Matagalpa – Week 17 (Thanksgiving)

Hey everyone! I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving! We had a hurricane hit Nicaragua on Thanksgiving (don’t worry it only rained a tiny bit were I’m at but it makes for a good story). On Wednesday morning we had to go to the store and buy 2 weeks’ worth of water and one week of food and they’re going to reimburse us so basically the hurricane gave us an extra 15 dollars this month! I think carrying my 4 gallons of water (at once) up the gigantic mountain we live on was much more potentially dangerous than the huracán turned out to be. I thought my arms were gonna fall off. Also I haven’t been feeling the recent earthquakes but other people have been. Our lesson today in Principios del Evangelio was “The Signs of the Segunda Coming of Jesucristo” so that was very appropriate. So yeah, this week has been interesting.

There was a Noche de Talentos this week and since almost no one prepared anything I sang “Creo en Cristo” with my companion, then I blew some Nica minds with my magic tricks, and finally I introduced all the Nicas to some acoustic Metallica on my guitar. So, that was cool. The next night there was a noche de hermanamiento in a menos activos home in Sabadel which is the most distant and poor barrio of our area. We took two investigators (Crecencia, Modesta, and their grandson) to the actividad. However, it started raining as we were walking there. Plus, they changed where the actividad was going to be so we were lost in the rain with our two investigators. Eventually two 10-year-old kids found us wandering around the barrio in the rain. Apparently they had been sent out to find us and so they led us back to the house (a sheet metal shack like most of the other houses there) and there was about 25 people stuffed in there. Our investigators were soaked and looked slightly pissed. But we had a good lesson and luckily my prayers were answered because it stopped raining by the time we walked them back to their house. We were stoked that they went because it’s almost impossible to get anyone to actually do anything. We might try to bring them some soda or something to apologize for leading them into the jungle during the rain… But they’re still positive so that’s good! But when we went to bring them to church yesterday they weren’t there so that was very disappointing.

Also, we had an activity as a branch to go prestar servicio in the regional hospital on Saturday. It turned out to be a missionary service project because it was us, the hermanas, and two people from the rama… So that stunk but it was cool to do some service. The hospital was terrifying. Note to my family: If I ever end up in a hospital here, take me home before they kill me. It was just super dirty and crazy. It kinda looked like a zombie map from Call of Duty (I sincerely hope that helps someone picture it). Please enjoy the following lists.

Places I have fallen asleep this week:

• The floor of a random cyber while my companion was sending district numbers
• Standing up on the bus (in front of the open door…)
• The arm on the random guy next to me in the taxi
• And, of course, church (but only briefly, don’t worry)

Stupid things I’ve heard this week:

• “You want to see how I know that were all imperfect? Look at your fingers, see how they’re all different sizes. That’s just an example of why Jesus was the only perfect person on the Earth”
• “No he can’t hear your message because he’s sick” Oh okay, but he can’t just listen? He’s right there can we just talk to him real quick? “No We shouldn’t just listen to the word of God when were sick and need something, we should listen all the time. So, he shouldn’t listen because he’s sick.”
• “If I put on my baseball cap backwards, that signifies that God and Jesus Christ don’t exist for me”
• “Someone who is tapping their foot to music is honoring the devil.”

Anyway, were still working with some investigators but, as always, it’s been difficult to get people to actually follow through with their commitments. I hope everyone is doing well and is having a good holiday season. I’m missing you guys!

A few pictures from this past week: