Knee Injury Curse

It has been another great week here in Ciudad Sandino! I don´t know if you can believe it, but I just came from the hospital where my companion was being looked at for a left knee injury. He was sentenced to a week of complete rest, though we won´t be having emergency exchanges, we´ll just take it easy and pray it gets better. I guess it´s just my curse that all of my companions injure their left knee.

Funny story from this week:
We´re knocking doors, and we come to a house where there is a little girl playing with toys in her front yard.
Us: Is your mom home?
Her: Yeah
Us: Can you call her for us?
Her: No, if I leave, someone will steal my toys

A cool investigator that I want to talk about this week is named Hilary (pronounced heelawry). She is 16 years old and dating an inactive member of the church named Jason (pronounced yayson). Jason´s mother, a very active member, determined to do anything to get her son back to church, invited Hilary to attend church, and she came. We of course jumped on this opportunity and made an appointment to visit her. Passed by her house, but she wasn't home, we passed by the next day a couple times, without luck. We kinda forgot about her, until the next Sunday, lo and behold, she comes to church again. Thrilled to see her, yet a bit bothered by the fact that she was impossible to find, we made another appointment. Two times at church meant she could be baptized if we could find a way to teacher her all of the lessons. We have successfully taught her twice now, and she is accepting everything. Really a golden investigator, but wasn't ready to commit to baptism yet. We'll keep working with her, and we are going to work ferociously with her inactive boyfriend, who may re-activate when he finds out that he could potentially baptize his girlfriend.

Anyway, that´s all for today, love you and sorry for the lack of photos!
Elder Stephen Watts

Answers to some of the questions we asked:

What's the most interesting food that you've eaten?

The most interesting thing I have eaten was iguana, but I thought it was chicken until I was midway through and they told me it was iguana. The worst thing I've eaten is called indio viejo and to describe it, I would say it tastes and smells like an indio viejo, go ahead and plug that into google translate. The best thing I've eaten are pupusas, which we got at a restaurant owned by El Salvadorian immigrants. A pupusa is essentially a stuffed tortilla, and mine had cheese, sausage, and basil leaves. Tasty tasty.

What kind of drinks do people give you?

We mostly drink fresco (juice mixed with water and sugar) but there is a drink here that is made with chocolate and corn powder that white missionaries refer to as mud, but I actually really liked it, probably because the one time I had it she added a ton of sugar.

Tell us a little about your schedule.

Our schedule is: Wake up at 6 and do exercise, personal study, and get ready. Leave house at 9. Eat lunch at 1 and do companion and language studies after lunch. Leave house again at 3:30 and work until 9, 9:30 if we have an appointment.

About how many lessons do you teach a week?

We find, on average 15 new investigators a week, which means teaching the first lesson at least 3 times a day to people who are receiving us for the first time. Other lessons add up to nearly the same, maybe 10 or 12 a week.

New Companion

Elder Watts y Elder Cardona

 So, update on the emergency changes I had last Wednesday: my first dad (trainer) Elder Cardona is not going home to Guatemala, he is hanging at the AP's house with an elder who had his appendix removed recently as they both recover. My new Dad's name is Elder Solis. He is from El Salvador, and like Elder Cardona, doesn't speak any English. He goes home the first week of January, and is pretty sure I'm going to kill him. That would be pretty sweet, because he is a hardworking missionary and, though I liked Cardona, the area's seen a nice increase in success since Solis got here.

Elder Solis y Elder Watts

With Elder Solis, we found and began teaching the coolest family I've taught thus far in my mission. There are six of them (4 kids, 2 parents) and with the exception of their youngest son who is just 3 years old, everyone listened intently, asked questions, and responded well to the questions we asked them. When we returned, we were delighted to find that the dad and the oldest daughter had read the Book of Mormon, making them the first investigators I've had that actually read the first time I've invited them to do so. I was way excited!

