Matagalpa – Week 25 – Successes

[Week 19 in Matagalpa, week 7 with Elder Reyes]

Greetings from Nicaragua! I hope that everything is going well and I miss you all! This week was the best week of my mission by far. We did divisions with members every day this week and we ended up having only lessons with members, we ended up having 73 lessons with members this week! Also this Sunday, Matagalpa finally became a stake. The members have been waiting for a stake for about 25 years since the church was established here. And now I’m the oldest missionary in the entire zone of Matagalpa (I’ve been here the longest) So really it’s kind of my stake more than anyone else’s – haha. The rama usually has an attendance of about 95 people but we worked super hard to invite all the members this week and we ended up with more than 160! Plus, we brought nine investigators to the church which I’ve never done before! One of our investigators wanted to pay tithing as we were leaving the church which is basically unheard of. We had to explain to him that he would have to be a member first and make his own baptismal covenant to pay tithing and be a member of the church. But that was awesome, he’s already talking about the church as if he’s already a member which is awesome. He just needs to prepare a little more and get married! So well see if we perform a marriage soon! Our other investigators are doing really well, too and it’s awesome to see them all progressing. Also it’s awesome because we’re super good friends with the members and with our investigators. They’ve been saying that they will talk to president if he tries to change me. They say they won’t allow it. So it’s been great to see that we’ve been having an effect on the people here. Plus the member we’ve been working with is trying to send his mission papers THIS WEEK after helping us every day this week. We’ve really been able to see success this week and we are super grateful for all the experiences we’ve had! It’s been great! Also I almost died this week. I had to jump on a moving bus (my comp was inside and couldn’t get out because it was so full), hold on with only my arms and then I only got one foothold. For 15 minutes. I almost couldn’t hold on the whole time because the Nicas inside the bus were pushing outward and I was outside the doorway. I think this is the reason we have to do exercise every morning. But we ended up all right. So that was my week, I have no pictures but I hope that you all have a good week this week!

-Elder Williams