonight... His mother said she would not sign the document so that he could get married (in nicaragua you need to have the permission of your parents to be married if you are under 21). Isias was in tears. We tried to comfort him and then went back to the house to talk with his mother. The mother was quite furious(she did not want anything to do with the mormon church), but after talking to her for a while she agreed, but she had to go out of town that night. So we had to run all the way down to the lawyers house in a neighboring city to bring the document back for her to sign it. We then had only a few hours for the baptism and wedding. so we hurried and prepared the font, bought cake and soda, and did other things to prepare. Finally everything was ready, right on time too! Except a few minutes after six, the layer called and said he was stuck in another city and will be 2 hours late! So for two hours we had no clue what to do. We ended up getting keys to the secretaries office, and we all crammed in the room and watched mormon messages on the computer.. Finally we had the wedding and baptism that night. It was such a good experience. I got to do the ordinance as well. It was one of the most stressful weddings for us, but definitely one of the most happiest at the end. It was cool to see Isias, his wife, and his two kids walk away from the church clean and ready to start their road to the temple. I am going to miss them and all of our recent converts in Chinandega.
But i am definitely excited for the adventures ahead of me!
I love you all. and I hope everything is going well over there. Keep up the good work! your always in my thoughts and prayers

_________________
May 30, 2011
Hey family!
How are things going over there? sounds like school is ending.. i cant believe i have been here for a whole year of school. I guess that means i have been out here for a while. Enjoy your last days of school and the start of summer!

Things are pretty crazy over here... so i ended up getting changed to puerto cabezas. Which is on the whole other side of nicaragua! It really cool though. I had to unpack all my stuff, and then organize it. I could only take 30 pounds to nicaragua.. which i have learned is pretty much nothing. We then hoped on a small plane that took us to puerto cabezas airport... which is pretty much just a big field haha. The flight was about an hour long. It is pretty crazy to think how far away we are... other then the few people in our zone, there are not missionaries for many many miles. I feel pretty lucky though, most missionaries dont get the opportunity to come here.

I decided that its kinda like a whole different mission here. It is not really anything like Managua or Chinandega. The people here are a lot different too. The majority of people here are from a native race called miskitu. Which means spanish is not even the first language here. Everyone speaks a language called miskitu. its sounds really weird and actually kinda goofy. In the pics i sent, i included a photo of a sign in the language. So anyways, its kinda like my first couple weeks all over again! There are a lot of people that we will go up and contact and they will reply to me in miskitu. With that in mind, the mission president is actually having missionaries that are assigned to learn miskitu, so that we can communicate with the people here better. They actually told me i could expect to be here for a while. and i should start studying the language too. I havnt really started much, since it has just been my first week. But i think i will see if i can get a book and everything these next couple weeks.

The area here is a lot different too. It is not very modern.. a lot of dirt roads and there are no big stores or bus routes like in the other areas i have been. The power here is not very reliable and goes out almost every other day. To me, it is a mix of africa and jamaica. Its pretty much as hot as Chinandega, but there are hardly any trees here, so it seems a whole lot hotter. My area specifically is mostly made up of a miskitu colony... kinda like an indian reservation. The people in this area are super poor, and i have noticed a huge drop in hygene. They are super receptive to the gospel though! All the houses are pretty much made out of wood... and they are elevated up kinda like they are on stilts.. i took a lot of pictures of what the houses look like. Also, inside the house, there is absolutley nothing! They are sleeping on the floor and spend most of the day outside of the house.

My comp is Elder Silva. He is from costa rica and is pretty cool. WE get along really well. He got here to nicaragua the same exact day as me.. i just never knew him cause he has been in puerto cabezas the whole time! I hope that we can still be comps when changes come in a week.

The crazy story for the week was i got to baptize on sunday... but as i was getting into the font i noticed a tarantula hanging out on the wall! Only me and the two witnesses saw it cause of the weird angle, but they told me to hurry and just do it the ordinance before anyone noticed! I figured the giant spider wouldnt be able to do anything in the water. I hurried and baptized the brother, and we jumped out of the font before anyone else noticed. I definitely did not expect to baptize with a tarantula on my mission!

