Papeles de Soleteria, Baptism, and We're Going Back to Managua :(

Familia y amigos,

Naki sma?  That’s a little miskito for you, it just means "how are you doing?."  I hope everyone has had a great week this week, a couple of cool things happened to us and everything is going well!

On Tuesday we went over to Ayoleth’s house to see how she was doing.  It has been really hard to teach her because we literally have taught her everything.  It is to the point that when we go we just read a chapter from the Book of Mormon because there is nothing else to go over.  She is halfway through 2 Nefi which is super cool.  Anyway we went over there and she told us that she had good news!  She told us that her husband’s papel de solteria had come in and she gave it to us.  The paper says that he is single, which means he can get married!  It is a huge blessing because all of the rules of marriage change here in Nicaragua next month.  We would have had to get a lot more papers and everything, but the lord gave us a miracle.  She is going to get baptized this next Saturday.

We had a baptism of a little brother of a menos activo (less active member).  He was the last one in the family to get baptized, and we’ve been trying to work with them to get them to church.  It was a miracle too that he got baptized.  Two months ago the older sister ran the missionaries out of the house because she didn’t want him to get baptized.  A member came and visited the house with us, and we were unaware that she had ran the missionaries out.  She lied to us at first and told us the kid was baptized, but she ended up telling us the truth.  Anyway, long story short, we were kind of preparing the kid in secret because she was never there, but ended up giving permiso (permission) so that he could be baptized.

We found a super awesome family who is preparing to be baptized on March 28th now.  They love the church and have been doing really well.  They are progressing really quickly and are super kind and loving.  It is a family of 4, and with the 4 baptisms we will have scheduled for this Saturday, we are hoping to end the month with about 10 baptisms.

This Thursday we have a multi-mission conference with Bishop Dean M. Davies.  It will be a combined meeting with all the missionaries from the Nicaragua Managua South and the Nicaragua Managua North missions.  That means there will be like 400 missionaries here in one capilla (chapel) in Managua and the capilla is actually in the North mission.  This means we will be traveling again.  We got lucky this time and we will be going by plane (finally) so it shouldn’t be too bad of a trip.  This time we will only be gone from our area for about a day instead of 2-3 days, which is good because we have so much going on. 

We have been super blessed this past cambio (change/transfer) and I know it is because of our hard work and diligence here in the area.  I hope all of you have a great week. I love you all!

Elder Hanson

fotos: bautismo...and we’ve been having a little problem with mice so we have been hunting them down and getting rid of them.

Elder Collado got his package!

Rain, falling baptisms, and Happy Birthday Dad!

Familia y amigos,

How is everyone doing? I hope all is well back home.  Well not much really happened this week.  It was just a week full of finding new people, working with the people that we have, and getting soaked.

It has been raining a lot here recently and since we are on the coast random storms just kind of show up and it pours.  Supposedly in the rainy season it is like this everyday all day for a couple months, so we will see if I am here for that time!  Before the mission I hated the rain and getting wet, but now it’s just a part of life.

We’ve been working with a couple of our investigators and should have a baptism this week.  We had a super cool investigator who was the mom of a returned missionary.  We had a couple of really spiritual lessons with her, but we had to drop her because she isn’t progressing a ton.  She was like our best investigator so we were kind of sad to let her go but we prayed and felt like we had to do it.  We just didn’t want her to become an eternal investigator.  Her time just isn’t now.  We really gained her confidence so when the time is right the next missionaries can come in and finish things off.

I wanted tell you a little bit about her and share and experience that we had with her this week.  Her daughter is the returned missionary who served in Honduras and of course she wanted her mom to get baptized right when she got back.  Her mom is a little hard but we saw some potential so we decided to teach her.  We were teaching the restoration with her, just about the great apostasy and then the restoration.  As I was reciting the first vision, the spirit was super strong, and I finished it, and had the feeling to just be quiet.  The room was silent and the spirit just hit all of us, like a brick wall out of nowhere.  It was quiet for like 30 seconds and the spirit just testified of the truthfulness of our message.  I know that Joseph Smith was and is a prophet of God and that he restored this church here on the earth. 

We found another family of 4 who we are working with and they all went to church yesterday.  We just showed up and they were all there ready to go.  They have a fecha (baptismal date) for the 4th of April, so we are working hard for that.

On Saturday our baptism fell through, both of them actually.  One of the investigators wasn’t really ready, and although we easily could have gotten her to do it, we didn’t want to force her because the sins of her not going to church after would just fall on our heads.  She should be getting baptized here soon.  The other possibility just kind of disappeared.  She supposedly went to a finca (country vacation house) (everyone and their dogs here have fincas and just disappear) but she answered her phone and was hiding from us.  We went on a wild goose chase all over Bluefields looking for her, but we couldn’t find her.  We'll see what ends up happening with her, and if she actually wants to get baptized.

