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!