Anyways.. all is well here. I am loving it here in puerto cabezas. The other missionaries here are awesome and its cool to be a part of the work in a new area. The only problem i have right now is that when i had the emergency changes.. i did not get a chance to receive the package you had sent me... and i probably wont get it since we are so far away unless someone brings it to me or i need to go to managua... but dont worry, i think it will be fine. There are two other elders in puerto cabezas that use contacts too. You guys are always in my prayers.. i love you tons!

May 17

Hey family!!!

I love you guys, and it was cool to get to see you last week on Skype. I was super grateful to get to talk to you and see that things are not all that different. The power was out here in Chinandega for almost all day yesterday, so i have not gotten to write you till today...

Things have been pretty awesome this week. I am loving this change! We had baptisms this week and have even more for this next week! Which is including two families that we have been teaching for what seems has been forever. Raining season is also starting to get us pretty hard! It is starting to rain a ton. Like for an hour or so every day. I have been trying to decided what i am going to do to protect my stuff from the rain, and i think i have decided i will buy a bag from Guatemala that is waterproof. A lot of missionaries have done this, including my comp elder Burgener. The Chinandega West Stake is taking a trip to the temple in Guatemala this next week, so i gave one of the members money to buy one of the bags in the store right next to the temple.

Out of all the experiences i have had, the best has definitely been the story of a man we met this last week. About 5 years ago, Isias was baptized and pretty firm in the church when he was about 16 years. He actually would go on splits with missionaries some days and help out members. But as he started to work, get a girlfriend, and other things, he started to fall away from the church. He moved away to live with his family and two kids, and kinda forgot about the church. About 2 years ago, his grandfather died, who was not a member but always had a big influence on the life of isias. About a week ago, Isias had a dream with his grandfather in it. His grandfather told him that he needed to rejoin himself with the mormon church! He said where he was at (spirit prison) was not where he wanted to be. He wanted out, and the only way they could see each other after this life was if Isias came back to church and did the ordinances for his grandfather. He also said, ¨not to worry, because the missionaries will be with him the next day!¨ Isias was pretty confused, first of all because his grandfather was not a member of the mormon church and also because he did not know how he could do the ordinances for his grandfather (he only had a year in church before we fell away). He told the story to his family, and his wife had no clue what it ment, and his evangelist mother said its not possible!

But sure enough, later that day, I was walking home from an appointment in Chinandega when all the sudden a man on his bike slams on the brakes and stares at us as my companion and i walk by. I will admit, it was kinda awkward because we had eye contact for a while as we passed by. I thought he was just looking at us because we were gringos... but after we passed by he finally ran up to us to talk to us. He said something like ÿou dont know who i am, but i am isias escoto, and i had a dream i would run into you today¨... As i heard his story, I quickly felt compassion for him. He really did have the humble heart and contrite spirit the scriptures always talk about. It has been awesome to get to know him and his family. We have gotten to reteach him, and also teach his wife. His is getting married to his wife this next week and the wife is getting baptized right after! I am truley grateful for how the lord has prepared people for us to teach!

We also joke around because maybe everyone in spirit prison, after someone hears the gospel, they let them have one phone call to earth to tell someone to do their ordinances.. and his grandfather decided to call isias haha.

Another crazy story i heard was My old Companion, Elder Dokos, (the tall one from Kansas) got threatened by a group of teenage robbers in his area. But Elder Dokos, realizing that he was about a foot and a half taller than all of them, refused to give his stuff and told them to leave them alone.... In the end, Dokos and his comp are fine, but had to get taken out of their area this morning... I laughed when i heard the story. Especially since he is about twice the size of the average nica.

I love you all! i hope everything is going super this week. keep up the positive attitudes and remember your in my prayers all the time.

