News From Nicaragua: Allergic Reactions, Chiles, and Chopped Hair

Familia y amigos,

What a week. Time is flying by here in the CCM, and I've definitely learned to love it. Even though the food stinks, its a dedicated prison, and I have companion problems its still great. My teachers are super awesome, and I love them both. My afternoon teacher Hno. Hernandez has been a huge help to me here and is always pushing me to do bigger and better things. I'm grateful for my teachers here.

Sad news, my favorite district in my zone left on Monday. They were the coolest. All of them are going to california, and some of you might know a couple of them. One of them was Elder Seeborg who went to alta, played lacrosse. Cool guy. Anyway their district leader's name is Elder Frame and he and his companion were two of the funniest people I've ever met. They would tell a story everynight before zone meeting, and they were always hilarious. They'll be missed, but they handed down a nerf basketball hoop, a football, and some jam and peanut butter which have been greatly appreciated. Good news though, nobody new in the casa so we survive another week!!!

You all are probably wondering about the crazy title, so I'll give you a rundown of my week. Friday is always pretty boring. We've titled it P-day hangover because nobody can focus. Everyone is too busy thinking of home and are super tired and injured from cage soccer the day before. Saturday was good, it was fast sunday again. Here in the CCM we start our fast after lunch on saturday, and then eat after sacrament meeting on Sunday. It was super easy.

Sunday was a great day. It was Fast sunday like I said and I got to bear my testimony, in spanish of course. It was overall a good day, and we got to watch the Joseph Smith video. Movie night on sundays seriously is the greatest. It comes second only to P-day. We also watched a devotional from Elder Bednar on the character of Christ. It was given a couple years back on Christmas day, I dont know if you all will be able to find it, but it was really good.

Monday was pretty good, but I found out something about myself. Turns out I am allergic to guayaba, the fruit. For breakfast, they have these yogurt things which are pretty good, but they have a guayaba flavored one. My first week here I had one and my throat tingled a little but I thought it was just the food because you dont know what to expect here. Then last week they had actual guayabas. I had one bite of one but it was super bitter so I didnt eat more, and my throat tingled again but since it did that with the yogurt I just ignored it again. Finally, on Monday my afternoon teacher had this drink that looked really good. He offered me a taste of it so I decided to have one. I took a tiny sip and it was good, but just went about my day. My throat started getting really irritated and started closing up, but I had a cough so I though it was normal. It killed to move my neck, and for dinner it was really hard to swallow my food. I didnt know what was up. Buuut I put all of the events together and realized I was allergic. Nothing super serious happened and I popped some benadryl and ibuprofen when I got back to my casa, but I'm glad I found out here rather than in Nicaragua.

On Tuesday my afternoon teacher brought us chiles to eat. They weren't too bad at first, but my mouth was definitely on fire. Kristy would have loved them. My whole body was pretty hot and I was sweating, but it was fun. Haha! I could have done hotter so I think he's going to bring us some hotter ones soon. We also had another devotional from Elder Bednar on Tuesday. It was a rerun from right after the mission age change. He talked about a way to take notes. I would like to share this all with you because general conference is this weekend.

During each talk, Bednar talks about how there are 3 aspects to identify

1. The doctorine, the teachings of the talk

2. Invitations

3. Blessings

If we find each of these in the talks we will better be able to apply each talk to our life. He also said something that hit me. He said that if an investigator were to ask what our modern day apostles were saying, and we couldnt answer, it would be like not believing. Make sure we know what our latter day prophet and apostles are saying. Our Father in Heaven loves us all and wants the best for us, so he will give us answers in conference if we want them! Just remember that!

Wednesday was great just because it was P-day eve, and then today not much has happened. I got my hair cut and they pretty much buzzed it but whatever. I got it cut this week so it would have a little time to grow out before I left. I only have one more P-day here which is awesome, I cant wait to be in Nicaragua!

Hope everyone has a great week, I will talk to you all soon!

Elder Hanson