Hey everyone, sorry it’s been so long since I have sent a big group email out! Its difficult to do with limited time and everything so I’m sure you’ll forgive me.

We had an awesome week! Firstly, we had our final zone meeting and got to hear the final testimony of Elder Martinez, a great guy from Mexico who replaced me when I left Ruben Dario. He also makes and sews ties so I have quite a few new “tuanis” skinny ties. We also made a pyramid of elders so I’ll try to send that photo after it uploads. We had interviews with president this week too so that was cool. We had to go to Waspan (the main office) which was a little different; normally they come to us, but it wasn’t too far so we managed. We also had a baptism this week! Her name is Arlen and she had been going to church for about 6 months continuously but she stopped going about a year ago. Elder Cuesta and I found her through a member about 2 or 3 months ago and we started teaching her. She came to church that first Sunday but after that it was harder to get her to come because of work and other problems. But she started coming recently with Elder Alvarenga and me. We had been talking about baptism for a while but nothing had ever been set in stone. It’s a little hard for her to pay attention for a long time which makes it a little more difficult to teach her (shes about 24). So we helped her get the baptismal interview set up and she passed and we challenged her to do it that next Saturday and she agreed! But she studies all Saturday and wouldn’t get back from Managua until 6 that night. Plus our capilla doesnt even have a baptismal font so we didn’t really know what to do. We decided to do the baptism in Managua so that she could get there earlier and so that her sister and nephew could come. So that was the plan. Then Saturday we couldn’t find baptismal clothes so I had to go to the market and buy a white skirt for her. The thing is that the Tipitapa market is INSANE and i was pretty much accosted by the crazy shop keeping ladies. In fact to walk the Tipitapa market as a white missionary is called “running the gauntlet”. So yeah lots of grabbing and people saying “mi amor, mi amor”. I ended up getting ripped off on the skirt but I wanted to get out of there as quick as possible. So yeah, we get to the chapel with one minute to spare and started waiting for her. and waiting and waiting. She has no phone and I wasn’t present when they had fixed the time and place of the baptism because I was in divisiones doing a baptismal interview. So I started losing hope pretty fast after an hour and a half. But we said a couple of prayers and about five minutes before we had decided we would go, she showed up!! So we did the baptism and we got a lot of local support from the young women of that ward because no one from our branch could make it. So that was really nice!  Oh yeah I forgot to mention that I was doing all this on an hour of sleep because I was stomach sick the night before. So yeah a very stressful day but it paid off! So that’s the cool story of the week and it’s so long to make up for a lack of other emails.

The rest of the week was filled with saying goodbye to my converts, investigators and the members, Hermana Scarleth (the wife of pres. of the rama) took us to Pollo Estrella and bought us dinner in case one of us was going to leave. And yesterday I found out that I was being changed to León, a city on the west side of Nicaragua. My area is called Malpaísillo and it’s a little village an hour outside of Leon. It’s close to Cerro Negro, the newest volcano in Central America! You can go there and sandboard down the face of the mountain/volcano (unless you’re missionaries, of course…) But yeah that’s cool.  That’s pretty much all the village is known for. There’s about 20 members here and they meet in one of their houses to have church so that should be interesting. It’s not even a branch, its a “nucleo.”  My new comp is Elder Ramos and he was also trained by Elder Alofipo, so we’re brothers! It seems like it should definitely be an interesting experience here. Here’s hoping everything goes well!

Elder Williams

Sorry I’m writing so late, we went to multicentro today to look for the camera and we had some travel problems and got back super late! But I’ll try responding to all your questions!

Okay well were still visiting Sara and her family but no immediate success with the kids or the dad. Well try to get them all to come to church this next Sunday. I got the package and it was awesome! I gave a rubiks cube to my comp who loves it and I ate the whole bag of poore brothers chips, killing my mouth in the process! But yeah the package got here Sept 22. The mission literally didn’t get mail for a month… It hasn’t been raining much so I haven’t fixed the ceiling or anything. My health is better, the rash has gone away and my feet are better, also. No migraines too bad this week. When I’m proselyting I don’t need sunscreen, only on p-days! No hiking or anything today, so that’s good

Thanks for the spiritual thought mom! I liked it. I miss you so much! I cant wait to be with you all again. Love you tons.

Love you all and miss ya!

Cayman

My Package!

Here are some fotos from Saras baptism​​ this Saturday! Her kids weren’t able to be baptized because of opposition from the dad but were going to continue working with them and the father as well! It was definitely a good week. Still waiting on the photos from today and our pday activity so I may send out some more later

Elder Williams

Cayman sent another audio recording this week, and we haven’t yet transcribed it (and might not ever get to it), but he celebrated his birthday this past week.  He sent a note saying he’s no longer a teenager, but he can’t tell a difference.   Also, someone took a video of the celebration that some other Elders helped him with.  Not sure if this is a Central America thing, or a mission thing…but here you go.

Also, here is a picture from another celebration:

Hey everyone, I just wanted to send out a update. I stayed here in Tipitapa as the District Leader so that was tranquilo. Today I got my new comp, his name is Elder Alvarenga and he’s from Costa Rica.  He’s the same age as my son so he only has 3 months less than I do. I met him a couple hours ago but he seems to be a pretty cool guy! It should be fun! Also my dad Alofipo is here in Tipitapa in my district so that’s awesome, its gonna be great seeing him. My old comp, Cuesta, is also still in the district in San Benito, super cerca, so that’s cool as well! We had 7 people in church this last Sunday, Sara and her family came and she also brought her mother in law and it was really great! I’m also excited for my birthday tomorrow, hopefully I’ll be able to pass it well with a birthday lunch with some of my friends here in the district or something like that! But yeah that’s the update for this week, super excited for a new change here in Tipitapa! Hope everyone is doing great at home, miss you!

Elder Williams

[Pictures I found from the previous change that I hadn’t posted]

Hey guys, sorry I didn’t write yesterday, we were in the hospital because my comp has been having a hurt back. It turned out to be nothing but they gave him some medicine so it shouldn’t hurt too much. We also went to the south mission and to the nicest mall in Nicaragua and had dinner! All without breaking the rules because the mission nurse took us there after the hospital. But yeah, we never had any time to write so I’m just sending a quick message right now to let you all know that I’m fine and that I’m doing well! I also cut my foot yesterday on some glass during a water balloon fight as a zone and it bled everywhere! Its pretty much already healed but I left bloody footprints all over the church. Umm this week was pretty good, the change is already coming to an end and I’m super sad for that because I have a ton of friends here in the zone and it has been super fun! But we’ll see what happens. We found even more people in the family of Sara that listen to us and want to go to church! So that was awesome, however for some reason they didn’t come with us this week so we have to go see what happened. We left with the branch president twice last week to do visits and that was awesome because we were able to introduce him to some of our investigators and we also met some new menos activos that we didn’t know before. I’m still kind of sick, coughing my lungs out. Not really sure why, but I’ve been sick this whole change. I think it may have something to do with the super awful house and all the dust in it. Umm, I cant really remember much else of what happened. I’m still doing a ton of divisions. 2 elders in my district celebrated a year in the mission so we went and had lunch with them and also burned a shirt! But yeah, a pretty normal week. Enjoying my time here, a little nervous about the upcoming changes because our zone is awesome! But yeah, I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Williams

Go Devils!

Water Fight where I cut my foot

Hey guys, hope everyone is doing great! This first week here in my area was interesting. First of all, the area is pretty cool; it has all the cool parts of Tipitapa, including beach on the huge lake by Managua. (I haven’t been yet but eventually!) We had about 2 normal days of work in our area. Thursday we had a zone meeting and it was fun getting to know some of the new people (2 of which came with me to the mission, Elder Charette, who was in my first area, and Hermana Lord who came with me and is almost dying! only 3 changes left! Crazy!) I met a recent convert named Susana who is super cool and we are working with the rest of her family so that they can get baptized soon! Also we are working with a woman named Maria Barrios who is the mom of three girls who are members, and we’re hoping that we can baptize her this week. The zone right now is doing pretty well and we’re trying to beat the record of baptisms in a month. But we definitely have to work hard and see some miracles to be able to do it. I was able to do the baptism of Nahomi last Saturday and it was awesome! I had literally worked with her for ALL of my time in Ruben Dario! Gigi was also baptized but by her member friend named Norlan. Jorsen never showed up to his baptismal interview and just didn’t do it so that was a bummer but definitely not uncommon here in Nicaragua. On Friday I went to San Benito and did some baptismal interviews with Elder Perry one of my good friends from when I was born In Matagalpa; we were in our training together! So that was awesome. Unfortunately the next day I got pink eye bad. I’ve heard there was some kind of epidemic and that there are like four departments of Nicaragua that have it everywhere. I got it from the president of the branch and his family, so I’m pretty miserable right now… I look like a zombie and all the Nicas have been very willing to tell me so. I went and bought some sort of eye cream that I literally have to just rub right onto my eye, haha, so that’s fun. But yeah I still need to get more used to my area but it looks like I’ll be running around for a while in different areas doing baptismal interviews.  Also I officially know every area in the zone. So that’s cool I guess, doesn’t happen to everyone! But yeah, that’s basically everything that I can think of that happened this week! Having church start at 10 is fantastic because before it was 8 and we were waking up at 0530… Here’s hoping for success in the zone and that well be able to baptize this week and that Jorsen can do it this week over there in Ruben Dario too! I think Ill try sending photos separate.