May 2 and April 25

Monday, April 25, 2011
Hey family!!


It has been a good week! we are finishing up one more change. i cant believe i have completed another change!! overall i have been really happy with this change. i looked back at all the goals i set and we completed most of them, one of them included baptizing a family in our area, which happened this saturday! Its been good. The hard part is i only have 3 more days with my companion... which is weird, because at the beginning of the change i didnt think it was going to be hard to say goodbye. We have gotten to be pretty close though. these last couple days, we have been visiting all of our recent converts and investigators, so elder sanchez can say goodbye. The plus has been everyone has been inviting us over to eat dinner! I have been so grateful for this change and the opportunity to be in Chinandega. i wonder what surprising lay instore this next change.

One of the cool baptisms we had this last saturday was with julian, a 74 old man, and his wife. When we first met him, i thought he was a little out of it. but this past week, we have gotten close to them, and they have turned out to be kinda tempory grandparents on the mission. Whenever we come, we always up leaving with atleast a bag of 20 mangos each (dont worry, we give away pretty much all of them). anyways, Julian has lived in the same house for 74 years in SanBenito, a colony 20 minutes away from the city). His whole life he has never gone underwater, he was so scared to get baptized! I cant imagine how much faith it must have taken to do it. After the baptism, he said something that i thought was pretty funny... "i hope this is the true church because i never wanna do that again"

the other interesting thing that happened this week was the doctor over all the missionaries in central america came and spoke in a conference to the missionaries of nicaragua. He is a doctor from the states, serving as a missionary. He was pretty funny and entertaining, but also helped us realize we need to be more safe. He also had the pretty crazy stories of things that have happened while he has served his mission.

anyways all is well! i hope things are going well over there in utah, you guys are in my prayers every second! let me know how you are doing!

__________
Monday, May 2, 2011
hey family, Mon, May 2, 2011 3:04:28 PM


You guys are still in my prayers every second. its good to hear that you guys are holding up! especially with positive attitudes. its helped give me a boost too. wow i cannot believe that you have turned off cable and gave up Disney Channel!! its funny because a lot of families here will do anything to have television. we constant passby houses that are made out of wood or tin with dirt floors, but somehow they are watching disney channel on a small tv in the corner. it makes you wonder what sacrifices they make just to be able to watch tv all day.

thats cool that mom will get to talk in church for mothers day about me! i hope you have enough stories. i have plenty of cool experiences, but im not sure what ones i have told you guys. i have been blessed by serving a mission in so many ways. my testimony has grown, iv learned the power of the atonement and also the power of faith. the mission in nicargua has helped me grow in so many ways. umm the people in nicarugua are open to the gospel because... thats a hard one haha. Jesus Christ has a huge part of the culture here. pretty much everyone here wants to follow his example, but they just dont know how, or have the trust to drop everything to follow him. Heavenly father has definitely been busy preparing the people here to listen to the word of god, and also been busy preparing us.

things have been crazy and so fast this week. i spent the first couple days of this week with my last days with elder sanchez. It was fun, but sometimes it was hard! we said goodbye to all the investigators and recent converts. we also got invited to dinner many times. it was fun and i tried my best to make sure he enjoyed his last couple days in nicargua. then we had changes. to be honest, i was kinda nervous! i did not know if they were gonna stick me with another troublesome comp or put me in an area with more challenges. I feel like i succeeded with this last change but i was not sure if i was ready for another stressful change. When joking around with other missionaries, i said i really only wanted two things, i wanted a gringo companion to speak english with and i wanted to be senior comp. but inside, i was pretty sure i was not gonna get either since i dont have much experience. haha as it turned out i got both! my companion is elder Burgener from idaho! he is way cool, and has about 3 months more than me here. we have a lot in common and get a long really well. we have a lot of big expectations for these next months. Its a lot different with him, i dont feel like i am carrying all the weight on my back. our lessons run a lot smoother and a lot more spiritual. everyone in our area has already begun to warm up to him.

what else is new... oh it started to rain this week! i thought chicago rain was crazy, this is even worse! im not sure what i will do when raining season actually comes! well see how that goes though.

next week is mothers day! i am planning on calling sunday afternoon.. we actually are taking about using skype. the president has given the ok to use it.  i will probably call home in the middle of this week to tell you what the plan is.... we have more time to talk than the last time...

