Wow Week! Farm Fun, Visa and Baptismal Date

Sorry lots for not writing back to you last week, but I promise I read all of your letters, I printed them out cause last week I just didn´t have time! Last week we went to a farm in our zone and picked coconuts, mandarin oranges and limes and then cooked hot dogs around a fire as a zone. The bus didn´t come for a long time so we were cutting the missionary deadline pretty close. It was really fun though. We got very soaked. The president of one of the branches drove us in the back of his truck and it rained both ways, to and from the farm. 

This week I spent a lot of time practicing for the district choir, I was playing the piano. Also President Collado, (mission president) came for interview and some training. I learned a lot and was really grateful for the visit. 

I am finally a resident of Nicaragua, I have my ID! Today I spent the day back in Managua getting it. We took an express bus from Esteli to Managua, which is about 2 hours. We left at 4:45 in the morning and there weren´t any seats and so we got to stand the whole way! It was also quite crowded in the aisle. It was really fun, and my comp felt stomach sick the whole way..

Yesterday Jaime, uncle of a less active who finally came to church this Sunday for the District Conference, accepted a baptismal date! Also the less active, Claudia, loved the conference and said she is going to come every week now. She said she knows that God wants her family in the temple. Her husband isn´t a member, but we´re teaching him right now. She wants to start reading the BOM with her fam, and do FHE every week. It was really cool to see that change in her! Also her aunt wants to be baptized but isn´t married to her husband (like they say here). She also loved the conference and was super excited afterwards. We´re going to start teaching him though. We have a FHE with them both tonight, I´m hoping both the husbands will be there! 

Things you asked about last week:

The woman with a baptismal is a little scared right now, but we´re working with her. Our problem more than anything is getting people to come to church!

We live with 2 awesome Hermanas, Hermana Pearson and Hermana Corzantes.
 Our clothes are washed by the cutest lady in our ward that helps us so much with missionary work!  I definitely use the rain coat and my comp found a use one day for my crazy rain boots (=

We have two little burners, a sink and a mini fridge.  Our sink empties into a bucket and we get to empty it out when it gets too full. We fill up tons of water bottles and put them on the counter for when the water goes out so that we can shower. Our food cita is by the same lady in the branch who does our clothes.  My comp´s awesome.

Love you all!

Hermana Merrill 

Excitement for Esteli

I got transferred to the best area in the whole mission, Estelí. (= It´s so pretty here, and way less hot than Managua. Esteli gets lots of rain too, lots more than Managua! It´s much more of a community, farther away from the city, less dirty, and there are mountains! I can´t decide if my area in Managua or this area is more rich though. I still haven´t seen poor Nicaragua. My companion is super awesome too! Her name is Hermana Ochoa, she has 3 months on the mission and she´s so nice, funny, happy, teaches incredibly, and I finally have to speak spanish all the time! (= 

Esteli´s great, we have a really awesome recent convert family that are seriously so awesome and pilas and were so prepared. Right now we are teaching both of their moms and one of them accepted a baptismal date. We don´t have any super awesome families we´re teaching right now, but we´re teaching quite a few really cool investigators. Most of them we found through reactivating menos activos, members, and recent converts.

I really want to start and finish this area with faith and excitement. Some days I feel like I never stop praying, it´s just that I definitely figured out that I can´t do this alone. Every single minute matters on the mission, and I can´t convert people, and I´m not close to perfect, so I definitely pray a lot!

I love you all so much!

Hermana Merrill

La obediencia es el precio, la fe es el poder, el amor es el motivo, el Espíritu es la clave, y Jesucristo es la razón.

News Flash, Being Transferred!

So about the food, I usually only send pictures of food that is abnormal. Whether it is real typical American food (like the tacos and pancakes-- those were really awesome meals) or if it is really weird Nica food. (like the crazy soups)

This week Elder Ochoa of the seventy came and visited us. I learned so much!

News flash, I have transfers tomorrow!

I don't know where I'm going!

Thanks for everything! Love you all

Fun Nicaragua Facts and Rainy Day Contact

Fun Facts:   We live close to the Rotunda (a round about) which is basically the center of all the action here in Bello Horizante. At precisely 5pm every day hundreds of pigeons fly in and sit on all the power lines, they stay until sometime in the night because in the morning they're gone. The street has white lines directly under all the power lines from all the bird poop. We walk very fast through that area.

Nobody's house is closed in completely. All of them are open to the fresh air. Bugs in houses are very normal.