Elder Williams

Nahomi and Gigi baptism

Nahomi and Gigi baptism

Nahomi and Gigi baptism

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Pink Eye!

Elder Cuestas and the district

Elder Cuestas

Sunset

Sunset

Sunset

Hey everyone, hope everything is going well! This week was pretty interesting, we were running all over the place doing baptismal interviews really far from our area, Ciudadela and Loma Verde. Both nights we had to stay there with the missionaries because there were no more buses. It was really fun though getting to spend some time with Elder Johnson and the Zls. We even played a game of risk before we all slept so that was awesome (especially because I won). I was going to make a recording but I didn’t have time last night because I was packing… We had some really weird transfers today. Basically I got taken out of Ruben Dario (my awesome area where I’m still decently new) and moved to Tipitapa which is within the same zone with mostly the same people but now I am the DL of the other district (which stinks, I love my old district!) I am no longer in the city of Managua, I’m about 40 minutes to the north by the huge lake. My area is called La Bocana and it’s one of two areas in the town of Tipitapa, the land of musas. My companero is Elder Cuestas. He is more or less new here, He just finished 6 months in the mission and he is from the Dominican Republic. He was here last change but I don’t really know him that well so I hope it goes well… I’m very disappointed in being taken out of my old area, though.  This Saturday we are going to have 2 or 3 baptisms: Gigi, Jorsen, and Nahomi. I already have permission from my Zls to go back for the baptisms because two of them said that they only wanted me to do it. So my old area of Ruben Dario is going to keep throwing fire this week! Here we apparently don’t have a ton of possibilities for baptism soon. This district always does worse than my other one and the areas here are really difficult (Poor areas, not very developed, bad houses, mud EVERYWHERE, weak branches of the church, etc.) So yeah, I’m trying to be excited for some new experiences but also feeling pretty sad that I couldn’t stay in my awesome old area and district. I would share pictures but my camera is packed somewhere so I’ll have to do it later.  But yeah, that was basically my week. Today I already fell knee deep into mud so it might take me a while to adjust to my new area but I hope it goes well! Miss you all and I hope that you have a great week,

Elder Cayman Williams

[Including some pictures from last week]

[Update with pictures from this week sent later]

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Hey guys! So this was a pretty great week! We baptized James, the 12 year old son of two members but who were inactive before we met them. We had a pretty normal week, normal appointments and everything. We’ve been having so much success that we’ve been focusing on the same people for most of this change and now they’re all getting baptized! So soon well have no one else, so one of our focuses this week will be contacting (which I still don’t like doing much, we really have success almost exclusively with references…) But we’re trying to baptize Nahomi this week and then the week after Gigi! Pretty much after that the only possibility well have will be Jorsen, the husband of a member. But we’re hoping to baptize 5 or 6 weeks in a row! We’re throwing fire! (echando fuegaso) It’s been really fun. We’ve heard that there aren’t going to be a ton of changes so maybe well get to stay together for another change! (Too bad we’re running out of investigators!) But I’ve been loving it. This has been the best change by far and we get along great. I’m actually starting to feel more normal here in Nicaragua and thinking of going home is kinda weird (just a little). Yesterday we went to talk to Gigi who hasn’t accepted our multiple invitations to be baptized and she literally said “I would like to inform you guys that I will get baptized on the 19th of August.” It was pretty great, she put her own fecha! And we are hoping and praying that Nahomi can do it this week before the changes!

I got the package today! Thanks so much, I loved it, the new pants and ties are “dope” as me and my comp have started saying because of the other english speakers in our zone. I opened the ties in our district activity today and everyone was very impressed. One other missionary broke down and started to try to buy it for 30 bucks! But he’s not sure if he wants to do it now…haha. But yeah I love getting packages, these pants are amazingly light and less sweaty!

Omar is 11ish (he doesn’t exist to the government and doesn’t know what year he was born in) Love hearing from you guys! Love you guys, hope you have a great week!

Cayman

[NOTE FROM MOM AND DAD]

Cayman celebrated his hump day this past week (August 3rd was one year on the mission).  Here are a few pictures from the ritual of burning a shirt.  I’m happy to report that they are both okay, and that their smoke detector works.

Hump day

Hump day

Hump day

Hump day

More pictures from Cayman:

Again, Cayman sent an audio recording, but this one was very long and detailed, and he sent it to a large group of people, so we felt okay sharing here.  There are a few more pics as well!

Jason ready for church

Jason at his baptism

Multizona

Multizona

Multizona

Multizona

Multizona

Multizona

Multizona

Jason’s baptism

Another week where Cayman sent an audio recording that we may or may not get time to transcribe.  A few more pics included, though.  Cayman is doing great.

Cayman’s re-soled shoes.

Hanging with the Elders

Party Time

Puppy Time

This week we only received an audio recording from Cayman.  We would love to transcribe them, but don’t know if we’ll ever get to it.

Here are a couple of pictures, though:

We only got a brief email from Cayman this week.  Here’s what he said,

“I didn’t have time to make a recording because of changes (transfers). I have a new comp, he is Elder Davidson from Colorado. I have another chele!  It’s ridiculous. I’m now known in the mission as the guy that only has white comps. President must want to kill my Spanish.  More later!

Hey Guys!

Monday 6/19

Some Elders from another area came to our area to go to the store, & chill.  The other Elders don’t have any stores in their area, so they came to our area to get money out of their accounts and shop.  We bought a dozen donuts and 4 liters of chocolate milk and went to a member’s home to watch a church movie.  So, it was a good p-day!

Tuesday 6/20

We had a district meeting in the morning and then I went on divisions in Loma Verde (which is North from Managua, near Tipitapa) with Elder Hughes from CA.  We met a lot of their investigators that are preparing to be baptized.  I did a baptism interview for an 8 year old boy.  He was awesome!  He knew everything!  The missionaries didn’t realize it, but we came to find out, that the little boy’s mother is a member.  I’m not sure my interview is valid anymore since the Branch President should have interviewed him.  It was a good day.  I performed a bunch of magic tricks and the people enjoyed those.  We met with an 18 year old active girl who helps the missionaries out a bunch.  She said she doesn’t think “I’m gringo because I understand too much”.  She was impressed with my ability to make puns in Spanish.

Wednesday 6/21

We focused on getting permission for Adrianna to be baptized.  We went by her house, but she wasn’t home.  So, we stopped by the home of a reference that a member had given us when I first got to this area.  We’ve only met with her once and she wasn’t home this time either.  We are having a hard time connecting with her.  We also visited with this huge family & we really want them to go to church.  Every time we are passing by, there’s always tons of different things going on in their home: blasting music, playing games, or their playing football & soccer outside.  It makes it hard to have a quality visit with them.  They keep saying they’ll go to church, but they have yet to follow through.  After that, we had  Brian (the 13 yr. old son of the 2^nd Counselor in the Bishopric) come with us to meet with Jason ( our investigator who was able to shake Elder Renlund’s hand a few weeks back).  Brian is awesome!  He’s always joking around with us.  Jason is trying to overcome some word of wisdom problems.  Brian is a leader in the Young Men’s Program so he came along to invite Jason to some YM’s activities.  Then, we went by to try to teach Gigi (she’s the reference from Norland who has gone to church twice and attended institute once with Norland).  Unfortunately, she wasn’t there either.  She always gets home really late.  We passed by Naomi’s (attended church 4-5 times, & a baptism).  She is progressing a little slower but she does fulfill her commitments and is reading the Book of Mormon.  We stopped by Adrianna’s again, but we missed them again.

Thursday 6/22

Our tentative baptismal date for Adrianna was Friday, so Thursday was the last day we could get permission & plan the baptism.  We talked to Adrianna for awhile & she was really positive.  Then, her mom came out and we showed her the baptismal form.  She got really mad and kept saying “No!” she would not give her permission for Adrianna to be baptized.  So, we started thinking this isn’t going to happen, but right before we were going to leave, her mom randomly agreed to sign the form.  We have no idea why she changed her mind!  That night we visited Jason and Naomi again to invite them to the baptism the next day.

Friday 6/23

The baptism was scheduled for 7:00p.m.  We went on divisions at 5:30 trying to round up some member support & asking them to invite people to the baptism.  We went to get Jason for the baptism and he wasn’t there!  He had promised us he would be there the day before.  We were pretty frustrated!  We waited and looked for him for about 10 min.  As we were leaving, we heard a shout from behind us & it was Jason.  So, he came with us to the church even though he was late.  When we got to the church, we realized we didn’t have a second witness.  So, we had to call Bishop to come be a witness, but it took him an hour to get there.  So, we weren’t able to start the service until after 8:00p.m.  The service was awesome!  Adrianna started crying before she entered the font and we could tell that she was really feeling the spirit.  She was really thankful to Hermana Concepcion (Coni for short) for introducing her to the gospel.  As we were leaving, Jason told us he really felt the spirit and asked us, “Did you feel that too?”  He enjoyed the service and wants to prepare to be baptized as well.  That was awesome!