I love you guys! happy early mothers day mom! keep up the awesome attitude. you guys are always in my prayers. thanks for everything you do...

whats up family!! April 11, 2011

This week zoomed by pretty fast... im starting to type but I cant really think of any stories or anything. its been a good week though, we have worked really hard. we have a pretty big pool of investigators, almost more than we can handle. right now though we are focusing on 4 specific families and trying o get them to progress! things are well with my companion,he only has two weeks left in his mission. sometimes it is hard to get him to work, but for the most part things have been positive wih him.

today we learned that chenandega is officially the hottest city in central america! im starting to get accumstomed to it though haha. i have also learned that if idaho is the land of potatoes, nicaragua is the land of mangos. especially at this time of the year, everyone has mangos falling from their mango tree. there are mangos being sold everywhere, mangos in the streets, and all of our investigators offer us mangos! i love the mangos here, but i can only take so many. there was actually a new kid in our zone that got really sick this last week for eating so many mangos. i think the best is, a lot of the families will give us mango juice drinks. those are really good!

the cool story from the week, is i have gotten to know a family of members pretty well in our ward. marvin and his family are one of the poorest members, but also one of the strangest. the father bikes X miles to the church with his wife and his son on the handle bars every sunday. they will always offer to feed us and have us over. this past week i got to go over to dinner and learn a little more about him. he is actually from ogden utah! he grew up in ogden utah, where his family still lives there today. his family was membrs, but he kinda fell away from the church. he went to high school in the states, but ended up gettng deported because of having problems with the law. so he was forced to live here in nicaragua with nothing. it has ended up being a huge blessing for him. here in nicaragua, he got reactivate in the church, recieved a very strong testimony, and now he is married with a son. talking to him, he said he would trade all the money he had in the states, friends and everything else, to live humbly here in nicaragua with hardly anything... he has been working for the past few months to save up money to recontruck his house that is made out of wood and tin right now. were gonna get an awesome opportunity to help build his house this next saturday! i am pretty excited.

things are pretty awesome here in nicaragua! i love you guys. thatnks for all the updates and everything. hope all is well over there. see you all next week!

--------------------

hey family! April 18, 2011


Eder Aguilar wrote a quote in my journal thats been on my mind this past week... whatever you do, don't get disanimated, because thats when you loose faith, and there are no miracles without faith. I have faith things will work out. I hope all is well over there. I love you all.

This week has been hard for me .... its been different though. I don't feel as spiritually down. I feel spiritually high! Maybe its because ive had your prayers this week. We had huge plans for the start of this week, we were finally going to have everything set up to have our own sunday meetings in Belen and Grasca, we had a fun family night planned with all the members in an area, and we were planning on baptizing in the ocean this saturday. We were especially excited to go to the ocean because we had two families preparing to be baptized this week. It was also going to be a cool experience and the whole zone was planning on going. I ended up getting an eye infection on tuesday, it was a lot like pink eye. Things kinda fell apart from there. I wasnt able to leave the house, so didnt see any of our investigators for a few days. Both of our families kinda fell apart and did not end up getting baptized. The meetings for this sunday fell through too because the couselors of the ward were out of town. It just seemed like things fell apart at the wrong time. We had one baptism lined up for saturday, but the lady never showed up. The day after she called us on the phone and told us she had to leave for her mothers last second.

