Life's good. Miracles exist.

This week we saw a lot of miracles!

We found some really cool families 3 of which accepted to be baptized!

Oralis- Her husband is a member that hasn't gone to church for a long time, but he said that he wanted to start going again. The first time when we taught Oralis she said she wanted to go to chuch, but absolutely not to get baptized. The second time we went with a member that shared her testimony with her and she accepted a baptismal date! (not sure if it was the member power, but either way it was cool) And the third time we visited her she said she had prayed to know if the church was true and she said she knew it was. That was a miracle and a half. We were outside of her house with her husband. It was really dark outside their house, but we were with a member. He said that she wasn't there, so we started giving a lesson to him. After about 10 minutes she came out of the house. She had been sleeping but said she had heard a voice that told her to get up and go outside her house. She obeyed and we were out there. That is when she told us of how she had recieved her answer. It was actully really funny.

She said, " I want to be honest with you guys, I'm going to stay in my church" (we all just stayed really silent... my comp and I thinking, what church? I didn't know she ever went to a different church) We didn't know what to say, so I asked her. "Are you still going to go to church with us this Sunday" (because she had said before that she would) and she said, "Didn't I tell you that I was going to go before? Yea I'm going to go to my church" and then Hermana Morales, "Did you pray and ask God like we invited you to do" (we were still a little unsure if she was talking about our church or a different one) "Yes, how did you think I found out that this Church is true?" She was already saying that this was HER church. (= The sad part about this story is that Saturday was a holiday in Nicaragua. Free buses to Managua to be at the event. She went, and so was sleeping Sunday morning. (as well as a lot of our investigators... Obstacles)

We're still teaching Yader and Jose, it's still quite crazy, but when the mom and the grandma are with us, it's usually a bit better (=

We're teaching a family of Maria's and their husbands. Maria and her daughter Maria went to Church this week and are excited to get baptized!

We had President interviews this week. It was really good. I love President Collado.

(Sad story of the week: remember how we got pedicures last week? Well the lady who did the foot of my comp pulled out a lot of skin from the sides of her big toenails. One of her toes got infected, and so she was in a lot of pain walking around... She wore sandals around all week and our walking pace was quite slow.)

Life's good. Miracles exist.

Lots of Love

Circus, Chinandega and Dust Storms

WOW There's another español(a) in the fam!!! cool!  (For those that don't know...Erika received her mission call this week and will be going to Malaga Spain)

Well I'm good. This week we found some really cool families to teach and right now we're teaching a family of less actives and their kids who aren't members. And, they went to church this week! The lessons are soooo crazy. Rebeka is the mom of Angie. She's a singer, really funny, and basically lets the kids do what they want. So when we teach it's like a circus. It doesn't help that across the street there's a real circus so the music is always playing. (= They've seen the circus and one of the kids, Yader, knows just how to act like a clown. Jose is the calmest, most well behaved child. He got the genes of his mom Iraida who keeps the house from catching fire. They are very smart and learn, but I always leave that house very tired. (=

This week I got to go to Chinandega. We're now doing divisions with some of the girls from Chinandega. Now I've been to every zone except Puerto Cabezas. Cool! (BTW, there is now an Hermana Norte in Puerto Cabezas-Hermana Pochop who came with me, she was so excited!)

This week there were dust storms all week long due to the wind and lack of rain and the farmers preparing the fields for the peanut harvesting. It was incredible. The skies were brown with dust and I couldn't keep my fingernails clean. And my feet, normally dirty from the dirt, were just plain filthy this week. 

So this is what we did for pday...Nicaraguan style pedicure (see Picture)

102 FAMILIES!

I thought I'd share some Miracles of the week.

Last week as a mission we baptized (in the month of June) 102 FAMILIES!!!

Our mission president and his wife even did there contribution as a family. (= I love them so much. Even with all that they do for us, and all their meetings they go to with missionaries and stake/branch Presidents, and take care of their young family, they took time to find, teach and baptize a family! 

Remember Roberto? We were teaching him with Hermana Tarax. He got sick and so was in Managua for a week, but told us he was going to come back for his baptism on the 28th but then we thought he left for good. I passed by his house this week just out of plain curiosity and he was there and ready to get baptized! This Saturday he got baptized. His eyes are injured and so he has a hard time reading, but even so he's read from 3rd Nephi 11-22. That's huge, especially for the people here who aren't accustomed to reading, but he loves it! I'll send you the pictures next week. (He always wears glasses because of his injured eyes)

Another Miracle: We have a recent convert whom I have never seen go to church and always looks so sad when we visit her. Sometimes we find her drinking when we stop by. But these last 2 Sundays she has gone to church! 

I'm good. Love you all lots!

Hermana Merrill

Terrific Week

So guess what?! My new companion is HERMANA MORALES!!!

We're comps AGAIN! I'm so excited. I loved bing her companion and I am so excited to be her comp again.

 

Hermana Tarax will be home this Thursday. She was so nervous lo leave. (=  Not sure exactly why, but according to the nurse nearly all the missionaries get nervous before they go home. Also she's a worrier. She hasn't had communication with her parents for her whole mission either and wasn't sure what she wanted to do when she got back.

 

Right now we're teaching a cool girl named Celeste, she's gone to church twice, but has only been able to stay for the first hour. We're also teaching her mom Vilma, but she hasn't gone to church yet. We have some lessons with members scheduled this week with her so that I hope that will help encourage her to come.

 

This week was really,  Terrific.

 

3 people I'll introduce to you:

 

Henry- when I was doing divisions this week with an Hermana, we contacted him and he accpted a baptismal date in the contact. He understands so well the doctrine we teach and is reading the book of Mormon and went to church this week. He will be baptized the 12 of July. He is 24ish.

Mileidi- She part of a familiy and is our Sunday miracle. Her and her husband were commited to going to church, but we hadn't found them in their house on Friday or Saturday, so we weren't very hopeful about them going to church. When we passed by their house on Sundayshe was sitting in her front room and she wasn't sure about the church thing, but she went with us! Hopefully the whole family can go with us this week. She is a really good person!

Alex- Alex just has style. (= He teaches music lessons in this tiny little room (where he sleeps as well), and has dredlocks but is the kindest guy ever. He accepted to be baptized and is reading the book of Mormon. He was going to go to church this week, but I'm not sure exactly what happened.

Other cool event that happened this week- we are teaching a family whose names are Donald and Migdalia. Donald is our little incredulous one, but is reading the Book of Mormon. We've been teaching them for a while but they haven't been able to come to church yet. This week we were hoping was going to be the week. We had invited them to a baptism on Saturday at 6 and they had said they would come. BUT... later in the week the baptism got moved to a different day. We had forgotten we had invited them to go to the baptism, so when we showed up to teach them at 6 on Saturday, they had gotten all ready to go to the baptism. We weren't sure exactly what to do, so we invited them to tour the church building. We had also invited our Stake President to teach them with us, and at that point they were in the church waiting for us to go with them to the appointment. In the end the Stake President showed them around the church building and then led them to his office and we had a really spiritual lesson where we talked about families that can be forever and they accepted a baptismal date, BUT in August because Donald is leaving for his work for 15 days... It was a lot of events that were crazy and unplanned, but in the end a miracle took place. Also, really cool Stake President who takes the time even though he works in Managua to teach a family of ours.

Love the mission, and you guys, and the Nicaraguenses and the Lord. A lot. (=

Hermana Merrill

Obediencia es el Precio

Fe es el Poder

El Espíritu es la Clave

Amor es el Motivo

Trabajo es el Secreto

Cristo es la Razón