Saturday 6/24

Saturday we were just doing our normal visits and we got a call from the Bishop asking us to come down to the church right away because he needed our help with something.  We thought, “Oh Boy!  What does he need?”.  When we got there, the Primary was having a Talent Show.  He had heard that I could do magic tricks.  So, he wanted me to perform some magic tricks for the kids.  We got ice cream afterwards, so that was nice.  Good day!

Sunday 6/25

Adrianna got confirmed which was awesome!  Hermana Coni’s (she’s the one who introduced Adrianna to the gospel and has been fellowshipping her) family really likes the missionaries.  She’s a recent convert.  Her husband isn’t a member and we don’t see him much since he’s only home on the weekends.  Her niece, Kayleen (15), her son Reuben (14), & Ronnie (10) have all been baptized because of her.  We’ve been teaching Adrianna in their home.  Now, her other son, Michael & his wife Wendy are investigating the church as well.  They want to get married so that he can be baptized.  Her daughter, Evelyn, has already been married so she can be baptized.  Her spouse came to church this week!  We are hoping to be able to teach him too so they can prepare to go to the temple!  Naomi came to church again which is awesome, we just need to help her strengthen her testimony!  After visiting with Naomi and her mom for bit, we ate lunch with the Bonia family.  Then, we went to Coni’s house and spent time teaching Michael, Wendy, & Evelyn and playing games.

MISC.

I got a mini CLUE game!  The Nica’s have a hard time understanding that game though.

Monday 6/26

We were able to go to the Distribution Center and stock up on new church movies, & Preach my Gospel.  We went to Burger King and I ate an insane amount of food!  I ate 4 hamburgers, large French fries, a large drink and an apple pie!

We had a really great week!  We had a lot of fun!  The baptism was awesome!  This is our last p-day before transfers.  The district is really doing well, we had 8 baptisms this week!  Miss you guys!  Have a great week!

Love, Cayman

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

MONDAY

I wandered around trying to get my camera fixed, but nobody could fix it.  They think it must be the lens and they don’t have the parts to fix it.  So, I’m bummed about that.  I guess I’ll have to send it home to get it fixed.  So, I don’t have any pictures

TUESDAY

We had normal studies, but we were both really sick to our stomachs.  My comp had a cold on top of that!  We were dying!  We tried to do our visits, but we were just too sick.  So, we went to a recent convert’s house.  His name is Harry and he’s 22.  So, we talked to him.  We got to watch Freetown (a movie about some missionaries in Africa) with him.  So, that was pretty cool.  We made a ward directory and updated our area book too.  We couldn’t do much because we were so sick!

We visited the Majilla family again.  Jason is really cool.  He’s trying to overcome his addictions.  He really does have a desire to be baptized.  His younger sister, Rachel doesn’t have as much of a desire.  She hasn’t made it to church yet.  Daisy is always working and won’t commit to going to church.  She used to live in the U.S. though, so she likes practicing her English on us.

We picked up our laundry from the lady we pay to wash our clothes by hand.  We just don’t have time to do it.

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday, I directed our District Meeting in the morning.  We all talked about the people we are teaching.  We finished really early, about 10:30 and the meeting is scheduled to last until noon.  So, we played games.  Then, I did divisions with Elder Rodriquez who was with me in Matagalpa.  He & Elder Hughes are my Zone Leaders here.  They are both really nice and loving and they don’t focus just on the numbers. So, that is super cool.  (Until this transfer, Cayman has struggled with his zone leaders because they seemed to focus too much on the numbers and are very critical of the missionaries). Elder Hughes is a surfer from CA, so we talked a bit about surfing.  So, that was awesome!  They are both really good friends of mine.  I went with Elder Rodriquez to Loma Verde, a little suburb of Tipitapa.  We traveled there to do two baptismal interviews.  One of them was a 22 year old awkward kid who was very doubtful.  He didn’t seem to know what he believes.  The other one was named Jefferson.  He’s like 20 years old, but he’s a psychologist who thinks he knows everything.  Throughout the entire interview he was commenting on my body language & what it was telling him about me.  It was interesting!  It was really hard to get through the interview because he wouldn’t focus.  Rodriquez treated me to a fast food chicken.  This restaurant had a play place & everything!  It was really nice of him!  The fast food restaurants here are sit down & they have waiters to take your order.

THURSDAY

The next day, we got up super early to get back to my area for a multi-zone conference.  My comp was super sick; red eyes, fever, coughing the whole time.  The conference lasted a long time!  We had some good talks & got some Pizza Hut.  That was awesome!  We found out that Pizza Hut will deliver to us for free!  So, when I have some money, I’m definitely doing that!  We finished up the multi-zone at 4:00.  I had 30 min. to go home, shower, and go back out again on divisions & do more interviews.  I interviewed a guy named Javier who is about 55.  He was really cool!  He knew a lot and really wanted to get baptized.  Then, I interviewed a girl named Anna who is like 20.  She’s only known the missionaries for 2 weeks, but she’s been to church twice and she’s been to two baptisms.  So, that went really well!  There are a lot of members there that are helping out in this small area!

FRIDAY

We woke up early, had breakfast, and did another interview with a guy named Kenneth.  That went really well.  We stayed there for lunch and then ended divisions and came back to my area finally.  Our missionary funds were disbursed that day.  In Spanish, we say, “the money fell that day.”

ADRIANNA

We were going to baptize Adrianna this week.  She’s 14 and been to church four times!  Half of those times, she’s come without us stopping by to get her!  We’ve been teaching the whole family for awhile & they go to Family Home Evenings & activities like that.  So, we didn’t think it was going to be a problem for her to be baptized.  She really wants to be baptized, but her mom won’t let her.  She doesn’t really have a reason.  She tells us that if Adrianna really wants to be baptized, she can, but whenever Adrianna says she wants to be baptized, she hits her & punishes her.  So, that’s been difficult.  Adrianna was really sad.  She sincerely wants to be baptized.  We are planning to visit her & her mom this Wed. with the Bishop.  Hopefully, her mom’s heart will be softened and she’ll allow her to be baptized.  We’ll be prepared “to throw some fire” (as they say in the mission).  We just need to talk to her mom and see what her hang up is.  We’re hoping for a miracle!  At the end of divisions, we fasted that she would be able to receive permission to be baptized.

NAOMI & PATRICIA Friday night we had a FHE with two of our investigators, Naomi & her mom, Patricia.  There are a lot of families that live in their house that we’ve taught, but Naomi & Patricia seem to be the most interested.  Naomi has been to church twice.  They were going to go to the conference, but the invitations led them to the wrong place and they couldn’t find the chapel.  So, that stunk!  We taught them how to make crepes and for the first time ever on my mission, we had strawberries (which are super expensive in Nicaragua) to go on our crepes!  Afterwards, we showed them some conference talks.  We had downloaded the talks on a memory card so we were able to stick it in one of their phones and show it to them.  It’s difficult to share videos here because they don’t have TVs that can read the memory cards, and they don’t have wifi.   We shared Elder Costa’s talk that contained some advice for investigators and Pres. Monson’s talk about the Book of Mormon.  They liked it and had a lot of questions!  Naomi has read like 16 chapters of 1^st Nephi in the Book of Mormon & she started telling us all about Nephi!  It was great!

SATURDAY

We had our “white afternoon” where the whole Stake had baptisms at our chapel, which is also the mission office.  So, we have some nice perks, like air conditioning, there!  There were 7 baptisms as a zone, 4 from my district.  So that was awesome!  We had 13 investigators preparing for baptism this week, but a lot of them were unable to get permission, and things just didn’t pan out.  So, it wasn’t as successful as we had hoped, but it was still good!  Naomi & Patricia came to the baptism and asked a lot of questions and we were able to teach them throughout.  We’re really hoping they will continue to pray and read their scriptures so they can progress towards baptism.  Right now they are the best investigators that we have because they are following through on their commitments.  In fact, Naomi has met all the attendance requirements for baptism.  Now, we just need to help her understand the importance of the gospel and the restoration.

BAPTISM MISHAP

After we had filled up the font and we had begun the baptismal service in the Chapel, a crazy guy came into the church.  He talked to some of the missionaries.  I’m not sure if he was drunk or just insane.  He found the font full of water, got naked and started to bathe in the font!  So, when we went in there to perform the baptisms this guy was in there bathing!  The Stake President had to pull him out and help him to get dressed.  He hung around for the baptismal service and talked to my Mission President and his wife afterwards for like 15 min.  It was hilarious!  That gives you a pretty good idea of what Nicaragua is like!  We didn’t tell any of the people who got baptized because we didn’t want them to know they were being baptized in some crazy guy’s bath water!