One thing i have learned from this week is that heavenly father gives us aflictions to help us get lost in the work. Maybe reorganize our priorties. The eye inflection kinda put me in a slump, but help me realize how blessed i am. It was kinda a hard week, but iv never spent so much time on my knees than this week. I have never had such an easier week to get lost in the work. Remember family Ticay from last week? the story about the guy that lived in ogden utah? He was out of work this week from being sick, and just found out his wife needed an operation and would use all the money they were saving up to buy supplies to rebuild their roof. We had an amazing experience with giving the wife a blessing. Meibol, one of our recent converts lost her job this week too. We knew she barley had money to feed herself, but when we stopped by to give her a lesson, she had cooked us a simple meal of platinos and cheese. I dont think platinos and cheese has ever tasted so well in my life, only because we knew the sacrifices within it. The members in our ward here have so much faith. I was so greatful for their example.

Im greatful for your examples too!

Its also cool to hear dad is helping coach lacrosse! being a faceoff coach would be fun.
I love you all. my prayers are with you this week. Thank you for sending a package, im excited to recieve the package!

have a good positive week! thank you for your example

March 14, 2011

March 14, 2011

hello family!
 

I especially liked seeing nates bball picture. hes looking good! hope all is well back at home. Its been yet another quick but hard week here!

The best part of the week has definitley been being able to work with the members. We spent this week doing divisions with some of the leaders of the ward to visit all the young men young women in the ward to get them to go to seminary or institute. Its been pretty great. We had a lot of the teenagers say they would come. Its also opened up a ton of opportunities for us missionaries. A lot of the people we visited had family members that were not members and agreed to visit with missionaries. over this past week we have recived a ton of references. Just exactly what i have been praying for!!!
Iv also had some interesting expereiences with working with members. One of the days i was with the teachers quorom president. He did not have enough money to pay for the bus, so he asked if we could ride bikes. I told him i did not have one, but he said he would find me one. He ended up finding me this bike of a friends. The bike was one of the saddess things i had ever seen haha. The gears were chipped, the brakes did not work, handlebars broken, and and the seat bent backwards. It was super awkward to ride on. Nevertheless we worked and had tons of success. I had only crashed into a wall a couple times (because of the lack of breaks) and had a sore butt. It was completley worth it though!
The best news for this week is we found out the owners of our new house pay for cleaning ladys! We were suprised to be studying one morning and have someone come up and ask if she could clean our bathroom! Its been an incredible blessing, especially since my comp is not the cleanest person in the world. but i guess im not exactly the cleanest either huh...

then a few days ago there was kinda a scare about the tsunamis. It was kinda confusing at first cause we are not allowed to watch tv, and we only get to hear things through other missionaries or members. I was with the zone leaders when they told them to pull out the missionaries on the coast. I am in the city of chenandega, which is about 20 minutes from the coast. The whole scare ended up not being too much. i think the waves hit the nicaragua shore later that day and were no bigger than a few feet. oh well its good to know that the missionaries are kept safe. We keep the missionaries over in the other countries in our prayers though.

anyways i think thats about it for this week. its been a good week. hope all is well over there. Love you all

Brandon

Monday, March 7, 2011

Monday, March 7, 2011

hey family, sounds like you guys had a pretty fun week! st george is awesome. Probably pretty hot over there like down here. Hope all is well and you made it back safely.

This week has been pretty good. Things are going well with my comp. The area I am in, Chinandega, is pretty hard. The last week i think i mentioned that we might move houses. The thought has been in my head since i got moved here. and throughout last week it has kept coming back to my head. I started to think out the idea, pray about it, and it did not seem too bad. I talked to the ZL´s about it one night and they listened to my case. Instead of living in belen, we would move into the city of chenandega. They prayed about it and decided it would be a good idea too. So the begining of this week we moved houses. It was kinda stressful, the ZL´s had meeting down in managua so i ended up doing a lot of the planning and calling. It ended up going really well. Some missionaries from the other area came and helped move us. Our new house is about 1/4 of the size of our house before. Its the second floor of a families house. Just two small rooms and a hallway. The family were living does not have any members... we plan on changing that =) they are very nice though. Its a lot diffent in the city, definitley a lot noiser. but i love it. I feel really good about it too. part of me hopes there was a bigger reason we needed to move that i dont know about.

other than that, things have been well. Im learning a lot and definitley been humbled in a lot of aspects. Its been hard with investigators. In managua, we had a lot more progressing. Part of the problem here i think is that we dont work much with members. Especially our area, because there are barley any. The focus of my fast this week has just been to help prepare the people in our area for the gospel. Help us find some investigators that really want to progress. Iv already seen plenty of blessings and its only been one day!