Pulperias: they're little stores that are on every corner. They are very convenient. My favorite thing to get is polvoron, it's a cookie of sorts that's not as sweet as normal cookies. They're one cortaba each one and the milk kind tastes like big soft nilla wafers. there are other kinds too- ones that taste like gingerbread and another that's kind of coconutty.

More Nicaragua eats,
that I'm sure she enjoyed

Here in Nica there's a verb for chilling. (like to chill out-- I'm just chilling out) It's chiliar.

Cool experience:

Well this story starts bad. 

Rosa and Alfonso, a family that's super awesome doesn't really want to listen to us anymore. When we went by to teach them we ended up just talking doctrine, also Rosa didn't even come out for the lesson. This is the story of this family: One day we contacted them, but since they lived kind of far away we didn't go back to visit them for a while. One day we were walking to someone else's house and as we passed their house I just randomly said, hey do you want to visit the fam we contacted here? So we changed our plans and visited them. The first visit they were so cool. He said he believed that there should only be one church of God he just didn't know where it was. He also liked the idea of eternal families. They were both very sincere and the cutest couple. And they're married! Most aren't here. We had 2 lessons where we were with another couple from the church and both were horrible! The first lesson the members offended them by making a comment about the evangelico church. And in the second the member macheted (reprimand of sorts) our investigators. This last lesson we had with them Rosa didn't even come out of her room to have a lesson with us and the lesson was horrible. He has changed and now believes what everyone believes in Nicaragua, that every church is good and every baptism saves and God is in all of us but doesn't guide us today directly. I call it the hippie belief in God. Free, there are no rules, God loves everyone and will save everyone. Read second Nephi 28.

So Sunday night both my comp and I were low on faith after that lesson on Saturday and after the 2 families that we had committed to church fell. Also our recent converts decided they didn't really want to come either. When we went out to work on Sunday night we visited a family we contacted in the rain the night before right after the super frustrating lesson. They were really awesome, open to the idea of baptism and coming to church and we have another appointment with them tomorrow. 

Blessings from God. They're real. Thanks mom. I love that quote.

Hermana Merrill

(I just posted more pictures on last week's post...scrolling down will take you to them)

 Companion Hermana Rochelle

From Pleasant View, Utah

Nicaragua to be flooded with Hermanas

 Not Ultimate but water balloon
 volleyball in the rain

We played ultimate frisbee this week with the zone! It was so fun, I love P-days!

P-day Fun

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Our Mission President said that Hermanas can go to Puerto Cabezas (the coast) now! Puerto Cabezas is soooo poor, and people speak mosquito when they go there. Previously they didn´t send Hermanas there because its supposed to be more dangerous. The people are so humble and ready for the gospel there though, the Elders who go to Puerto baptize many many families. It´s supposed to be so pretty, kind of a jungle. (The area I´m in right now is one of the richest areas in all of Nicaragua. The people are more intelligent, but are definitely harder to teach because they´re not as humble-- my companion had a hard time coming from her area of Matagalpa to here. We get a lot more rejection, and the people we teach definitely take a lot more work.) The first two Hermanas will go to Puerto this change in 2 and a half weeks. They´re already chosen, but nobody knows who they are. dun dun dun...

Our mission was chosen to be one of the missions with half Hermanas half Elders. A whole ton of Hermanas are going to be coming in and goodbye to the Elders. There are going to be so many training Hermanas! 

I´ve been here 5 months tomorrow, time passes so fast!

This week a returned missionary brought her brothers wife named Rosemary to church (we had had a FHE with them the night before). It was really cool because we had helped activate her 2 weeks before. She´s going to church and has a calling now! 

Love you all so much!!!

Hermana Merrill

P.S. I would love The red refill of the scripture marker pencil. (I use that one the most and because sometimes it gets jammed and breaks in half the pencil stuff I´m almost out of that color)

Doug, Congragulations! That is super tuanis and lots of work! Say hi to your kids to me.

Erika. Good luck in School, I´m sure you´re going to do fantastic! I love you. Remember to love every minute of it and don´t get married! 

Dallin

I can read behind those letters of yours and can feel in every part of my soul that you are so excited for school!!!

Nikki

Good work with all your softball. Thanks for being such a light! Never stop!

Prayer & God's love

A spiritual experience I had this week was on prayer. 

I've really been trying to work with the members, hard work and effective. I was trying to be creative. We were receiving referrals. I tried to make sure that all our members that had investigators brought them to the church.  I didn´t know what to do differently, to do better, or how to change the results. I was definitely being taught a lesson though.