Other than that, it was a pretty normal week!  It was a busy week with all the divisions.  Between being sick and divisions, I’m completely wiped out!  I’m still having problems with my eyes.  Being diagnosed over the phone, is probably not the most accurate way to diagnose someone!

SUNDAY

We couldn’t get anyone to go to church with us this week.  We were going by people’s houses, calling them on the phone, etc. but nobody would come!  Norland brought a friend who rents a room in the house where he lives to church though!  This is actually her second time coming to church!  We are planning to start teaching her soon!  After church we stopped by some of our investigators homes…

MICHAEL & WENDY

Getting married July 22^nd!  We’re not paying for this wedding.  So, that’s good!  They haven’t committed to being baptized yet, but we’re hoping they’ll get baptized a week or so after the wedding.  They’ve been coming to church whenever they can.  They are both going to school and study some Sundays.  Michael’s mom is a recent convert and she’s really awesome.  We’ve done a lot of Family Home Evenings at their house.  They are always down to play games & feed us!  Their kids Ronnie (13) & Rueben (16) are really cool!  They just got a new Playstation, which is unheard of here!

THEORY ON NICARAGUAN EXCUSES

There are two excuses and they work any time you want them to.  If it’s not raining, you say, “you have to do the wash because you have to hang them out to dry before it starts raining.”  If it’s raining, you just say you don’t want to get wet.  We had several people here say they didn’t come to church today because it was raining.  Today, The Stake President told everyone they have to stop using that as an excuse.  So, that’s a little taste of the Nica excuses that you hear every Sunday as a missionary!

MONDAY: P-DAY PLANS

We’re not going to play soccer with the rest of the zone because its far away and we’re lazy.  Two other missionaries are going to come to our area to chill with us.  We are going to go to La Colonia which is like a big supermarket.  We’re going to buy brownie mix, make them, and take them to a member’s house & play some Spike Ball.  So, that should be fun!

MOSQUITOS I’m getting eaten alive by mosquitos. I got 10 bites today on my elbow during lunch.  My ankles are swollen because I have so many mosquito bites!  I’d show you pictures, but I don’t have a camera!

Hope everything is going great and everyone is having a good summer!  We don’t really have summer, just rainy season.  The rain makes it less hot, but more humid, so you can’t really win.  It’s been pouring today!  Love you!  Sorry that I’ve been too lazy to send out group emails.  It’s just so easy to make recordings to the family.  Bye.

Love, Elder Williams

Hey Guys! This week was pretty good.

TUESDAY
We had interviews with President this week. We did our District Meeting at the same time. That took up most of the day. After we got back, we met with our investigators. Our goal for this week was to get a lot of investigators to the Stake Conference with Elder Renlund. We had about 20 people who said they were going to go and they were pretty positive, but not everyone made it.

WEDNESDAY
We studied in the morning, and went out and did visits in the afternoon. We found this big family to teach. They couldn’t make it to church this week, but said they would come next week. So, hopefully that will work out. We are teaching this family that consists of about 5 families that all live in the same house. So that’s cool! The jefe of the family, (the boss) is named Alejandra. There were so many of them, that split up into two groups to teach them. My comp was teaching one group on one side, & I taught another group on the other side. They seemed pretty positive and understood a lot. So, that was good. I started doing my magic tricks and a swarm of like 20-25 kids started surrounding me, wanting to see the tricks. I made a little girl cry because she thought one of the sponge balls came out of her ear. So, that was interesting.

ZIKA & EYE PROBLEMS:
I’ve been having problems with my eyes still. During the day, stuff is coming out and getting on my contacts & my eyes are hurting a bit. So, I’ve been wearing my glasses, but they are broken, so they don’t close. Today, we went to see if I could get my glasses fixed, but not luck! They said I’d need to get an eye exam and get a new pair of glasses, but they said it would be $100. I don’t have the money! So, I’m using glasses that are a little bit broken. Tonight, I’ll try to super glue them again. So, I’ve been putting in eye drops that I got from the mission nurse. I still don’t know if I really have Zika. It’s not like they have a test for it. I just talked to the mission nurse over the phone and she said it sounded like Zika. I’ve just had lots of goop coming out of my eyes so I’ve been using these eye drops that they gave me on Saturday at the multi-conference.

THURSDAY
Thursday was a pretty normal day. We passed by a lot of people. We talked to more of Naomi’s family. We discovered that a family that is related to her was married so that they could be baptized, but the missionaries that married them, left to go home right afterwards, and they were never baptized. They said they would go to conference, but they didn’t make it. We got a phone number for them, so we’ll keep trying to contact them.

FRIDAY
Friday, was pretty normal also. We’ve been visiting this family “mejilla”, which translated means cheek. Daisy, Rachel (13), & Jason (17) & the mom is, I don’t know, “normal mom age”. They said they were going to come to church on Sunday, but only Jason came. He was able to shake the apostle’s hand, Elder Renlund, as he was leaving the Stake Conference. He really enjoyed that! His friend just died, so he’s been thinking a lot about that. He liked the church a lot & this was his second time at church. He’s trying to prepare for baptism but he needs to stop drinking and smoking.

SATURDAY
Saturday was our multi-mission conference, the North and the South Nicaragua missions combined. I felt pretty cool because we got to take a bus for only $.07. We were on this bus for 1.5 hours. We got dropped off right at the church from directions that the Nicas gave us. It was pretty miraculous because Nicas don’t give very good directions!

SUNDAY
The conference was awesome! I don’t have my notes in front of me, so I can’t tell you exactly what was said, but he shared 3 messages from Pres. Monson. 1. Thank you! 2. As missionaries, we have the right & responsibility to receive revelation as to why we are serving in the mission we are in. So, I’m going to focus on that this week. 3. Our Mission President was called of God! He talked a lot about faith, told some funny stories, and greeted all the missionaries. He’s been to every country in Central America! So, he also saw Carlos (my friend from my first area) in the MTC.
The lady who makes us lunch every day spoke in Conference along with the Stake President, our Mission President, Elder & Sis. Renlund. He had some cool insights on the importance of the sacrament. Attendance was pretty good, about 700 people. We also received an apostolic blessing that the heat and humidity would be lessened for us. That was cool!

MY ZONE
My zone is good! I really like my zone leaders a lot! Our stake is having a “tarte blanca” (a white afternoon) next week where we try to baptize all of our possibilities.

INVESTIGATORS
Naomi & her mother were going to go Conference this week, but the invitations the Stake gave us to hand out gave the wrong directions to the building! So that was frustrating! We had 6 people there though! Michael (the son of a member) & his girlfriend Wendy came to the conference. Michael wants to get baptized, but they need to get married first. So, they are preparing for that next month. Hopefully, I’ll be able be able to baptize them during my 2nd change in this area. They showed up at 8:00 a.m. instead of 2:00. So, that was weird, but they did come back. Apparently, the Conference invitations were very misleading!

STRANGE FOOD
Some investigators served us a whole fish this week. It was still on the bones, so we just had to pick around the bones. So, that was interesting! I also ate a fish eye, which I found out later is a laxative. The next day, we were fed the same thing, only it was a smaller fish and it was dumped in soup.

MISSION RUMORS
I heard that if you get Zika twice, you have to go home because if you get it a third time, you die! (Strongly doubt this is true!)

BAPTISMS
We are hoping to baptize Adrianna this Sat.
That was our week! We definitely have some good people here that we are working with and some fun members. Everything is good! I miss you guys a ton! Hope you have a great week! See ya! Bye!

It’s been a pretty normal week.
MORE AWKWARD MOMENTS
I was kissed again! For some reason, the Nicas like to kiss me! It’s just a greeting here, but the investigator didn’t greet the member or the other missionary that way! That’s the second time in the last few days that has happened in front of this member, Norland. So, now he teases that I’m a big flirt.
MEMBER MISSIONARY
Norland is cool though. He just got back from his mission in Honduras a year ago. He’s from the other side of our mission, the Caribbean side. It’s a crazy place where people get beheaded and missionaries eat turtles, & they speak English & Mosquito. He’s been helping us out a lot.

SICKNESS
I got sick this week. My eyes were leaking mucus and they were red. I also had a fever and body aches. The nurse said I have zika virus that you get from mosquitos. My being sick made it hard to work, but I’m feeling better now.

INVESTIGATORS
We had three investigators in church, which is good for us. Naomi, the same girl that came with us last week, came again. We also had Adrianna and Sandra come this week. Sandra is a babysitter in the house where Norland rents a room. This was her second week at church.

P-DAY
For p-day, I got to listen to the choir practice because my comp is singing in the choir. They are going to being singing this Sat. for a multi-mission conference that Elder Renlund is going to be speaking at. I got to play spikeball with another Elder while my comp was in choir practice. So, that was pretty “bomb”.

1st CAR RIDE OF THE MISSION
For the first time on my mission, a member drove me and my companion from the church to our investigator’s house. It was so crazy because no one has cars here!

MISC.
• This week we had a big meeting with every leader in the mission. It was cool!