The Lord blessed us on Sunday with 12 investigators in church and we have 14 progressing right now.  I don’t know if all of them will get baptized, but that is the plan, and I have faith that they all can get baptized.

I wanted to send a shout out to my dad this week, his birthday is on Thursday.  I hope all of you wish him a happy birthday and I hope he has a great day!  Love you lots dad! Happy Birthday to Nathan, too!

This week will just be another week of finding and retaining our investigator pool, I’ll let you all know what happens!

Have a great week and I love you all!

Love,

Elder Hanson

The photos here are from a lunch we had at a member’s house.  He cooked us this dish here called rondon.  To make it they squeeze out the cream from the coconut meat and turn it into a broth.  Then they throw in meat, usually seafood, and then serve it up with a bowl of rice.  We had some super delicious lobster and crab, and it was super good!

Another Trip to Managua and 6 Months in the Mission!

Our Baptism This Week

Familia y Amigos,

How is everyone doing?  I hope all is going well back in the 801.  Things are going great here.  I can’t believe that it is already March, time is flying by this year! Not much really happened this week because of a trip we had to go on, but things are going well.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we just taught all of our investigators.  We have a lot of people that could get baptized this month of March so we are working hard trying to get all of them to the waters of baptism.  We were teaching a couple the lessons, one of our super dope families,  they didn’t want to get married.  We had this lesson of just straight macheting (chastising) the guy because he is menos activo and all his wife wants is to get married and baptized.  They came to a decision and told us the next day they wanted to get married which is awesome!

On Thursday we had to go to Managua to get our residency status here in Nicaragua taken care of, I only had a 90 day visa here in the country. Everyone else in my CCM group got their cedulas (government ID cards) the first week after their training, but since I was here in Bluefields I couldn’t go.  We got on the panga (ferry boat) at 9 am and went to Rama.  This time instead of going to Juigalpa we took a bus straight to Managua.  Let me tell, you that was horrible!  It is like 180 miles, so if you drove 60 mph it would only be like a 3 hour trip.  Anyway, the bus ride was like 7 hours, which was terrible.  We worked in an area there in Managua for the night and then slept in the office house.  I got to take the first hot shower I’ve had since being here in Nicaragua.  We also got to eat at McDonald’s.  That was pretty great!  I got to hang out with Collado and Elder Merill for a little there, too.

On Friday morning we got out the cedulas (government IDs) taken care of, which took like 30 minutes, and then hopped on the bus to Juigalpa to stay the night there.  We worked in that area for the night, then caught the bus at 4:30 am to Rama, and then the panga to Bluefields.  A wonderful trip.

We got back at like noon and had a baptism planned for 2 pm. So we went and got the investigator who was just there waiting for us and took her to the church.  She was super awesome and everything went smooth with that.  Sunday we got 9 investigators to church, which was a huge blessing considering we didn’t work in the area for 2 days.  Other than that we've just been working hard with the people we got!

I hit my 6 month mark tomorrow, which is crazy.  I don’t even feel like I have been here for that long, seems like just yesterday I was getting here to Nicaragua.

This email wasn’t too great because nothing much happened this week, but I hope all of you have a great next week.  Ill talk to you all soon and I love you all!

Elder Hanson

This is a stick of bananas we bought.  They were super delicious once they ripened up.  They were only 60 Cordobas, which is like a little over 2 dollars for over 100 bananas.

I bought some nice leather scripture covers

Another Change in Bluefields and Miracle Baptisms.

Elder Roney Leaving Bluefields

Familia y Amigos,

How is everyone doing?  I hope all is going well where ever you are.  This week was a super awesome week.  There were cambios (transfers), and we had some baptisms and it has been raining a ton so I’ll tell you a little more about it.

First of all is cambios.  On Tuesday we got the call that Elder Roney was going to have cambios, so we had to pack him up super quick and throw him on a panga (boat) to get a bus to Juigalpa in time.  They called us at like 1:00 and the last panga leaves at 3:00 so he had to pack up pretty fast.  We walked him over to the panga place, said goodbye and then got back to work.  I worked with a member for a couple hours but then he bailed so I had to go and work with Elders Soifua and Rodriguez in their area.  The next day I found a member to work with me all day, so I was just trying to lock down the two possibilities (possible baptisms) we had for Saturday.  He just kind of followed me around and didn’t really help but I was able to get the baptisms locked in.  

On Thursday I got my new companion and his name is Elder Naisbitt!  He is from Utah and went to Copper Hills High School.  He has 14 months in the mission and is the new DL here in Bluefields.  All is going really well with him.

