Week 5

1st baptism. Hna. Miza, Adela, Sarah

The tiny cyber cubicle where she goes for mail.

Day 3 tan line

Week 5 tan line

Oh my goodness, cambios are almost here! Next Tuesday is our first set of transfers :) Only 11 more cambios left to go! And yes, mom, they`re each 6 weeks ;)

And how I use computers: There are lots of places called Cybers where you pay a certain amount an hour to use computers here. It`s about c$12 an hour, which is like $0.40. It`s not that bad ;) It`s just a little cubicle with sketchy mousepads and horrible keyboards. But it works :)

This week was pretty exciting. We had a multi-zone conference where we got taught *ahem* lectured *ahem* about food safety...because it`s so easy to get sick here or to get a parasite from the water. So we all need to be better at that. 

I also went on divisions with Hna Nicholls this week, in her area. I actually enjoyed that pretty much. Lots of cat-calling, a flock of freaky noisy birds, and 2 massive huge cockroaches in their bathroom. Such is the life.

So, Hna Miza and I made a contact this week, and they were super pilas and so we went back the next day to teach them, and they had friends over and were drinking vodka shots and pepsi...so it goes without saying that that lesson didn`t happen.

We have a group of 12 and 13-year olds that we`re teaching. There`s three of them, and they`re so cute and happy and they love hearing me speak English. I love that they love it, honestly x3

I had my first baptism this Saturday!! Al fin! Her name is Adela, and she just turned 16. She lives with her Aunt and Uncle and their kids, and they were less active. But they`ve started coming to church now and Adela has been baptized! I was so happy for her. I asked her how she felt as we were walking home, and she just told me, with a big smile on her face: "Libre." Or, free. Oh man that`s the best. Seeing the gospel work in people`s lives and change them for the better. It`s amazing.

 

So, neither Hermana Miza nor I enjoy contacting, which is pretty bad. So I came up with an idea to get us talking to people. We were going to try having a competition for the day to see who could contact the most people, and the loser had to buy the winner food today. I ended up winning, but not by much, and neither of us contacted that many people. It`s something I need to work on for sure, but hey. I won. Free brownie from TGI Fridays. (We got special permission to go eat lunch there, since it`s outside the mission boundries. But we were already in that area for choir practice, so it wasn`t that bad.)

Speaking of choir. We`re performing a musical number in a few weeks when a member of the Quorum of the Twelve comes to Nicaragua. All the missionaries from both the North and the South mission are coming, and there`s about 40 of us performing Divina Luz (Lead Kindly, Light). I`m pretty excited :)

So, there`s a milk company here called Eskimo. I know it`s just a central america thing, and it`s based in Nicaragua, but I need to find a way to get this stuff shipped to the states when I go home. The milk itself is kind of strange, but the ice cream is out of this world. I have literally never had a better ice cream bar or milk shake than I have here in Nicaragua. THey`re to die for. I had a vaca negra the other day, which is a root beer float in milkshake form, except with coke. One of the most amazing things I`ve had here. For sure.

Hermana Miza got really sick this weekend. We`re not sure what`s up, but it got pretty bad last night. She didn`t fall asleep for a long time, and so we both ended up awake at 3 in the morning. I didn`t know what else to do, so I gave her some pills that the enfermera told her to take, and then put on The Testaments in our little dvd player x3 we both ended up falling asleep around 4:30 or 5 in the morning. So that`s been my day.

So yeah. This week`s been crazy and exciting, but it`s been good :) I love you all, thanks for your emails, prayers, support, and everything else. I hope you all have an awesome week. My spiritual thought for the week is 1 Ne. 3:7 I feel like I use it a lot here. There is always a way to complete every single commandment we have been given. But also, since they`re commandments of God, we`ve also been promised blessings for following them. Not only are we automatically protected from the dangers of not following the commandments, we also get more blessings. How awesome is that? That`s something I`m trying to help our investigators and less actives understand, especially when it comes to going to church. It`s a commandment, but I don`t say that to condemn or judge you. I say that because our loving Heavenly Father has promised us so many blessings for keeping those commandments. So we should just do it :)

Have an awesome week!

- Hermana Oliphant

Bed and desk

Closet

Safety measures at apartment

Outside looking into the apartment