• My camera stopped working so I’m pretty mad about that.
• Right now, I’m just enjoying sitting in front of my fan. I can’t even tell you how humid & gross it is here! I have to be careful when I sit down at my desk to study because if I sit the wrong way, I’ll ruin my scriptures from sweating on them.

• The ward is really cool here. I was also able to bear my testimony in the new ward this week.

I hope you guys have a good week. See ya.

Love,
Elder Williams

Hello Friends and Family,

MOTHER’S DAY
It was good talking to my family for Mother’s Day. Tomorrow is Mother’s Day here in Nicaraqua, so I think that means I should be able to call again. Right?

NEW AREA
I liked Somoto a ton, so it was hard to have to leave. I really didn’t want to leave at all. My area is pretty cool though. I’m in the zone called “Las Americas”, on the outskirts of Managua. There are some pretty bad areas though! For example, there’s an area called “Tipitapa” where the girls are very flirty with the missionaries. A ton of missionaries have been sent home from that area for having problems with the law of chastity. The missionaries made t-shirts that say, “I survived Tipitapa!” We had a zone meeting there today and we played some card and board games, and I won every game. (still his competitive self). I just want you to know I’m not getting rusty, I’ll be ready to play all the board games when I get home. My area has Dr. Prepper! I already bought one of those! It also has a lot of fast food restaurants. There is a mall here, Multi Central, and I think it is a nicer mall than the mall back home, Superstition Springs. It’s crazy! We had to go there to get my card to ride the buses. It’s like an electronically charged card & you pay with your card instead of money to ride the buses. My area is so big, that you have to ride 2-3 buses to get from one side to the other. The church that I go to is the church where the mission office is.
INDESCRIBABLE HEAT
Here in Managua it is ridiculously hot! I don’t even know how to explain how hot it is! I know its summer in AZ, but you have air conditioning. You can go swimming. You don’t have the humidity! If I wear my shirt for over an hour it’s “Done”, I won’t be able to wear it until it gets washed. The best part of the day is just sitting in front of the fan. If you are inside of a house without a fan, you just drip sweat! It’s awful!

THE WARD
We had an attendance of 81 people in Sacrament meeting which is cool. So, I didn’t have to run sacrament meeting, teach lessons, & lead music, like I did in Somoto.

AWKWARD MOMENTS
Yesterday, I was kissed by one of my investigators. She’s an investigator we’ve been working with the Senior Missionaries to teach. Here it’s a tradition that when you greet someone who you have a lot of confidence in, or friendship with, you shake their hands or hug them and then kiss them on the cheek. Obviously, as missionaries, we always go for the handshake. But she leaned in & kissed me on the cheek! It was so awkward! It happened right in front of the Senior Missionary, he was just laughing at me!

INVESTIGATORS
We brought 4 investigators to church yesterday. Apparently, that’s really good for this area. We were supposed to have a baptism this week, but she needed one more attendance and she wasn’t able to come this Sunday. So, we’ve had to postpone it. Last Wed. or Thursday we contacted this family and they were super curious and asking lots of questions. We were there for like 45 min. We checked back in with them a few days later and offered to take them to church. Their 17 year old daughter agreed to come. When we went to get her she was all dressed up in her Sunday best and ready to go. She rode the bus to church with us and attended Young Womens. She says she’s really interested and she’s reading the Book of Mormon. So, that was cool. There’s a huge difference between the people in my last two areas and here. The people here are more educated, have better jobs & they live in families, marriage is less of a rarity here.

WORST LESSON EVER
We taught a lesson with the Senior Missionaries. It was pretty much the worst lesson I’ve ever had. We were teaching the Senior Missionaries banker. I could tell that she was feeling overwhelmed by this long formal meeting. The Senior Missionary who was teaching was a little harsh with her, telling her that all her beliefs were wrong. She started crying & it definitely wasn’t because of the spirit. I guess I’m a pretty empathetic person, because I could feel all of her emotions! I could feel everything she was feeling, & I felt so bad for her! I knew he was being too strong with her, but I didn’t know how to stop him. It’s interesting because for about 20 min., I felt a little bit like Ammon, when he could read the thoughts of the King. It was like I knew her thoughts. It was a really spiritual experience. I knew what she was going to say before she said it. I could tell she was not feeling good. She still has some interest in the church, so hopefully, we can turn things around for her. It’s interesting being DL again and the culture of the zone is totally different!

NEW HOUSE
Our house here is pretty nice! It has multiple rooms! It has a rocking chair, a bathroom that’s separate from the rest of the house, and we have real wooden doors, not just curtains! It’s crazy!

Hope everything is going great at home. Miss you! See ya!

Love,
Elder Williams

My new comp and I in are apartment

A shot of our nice apartment

Iguana time

What’s on my shirt?

Hey guys! So I just started my seventh transfer of the mission. One more and I’m halfway! But anyway, I’m pretty disappointed I got taken out of Somoto (where the weather was actually getting pretty decent) and I’ve been sent to Managua. I spent all of the morning traveling from Somoto and I’m finally here but my comp is at the hospital with his old comp so I’m hanging out with some of the other elders for today. I’m also a district leader again so that will be a cool opportunity in a different zone! It really is going to be a huge change from my old area. We had 15 people in church last Sunday in Somoto. Here my area is one of the biggest in Managua (complete with a ton of McDonalds, Subways, Burger Kings and Pizza Huts). In fact, the big central bus station is part of my area, and the airport is part of my district. It’s going to be a huge adjustment. I got sent here alone without a comp and I was waiting in the bus station for the ZLs and within 5 minutes I already had a member trying to get me in trouble for being alone! So that’s definitely different.  I’m also part of a stake here! (A stake that’s going to have an apostolic visit for their stake conference next month!)

But yeah, it was hard to leave Somoto and the success we were having there. We baptized Hermana Azaria this week and she is doing great. For my goodbye, we went and I taught her and the girls how to cook french toast and they loved it! We’ll see if I can send pictures because as of right now the computers are not doing too well. Anyway, I’m doing well, if a little overwhelmed by this change.  It’s definitely going to be way different. It’ll be the closest I’ll get to a stateside mission experience, I think, and trust me…it’s not that close.

Have a great week!

Elder Williams

Some last moments in Somoto

Hey everyone just wanted to give you guys an update from Nicaragua. We finally married Freddy last Saturday! It went well and now they’re on track to get baptized this Saturday! Also we were able to have a birthday cake for one of our investigators that has had a really hard life, she just turned 14! Our investigator, Azaria, that met the prophet in Utah is doing great. We’re gonna try to baptize her this next week! Hope you’re all doing well!

Sorry its been so long, i guess I can get kinda lazy when it comes to writing big group emails. This week was good, with lots of rain and lots of being soaked! Were trying to marry two investigators this week but its gonna come down to us having enough money to pay the lawyer and also working out some situations with the documents. His name is Freddy and he’s been an investigator for forever. We are also trying to baptize an investigator named Jorlyn this week. She’s been to church for about a month and we’re just trying to help her make the decision to be baptized! And of course I have more bug stories. I’m in Nicaragua…

This week I was a little emotionally scarred. I went to drink some water and apparently about ten ants were thirsty too and they were stuffed in the straw of my bottle that filters water. Of course, I didn’t pre-examine my straw and ended up drinking water with ants swarming around in my mouth (a little ironic, don’t you think, because it was my filtering bottle?) So I dropped the bottle and spat the water out all over my desk and the ants went everywhere. I have a lingering fear of my bottle now… So yeah!

I’m going to try to attach some pictures, hope everyone is doing well! (Please note the picture where I tricked the Nica into looking up when I was holding the parrot!)

Elder Williams

Hey guys! This week has been really good actually. I like working with my new companion, he’s pretty chill and nice and we’ve been working well! This week we visited Freddy (the alcoholic) with the president of the branch and the spirit was super strong. Since that day, he hasn’t drank alcohol (for a week!) And we’ve been helping him by buying some medicine and things to help. We might still get him baptized, yet. We found a few new people this week (Alejandro, Elsa, and Jorlyn) that have seemed to be positive! I’m trying to use the phone more so that we don’t have to pass by everyone’s houses on Sunday and so we can communicate better and its helped.! We had 4 investigators in church this week and were hoping to get 7 the next one! We’re also working with a family (Jose Santos) so that they might be able to get married too! The biggest problem I have encountered here in Nicaragua is that no one in the smaller villages ever gets married. So its a big problem, but were working on it! My new comp is Elder Asplund and hes from Washington. Elder Alofipo, my trainer, is here in the other area and we’ve already done some fun stuff together (district breakfasts, we eat lunch together every day, etc) We also have been working with the members a lot (Cristin and Natalia) and that has definitely helped. We even met with a guy from Grenada (Managua) when he was visiting here for a day. It was a good week. We’re probably gonna go to a hill with the branch president where we can see Honduras, so we’ll see if that happens! I miss you guys so much and I can’t wait to see you again soon for my Mother’s day Skype session.  I love so much!

