Numero 11

Holllaaaaaa. Como estan? Yo estoy super super animado por que yo tuve mi primera bautismo este sabado!

If you can read that, it means that I am super happy because I got to take a little swim this weekend (I had my first baptism this saturday)! I baptised an 18 year old dude named Pedro and Elder Jacobsen baptised two girls. It was such a cool saturday! It was a pretty crazy story because we had been teaching this dude for awhile and he was totally interested and open to learning and wanted to change his life. Then we didnt see him for a week because he left to help his grandma out outside of our area. Then on friday, we went to his house and he was home. We taught him a little bit and asked him how he felt about being baptised the next day, and he was ready. So we baptised him on Saturday and confirmed him a member of the church on Sunday. Pretty cool feeling being in all white!!

Pedro is such a cool dude. He is 18 and trying to provide for himself and help out his family. He doesnt have any work and doesnt have any money, but he is so positive and knows that through the Lord he will be blessed and find work. He is going to be a great member in the church! Before my mission I never really thought about baptising someone. I only thought about how I can give my love and serve with all my heart. So the coolest thing for me was I have been working pretty hard for the last 6 weeks and I really hoped that I could baptise someone, and I did. It was a good reassuring feeling that I am actually doing something right and someone can understand my spanish hahha.

Also, I just finished my first change here. All the white missionaries serve 16 changes and I just finished my second. So I am an eighth of the way there! hahaha.

Right now I am sick and it sucks so bad. I am coughing and got a bad headache. It is the worst being sick here because we still have to go out and be at our best even if we feel like crap. Everyone is getting sick here because it is cooling down a little bit into the 70s.

All in all, it was a good week. Like always we are working hard here!

Oh and on a side note, no one celebrates Halloween here. Everyone thinks it is like super bad or something, idk. People are weird here. So no candy for me:(

Okay thats all I got this week. Thank you for your emails and I hope everyone has a great week!

Les amo

Adio

Elder Sherle

 

Numero 10 ~ Esteli

Holaaaaaaa everyone! How is everyone?

We had a good week here. We were pretty busy the whole week, like always.

Yes, there was a pretty big earthquake here last monday. It was a 7.3 from what the locals told us. Being the great missionaries that we are, we were praying before getting to sleep and our whole room started shaking and our refrigerator started rocking back and forth. I thought my comp was moving the bed back and forth haha I was wrong. It went on for about 30 seconds, but still felt pretty cool. Up in Esteli we are in mountains so it wasnt as strong here as it was is Managua.  (below is a video John took of a river overflowing ~ I believe the video can only be seen on a computer and not a mobile device.)
 

 

This week I gained a little more confidence in my spanish. I went on divisions with the Zone Leader in my area. So i had to take him around and guide the lessons with our investigators. After the day was over, he told me how impressed he was with my spanish and how he was blown away at how much I already know. I was so happy to hear that because I have been feeling like I have been behind. Hard work is paying off!

The weird thing that happened this week was we just seemed to be the target for all the drunk people. Most people dont have work here and just sit around and get drunk and for some reason all the drunks would just walk up to us and try to talk to us, so we started to have a little fun with them and we only spoke to them in english. They were "had to be there moments", but super funny. It is always a plus to speak english here because no one can understand us, but we can understand them. Oh a lot of people here get so fascinated with our eyes. They just cant believe that we have blue and green eyes. They will just stare into our eyes in awe, it is a little awkward but it is pretty funny.

We are working really hard here teaching as many people as we can. A lot of the days we cant even get to everyone we want to talk to. But we do our best. We have a couple dates for baptism this week so hopefully they will keep to that date. We have an investigator named Eddie and he is definitely ready to take the step. I am getting pretty comfortable here. I know the area a lot better and know a lot more people. We know there are chosen people for us here, we just need to find them and give them this message.

That's all I got for this week. Like always thank you so much for all your e-mails.

Oh and a BIG shoutout to my grandma! She just got baptised this weekend and I am so excited for her!

Much love from your boy in Nica

Adio

Elder Sherle

Número 9- Esteli

Holaaaaaaaa. 

A great week we had here in Rosario!

To start off, we had our first baptism! We had a marriage for these two in the church and baptised the newly married wife right after. It was our first baptism, pretty cool! This family had literally nothing so let him borrow my suit and we found her a dress to make it something worth remembering. They used two CTR rings to be married with. Pretty crazy how different it is here. They had about 10 people at their wedding, and four missionaries. But it was so cool to see them happy. 