My new companion Elder Naisbitt

After a hard week last week the Lord really blessed us this week.  I was able to see His hand in the work we were doing.  We were able to bring 10 people to church and had 2 baptisms.  The baptisms didn’t really go so smooth though.  The past 3 days it has been raining non-stop so we’ve been getting super soaked.  The investigators both live out in the middle of nowhere through roads of dirt so with the rain they all turned to straight mud.  We went early Saturday morning to get the pila (baptismal font) all filled up and then went to get the investigators.  As we got there, they told us that one of them had left early in the morning to go and visit her aunt and they had no idea where she was.  We decided to come back later because she was going to have to come back home at some point to sleep.  Long story short, we trekked through the mud in the dark without any light (I forgot the flashlight) and found them.  She wasn’t sure she wanted to get baptized.  After a while talking about her concerns, she realized she did want to be baptized.  It was a long trek back through the mud to get to the church and she was finally baptized at like 8:00 at night.

Muddy roads lead to...

...muddy pants and shoes.

Baptism

It seems like lots of people have just been falling from the sky to get baptized and I know that it has been because of our hard work here.  The Lord always blesses those who do their part and they give everything to do it.  Like Elder Duncan said 2 weeks ago, ¨the Lord doesn’t require a lot, he requires everything.¨  As we continue to work we will see the blessings here in our area.

I hope everyone has a great week and I love you all!

Love,

Elder Hanson

Coconuts at an Investigator's House

End of Another Change...

Me, Ayoleth's son Chris, and Elder Roney

Familia y Amigos,

How is everyone doing?  I hope everyone enjoyed their Valentine’s Day!  I totally forgot about it until it was actually Valentine’s Day and then I remembered.  But I hope everyone is doing super well!

Anyway not much really happened this week, it was actually kind of a rough week. We have had a hard time finding people here in our area.  We find some super awesome families who have already been to church 2 times, and a bunch of other people who are ready to be baptized, but they always live in the area of the other Elders here in Bluefields. So we turn them over to them and they get to work with them.  We haven’t really been finding a ton of people in our area and our investigators aren’t doing so hot.

This Sunday as we went to get each one of our investigators for church, but as hard as we tried, nobody would come.  Everyone pulled the classic Nica excuses, about how they had to wash the clothes, cook, and the classic, ¨voy a llegar¨ (I’m coming).  But none of the people ended up coming.  Pretty much all of the people that we were teaching just didn’t want anything, which means a lot of our hard work with the people went down the drain. 

Anyway, when we got to the church we had 8 new people there.  A member had woken up early and walked from her house to a part of our Area that we didn’t know existed and brought 7 people.  Another family where all the members weren’t baptized also just showed up.  We were super grateful for the member and knew that it was definitely Heavenly Father’s hand in our work here.  These are the people that our Heavenly Father wants us to teach, so we are going to teach them.

After church we went and put fechas (baptismal dates) with a couple of them, one of them was super pilas (ready) and could maybe be ready to be baptized this Saturday, as she has been to church 3 times and is just lacking a little bit of the teaching.  So we will see what happens with her.

Ayoleth is still waiting on some papers for the marriage, and it is a super complicated situation so who knows when she will get baptized.  She is super ready, reading the Book of Mormon everyday, but the whole marriage situation is really messing things up.

I wanted to share a quote with you all that my mom sent me a couple weeks ago that has helped me this week and might help you all.  It is from Richard G. Scott, and it says, “Just when all seems to be going right, challenges often come in multiple doses applied simultaneously.  When those trials are not consequences of disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more (see Proverbs 3:11-12).  He therefore gives you experiences that stimulate growth, understanding and compassion which polish you for your everlasting benefit.” 

Other than that, not much is happening.  Cambios are this week so I could have a new companion the next time I talk to you guys!  I’ll let you all know what is going down.  And if you see the McDonalds charge on the Card in Managua, it probably means that I had cambios (which is really unlikely) but who knows!  Anything could happen!  Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Hanson

Elder Roney at a cool cafe we found to eat at in our area

Gira de Mision con (Mission Tour with) Elder Kevin R. Duncan

Thanks Granny and Grandpa! I finally got the Christmas package you sent me!

Familia y amigos!

What's up?  How are you all doing?  I hope everyone is enjoying life, and enjoying all of the blessings that we have.  This week was a pretty spiritual week, I'll let you all know what went down.

So we left on Wednesday at about 8 in the morning to get on the pongas(boats).  We took the 2 hour ponga ride to Rama, and then the 4 hour bus to Juigalpa.  We worked in divisions there, and I worked with the DL there in Juigalpa who is Elder Henriquez.  It was a good time, we just went and visited a couple of their investigators and some crazy MA (menus activo/less active) who is like anti american, thinks we are all racist.  It was great.  We had to wake up super early the next morning to get on a bus at 4 am to be in Managua at 8am for the Multizona (Multizone Conference).