Elder Williams

Hey everyone, I know its been a long time since I sent out a group email. I’m doing well here in Somoto. We’ve been focusing on trying to find new people recently (because the elders before didn’t leave a ton of progressing investigators) and we found a family this week that has been pretty positive. Only 2 went to church with us yesterday but more promised to come next week! Also every time we visit them they feed us beans, rice, fresco, or something along those lines, so they’re awesome!

This week we are finally going to receive some of the documents we’ve been waiting for for about a month and so we should be able to marry Freddy and have his baptism this week! Also I’m still a little sad that I had to leave Matagalpa because my son is baptizing all of my old investigators. He just baptized the family that I spent 3 months trying to get married, this week! So I’m a little bummed I wasn’t there and that I had to leave but we should have a similar experience this week!

Just to show how small the branch is here: Yesterday I gave a talk, passed the sacrament, led the music, and then taught the gospel principles class. The missionaries have to do everything here! But it’s fun too! Unfortunately, yesterday one of our investigators died after falling off a truck. It was really sad for us. He had gone to church and had the desire to be baptized but he just didn’t make enough time to really commit himself to repent and go to church. Definitely showed us how important it is to use every moment that we have.

So yeah that’s about everything! The pictures are from this morning when I made everyone crepes and we played games…. We tried sitting on my hammock but it fell.

Hope everyone has a great week,
Elder Williams

Elder Williams

Hey everyone! This week was awesome because we had a multi-mission conference! Elder Rasband came and spoke to us along with about four area seventies. It was an awesome meeting. They really focused on how the mission really is just preparation for the rest of our lives. Also, they talked about the importance of loving the people! It was the first time I got to greet an apostle! I can testify that I felt the spirit of his calling as a special witness of Christ. Also, he came to meet with the president of Nicaragua which was pretty cool! And the best part, he doesn’t speak Spanish so I got to listen to his talk in English! But yeah, that conference was definitely the highlight of this week.

Only one more week until changes so we’ll see what happens! This week was pretty good. I was busy running around to other areas getting to know the investigators of the missionaries in my district.

Also, I lost two elders from my district to emergency changes, they got sent to fill some holes in other parts of the mission which stinks because we were good friends…But yeah, I hope that everyone is doing well! Miss you all! My fotos aren’t subiendo so I’ll try next week.
Adios!

-Elder Williams

Elder Williams had no time to write a general message this week, but did send his mom and dad a quick note.  The had to wake up at 5 AM this P-day to go to Jinotega, a neighboring city, and climb to the cross with his district.  I said it was fun, but exhausting.  He also had to go to Managua this week for a leader meeting, and also to get his Nica ID the next morning…so he said it’s official, He’s NICA.  He also got eaten alive by mosquitoes while in Managua, so he’s afraid about getting transferred.  He’s always been yummy to mosquitoes.  He also got to do splits with one of the APs while there.

He also acknowledged the worldwide change on mission numbers, focusing more on the people.  He was super happy to hear of those changes.

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

Well we got our cambos and I’m going to stay here again, with the same comp. I’m going to have about 6 months in the mission at the end of this cambio so I’ve been here for a while. I kind of wanted to leave and see other parts of Nicaragua, but I’m sure I’ll leave eventually (so far it seems like I got called to the Nicaragua Guanuca mission). But my son is doing good and this week we brought 7 investigators and 3 menos activos to the church and we’ve never done that before! estamos echando fuego! SO hopefully they continue to progress and everything!
Anyway, have a good week!

Sorry I didn’t write yesterday, the power was out in the city the entire day. I’m just going to share some pictures and some news! We went to the cross yesterday which is pretty much the most famous part of Matagalpa. It was a lot of walking… This week was good. It went by fast but we had the awesome opportunity of baptizing a girl named Kelly. Her dad is a less active member of the church and her mom is evangelica. She’s gone to church for a lot of her life and she was always at the activities with her cousin. But she never really had the interest before to read the Book of Mormon or go to the classes or anything. I first started teaching her about 2 months ago before my companion was here and she just wasn’t really interested, just kind of apathetical. But these last few weeks I saw her completely change and she decided to be baptized in the beginning of the week and we baptized her Saturday. It was super awesome to see her change because I know it definitely wasn’t us, she had been taught by the missionaries for years but we got to see the miracle of her receive a desire and a testimony. It’s definitely helped me because we haven’t seen much success here and it was an awesome experience. Miss you all!

Some Pics from the Week:

Merry Christmas!!  Miss everyone!

Some Pics

My Christmas Package:

Christmas Eve:

Christmas Day (including Christmas Dinner):

Outing on the P-day after Christmas:

Hey sorry I didn’t write on Monday. We had a mission Christmas party in Managua in the Hilton so that was pretty cool. Except we left at 5 in the morning and returned at 9. And then yesterday I had to go back to Managua to go to a reunion de nuevos with my hijo. And we got back at 9 again so in the last few days I’ve been sleeping 4 hours a night or less. So, I’m exhausted. But we watched Captain America Civil War in English for the party thing and it was the best thing ever.. It is now my favorite movie. I don’t think I blinked, I wasn’t about to waste a second of my opportunity to watch a movie.

Pictures from the party:

Elder Williams wasn’t able to write this week due to a lot of mission travel, including a mission Christmas Party, and a conference for his greenie.  We are hoping to hear from him soon.

We are also trying to coordinate when we get to Skype with him on Christmas; we are soooo excited.

Me with Elder Reyes and President and Sister Poncio

Well, this week was interesting. I was wandering around all over the place. I had to go to Managua to pick up my nuevo. His name is Elder Reyes and he’s from El Salvador. We get along well and he’s always cleaning the house, so I can’t complain. Then the next day we had a multizone meeting with Elder Ochoa, the area seventy, so that was cool too! It was just really busy. I ran my first district meeting the next day and then the following day I went to Jinotega to do baptismal interviews for the investigators over there. It’s about an hour and half by bus and it’s the coldest area in the mission so that was nice. Except we missed the last bus by 10 minutes and we had to stay in Jinotega for the night on the floor of the elders’ house. So, that was not fun, but we made it through.

Yesterday we had to go to a branch in San Ramon where only 7 people came. We basically ran the sacrament meeting, and then organized a baptism for an investigator there. It’s not our area though and we weren’t able to go to sacrament of our own ward for the second week in a row. We’re less actives now…

My Hammock!

The highlight of this week was that I bought a hammock for $6 and I’ve been sleeping on it at night overlooking the city of Mataglapa, so, that’s pretty sick. It’s been a pretty good week but were hoping to have more success next week. We weren’t really able to work in our area much this week.

Fun fact: They’ve started selling bottle rockets and other fireworks here and they haven’t stopped going off for weeks. the 24th is going to be insane at midnight.
Anyway, I hope everyone is doing well. I miss you all!

-Elder Williams

The view from my hammock

So yesterday we found out our changes. I knew that Fipo and I were going to be separated because I just finished with my training. I woke up at 3 in the morning to send him to Chinandega, the hottest zone in Nicaragua, and I was definitely sad to see him leave. But as Fipo packed I finally put up some Christmas decorations because I’m staying in my area, Guanuca which I’m excited about because I already know the members here and I’m gonna have Christmas here with them! Unfortunately, I think this change is going to be VERY VERY STRESSFUL. For some reason, I’ve been called as a trainer and tomorrow I receive my greenie in Managua (today I’m companionless so it’s been crazy managing that with the other missionaries) I’m about to have my first hijo (child) And I’m also the new District Leader of my district. So yeah, I’m not very happy about that (I’m going to be receiving a lot of machetes soon). I guess we’ll see how I do with all this new responsibility and stress…

New Experiences of the Week:

• Jumping onto a moving bus, losing my handhold, and almost falling backwards out of said bus.
• I have learned how to operate a top that spins when you flick it away with a string. It sounds easy but it is definitely much harder than it looks.
• Setting up a fake Christmas tree sticker as my tree for Christmas this year

Decorating for Christmas

My Christmas Tree sticker (thanks, Mom)

Anyway, I hope everyone’s doing well and is having a good Christmas season. Enjoy your cold weather because I’m definitely missing being cold. Oh yeah I’ve completed 4 months! Less than 20 more… Adios.

Elder Williams

Fireworks

Fireworks

Puppy!

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:

Hey everyone!

This week has been pretty good. We’ve been doing a lot of contacting this week trying to find some new investigators that are more positive and willing to fulfill their commitments. We have had a little success with some of our newfound investigators (Urbalina, Motesta, Creencia, Epiphania) but we have yet to see if they’ll actually go to church with us. It’s actually harder to get people to come to church than it is to get people to accept a baptismal date… The Nicas just dont like to follow through. Some of my favorite excuses: “No I have to wash my dishes”, “I dont want to get out of my chair”, and, my personal favorite, “I have to sweep the dirt in front of my house”.

