News From Nicaragua: Another Week In Paradise!

Thanks for the package Jones Family!

Friends and Family,

How is everyone doing at home? I hope everyone is doing well, and not crashing too many cars (Ri, but I'm glad everyone is safe) hahah. I don’t really care about the car I'm just glad everyone is ok. This week flew by. With so many things to do everyday and investigators to teach, you just get caught up in the week. Today is actually my 2-month mark here in Nicaragua, and this week is halfway through my first cambio!

I would first like to send a shout out to JJ and Lewis Jones from Connecticut for the package. It had a bunch of food in it! It was awesome. It was just what I needed.

Not much happened here, I got to go to Rivas on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday with one of the ZL's, Elder Collado. Rivas is super hot, close to the lake, and you can see the volcano. I forgot to take pictures but it is cool! It is like 30 minutes to the border of Costa Rica, and supposedly there are some cool beaches. Obviously I'm not allowed to visit those.

Our purpose of going was to set an example for the DL there. It was great. We placed 8 baptismal dates the first day. It was crazy. The DL was blown away. Anyway we have a goal in our zone for 50 baptisms this month, which is super high considering the average the past 2 years is like 12-15. Our number last month was 18, the highest in 2 years. We're all working super hard to achieve this goal and to raise the zone. Things are going great!

Trying to reach our daily contacting goal can be crazy. I contacted a whole bus this week, it was a great time. I was always embarrassed before my mission with stupid stuff like that but I have had no fear here. I can talk to any person, any group of people, and I don’t even care what they think about me. I'm not going to see the majority of them ever again and maybe they’ll remember the white kid with Spanish that isn’t exactly perfect!

The weather has really cooled down here. It rains almost every day, but one of my North American friends in my district went to Managua today and he said it was super hot. Our area is supposedly "blessed" because of the weather, we have dinner appointments occasionally, and because we haven’t even had the time to contact our whole area. I'm stoked to keep working here.

That’s all that really happened during the week, and we didn’t have any baptisms on Saturday. We have 2 planned for this Saturday, but probably only one will work out. The one that will work out is the husband of my first baptism. He is super awesome. We leave pamphlets and reading assignments in the Book of Mormon, and then when we come back he pretty much teaches us the lesson. He is an example to me and my companions of how to obtain a strong testimony.

I know that if we read, pray, and ponder like it talks about in the introduction of the Book of Mormon we can obtain strong testimonies, just like my investigators. I am loving it here in Nicaragua and the work is going super well.

This email is super short but nothing really exciting happened here, so I hope all of you are being adventurous at home or on your missions. I love you all!

Elder Hanson