We did more service again this week moving a bunch of dirt and helping people connect their bathroom so they have a toilet that flushes. We were working right next to this guy who knew a little bit of english, and it was so funny because he was telling us how he crossed the border from Mexico into the United States and how hard it was to get in. But he got in a worked in construction for a couple years, then moved back here to Nicaragua. We could relate because he can't speak English and my Spanish is still a work in progress....so we had a little connection haha. 

Like I just said, the language is a process. I learn new things and new words every day, but I still get frustrated with it. I just want to be perfect now, but I need to find a little patience with this. 

We have been working super hard this week and hopefully we be baptising someone this next week, so I am praying for that. We have a lot of really cool investigators. They are all so nice and all of them are so close, we just need to make things happen. We were so excited this week because we had 48 people come to church! That is a pretty beasty number here! Of that 48, 11 of them were investigators and three families. A big test here is if our investigators come to church, that means they are pretty interested, so we were really excited on Sunday. 

Right after our baptism on Saturday, a less active in our ward was killed in an accident, so we went over to the house and were there for support. It was cool to see so many people come out to support this family. Everyone here are so supportive for their friends and families. The guy suffered a head trauma because he wasn't wearing a helmet when he was riding his bycicle, and was hit by a motorcyle. The weird thing was they had an open casket, so we got to look at him. I had never seen a dead body before and I am not going to lie it was a little creepy. But it was just pretty weird going from a wedding and a baptism to a funeral....the life of a missionary. 

The food here is still all the same. Basically, beans, rice and chicken. BUT, today for p-day we went to a pizza place in downtown. I was so happy to actually get to eat some pizza and feel full. So today was a solid day for me! 

I literally love the culture here. Everything is so simple. All people care about are three things: Family, God, and Food. It has really changed my perspective on life. Family is often times overlooked and taken for granted for. I want to tell everyone to not overlook the importance of family, yes I am talking to you too Raimee and Nathan:) 

Anyways, we are working hard here and serving the best we can! This is hard work, but it feels so good to hit that pillow at night knowing you worked as hard as you can.

I hope everyone know that I love all you guys so much and I am so grateful for all your e-mails. I hope everyone has a great week coming up!

Les ama

Adio

Elder Sherle

Número 8 - Esteli

Hola familia y amigos. ¿Como estan? 

Another good week here in Esteli. We were super busy this week which is always a good thing. We did some service this week for a member where we spent about 2 and  a half hours moving dirt and rocks because everyone here is connecting their water to the black water that is underground so they can have a bathroom with running water. So we helped her out with moving all the dirt and rocks. I was sore for about 4 days after because we had to use some wood tools and most of everyone else on the street just kind of watched us. I love doing service for people here because a lot of people here think that we think we are better than them. They think that because we are american and we wear ties that we are above everyone here, so it is nice for the people here to see that we are actually normal and are here to help.

 

 

Like I have said before, our area is pretty dangerous. A couple nights ago about 15 mins after we got in the house there was this huge gang fight right in front of our house! There was about 15 guys on each side and they were all throwing rocks at each other and fighting. A bunch of them had macheties and were sparking them on the ground running after people, it was so crazy to watch! Then the fight ended and there was a couple guys that were just pelting our house with rocks for a little bit, not going to lie I was kind of scared haha, but I am good. It still is funny just how much people tell us how dangerous it is for us each day. 

We have a marriage this week and a baptism. The future husband is a member and the wife is not. So we are going to marry them and then baptise the future wife about an hour after the wedding. They have no money so we are providing pretty much everything for them, but it is pretty cool that we will get our first baptism this weekend! I am so excited for that! I hope I don't jinx it by telling you guys! We have a couple really cool investigators ready to be baptised in the next couple weeks so hopefully these next few weekends with be busy with baptism. One of our investigators we were about to drop finally is starting to come around. I felt truly happy once he told us he wants to know more and wants to follow the path of the Lord. 

General Conference was in Spanish of course, but we got lucky and some guy from the church hooked up a tv and we got to watch in English. Not going to lie, I had never watched every session of conference before, but I wish I had. My favorite speaker is definitely Elder Holland, he speaks with so much power I can always feel the spirit so strong. We had 500 people show up from all of Esteli, which was a record breaker. We had 70 people show up from our area which is also a record breaker. It was a lot better turn out than what we get at church. We usually get around 30-40 people at church. 

Well, I am working hard here and getting better and better everyday with this language. This is some tiring work, but it feels good to be out here! I love this place!

I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Sherle

 

 

our apartment