So we got to Managua on time and everything, and I got to talk to a couple of my old companions, Elder Collado and Elder Hernandez, my first trainers. All is going well with both of them, and Elder Collado said to send greetings to everyone.  After we had a quick breakfast we got to listen to President Russell, Hermana Russell, and Elder Duncan, who is the area president here.

He talked about something really interesting that I think we can all use in our daily lives, just as much as I can use it here on the mission.  He talked about ¨seeing the vision of the Perfection.¨ He said that if we can envision what we want in the future, even though at times we can't see it and it seems impossible, and then we set goals, that we can achieve it.  As missionaries we need to think about what we want to achieve in each of our areas, for example a stake, a ward, whatever, and then set goals accordingly. I know in everyday life, we all have a desire of where we want to be or a desire of certain things in our life.  While we may think they are crazy, if we set goals and work it is possible.  It can be things as little as keeping the house clean or to even a career, where we want to be in 25 years.  This is going to help me a lot here in my areas, and also in my mission as a whole.

As a representative of Jesus Christ I would urge all of you to actually make a vision of the perfection.  As it says in Alma, 34:32 (I dont have english scriptures with me) ¨porque he aqui, esta vida es cuando el hombre debe prepararse para comparecer ante Dios; si, el dia de esta vida es el dia en que el hombre debe ejecutar su obra.¨  

“For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors.” We need to be constantly making plans, spiritually and in our lives here on earth.  Sorry for the ranting, that's all I really got.

Things are going great here in Bluefields. All of our baptisms fell through last week but its all good, we’re just looking for new people!  We might have a baptism this Friday, and Elmer for next week.  We´ll see what happens.  Have a great week, I love you all!

Elder Hanson

Good Eats....

 Familia y Amigos!

Whats going on in the 801?  How is everyone doing?  I’ve enjoyed all of your emails recently so keep them coming!  Anyway this week was a pretty good week, kind of hard, but we’re out here still trying to find new people and everything.  It is already week 5 of the cambio (transfer) which is super crazy because it feels like I just got here yesterday, but all is well!

Anyway, a lot of stuff happened with our baptisms this week.  We had a guy named Jason that was supposed to get baptized, and we were stopping by to visit him.  He wasn’t really reading the Book of Mormon and we were leaving him tiny assignments, for example Moroni’s promise, 3 verses.  Last Sunday he said he was going to take things serious and he was going to read and pray about the book.  We went by on Tuesday night and he told us he had an answer, he was super excited and so were we.  He then proceeded to start to show us verses in the Bible that he had found, to tell us that the Book of Mormon wasn’t true, when he obviously hadn’t even read it.  He had received false revelation because he hardened his heart, was too obsessed with his bible (it was a simplified version that was translated horribly) and didn’t want to listen.  So he didn’t really have any desire to get baptized because he wasn’t ready and closed up his mind to what we were saying.  It was a bad situation and unfortunately we had to stop teaching him.

We are teaching another guy named Elmer who was supposed to get baptized this Saturday, but he didn’t go to church yesterday.  We passed by early in the morning to get him to go, and he told us he was getting ready.  We went and reminded a couple more people, and when we came back his family told us that he went to work.  We have an appoinment with him tonight so we´ll see what happened.

Ok so I have a cool experience from this week.  Ayoleth´s partner got back from fishing out at sea this week and he caught a ton of green turtles coming back in.  So on Tuesday he showed us all the turtles, I’ll send pictures and everything.  It was super awesome.  He told us that some of the Turtles were over 80 years old.  The people here in Bluefields love the meat, so they catch the turtles and sell the meat.  It’s probably super illegal but they’re Nicaraguenses and they don’t care. They asked us if we had ever eaten turtle before and if we wanted to eat turtle and, of course I said yes because its like a once in a lifetime experience.

So on Wednesday they invited us over to eat.  They eat like every part of the turtle, so I had some of the meat, the lung, kidney, liver, skin, and even the throat.  It was super cool!  It didn’t taste bad at all, it was actually pretty good, just the texture of some of the parts was weird.  Some parts, like the throat, were really chewy.  But that’s my crazy story for the week.  

Before...

...and after!

This week I have a multizona (multi zone conference) so I will let you all know how that goes.  The Area Seventy President, President Duncan, will be coming to speak.  The conference is in Managua so it will be a long trip for us.  We will leave here on Wednesday and will travel to Juigalpa.  Then on Thursday we will leave Juigalpa at like 4 in the morning to go to Managua.  Then we’ll go back to Juigalpa after the multizona and leave at 3 am to go to Bluefields again.  It’ll be a long trip but worth it!

I hope you all have a great week and I will talk to you next week!  

Love you all,

Elder Hanson

Calala (passion fruit) that I had this week.