Anyway, I’m doing well. We had interviews with the president this past week which was good except we were waiting at the chapel from 7am to 6pm. We found a very gigantic cockroach above my bed which was awful. Our cool experience of the week was that I contacted a house where the kids had always yelled out at us for like 3 weeks and we found out that one of the ladies there was already a member but was inactive after the missionaries left (like almost every other matagalpino). But we went there and placed a baptismal date with her sister and her sister’s daughter which was really cool. They’re living in super poor circumstances. We visited one night and we had to use our phone to read the scriptures because they have no lights. Heres hoping that they fulfill their commitments! I’m almost done with my 2nd change in the field and Ive almost hit my 4 month mark! I dont know if I’m gonna change or not but I hope I can stay for Christmas (and then change to an area with a beach!) But we’ll see. Feel free to shoot me an email anytime and I’ll respond when I get the chance! Also send me the names of your favorite uplifitng or church music so that I can check out some new music!

Elder Williams

Look at the package my awesome parents sent

Look at the Spike Ball that came in the package

Typical Breakfast

Some other elders sleeping on each other’s shoulders on the bus…heh heh.

The police uniform

Look at the size of this cockroach

Yikes

So I just had my cumplimes this last week and I now officially have 3 months out. Only 21 months more to go! Anyway this week was pretty interesting.

Sharing Skittles for Halloween. Boo!

Nobody celebrates Halloween here so that kinda stunk. Alofipo and I shared some skittles I found in one of my suitcases so that was cool. We also went out contacting and ran into an insane lady that thought her doll was a real baby, who called us handsome repeatedly and also kept trying to stoke Elder Alofipo’s arm. She was then joined by a drunk guy who thought the doll was crying and who thought that we must lift weights all the time. So it was really weird. And then afterwards, we contacted a gringo who is quite possibly one of the worst people I have ever had the displeasure of meeting. He spoke absolutely no Spanish so we introduced ourselves in English (we’re the missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ) and he then proceeded to insult Christ and God. We were super shocked because he was being really rude and obscene. Fipo asked, “So you don’t believe in Jesus Christ?” and then the guy just started screaming at us. He cussed at us about a hundred times, started cursing Jesus Christ and heavenly father, and then told us that he was going to hurt us. We just walked away laughing at how awful of a person he was and he continued yelling for like 30 seconds even though we were already a block away. It was funny because all the Nicas were looking at him like “What the freak is this gringo going off about?” But yeah, that was a fun time. We then got back to our house and all the lights went off in Mataglapa. It was super sketchy, all you could see were the police lights, hear sirens and ambulances going around. It gets super dangerous when there are absolutely no lights. Our house overlooks all of Mataglapa and it was definitely crazy. Then to top it off, we found out that our new house is the house of a dead police officer. And his things are still in there and everything. So it was a pretty weird Halloween. But we did find a genuine Nicaraguan police hat and uniform and I really want to keep it. I can’t imagine a better souvenir. But I feel like I might get shot for having it or something crazy like that so well see. Maybe I’ll take some pictures and call it good. Also, the Nicas had there presidential elections yesterday and its been kinda intense. We’ve had to return home at 7:30 every night this week because it’s been kinda dangerous. Apparently last elections quite a few people were killed in our area. Last night the elections happened and we could hear people screaming all night, firecrackers, sirens, all sorts of stuff. So yeah its been interesting. Oh yeah, also our zone broke the record for number of baptisms and so the president came on Wednesday and treated us all to lunch at Chile Picante!

Stop, police.

Hola.  I’m doing pretty good. I still feel like I’m never going home so that’s great… I’ve finished my first change so that’s cool but I still have 15 more soooo… I miss you guys! (and the USA!) In general, I’m having a good time, but its super easy to be discouraged and it really is just a ton of work (and speaking in Spanish which is hard). I really miss family and friends and being able to chill and have fun.  But it’s really cool to have these experiences and to live a different lifestyle. It’s super cool to be able to become friends with the people here and see them learn and grow. We’ve already baptized 3 people and they are super awesome. My favorite thing to do is to visit our progressing investigators and the members. I HATE contacting because most of the time the people are pretty rude; we’ve been ignored, called blasphemers, and people have ran away to hide from us… I’m grateful for these experiences but I still really miss home. The US seems like a paradise compared to here and I’m definitely more grateful for what I had, even though it’s hard to give it up.

View of the city from our new balcony

Tarde Blanca, New House, First Transfers

So I just finished my first change (transfer)! I don’t have much time to write but basically I’m staying in my same area with my same trainer. He’s now the District Leader and we’re moving houses next week! Our new house is super nice (the bedroom is bigger than our entire house right now) and it’s cheaper.  Plus it has complementary WiFi so that really helps us (NOT). What it does have is a water tank so that’s a plus.

Hermano Dolores at his baptism

This last week we were able to baptize Hermano Dolores! It was a super awesome experience because it was a tarde blanca and 14 people from across Matagalpa got baptized!

Tarde Blanca – 14 people got baptized in Matagalpa

Also our investigator Hermano Pastor, who is so sick he almost can’t walk without passing out, came all the way to the church (a half mile) for the baptisms AND then for church the next day! He’s preparing to be baptized this week! It’s been going well and I can’t think of any super crazy stories… I did see a man get publicly executed on the TV accompanied by some fun techno music during a lesson so that was extremely disturbing. Nicaraguan news is kinda insane. Anyway, I don’t have anymore time but I’m doing well!

Hope everything is going well for you guys!
Elder Williams

Some more pics:

Dab

Enjoying Pizza

Me and my blue guitar

Yes, Oreo and Banana Pancakes for the win

Matagalpa Missionaries

And finally, here are some pictures of the new place:

Hope everything is going well for you guys!

It’s been a pretty good week. We had a baptism this last Saturday for a girl that we’ve been teaching named Bleysing. It went well except for the fact that the church didn’t have any water and it took the font about an hour and a half to fill up all the way… I conducted the baptism and my companion did the baptism because, in Bleysing’s words “I’ve seen him baptize. I don’t believe that you can do it because i haven’t seen you do it before.” But it was cool having our first actual baptism (the other one was more of the hermanas’ than ours). Bleysing seems to be pretty committed to continuing to go to church (even though it was super hard to get her to start going). This next week we have a baptism planned for the brother of a member here and its super cool because he has been reading the “gospel principles” book and taking notes and everything. He went to Bleysing’s baptism and decided to stay here for a while (even though he normally lives in Guatemala) so that he could prepare for his baptism. Hermano Pastor is still recovering from his disease but hopefully he can come with us to church this week.

We still haven’t found a new house but we’re going to go check one out later today. Mold has now started growing on: my toiletry bag, my companion’s pants, one of my suitcases, and my proselyting bag. Last night I woke up at like 2 because I’m sick and I was met by the sight of a 3 inch long cockroach above me on the ceiling. I did get a guitar and it’s awesome but I forgot to get a picture of it this week… I was going to help out in a musical number for sacrament meeting but it was too difficult to carry it for the 2 hours before church that we go by all of our investigators. So instead Alofipo, my comp, had to go up there and sing with one of the sister missionaries in our area and a member.

Funny stories of the week:
I got cussed at and then bit by a 4 year old kid this week.
I was told 4 times this week that my eyes are “super pretty”. One of the people also said that I have “cat eyes” because they are too colorful… One person also told me that my nails are really nice too.
I ran into a roof of a food cart (everything is too small here) and cut my head a little bit so that wasn’t too fun. I could hear a few nicas laughing at me after I hit my head. It’s not my fault I’m not miniature too.

Nica Phrases:
Oyy prix = Hey Dude
Dele pue = Whatever (and about anything else you want to say)
Que onda = Whats up
Tuani = awesome

That’s about all I can think of. ‘Till next week.
Elder Williams

Before Bleysing’s Baptism

At Subway

Before Bleysing’s Baptism

So this week was pretty good! Again, I don’t have much time but I’ll try to share the biggest things of this week. On Tuesday we had a Reunion de Nuevos in Managua so we had to take a bus at 5 in the morning to get there on time which was awful. Especially because the bus seats are small even for Nicaraguans… My knees couldn’t fit in front of me so I had to lift my feet off the ground. But the reunion was fun and we got Pizza Hut so it was definitely worth it. We had interviews with the President Poncio on Friday at our house. Our house is absolutely tiny and nasty. We’ve gotten used to it but when Hermana Poncio came in to inspect it she couldn’t stay inside for longer than 10 seconds. She ran out of our house plugging her nose, panting, and repeatedly saying no… She was mortified (luckily it wasn’t our fault, we’ve been cleaning it, it’s just nasty) So she has mandated that we look for a new house this week so that’s cool. I also found mold growing on my bag so its probably a good thing that were moving. On Saturday we had divisions and I was the leader in my area with my old companion from the MTC! I don’t have pictures yet (he should send them to me eventually) but it was cool! Except we got absolutely soaked by the rain and my tie actually got so wet that it leaked colors onto my white shirt. So I now have a rainbow dress shirt. I got special permission to buy a guitar from my mission president during my interview so if I have time I might try to get one today!

