Life is good

God blessed us a lot this week as far as finding cool new families goes. We're hoping that they can progress more this week. 

Next week is transfers and my companion goes home. I want to train my last 2 changes. I feel like that would be awesome. We'll see though what happens. About 1/2 of the mission goes home in the next 3 changes. So there will be a lot of new people and President says that a lot of the leaders will be training while the rest will stay.

 

Life's good here, I am now very use to the heat.  I think I'm going to die of the cold in Utah.

No te precupes. Ten FE. 

Hermana Merrill

Reflecting

June 9th letter:

This week I was going through a few letters from the beginning of my mission and reflecting on how well God know us. I know he cares about us and loves us and puts us with the right people and in the right places to help us grow exactly how he wants us to grow. I know he put me here in Nicaragua for such a specific purpose. I hope that I can and have been an instrument in His hands to help his children here in Nicaragua. But if I haven't done that, I know for sure he has made me who He needs me to be. I know I have been touched by Nicaragua, by my mission President and the responsibilities he has given me, by the missionaries here, by the people I have met. I hope I can find those He needs me to help and that I can have the love and faith to help them.

I love you all and I know this is is the true church of God. I am saddened by those who chose to go away from it and those who choose not to listen. But God didn't send us here on earth to be condemned but to progress. Jesus Christ died for our sins and imperfections. That means we can move on and progress after we sin. I love this gospel. Living the gospel is a commitment for our whole lives. Find a friend. Teach them the joy in living the gospel. 

Love you all lots!

Hermana Merrill

Wedding Week

Monday June 2nd letter

I got to do divisiones with Hermana Rayond this week I know God put us in this mission together for a reason. She is such a true friend. And always motivates me to be better. Blessing from God!

I was jealous of Nate and Allie's wedding so we had a little wedding of our own... (= Mercedes and Isidro! They got married and he got baptized this week! They are so special! Lots of Mercedes' family came to the wedding and now we're teaching them as well. Pictures coming. Miracles happen in LEON! WE went to Leon this morning to renew the ID (cedula) of my companion so that she can leave the country, and now we're back in Leon and headed to Managua again tommorrow! (there's another leader's council) Lots of traveling (= 

It's supposed to be raining a lot right now, but it's not, just one time this week.

Love you all lots!

Hermana Merrill

May's Happenings

This week there were definitely miracles in Leon. We have been working with a sister named Ana and she got baptized this week!  

Ana- She is a single mom. Her little girl is 3 years old and this past week Ana lost her job because she had to take care of her sister's baby all week long and her boss doesn't let kids be at work. (she just left him with her). She didn't have money to even feed her girl. She was, earlier in her life, an alcoholic and just hung out on the street. But one day she made a promise with God that she wouldn't drink again and would start taking care of her girl. She started looking for a job, and mercifully she found one. Then we found her and God has really helped her life. She started going to church and then got baptized. We promised her that if she obeyed the commandments and trusted in God, followed-through with her baptism and always went to church, God would never let her girl go hungry. Right after her baptism the second counselor gave her work making tortillas, and another lady in the ward gave her clothes for her girl. We didn't even ask. The relief society president had visited her with us the week before and knew her circumstance, but didn't know that we had promised her that as missionaries. God is a very loving God, who works miracles when we show faith.

Rudy FINALLY got confirmed. (thanks to the support of the ward! I love our ward)

Two families came to church! One of them, Myra and Jaime are going to get baptized this following week (if we can somehow get the mom to come to Leon or Managua for the marriage- because Myra is 17 and her mom needs to sign because she's underage). So pray for a miracle! The mom lives quite far away!

I love you all! 

Hermana Merrill

Well this week was just crazy. We went to Managua and then for the next 4 days we did divisions. Two divisions 2 days in a row and then the Hermana Assistants came and did surprise divisions with us from Saturday until Sunday night. Crazy. (=

The mom of Maria couldn't come this week so Maria and Jaime couldn't get married and baptized, but she says she's coming this Thursday so cool!

This might be a short letter. Sorry, I really don't know what happened this week. I blinked and it was gone!

We went and took pictures on top of the cathedral today!  Hermana Raymond gave me the red glasses and Hermana Tarax the Headband (=
Thanks for all your birthday wishes!

Hermana Merrill

It was really good to see you all this week, I love you all lots! 

This week we had an event in all of Nicaragua put on be the stakes called la semana de las familias, or The family week. BUT... we found out about it on Thursday of this week. I knew that every stake in Nicaragua was going to do it, and I had been asking our bishop what we were going to do for it for 3ish weeks back, but he told me that the stake hadn't told him anything about it. So I thought we weren't going to do anything for it. The activities were supposed to start on Monday, but on Thursday they called an emergency meeting to plan for the rest of the week. (= 

So, we frantically started to help spread the word on Friday. The catch is that on Saturday we had a dinner planned with Hermana Isidro and Mercedes to help pay for their marriage the next week. Basically all the members had already bought tickets to the dinner. We decided just to move the time from 6 to 5, letting people eat and then go to the devotional at 7. Better attendance at the devotional. BUT the dinner didn't finish at 7 as everyone was still eating.  So for the dinner that I planned, the devotional got postponed... (= hahaha I hope the stake President and I are still friends.