Before I was trying to rely on the arm of my own flesh when the person you really need to be listening was God. These are his children, not mine. So finally I gave Him control. Friday and Saturday instead of running from one place to another trying to do everything, trying to follow my own schedule, I tried to follow the program of God. Saturday night I prayed, really prayed for each of our investigators and God worked a miracle. We had 0 families committed to go to church, and on Sunday Rosa and Alfonsa were standing on the sidewalk waiting for us, ready for church. And on the way to their house one of the families from our ward asked if we needed help bringing someone to church. We delightedly said yes that would be awesome, and por fin (at last!) we brought a family to church! (but not really it was God that brought them to church.) Miracles happen. God was taking my pride and taught me to trust Him. You see, after I learned the lesson that God really does love and has a plan for all of His children. I didn´t know where my role was in that plan. If God loves all of His children and has the perfect plan for them, why will my prayers make a difference? I still don´t really understand why prayer make a difference, but I know it does. I know part of the answer is that when I find out what God wants me to do with my time, I find the people that are ready for us. Things happen a lot smoother and progress happens. Also I learned how  important it is to pray for what we should do, praying for it so hard that it will work, that hearts will changes, that they will listen. I didn´t pray for that before because I thought people have their agency. I can´t change that with a prayer, and if God has a plan for this child of His, He will work a miracle in their heart. But prayer really changes hearts. It just does. I don´t understand it completely. So thank you for all your prayers.

When I first came to Nicaragua I was learning the lesson that I thought I knew but I didn´t know well enough. God loves all of us. Trusting him to take care of his children. There are lots of people in Nicaragua and I stressed out about every single one of them. The physical and spiritual well being of all of them. I grew up being taught that God loved me and I could feel that love, but when I cam to Nicaragua I questioned that. I saw lots and lots of people that had a lot less than me. God blessed me even in the tiniest details of my life. How come these people didn´t have the same? So I questioned that God loved me and that he loved all his children here in Nicaragua. It was funny, the answer to my prayer in this aspect was not to see lots of baptisms or successes in the missionary work, to prove that he really loved his children. Rather it came when I prayed for me and for other people, I'd have an over whelming feeling of love. Also studying and praying about the atonement really helped.

Anyway that was my week. The mission is the best. The mission is a rollercoaster. 

Also, thank you Nikki Merrill and Megan Stout, and Heather Brinkerhoff, and Dad for your letters. They are the best. Seriously letters keep a missionary going!

I love love love you all!

Hermana Heather Merrill

Three Experiences to Share

Well we taught a really cool family a week back that still hasn't come to church, there names are Alfonsa and Rosa. He really is looking for the truth and they are a really sweet Christian family. The problem is we haven't been able to teach them for a while because we can't ever find them home. Also I think the mom of Alfonso doesn't like us and that complicates things a little bit. Alfonso has dreams. He said he knows that Joseph Smith is a prophet. Another cool person we're teaching is Johanna. She accepted a baptismal date. Her husband Martin is Catholic and is a little tougher. 

Experience of the week. Jarom got baptized! (He is the son of Maria and Felix). Maria's baby was blessed in church and Felix did both of the ordinances! It was so cool to see. Maria first getting baptized, and Felix getting activated and worthy to baptized his son and bless his baby. They have a goal to go to the temple as soon as Maria has been a member for a year!

2nd Experience of the week: We tried to visit Alfonsa and Rosa this week with the Patriarch and his wife, but Alfonsa and Rosa weren't there. Instead the patriarch suggested we stop by a less active. Her name is Maria Hooker. She is a returned missionary that is going through a divorce. We had a really good lesson about the atonement and the blessings that the sacrament can bring into our lives. For the first time in a few months she came to church. She's going to be recieving a calling next week and we're going to have a lesson with her and one of her nonmember friends this Saturday. She bore her testimony during relief society. That was cool to see.

3rd experience: This one I still don't know how it happened. One of our recient converts that I'm not sure if she has come to church since her baptism came to church this week! We didn't have anything to do with it. I had about given up on her, I just felt that when we visited her it didn't make a difference and that she didn't want us there. It's a good thing that God never gives up on his children. 

We're still trying to work out how to bring families to church, it's been so long since I've brought a family to church that I can't remember how to do it I guess (=. Maybe this will be the week.

 I love you all!!!! You´re emails and letters help me so much. Keep the faith, God loves all his children.

Hermana Heather Merrill