Love you all!
Elder Stephen Watts

Answers to some of the questions we asked:

At McDonald's in Managua

Last week he thought he was getting a Nicaraguan companion who was visa waiting.  Here's his response as to what happened:

President called an audible and sent me Elder Solis, instead of the other Elder, which would have made sense because he was loosing his companion at the same time. So, instead of a 2 companionship switch, we had a complicated 4 companionship switch.  But I'm not complaining, I like Elder Solis, and the fact that I don't have to be senior companion in my training.  

I didn't know what an "audible" was, so I asked.

Audible is a football term for when you switch plays at the last minute, ie, after the huddle, before the snap, you yell out new instructions based on the defense.

Tell us about Elder Solis:

My new companion is a convert, but neither of his parents converted, only him, along with his older brother who also served a mission in the D.R. and his younger sister. He was only 3 years a member when he left for his mission.

After telling me how he'd been stomach sick yesterday, he added this comment:

I have begun to realize that every drink anyone gives me here (with the exception of coca cola) is made with the city water. Literally no one here drinks purified water, so I'm beginning to embrace it, as it is my only option. Also, I realized that I'm crazy blessed to be in a house that has water all the time because about 75 percent of the houses here don't. Typically, a house will have a number of giant drums filled with water outside their house that they use for everything. Luckily, most of them are careful to get their drinking water when they have water so we're not drinking out of those gnarly drums. In some cases, the water comes on so rarely that they just leave a faucet over the drums open all the time and the drum never overflows.

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

Rice, Beans, and a Priesthood Blessing

Well, after two weeks of rice, beans, chicken, fried platanos, and coca-cola, yours truly is still alive. Turns out that the Nica diet, as boring as it may be, is sustainable! And at least none of it grossed me out. As much as I'd love to talk more about life as a missionary in Nicaragua, I think it will be of more worth to talk about the work.

We generally have no problems finding people to talk to. Honestly, about one out of every 10 houses will let us come in and spend 45 minutes talking about the restoration. Unfortunately, a second visit is an entirely different matter that has proven exceedingly difficult. My favorite investigator has been a young mother named Mercedes. When we knocked on her door, she let us in and said she had a sister that had joined the church and was honestly a little interested to hear our message. We had a beautiful meeting with her, and planned a return visit. When we returned, she was actually home (what?) and jubilantly let us enter (what? what?). She said she had been up all night with her daughter who was sick and she asked us if we would pray with her for her daughter. My companion quickly explained that the same healing power that existed in Christs time had been restored and that we had the keys to perform the same blessing and by her faith, her daughter could be healed. He proceeded to explain how a priesthood blessing for the sick and afflicted worked, and together we gave one to her daughter. The spirit was so strong, and I hope she can see a miracle, and maybe from that, investigate our church more sincerely. We will see when we visit her tomorrow.

Just one more quick story: We went out with a young man in our ward named Kenneth (it's weird, most Nicaraguans have the most American names pronounced in the funniest ways). He is currently called as a ward missionary, and is awaiting his own mission call. He knew of an ex-investigator and we went together to visit her. We had a great lesson, but of course she wasn't home for the follow up visit, nor did we see her at church as she promised we would. The cool thing is, after the lesson, Kenneth said something like, "What the heck Watts, you spoke perfect Spanish in there." I responded simply with, "Solo puedo hablar Español cuando siento el Espíritu." I can only speak Spanish when I'm feeling the Spirit. How true that has been, every time we've taught a lesson, I've had no problem keeping up with the conversation. Even when we were teaching an elderly Nicaraguan, that talked fast, and had no teeth, I could hear the spirit whispering in my ear exactly what he was saying, and I've always had just enough Spanish in my back pocket to say what needs to be said.

I love you all!