Mercedes and Isidro are so cool. They're in love and so excited to get married, and him to get baptized. He reads the Book of Mormon between every visit AND goes every week to church!

Anyways besides that Miracles do happen every week and I love you family

Hermana Merrill

Click here to Reply, Reply to all, or Forward

Easter Message

I love the atonement of Christ. God expects us to be perfect, but we aren't. But Christ's example gives us hope that we can be, and His sacrifice is the reason that we can repent to one day become perfect. 

There is so much work in God's kingdom and he needs so many hands. We are Chirst's hands, he needs us to help His children who aren't in His fold yet.

Thank you so much for the package! I love it! you guys are so thoughtful!

Here in Leon it has been Semana Santa. aka the hottest week of the year. Everyone left for the beach or had one of those little plastic kid pools out in front of their house. In the center of town they make carpets of colored sand that fill up the whole street and then have processions with Statues of Christ and I don't know what else because that's not my area, but pretty crazy stuff!

Remember that Rudy that got baptized a few weeks ago? Well, he didn't come to church AGAIN, so he couldn't get confirmed. AGAIN. He had problems with his wife on Sunday morning and he didn't show up. 

This morning I learned about the power of prayer. We had had kind of a rough past 2 weeks because we haven't had a lot of success with bringing people to church. Lots of people have accepted to be baptized, but they can't be baptized if they don't go to church. (= I listened to a talk by Elder Bednar in the morning about some principles of prayer and and later talked to God. More than anything else prayer helps us gain a more excellent vision. Helps us see the good things, the hand of the Lord , the ways He has worked in our lives and the assurance that He still will. It also helps us repent, change, and be humble.

I love you guys so much! God works miracles in our lives! The process of Converting to Christ is a fight of every day. God loves you and I do too!

Hermana Merrill

Earthquake in Nicaragua

(There was a 7.1 earthquake in Nicaragua last week.  It was centered near the city Nagarote about 20 miles from where Heather is.  She had done transfers in that city the week prior so she refers to that)

Terremoto (big earthquake)-- Where I am located there hasn't been any damage from the earthquakes that I have seen but it sure has been crazy to feel. It's quite interesting, the earth literally is moving.  It's like sitting in theater seats that move in crazy directions. Nagarote is where Hermana Alan and Hermana Cole are right now. (Remember about the miracle divisions I spoke about down there last week)  That's where there was the most damage, lots of houses there fell. None of the missionaries were hurt, I know that God protects us. 

Mom's questions:

Are you drinking enough water???  I drink so much water. the change from Mataglapa to here has been big. In Matagalpa I drank so much less then I do here 

Are you getting sunburned? Sunburnt in Nicaragua is something that one just can't avoid, but I do use sunscreen.

Does someone cook your main meal of the day, like in your other areas? yes

Lots of heat and success plus a 4 foot companion

Well, I'm back to the heat. I never can drink enough water. And this week was awesome. God is so great that if you believe in Him and never give up hope He always gives you miracles.

My companion has a really high voice and is 4 foot even and the cutest missionary ever (=. We saw lots of miracles this week. Her name's Hermana Tarax.

This week I did divisions with Hermana Alan, She's a really awesome missionary from Costa Rica that has been out on her mission only about 3 months but is super pilas. She has so much faith. The day we were together in her area we found three really awesome new families that all said they would go to church and we put baptismal dates with 2 of them and baptismal dates with another family on top of that, one that they were already teaching. Miracles happen when you believe and put your trust in God.

In our area, we also saw a lot of miracles. Three families came and watched conference and a cool family to complete (the husband of a member) got baptized. His name is Rudy. ( I can't really take credit for that one as I came this week, but baptisms are always good.) The other cool thing is that this family is a family of less-actives (mother in law, wife, and sisters in laws of Rudy). They went to conference because right after was the baptism of Rudy. They came back just so excited about the church, and "did you hear this that such a speaker said" and " I love this that another speaker said" and ... It was cool. The 9 year old son of Rudy wants to get baptized now as well and Rudy wants to perform the ordinance in 2 weeks after he receives the Priesthood. Funny: Rudy had to get baptized 5 times. (because first his legs and then his head and then... didn't go all the way into the water)

One of the families that came to church stayed for 2 sessions and then for the baptism as well. We're hoping the family that watched Rudy's baptism didn't get scared because he got baptized so many times (especially because she's pregnant).

Did I already tell you it's hot here? (= My house is really big. My other one was a really small room. This one has 3 rooms!

Hermana Merrill