Rain

This week we got a ton of rain.

Sunday morning we woke up to rain and I guess the culture here is that if you wake up and it's raining you don't have to get out of bed. This was manifest when only about 40 or 50 people showed up for church and 0 investigators between 2 sets of missionaries. It was pretty disappointing, we normally have 130ish people and 5 or 6 investigators between both sets of missionaries. It wasn't even raining that hard.

The good news is, we were visiting with our investigators Cecilia and her daughter Flavia last night and they accepted the invitation to be baptized! We have been teaching them for 3 weeks now and they've been reading the Book of Mormon, praying, and (before last Sunday) coming to church. Their tentative date is next Saturday, the 7th of October. We also found 16 new investigators last week, which is pretty fantastic considering that to count them as a new investigator you have to sit down, have a lesson, and have plans to teach them again. Everyone tells me that I'll be leaving when my training ends, which is just 3 weeks from now, so that's exciting.  Hopefully I can get my first baptism before I go, but we'll see. If not here, for sure in my next area.

Elder Solis and Elder Watts

Today is my companion's birthday, and I bought a cake to celebrate. He's beginning to get a little trunky as he goes home in just 3 months. I sometimes remind him that 3 months is still a long time, but when you compare it to the 21 that he's completed, it sounds pretty soon. The good thing is that he still works pretty hard when he's supposed to, so I don't have any complaints. 

Love you lots!

Elder Stephen Watts

Struggles

It's been a little depressing this week as all of our investigators began to drop. Franklin, who was all ready to be baptized last Saturday got really sick. Asuzena made up a silly excuse as to why she couldn't go to church for the third week in a row. Franklin's daughter and granddaughter told us they've been reading the Book of Mormon, praying, and have been to church twice now and still haven't felt anything from the Holy Ghost. We had to explain to one inactive member that we've been working with why they were giving everyone tea at the ward activity literally two days after we taught her the word of wisdom.

But besides all of these struggles, we are still cruising out here. We just found a girl who has now read the first 5 chapters in Nephi and has prayed and felt that it is true. We were of course excited to find that Cecilia and Flavia (Daughter and granddaughter of Franklin) have been reading and praying and we promised them that their answer would come as they continue to do the things we invite them to do. I really really love missionary work!

Love you all!

Elder Stephen Watts

Here we are outside the multi-stake center/mission headquarter building in Managua.
We had a zone conference with 3 zones yesterday.

Stellar Week

It's been another stellar week here in Nicaragua, and guess what? We're baptizing! Remember Franklin, the 92 year-old that came to church last week, well he came again today, and accepted the invitation to be baptized this week. He has met all the requirements to be baptized, including giving up coffee (something he drank daily) the first time we presented the word of wisdom. His original baptism date was set for this Saturday, the only thing that would change that is his daughter, Cecilia. We began teaching Cecilia when she stumbled into church looking for her lost father who was apparently abducted by two young missionaries (refer to last week's email). She has also accepted everything, but needs to come to church "several" (which according to our mission president means 2) times and she has only come once. If she desires to get baptized alongside her father, then we'll push Franklin's baptism back a week. We'll know by the end of today what the plan is, but either way I'm pretty darn excited.

We also felt like champions when we organized FHE's for our top investigators Cecilia, Franklin, and Asuzena. All of them were able to go to the home of a member, hear a short lesson and play a game. They say a convert with a friend and a calling is likely to stay a member for life, which is our goal, and with this super-sweet ward, we are about to change lives.

Love you all!
Elder Stephen Watts

My comp and I with some other missionaries on our way to the new missionary mid-way through training meeting with the president

Tres Leches y Tres Milagros

Tres Leches is a popular cake here that is wayy tasty that I ate on my birthday. It has no other significance to this week's update, I just thought it gave me a cool title. Now I have the pleasure to tell you about the tres milagros (three miracles). First, a little recap; my companion was mandated 5-8 days of complete rest for his knee injury. Thus, we haven't really been able to do a ton of missionary work. We worked half of the day last Tuesday, and worked half of the day yesterday. Besides that, we've left the house to go to church, the ward activity, the weekly district meeting, and to eat. That's it. We even had our food brought to us two of the days. But, we know that God blesses us according to our works, and our desires, and while we felt that we should abide by strict obedience to the doctor's orders, we strongly desired to be working.

The half day that we had on Tuesday we spent telling everyone we knew about the ward activity that would take place on Saturday. On Thursday, we had divisions, and I went out with one of the zone leaders, and asked if we could spend another half day in my area before going to his, so that we could remind everyone of the ward activity. The activity was a special missionary movie night, where everyone was supposed to bring a friend who wasn't a member to a showing of the Restoration. We arrived, and one by one, so did many of the ward members. I got really excited when one of the ward members showed up with people that I didn't recognize, but it turns out they just bought their extendend family. None of our investigators showed up. I took a little solice in the fact that the zone leaders also failed to bring investigators to the activity, but I still felt like a failure. We started the movie without a single non-member, nor inactive member present. Then half-way through (note that the start time of the movie was 4, yet we didn't start until 4:45, so now we're talking about the time the activity was supposed to be wrapping up), my favorite investigator, Asuzena walked in with her kids. After the movie finished, the ward mission leader invited some of the members to bear their testimonies and the spirit was so strong. Along with many others, our investigator began to tear up. She told us that she would love to see the part of the movie that she missed and continue learning about Christ's church from us.

Miracle number two: We began teaching this week a man who is 92 years old. I guess he's close enough to the grave that the veil is a little thin for him, because he can't see well enough to read, nor walk well enough to get to church which is just 4 blocks away, but he said that he knows the church is true. We invited him to pray for the strength to walk to church and he did. When I returned to visit him with the ZL, he had forgotten what time church started. We reminded him that it was 9 in the morning, and that we would pass by his house that morning. When we passed by his house, we were excited to find that he was ready to go. It took us 35 minutes to walk those 4 blocks, and while we weren't exactly on time, we were in time for the sacrament. Shortly thereafter, his daughter showed up thinking her dad had wandered off due to old age. We invited her to stay for Gospel Principles class and she did. It was awesome. We have passed by his house whenever occasion permits to read the Book of Mormon to him, so that he can know by the power of the Holy Ghost that it is true.

Miracle number three: we began working again yesterday for a half day, and my companion said his leg didn't hurt one bit. The day before he felt it begin to hurt walking home from lunch. By our obedience to the doctor's (and our ZL's) orders, we witnessed the blessing of a miraculously healed leg of my companion. It doesn't even bother him to run.

Love you all!
Elder Stephen Watts

The custom here is to egg people on their birthdays. Keep in mind that this experience was extremely gross and our house still smells like raw eggs.​

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