Nicaragua

Elder Watts with President and Sister Brown

 OK, I want to write everything, but I have like a million emails in my inbox, so well see how far I get. Also, the apostrophe key is broken so forgive the bad grammar. I absolutely love Nicaragua, but it may not sound like it as I begin to describe everything, just remember that deep down I have nothing but love for this country. There were 13 of us cheles (gringos) that arrived Monday night. Tuesday morning, the mission welcomed 15 Latinos from the Guatemala MTC. Overall, the mission is about 2/3 Latino and 1/3 Chele. Tuesday, we received mission specific training and Wednesday morning, we met our trainers and departed. My trainer, Elder Cardona is from Guatemala. All of the Latino missionaries here come from Central America, south of Mexico, minus a handful from the Dominican Republic and a couple Brasilians. My companion knows three words in English: freak, flip, and fetch, which I'm sure he picked up from the American missionaries here.

New missionaries with Pres. and Sis. Brown

We are in Ciudad Sandino, about an hour and a half trip from Managua. I've learned that Nicaragua is the safest Central American country (mostly because people are too poor to afford guns). Nevertheless, our area is the most dangerous in the area. One of the neighborhoods here is called Sidia. It's pretty much Nicaraguan Compton. We don't go there at night, and when we do go there, my companion makes me take off my very simple looking 8 dollar watch. Sidia looks like a bit of a dump - trash is everywhere, and houses look more like shacks than houses, even compared to the humble, two room cement floor model that is found throughout the city. I have yet to see a glass window here. Mostly people just have gaps in the wall and they've just gotten used to bugs and dust all through the house. I have not seen anything more advanced in the air conditioning department than electric fans. It's only been a week and I can't remember what it's like to not be hot every minute of every day. It's supposed to be the rainy season, but since I've arrived, all I've seen is a 10 minute pouring, Tuesday night in Managua.

Elder Watts y Elder Cardona

Spanish here is awful! After days of just assuming it was because I didn't speak the language, I finally decided that I'm not the problem. I can understand and converse just fine with my Guatemalan companion. But here, the letter "s" just doesn't exist and they drop endings of words wherever they can. Even my native speaking companion said he had to ask people to repeat themselves for his first month. One example is dos, two, is pronounced do, and doce, twelve, is pronounced dos. I am so lost every time these guys start talking. 

The first thing my companion told me is you're going to get fat. Little did I know... I eat white rice with every meal, usually with beans, but you can always count on white rice. Coke here is cheaper than purified water and missionaries here probably drink it at least daily, if not more. The food here is way good, and we have a lady in the ward that cooks lunch for us daily for just 600 cordobas a quincena (15 day period in between getting more money on our cards). The exchange rate is about 30 cords to a dollar, though 30 cords will go a lot further here than a dollar in America. We are given 2400 cords per quincena, which after paying 600 for our food, and 200 to the lady that does our laundry, we are still left with way more than what is necessary to live. 

When I arrived, this area only had 1 investigator who is literally impossible to find. We've been by her house a bunch without luck. We have since taught the first lesson to four families and they've all agreed to prepare to be baptized and read the Book of Mormon. The spirit was incredible in each of those lessons, and somehow I was able to understand enough Nicaraguan to follow along. I'll know by Wednesday which of them actually read and prayed. 

Alright, well, hopefully I'll have time to respond to your individual emails later today, but, for now, this is it.  Shout out to Mom who gets to edit this mess.

Love you all, thanks for the thoughts and prayers!
Elder Stephen Watts

Here's a couple more interesting facts that Elder Watts included in answer to our questions:

There's about a dozen missionaries in the city, but our district only includes my companion and one other companionship. I forgot to add, with the exception of Sidia, the people here are all incredibly obese. I wonder if they know how bad their diet is. It's way shocking to see how large they are while living such humble lives.
Also, some fun Nicaraguan slang:
twanies: cool
Salvage: Savage (cool)
chele: white boy

We are in a house, it's got a bedroom that's just big enough for two beds, and a living room. We have a small fridge and a microwave, two desks, 2 chairs, and a wardrobe that we share. The church is the nicest building here. It has ceiling fans in each room, and a bunch in the sacrament room. There is a piano, but it doesn't work. Outside, there's a big grass field, and a paved court with basketball and soccer goals. We played basketball on Friday with a bunch of the elders, then today we had a chance to play soccer for about an hour, then ultimate frisbee for about an hour with other elders in our city. I was delighted to find that basketball is a pretty big deal here, about equal to soccer, but baseball trumps them all. Some members were very proud to show me that the starting pitcher from the Rangers, I think, was a Nicaraguan.