Elder Stephen Watts

P.S. Here's how addresses work here. Like people put this on official documents.
Arriba- Up the hill- East
Abajo- Down the hill- West
A Lago- Toward the Lake- North
A Sur- South
Note: Arriba, Abajo, and A Lago switch meanings depending on what city, but that's how it is here in Sandino.
Here's how it works: Pick a landmark, legit someone once said, desde el gran arbol (from the big tree). Then explain how many blocks in each direction you need to go. When you get to your street and your block, you say medio cuadras (half a block) and specify the color of your house.
If I was to give the address for our home it would be something like this:
From the intersection of I-80 and 4th street, two blocks toward the lake, one block North, half a block downhill. White House.

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. 

Week 2

This week I've learned that God IS willing to use me as an instrument in bringing to pass His work and glory. I have had many opportunities to teach lessons and lead spiritual thoughts in the church before, but never found that I was an exceptional gospel teacher. After the past two days, I know that God will indeed help me to know what to say, and He will send His spirit to accompany my lessons.

My district with one of my teachers, Hermano Clayton

To begin my experiences, my companion and I were asked to teach both Priesthood, and the zone meeting yesterday. We began preparing our lessons on Thursday, in zone meeting we taught about the doctrine of Christ, and in Priesthood, we taught about receiving and recognizing personal revelation. On Saturday, I couldn't help but notice that the new guys in the zone (we welcomed 5 new Elders on Wednesday) were having a tough time adjusting to missionary life. I had no idea if it was the language, depression, homesickness, etc, I just knew they were struggling. I was prompted to pray and ask if there was something I could do to help them out. Now at the time, I probably couldn't have told you it was a prompting, I just wanted to help, I guess that's just how the spirit operates. I felt impressed to lead a zone study session, and used time that I had previously set aside for preparing lessons for Sunday, to prepare some scriptures and thoughts. I made a little scripture chase where I showed many instances where God proved His promise found in D&C 84:88, "And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up." I showed them how Enoch, Moses, And David all felt inadequate, weak, and alone. (Exo 3:11 Exo 4:10-12 1 Samuel 17:43-45 Moses 6:31-32). Later on, one Elder shared D&C 31. Another discussed how Gordon B. Hinckley nearly returned home from his mission early.

With the new elders in our district:
Gomez, me, Auman, Stock, Eng, Smith, and Fragoso

As I began sharing these scriptures, some of the other boys on our floor (all headed to the Philippians) found their way into our room. They entered at an awkward time and were talking amongst themselves which made it difficult for me to get my message across. But they paid attention as I bore my testimony that God was with us, and he will strengthen us as we endeavor to build up His kingdom. Then one of those missionaries added their testimony to mine and as he was talking the Spirit entered the room stronger than I had ever anticipated nor expected. Most of the missionaries in the room proceeded to share some thoughts and bear testimony. One of the most powerful thoughts came from one of the new Elders who had previously been involved in a popular Latino gang called the Sureños (I think). He has tattoos up and down both arms, holes in his ears where gauges used to be, heavily greased hair, and no one exactly knows his backstory. Needless to say, he was powerfully equipped with faith unto repentance (Alma 34:15-16). Another one of our new Elders shared that he had suffered from chronic migraines before his mission and was relying on the Lord's help to make it through his mission. It was evident to me that he had faith to be healed (D&C 46:19). After an hour, we were finally able to end the meeting; there were no dry eyes in the room. I knew by the spirit that those struggling new missionaries heard and felt exactly what they needed to hear and feel that night. More importantly, I learned that a living God, will do everything He can to bless His servants. I testify that all of our weaknesses, challenges, and inadequacies will all be taken care of, because God so loved the world.

That Sunday, I had felt blessed that the spirit had abided with us, but feared that we were unprepared to teach both of our lessons that day. By the end of each of them, the messages that we were attempting to explain were so clear. I could tell that the spirit was in the room, teaching the gospel truths to us. Remember how I said I don't feel like a great teacher? Well, after leading three powerful lessons in the last two days, I still don't feel like a good teacher. But I know that if I can continue to have a desire to help others grow in the gospel, then God will continue to send His spirit to guide my words, and to touch the hearts of all who are under the sound of my voice.