Crazy experience of the week: Yesterday we walked out of our lunch appointment we found a bolo huddled into a ball on the street and some guy was kicking him in the back repeatedly and screaming at him. But they stopped when we walked by and the bolo was able to stand up and walk away so he wasn’t too hurt. We know he had provoked the guy and his friend but we don’t know what he did…

We found one guy this week who is recovering from a disease (I think he said it was anemia or something like that?) and he’s super awesome. We’ve almost taught him all the topics (because he’s always at home) and he’s super positive. He has a baptismal date already we just have to wait for him to recover. He told us that every morning he’s excited for us to come which was cool! Also the other day I was doing magic tricks at a pulperia (small store thing) and we got a bunch of kids to watch and we invited them all to church so that was cool. One of them even said, “Ustedes son los mejores!”

Lots of rain this week but its been good! Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures this week. Hope all is going well!

Elder Williams

Sorry everyone that I haven’t been sending weekly emails recently. It’s just hard because there’s no time on P-days to get everything done! the first weeks have been good but its definitely been a really difficult adjustment. I’m serving in the Matagalpa zone and my area is a barrio called Guanuca. Its really cool here but it’s insanely different. We’ve had a few run-ins with bolos (drunks) and that’s always interesting. My companion was punched a week before I came to the mission by a bolo… Last week we walked past a bolo stumbling down the street with a knife so that was interesting too. We’ve been working hard to get more investigators (because my trainer and I are opening the area) but it hasn’t been super successful. I’ve had the opportunity to baptize two people already, though! They were for other companionships but it was still a cool experience. General Conference was awesome but it was all in Spanish so I didn’t get as much as possible out of it. It’s been really cool to see the difference that the gospel can make in the lives of the members and investigators here, I know that the gospel can really help people make changes and find true happiness in this life. Hopefully I have more time next week! Hope everything is going well!
Elder Williams

Pictures:

We just received a picture from the mission office, and thought we would post it right away.  This is of Elder Williams and his Companion (trainer), Elder Alofipo, with President and Hermana Poncio (the mission president and his wife).  So great to get the first picture of him in Nicaragua.

Hey mom and dad!
I’m writing this from a “cyber” in Matagalpa. My first area is called Guanuca 2 and it’s in the city of Matagalpa, which is in the mountains so it’s not quite as hot (it’s still super hot, so I really hope I never have to go to Chinadega, which is way more hot). The plane ride was uneventful and we got there at around 8 (but it gets dark at like 6:30 here) and we went and got pizza hut! But then we didn’t get to bed until really late that night and it was quite possibly one of the worst nights of my life. It is so extremely hot and sticky all the time; the only thing that saved me was the fan we had. All the newbies got stuffed into a house with all of the missionaries that were leaving (which also sucked because I’m never going to leave [Bill: this is a reference to the joke discussed in the previous post]). Waking up at 6:30 the next morning was awful. Then we went to a church and got some health training, etc. And then we got our trainers and left to our areas. My trainer is really awesome, his name is Elder Alofipo. We’re both “cheles” so it´s nice that we both speak English. We took a three hour bus ride to Matagalpa and then met with a family last night. However, this area was just opened so we have no contacts, investigators or anything. And my companion has only been here for 5 months so he’s the newest trainer in the mission so we’re kinda figuring it out together. It is so hard to understand people here and it’s been pretty hard so far, especially cause the weather is so awful. Our apartment is the smallest in the whole mission and I’ll send pictures next p-day, but it’s probably like 100 square feet for two people. But we do get water in the mornings so we can have cold showers (not from a bucket). Anyway, I’m doing good and I was supposed to email you to tell you that I got here safe and I haven’t been robbed yet. I have seen some weird things though… Last night when I was teaching a lesson, one of the kids apparently just started peeing outside. Also a lady took a taxi with us and brought a cat in a box who just kept meowing the whole time…
Love you so much and I miss you guys so much (and I also miss our nice house and weather).

Cayman

Cayman is travelling to Nicaragua today from the Provo MTC.  He woke up very early and left the MTC around 4:00 AM.  We had sent him a disposable cell phone on another missionary parent’s recommendation as Cayman had received word that he was allowed to call home during travel.  This turned out to be a very good idea, as the Atlanta Airport, where they had a layover, does not apparently have (m)any pay phones.  Cayman ended up letting his two companions (he was in a Trio for travel) use the cell to call home as they couldn’t find anything.  He did take a picture from his terrible disposable phone while on the plane to Atlanta and texted it to us.

We got to talk to him, and it was wonderful, although very difficult to say goodbye again.  He was in good spirits, and was excited and nervous for the next step.  He talked about how his district (from one of the elders in the district) started saying that they were never getting out of the MTC because it seemed so far away.  Now that they were leaving, it had changed to, “I’m never coming home.”  We didn’t like the sound of that, but knew it was in jest.  We even got in on the joke; at one point someone mentioned something about when he came home, and I said, “But that doesn’t matter anyway since you’re never coming home.”  He said, “Exactly.”  It was really fun to talk to him, joke with him, and hear him tell stories of the MTC in his own voice…not just in an email.

Presumably they were to arrive around 8:00 PM local time in Managua, although we haven’t gotten word yet.  We are hoping for a note from Cayman or from the Mission President to let us know all is well.  We can’t wait to find out where he gets assigned and who will be his trainer.  We will update the site with a new post when we hear from someone.

I got my flight plans last Friday! I’m leaving at 3:30 Monday morning (Yeah, 3:30 AM) and I’ll be in Nicaragua by 8:30 PM that night! Pretty insane!

This last week was pretty good! Everyone on my floor is sick right now because the MTC is a cesspool of germs and sickness but I’m recovering alright. This last Sunday I ran into some Arizona friends in Provo so it was awesome to see Abby and Jessica.

I bumped into Abby and Jessica during my Temple Walk on Sunday

I got my Nicaragua Mission shirt AND I found a vending machine with pineapple Fanta so that was a good night.

My Nicaragua mission shirt

Oh, ya…pineapple Fanta

Funny stories:
The same Elder (Elder Nelson) who is always featured in this section of my emails was reading aloud from the Spanish Book of Mormon in our class. No big deal right? I look over and he was reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish UPSIDE DOWN. For no reason. At all. And he was reading it as fast as most of the other people read in Spanish right side up. I immediately lost it and he just told us that he reads upside down all the time and he didn’t feel like flipping it over. It was ridiculously funny.
Unfortunately, I can’t think of any Spanish mishaps this week… I guess we’re getting better.

I’m definitely getting more and more comfortable with Spanish but I’m definitely in for some extreme culture shock when I get to Nicaragua. (I actually heard that the church might supply us with machetes once we arrive. In which case: SICK!) I’ve also been getting way better at teaching and studying. This last devotional was from Chad Lewis, who played football for BYU and then played in the NFL) and it was one of my favorites so far. Only 2 more!

I’m kinda freaking out that it’s already my last week but I’m super excited to be able to get to know the people of Nicaragua and serve them. My one month mark was 3 days ago!! Time is moving by super fast and slow at the same time.

Miss you all!

Elder Cayman Williams

[More Pics]

Finished my 6×6 Rubiks Cube

Elder Morrison and I modeling our shirts

Got to see a previous member of my district…it was great to see him.

Can’t believe it has already been a week!
I’ve pretty much been doing the same stuff, 12 hours (typo in the last message…) in a classroom. The devotionals have been fun though! On Sunday we had a band come and we had a musical devotional. I think they were called the Nashville Tribute Band. Anyway, things have been pretty good. I’ve been sick the last couple of days but I’m getting better so that’s good! I’ve been having a good time studying the scriptures, learning Spanish, and teaching investigators!
Here are some funny stories from this week:
While at lunch some people in my district were complaining about how the Batman vs. superman movie was awful and this random elder a couple tables over looked us directly and said “I really don’t appreciate that comment”. We looked at him confused and then realized his name was “Elder Batman”. It was fantastic.
Also a kid in my district accidentally dropped his name tag in the toilet so that was interesting.
Time’s moving fast (and sometimes really slow) but I can’t wait to get to Nicaragua!

Answers to some of the questions:

Normally for exercise I go in the gym and play volleyball or play spikeball out in the field. Our last devotional on Sunday was a band called the “Nashville Tribute Band” and they played a bunch of songs about church stuff and it was really cool! It made me miss my guitar though. Umm the classes are pretty much the same. I have two teachers a day and then 3 hours of study time. I guess I’m probably getting better at Spanish but it doesn’t really feel like it so that stinks. We still teach TRC 3 times a week and we also have to teach fake lessons to our teachers twice a week. The temple walk is always fun on Sunday. I had to teach priesthood on Sunday which I wasn’t super excited about. It was on the Book of Mormon and it went pretty well. And then we had a good district meeting right afterwards. The 2nd counselor of the branch presidency was in both of those and later he pulled me aside and said that he really appreciated my teaching and that I had a natural gift for teaching and speaking which was pretty cool! I’m missing you guys! I really enjoyed getting the package (it was actually like Christmas!) and it’s been helping a lot (especially the soap holder). The messages were awesome too. Hopefully I have some time to record on it today and send some messages to you guys.  I’ve been sick the last couple of days which has been really awful and its been hard to sleep… But I think I’m getting better now so thats good.

A shot of the Provo Temple

The District