The day starts at 6:30am when my alarm clock goes off... In La Dalia, it is pretty cold, so I try my best enjoy a few more minutes in my bed before I get out. I quickly turn on the lights and play some music, today I chose Christmas favorites, by the mormon tabernacle choir (missionaries listen to christmas music all year long). Then I help get my comp out of bed. The other night, my companion confessed that hes has been struggling getting used to the missionary schedule (he barley has a month!) and asked if i could gently drag him out of bed! To warm up, I usually do excercises. Today, I did some jump roping and basketball on my nerf hoop. After about an hour, I am finally ready to jump in the freezing cold shower, but I have gotten pretty used to it by now. After showing, I write in my journal and eat breakfast: bagles, blueberry jam, and cut up bananas. Then I start studying! Right now, I am studying the old testament. Im reading a book that has notes and explanations of the old testiment as I follow along with my scriptures, taking notes in my notebook. Its actually been pretty interesting. The book helps a lot with the symbolism, who is who, and has a lot of commentary from past apostles.I am just barley finishing Jonah. Im glad i got called to the Nicaragua mission and not the nineveh hebrew speaking mission.
At around 10am, I start companionship study with my companion, which is probably one of my favorite parts of the day... The church recent just began a 12 week training program that all new missionaries have to complete. When I was being trained, they just figured the missionaries learned from working in the field! Usually, we do an activity in preach my gospel or watch a video clip from the preach my gospel dvd set. Today, we studied, "how to begin teaching". It was pretty interesting, I talked about a lot of stuff I learned in marketing. We watched a short clip on our portable dvd player and did some practicing. After finishing up practicing, we review the plans for the day, and then set goals. Say a prayer and get out to the field!
We left a little early today because we had some errands to do . First we paid the electricity bill.. which was 49 cords for the month. Thats like 2 dollars haha. Then we went to a cyber to make invitations for church meetings. The other day we decided that it would be cool to make invitations to give to members to invite all their family members and neighbors. Here, invitations go a long way in such a poor society. We will see how they do.
Then we go eat lunch at Milton and Mary Luz's house. Today was no surprise, rice beans and tortillas. We usually sit and pass with the family a little bit. Sometimes we help them with work around the house. This week, milton has been cutting down trees and using the wood to make a roof for their kitchen area. Right next door to the them lives the branch president. We stopped by his house to plan for noche de hermanamiento, the weekly activity that we do every thursday.
Then we hit the dirt roads and start working! our first thing on the agenda was to search for Kenia and Lionel, a reference that a member had given us. Before anything, I will explain to you that dirrections here are nothing like the states. Here there are no numbers, just points of references. Like the direction for my house would be kaysville utah, davis high school, two blocks south, 1 block east. The direction we had for today was neighborhood san martin, house made out of wood. Its not very specific, but its a family to teach, so we have to hunt it down. After about 15 minutes of searching asking, and contacting people on the way, we finally find the house.... but they are not home! we decide to come back later.
We then decided to start the 20 minute hike over to santa julia. The hike is super beautiful as we cross a huge river and greet some of the feild workers as we pass by them. In santa julia, we visited Zaneta, who her and her husband have a baptismal date for the next week. They are super awesome and we talked about the gift of the holy ghost. We then taught Margarita, who we just barley started teaching. Her and her husband are put in charge of the community of santa julia, are one of the wealthier people in the pueblo, and are pretty excited about the gospel. We taught her about the faith and connected it with we can show faith by going to church. We left the challenge to come to church and she accepted (she did not come, I was disappointed!). We then started to contact some more houses in the small pueblo. Contacting is a blast for me, I love getting to know people. And its even more fun because right now, I usually make my companion do the majority of the talking in the contacts to practice. A little shy at first, he has come a long way and now is tuanis at contacting.
After a couple of hours, we head back to la dalia from santa julia. We usually try to keep it interesting during the long walks and share funny stories. The question for the walk back is what is your biggest fear, my companion said dogs. I shared stories about all the dog problems iv had on the mission. (side note, I got bit by a dog this week again!) As we arrive to la dalia, we stop by kenia and lionel again, but they are still not home!
We finish the night by teaching one of the favorite families, francisco and keyling... We teach them lesson two, and focus on baptism. We ask them how they feel about baptism. they both felt a little uneasy about it, but understood that it was important. We share with them that there is a way to be comforted about God's will, and it is though prayer. We end up deciding to a group prayer in the middle of the room, and ask heavenly father if the 4th of feburary is the date they should be baptised. We all kneel down together and pray. It was an amazing expereince and the spirit was strong.. After the prayer, keyling said she wanted too. Francisco, still kinda unsure, asked if he could have some time to pray personally. I thought it was a great idea, its awesome to see your investigators with the desire to ask personally. We share our testimonies and leave.
On the way back, my companion asked if we could stop by marta, a recent convert that lives on the other side. I thought it was a good idea... as we headed over I started to feel sick to my stomache, and i didnt really have the desire to go over there. It was pretty late at night to. Without thinking much, I told my companion what i was thinking, and we decided to turn around head over for dinner... I felt kinda dumb. I didnt know if i was following the holy ghost or just listening to my body saying its time to call it a day... But on the way back, we were suprised to run into marta and marlone! they were just getting back from visiting their grandmas. They gave us a watermelon as we said goodbye, what a blessing!
We then eat dinner with milton and the family: gallopinto, my favorite! then we go home. say a prayer, plan for tomorrow, and change clothes. Usually by the end of the day i am dead. I quickly make a few phone calls to report numbers and then climb into bed.
So thats my day... sorry, it was like 30 times longer then i planned on it being. dont feel bad if you skipped to the end! I would have too =) i love you!
