Emergency Changes

I don't know if I mentioned it before, but my companion suffered a knee injury a few weeks before I arrived. Well, he rested it 3 weeks as were the doctors orders, the last of those three was our first week together. Anyway, we got right back to work and we really do walk a ton. Our area is huge, and gas is like $6.00 a gallon. Anyway, recently, his knee started giving him tons of problems again and we went to the doctor yesterday to check it out. The doctor said if it got much worse, they were going to have to operate on it. They told my companion that he shouldn't even be walking for the next 3 weeks, and so President decided to send him home to recover. I haven't met my new companion yet, but I heard he is a Nicaraguan, who has less time in the mission than I do, who is visa waiting. So, I'm going from 4 weeks into my training (which should last 12 weeks) to being senior companion. Pretty terrifying really because I still haven't really gotten my bearings here in Ciudad Sandino.

Enough logistics, its cool story time:

We typically don't enter Nueva Vida (the ghetto portion of our area) on weekends para nada. It's way dangerous.  But last Saturday morning, my companion felt a strong spiritual pull to go hunt down this reference that we had received for a young girl that lived pretty deep in Nueva Vida. We had tried to hunt her down earlier in the week, but were unsuccessful. Notwithstanding, we entered Nueva Vida, and on our third try, after receiving a ton of attention from some suspicious looking boys in the neighborhood, found our girl. Zenelia is just the kind of elegida we are continuously instructed to find and teach. We had an awesome lesson and stayed a while longer answering a few of her never-ending questions, before asking her to write down her questions for us to answer in our return visit. I look forward to teaching her some more, and we returned from the ghetto without any harm.

I really do get a ton of looks everywhere I go. Turns out, not a lot of people have seen a real life chele before, and (trying hard not to sound conceited here, just saying it how it is) all the girls think I'm the most attractive creature they've seen. Hey, if it gets us in the door, sweet, but hasta allí, no más.

Anyway, that's the update for you all!

Love,
Elder Stephen Watts