The cool story for this week happened a few days ago when we were walking home from working. It was about 7 or 8 and we were just on the side of a busy street. There was a man that was walking behind us, he looked to be in his 40s. I slowed down a little and started to talk to him. He was pretty cool, just on his way to his church. My companion stayed infront of us the whole time. After talking to him for a while about our church, he stopped and asked me if the person infront of us was my companion. I said yes, and told him his name was elder sanchez. He said his name, and my comp turned around. After about 4 seconds of silence, they hugged! apparently, this man was one of elder sanchez´s investigators in his very first area in managua (remember, he has 22 months now!. The man said that in the past two years he has moved here in chenandega, and also has changed religion, partly because he did not know the mormons were in this city. He had also commented on how much my companion had changed since his first area... wow huh?

anyways all is well here. Hope things are still going well down there! love you all

Hello family! Monday February 28, 2011

hope things are well over there!! things are pretty good here. This has definitley been a hard week, but also a good one. i love chinandega. Its a big city on the north west coast of nicaragua, you probably can see it on a map of nicaragua. Its very beautiful here. It is also one of the wealthier cities in nicaragua. It in not very modern, but definitly cleaner and safer here than in the capital. my area is brand new, i was replacing the missionary that opened the area about a month ago. its built up of three small villages that surround the city of chinendega, it is a huge area and we travel a lot. its about 30-40 minutes of walking between each one. There are not many members because it is new, but i have learned to love that. Most people we talk to dont know anything about our church. I have prayed a lot for the area, and we are hoping to change some things. we got the zone leaders to start looking for a new house in a more central location of the area, and were working on getting permission to ride bikes. The lord has blessed me and taught me so much in the little time i have here here.

The big event that happened here, well maybe not too big but interesting, was we had an earthquake! it was a 5.5 on the rector scale. we were getting ready for bed and our whole house shook. at first i thought it was a really strong wind. My comp kinda panicked. nothing got broke though, just shook our tables and a whole bunch of mangos fell from the tree above us onto our roof.

things are going well with my comp. I am learning to love him. Its been good to start speaking spanish 24/7 again. The hard thing though was he ran out of money about 4 days ago, which was kinda frustrating because he has bought a lot since i have been with him. Iv decided to make a chart for this months money so both me and him can improve our budgeting skills!

Anyways, all is well here. Todays been a good day, we cooked some kind of itailian pasta together as a zone this morning! it was really good and something different from beans and rice.

Hope all is well out there, your always in my prayers!

January 24, 2011

January 24, 2011


Hola mi familia!!

Things are awesome down here. Im glad you liked the video. We were not the ones that put it on internet, we gave it to some members to put it up and then they gave us the links... its good though, our house is actually bigger than the other house my comp said. but we love it. Thats cool amanda was able to translate some of it. I did buy a backpack here, at a small corner store for 11 dollars! haha i thought it was an awesome buy, its pretty cool looking and comfortable for wearing all day. It has already started to rip though but oh well.
(He sent us a link to watch a short video he took with his camera. email me for the link if you would like to see it.  It is a tour of their house)
My new companion is Elder Dokos. He is from kansas city and has been out here for about 9 months. The first couple days I could tell he was kinda bummbed to have been taken out of his zone. but we have gotten together really well. Iv had a good time with him, and together we have been getting to know our area, Our area is huge!! we did a little exploring the second day, just trying new roads and contacting. I thought we had walked at least 5 miles away from our house. We got a map of our area the next day, and we had not even made it halfway through our area!! This week we are gonna take a bus. Its been good though, Iv been extremely blessed with the spirit this week. We have been kept safe from robbers and Iv been able to direct us to places in our area Im not sure If I could have done all by myself.

