Cody's Mission Blog: Masatepe

December 14, 2015

Well, I got changes and now I´m in Masatepe. It´s a little town kind of on the West side of Nicaragua. Its just a bit west of the top part of lake Nicaragua. It´s pretty close to Jinotepe and Masaya which are bigger towns near by. So on Tuesday the APs called and out of the four of us in Juigalpa me and Hanson had changes. So we went by our converts and people we´d gotten to know on Tuesday night (and contacted and taught lessons too of course). Then on Tuesday night I packed up and woke up at 3 AM on Wednesday morning. The bus with all the people in our zone with changes left for Managua at 4 am and we got there at like 7:30 ish. So everyone gets off the bus at this big church in Managua and puts there stuff in the gym. Then we have change meeting where basically president Russell announces the ZLs for a zone then all the missionaries going to that given zone. So he announced Zona Carazo and Hanson was the new ZL there with Elder Henriquez. Then I hear my name. So I knew I would be in zona Carazo with Elder Hanson and Henriquez as my ZL but not what area/city I´d be in or who my comp would be. So we left immediately, loaded our stuff on the bus that had come from Carazo (Carazo is the county basically) and set off. The bus stopped at each area in the zone and dropped off the missionary and his stuff there and only then would the ZLs announce who would be serving in that area and who their comp would be. So we got to Masatepe and Hanson said, Elder Smith is here and you´ll be with Elder Nave (pronounced Naw vay). So my new comp is Nave and he was right there waiting then we went to the house and dropped off my bags. Elder Nave has like 14 months on the mission, he´s the District leader of us, the sisters in Masatepe and sisters in La Concha. He´s from West Jordan and lives kind of by DI over there. There´s six of us in total in the district.

So our area is really big and spread out. The properties here are way bigger so it takes a lot more time to walk from place to place. So we have to take mototaxis everywhere. It´s a bit annoying but apparently it´s pretty normal. So a lot of my money will be going towards transportation.

We have a lot of really positive people already. Carolina is a cousin of two really cool converts that got baptized two weeks ago. She has a fecha for the 26th and has already been to church twice. Her cousin Juana that got baptized two weeks ago was pregnant and started having contractions during her baptismal service so she got baptized real quick and went to the hospital. Then she named her new baby boy "Elder" so that's really cool.

Then we have Jeffryn. Hes the 8 year old grandson of a member. his parents dont really want anything to do with us but they really want him to get baptized. So he´s also got a fecha for the 26th. Then there's Ronald who almost got baptized a while ago but couldn't get married because he had problems with his papers. But now hes separated from his partner so we can baptize him. But he needs to come to church twice first. His fecha is for the 2nd of January. Then there's this huge family with a grandma, her daughter, and 4 grandkids of the grandma. The kids went to church last week and we've been spending a lot of time teaching them and they´re all pretty positive.

So this Sunday was stake conference (it´s a real ward and stake here and everything!!). A bus left from the church here at 9 to bring people to the stake center in Jinotepe. So on Sunday we went by and Carolina wasn´t there, Jeffryn wouldn't go with us and his mom was sick so couldn't help us convince him, Ronald was gone too. But this family was there so we got the mom, three of her kids and a niece and a nephew of hers. So in total we got six to church.

Nave tells me that like 150 people come to church every week which is crazy. This place is crawling with members. Its nothing like Juigalpa was. Also its much less poor here ( Don´t get me wrong it would still blow you away how poor it is.)

This is a super blessed area and we´re looking like this will be a very successful month. I´m very excited to be working here in this area with Elder Nave. He´s more focused on baptizing than any missionary I´ve met so far on the mission.

I´m sorry if I won´t be able to send any pics this week because the USB port in the cyber I´m writing in won´t fit my converter.

I´m really excited for Christmas and to be able to talk to the family. For Christmas the mission has a big multizona in Managua and they´ll give us presents, a ton of food, then let us get into pday clothes to play sports. We also have like four dinners lined up on Christmas Eve. Sorry family, I still don´t know for sure when we´ll be skyping. Sometime in the afternoon though. Make sure that next week you get me all the info for the account I should skype from and to.

I´m not sure how much time I´ll have to email right now so I´ll send this and I promise I´ll give you more details about the area and investigators and comp next week. and pics.

Love you!!!

Elder Smith

Mom I got your Christmas tree package and have it all up on the wall right now. Everyone is super jealous and says "it´s the trunkiest thing they´ve ever seen". I just smile because it´s perfect. It´s clear that most of the missionaries around me are the first missionaries in the family and their mom doesn´t know how to take care of them like my mom does. I also got Mimi´s package. I LOVE the candy and me and Nave have been enjoying it greatly. Please give her a very heartfelt thank you for me. Its super sad that a package like that cost 35 bucks. But you already know that. Speaking of which the post office was closed last week in Juigalpa so I couldn't send your letter until today. They said it would take 12 days to arrive so we´ll see when you get it.