As for my life as a missionary, everything is going great! While I do miss you all, there is little room for homesickness as the work requires complete focus. I received my travel plans and can I just say how excited I am to get to Nicaragua! I don't think I've ever been this excited for anything in life. It was a little tricky trying to come back to Earth and focus on my studies to be honest. I leave at 3:30 AM next Monday morning (so don't be surprised if you don't hear from me for the next two weeks). I am going to Managua with 13 other missionaries! Crazy! Though some might be going to the North mission. I will have a 5 hour layover in Atlanta, plus two 4 hour plane rides, and I should arrive in Managua at 8:00 Monday night. Thanks for sending emails throughout the week, they are very nice to read.

I love you all!

Elder Stephen Watts

Hello from the MTC

Hey all! Thanks for the updates. I have an iPad for my stay at the MTC, so I can read your emails nightly, but have to wait until p-day to respond.

The MTC has been great! My district is all of the advanced Spanish people that entered the MTC on Wednesday, and there is a whole spectrum of language ability. I am on the low end, but not the worst.

Our district is huge, 4 elders and 8 sisters. We make up half of the zone. There are only three gringos in the zone, my companion, me, and Hermana Hurley. Hermana Hurley and Elder Ngatuvai are both in my district and going to Managua South with me. My companion, Elder Auman, is from San Francisco and is going Spanish speaking to Sydney Australia.

MTC District

Many of the missionaries in our zone are here on green cards, so they were called Spanish speaking within the US to keep their legality. There is only one Hermana that struggles to speak English, but she does alright. This makes it difficult to resist the temptation to speak English. Class is in Spanish, church and meetings with the branch presidency are in Spanglish, and devos and other trainings for new missionaries are in English. So all together, I've only had to struggle with Spanish half of the time.

Using the Ipads for a selfie

My companion and I are amazing friends already, and we are tight with Ngatuvai and Meraz (the other elder in the district). This has made the MTC incredibly fun. Also, it's crazy how many friends I've seen here from BYU and elsewhere. I can't stand up in the lunchroom without instantly running into an old friend. I love it!

Everyone lives in the old buildings and has class in the new ones. The new ones are super nice and our classroom is on the fifth floor and has a giant window. We have a sweet view of Provo.

On Thursday my companion was called to be our district leader and me, the senior companion. Then on Sunday, one of the elders in our zone found out he was leaving early for the field. Elder Auman and I were asked to be the zone leaders and Elder Meraz was asked to take over as district leader.

Elder Ngatuvai, Elder Watts, Elder Auman, Elder Meraz

Most people I talked to before coming here have talked about feeling lonely, anxious, nervous, or otherwise not well their first night in the MTC. I haven't felt any of that since before I was set apart as a missionary. Ever since last Sunday, I've felt overwhelmingly comfortable with my call to serve as a missionary. I know that God is with me, and that I am in the right spot. I know that this church is true and I cannot wait to share that message with the people of Nicaragua.

Here's a sweet story: one of the brothers, I'm pretty sure a counselor in the bishopric of the other branch on our floor, was mission president in Honduras. He was telling a story in the lobby on our floor. I guess there was a convert who wanted to be baptized, but needed to interview with the president because he had killed someone before. I guess this was a common occurrence for mission presidents in Honduras . The president asked how many people he had killed. He said he stopped counting. The president asked, was it about 50, 100? The convert said it was more than that. He said when he was 8 years old, he was living on the streets without a mother or father. Someone offered him a lot of money to be an assassin. He took the offer. He found he was good at sniping, and could kill without people knowing who he was, or where he was. This kept him alive. When he was 18, he was going to "work" and was stopped by an angel. He proceeded to perfectly describe the angel Moroni telling him to stop what he was doing. He threw his gun in the dumpster right there and has never touched a gun since. The president sent a request to the first presidency and they authorized his baptism. He was baptized at the age of 46 and became an incredible member of the church. I get shivers as I recount this episode. I know that the Lord's work will go forward no matter what, until the day the Savior comes again. 

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. 

I love you,

Elder Stephen Watts