We also had a crazy experience this week were we went to an area in our zone for interviews, and we were heading back to our house around 5 and some members of the church offered to give us a ride. they said they would take us down to where we could get to a bus route that would take us to our home. so we climbed in the back of the truck. The members ended up taking us the wrong direction! they dropped us off telling us route 116 was in the corner (route 116 takes us back to our area, all the buses go by route numbers) and when we got to the corner, it was a different bus route! We ended up having to ask a lot of people (good opportunitys to share the gospel) and we finially after a series of buses made it back to our house a few hours after!!

By far my favorite experience this week was we had a mission conference with Elder Christofferson last friday. It was very good. It was all in spanish too!! It was very personal too. He personally shook every single of the missionaries hands and spent a good portion of the conference just answering questions. His spanish is extremly good.

Also on friday, our stake had a conference with Elder Jenson in Villa Flor. It was also very good. All the wards took buses down to the stake center to get there. I was amazed at how many sacrificed to make sure they were there for the conference. The conference was packed! We ended up standing for the whole conference because there were no seats, the overflow was full and so was the stage. The funny part is Elder Jenson speaks spanish really really well. We could tell his wife had put a lot of practice into her spanish, but was still learning. Two sentences into her talk, she had Elder Jenson come up and start translating for her!

Anyways things are all good down here. I love it in Nicaragua. Hope things are well back at home!!

January 17

This week has definitely been the craziest week by far. I did not get time to write today, I have been helping my companion pack and running errands all pday. The zone leaders noticed I had not been given time to write my family so they are letting me take a little time right now.. Im really sorry this letter late today but I will try to fit in everything!  (steve and I think he is at the mission home, waiting for his new companion to arrive. then he will go back to the house in Managua)

This week has been good, we had the president and the APs come to our zone for interviews. It went really well, We got to here some good talks and I got to talk to the Aps about how i have been doing here in Nicaragua. My interview with president arredondo went well too. It was good to talk to them, since I have not really talked to them since the first week i got here... It all went well untill while we were taking the bus home, my companion said he is having an emergency exchange!! He did not know when the change will come but he had some things come up in his interview...so we got a call this morning saying that he had to pack his bags and was leaving for a city 3 hours away!
Its been a little stressful for me since I dont really know the area at all, especially all the who is who and where do they leave. The ward mission leader just left for a mission for peru 2 weeks ago also! So this week will be pretty interesting. My companion will arrive here in an hour or so. He is from kansas city and has about 10 months here.

Other than that the big changes this week has been very good. We have worked really hard.I got bite by a dog, he ripped a big whole in my pants, but there was no blood so no risk of rabis. It just scared the heck out of me and even more my companion. i met a missionary from nicaragua about to leave for peru. He only has two shirts and one pair of shoes..remember how i have that one shirt that is way too big for me? Well it is perfectly his size, so i gave it to him.

I also had my first baptism this week, her name was lizbeth. It went well, It is cool to see them come out of the water perfectly clean.

