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