Also this is a really cool story that happened this week.. Every day we pass this street in area. And there always are a few old people that sit on the sidewalk. I always wondered if they were hobos or just liked hanging around them. While we were walking saturday, we had the strong impression to turn around and contact an old man. It was weird cause we both turned around at the same moment. We contacted this man, his name was manuel salvador, probably about 65 years old, white hair, and only 2 teeth. He was pretty receptive, and seemed kinda out of it. We told him if he wanted to come to church we meet the next day at 9, we will be walking down the street around 845 if he wants to walk with us. We did not think much of the contact after. The next day, sunday, we got up eary to bring investigators to church, we had about 5 different people commit to coming... NONE of them "could" come!! and on the way to church walking in dissappointment, we see manuel salvador on the sidewalk, dressed in slacks and a polo, ready for church. We brought him to church and he did really well, talked to a lot of the members without us introducing him. We had to leave after sacrament to give an investigator a blessing, we told him he could go home, he said he wanted to stay for the classes and would see us later! how cool is that? later that day, we walked down that street again... he was there waiting for us. He told us he wanted to show us his family. His wife is dead, and he lives with his daughter and son and their kids. We taught the daughter and salvador the gospel of jesus christ (lesson three) and it went well. We then asked them if they would pray tonight if the things we taught were true. Manuel replied, I already know they are true. The daughter replied I want to do it right now! it was one of the most powerful prayers I can remember. The spirit was so strong. Both manuel and his daughter were in tears. It was one of the first times I had seen an investigator gain a testimony so quickly, right infront of my eyes. They both committed to baptism in two weeks!!

things are well, I love you guys!

January 10

HELLO EVERYONE!

thanks for your letters and everything. Sounds like you guys are doing well. Mom, if you get a chance tell matt goodluck from me.... yeah I will need contact solution soon... And some more floss for sure! Oh and definitely more sweedish fish!!

This week has been a little frustrating at times but also very good. We had a baptism this last saturday but it fell threw the morning of! The girl, her name is lisibeth had something come up for school the day of and could not make it. She will be baptized this next saturday though.. along with 2 other people!! It will be an exciting weekend. 

So it finally came... I had to eat FISH!! We were at a members house for dinner and the mother gave us fish. It actually was not that bad, but I still had to force down most of it....

Its been a crazy week because its been a lot different from other weeks. WE had some missionaires in our zone that have gotten sick or have needed help. So we have spent a lot of time traveling from zone to zone switching companions and everything. Its helped me realize how much I love my area, all the people, investigators, everything. Its also helped me realize how close Iv gotten to the people in my area too. I was only gone for a day here and there and it felt like I had not seen any of our investigators for a month!! One of the days, I got to go on splits with one of the zone leaders. It was pretty good, Iv gotten to become good friends with him, he is from idaho. It was also nice because I could ask him some of the complicated spanish questions I had and he could explain them in english so I could understand better. he has been here for 17 months. He also had me try some weird food from street venders. Like one was a green mango cut up, with salt and vinegar sprinkled over it. I tried my best to act like I liked it... and when he wasnt looking I would throw some of the pieces at the dogs in the streets.

We had a really cool story that happen this Wednesday. There were a lot of blackouts that day... which is really dangerous because you dont want to get caught in the wrong streets during blackouts. The spirit was very strong that day, we always seemed to be in the right place when the blackouts came. Later that day, I had the prompting we should go see one of the investigators we had not seen in a week or so. We decided to give it a try after dinner. While we were walking to her house, her house was about a 15 minute walk, a bus driver stopped and asked if he could take us where we were going. This is extremley rare because the buses here are usually on tight schedules and always have tons of people. This driver must have been moving the bus somewhere. The bus, made the trip only a few minutes. We got to the house of the investigator and the lady immediately told us she did not really wanna talk, she had her own church and she would not be needing to talk to us anymore. But then all of the sudden a blackout came! She did not want two young men wandering home in the dark during a blackout, so she invited us in. This opened up a great opportunity to teach her. We were able to resolve some of her doubts and she still wants to take lessons with us!!

This sunday, I got to talk to a one of the very first members of the church here in nicaragua. He was an old man, about 70 and had been a member for 34 years. He helped construct the first chapel in managua. It was super cool to talk to him.. and it wasnt till halfway through I realized I was talking in spanish pretty comfortable with a native nicaraguan! haha.

We visited a member family and they were watching the jonas brothers tv show. I laughed when I saw it was also in spanish. The girl in the family was able to give me the update on everything that has happened in the show since I left! haha.

I love you all a ton! I hope everything is going well!

Love Elder Estoque