Número 23 Sebaco

Hola a todo!

This week has been crazy!! I went to Managua and picked up my baby boy. His name is Elder Lainez and he is from Honduras. He actually speaks pretty good english which is cool because he helps me a lot. I definitely like having a latin comp, it makes things a lot easier. He is super cool though we get along well. We got to Sebaco on wednesday and found our new house. Our house was absolutely discusting. There were lizards, cochroaches, spiders, and mice all over. It was so gross. There wasnt even a toilet seat!! It has definitely been a change from my house in Rosario. All the shower is a pipe that comes out of the wall, its rough. The first nights we didnt have anything except our beds. Now we have a fridge and desks and we are still waiting for a closet, stove, mirrors, and some other stuff. I hope they come soon because we are just living out of our suitcases right now. We had to spend like 3 hours cleaning the house up to make it somewhat decent. We had to spend a bunch of money to buy a bunch of cleaning supplies so now I am broke haha and we dont get moneyuntil next monday, but I am pretty used to not eating very much now.

 The area here is huge, one thing cool about it is there are monkeys here!! On the way to our lunch appointment there is a monkey and I give him a banana every day haha he is a cool monkey, I will take a pic of him this week. We have definitely done a lot of walking this week just trying to be able to get to know the area. It has been a lot harder than I thought training and opening an area. But now I know where the members are and the names of the different neighborhoods and what now, so this week should be a lot better than last week. The branch here is a little rough. The church is just a house here and there are about 50 members that show up to church. Out of the 50 members there are only 4 priesthood holders. The ward is literally all chicks and kids, there are no men here. I think that is why we got send here because this ward needs more familias with men in the church. There have been only sister missionaries here for about a year. So all the members were excited to see us here, not saying that sister missonaries dont work, i just think we do it better :) It is a little bit hotter here than Esteli and Sebaco has a little bit more money than Rosario. I think there were 3 cars that showed up to church on sunday and that is something you dont see here very much in Nicaragua. We are now settled in here in Sebaco for the most part. It has definitely been a big change here, but I am doing good and am excited to start this week up now that I know the area a little bit. 

No matter where I am I know that God is with me and I know that he is helping me to be able to find the people that want to listen to our message here in Sebaco. All Im going to do is work hard to find them and I know God with bless us here is this little town.

I hope everyone has a great week! Talk to you guys later!

Adio
Elder Sherle

Numero 22 - Rosario / Esteli

It has been a good week here in Rosario. To start off, Juan Carlos and his wife Klaymer got baptised this weekend. It is always a cool feeling being able to baptise a family like them. We didnt think we were going to be able to baptise them because he had to work in the morning outside of Esteli and didnt get back until 6. He called us at about 5:15 and told us to get everything prepared for them at 6:30. So we called all the members real quick and had everyone come to the church to watch them be baptised. Everything went well, it was a good saturday. We also had 45 people at church on Sunday, which is very good for the branch here. One cool thing that happened in church is that Genaro confirmed Juan Carlos and gave a talk in church. Crazy to see how far he has come from being completely inactive to now a strong member in the church again.

It has also been my last week here. Yep, I got changed. I am pretty sad that I have to leave some of the people here. I had to say all my goodbyes last night and it really made me realize how much love I have for some people here. I am going to miss them so much. It has definitely been a good four months here. I am going to a place called Sebaco. I will be staying in the same zone and my area is only about 45 minutes away from Esteli. BUT, the cool thing is....I am gonna be a DAD!! haha yes I will be training a brand new missionary! I am going to pick my baby boy up in Managua tomorrow. I dont if I am getting a latino or a gringo, I will find out tomorrow. Another thing that is crazy is there arent Elders in Sebaco, only 2 sister missionaries. So we are going to open up a completely new area. I dont have a house, I dont know any members, I dont know where the church is, I dont know where my lunch place is, nothing! haha I am a little nervous about it but we will see how it goes. I am super excited to be able to train though. It is going to be so fun to show this newbie the ropes here in Nicaragua. I am hoping that I get a latin because I want to go all spanish for awhile, I feel strong enough to be all spanish haha I am sick of speaking english!

 

Anyways, I feel like I have had a successful 4 months here in Rosario. Rosario will always have a special place in my heart because this is my first area. I hope some day I will be able to come back here and visit all my friends here. But, I will be starting a new chapter of the mission in Sebaco. Wish me luck!

I love you all and hope everyone has a great week!

Adio

Elder Sherle
 

Número 21- Esteli

Hola a todo! 

This week has felt a lot shorter because we got to write on Wednesday last week but i will throw in a couple thoughts. 

Well nothing really happened on thursday or friday, pretty normal days, but then on saturday we had a marriage of this guy named Juan Carlos and his wife Klaymer. We are teaching them right now and they are super cool. They just moved into our area about a month ago and he actually contacted us and asked us to go to their house. Anyways, they got married this weekend in the church. It was pretty cool because they really dont have any friends here and none of their family lives here so they didnt have anyone to invite to the wedding. So Elder Bickmore and I got all the members to be there for it. It was cool, pretty low-key because it is only a civil wedding but we had some cake and soda after so everyone enjoyed it. They are planning to get baptised this upcoming weekend. I have really seen a change in their lives through this gospel. It is pretty cool to see. It is crazy how they gospel can just restart someone's life and make them so happy. I am so excited for them. 

The church here is finally starting to progress a little bit. We had 46 members at church this week. It felt so much better than when I first got here and only like 25 people came. There wasnt that awkward silence or anything because there were actually people there. Elder Bickmore and I are pretty happy that this branch is actually growing. 

Jaime and Carla are doing great. I gave Jaime a tie and a white shirt and now he looks like he has been a member for awhile. Their family is so cool. They are so poor but they always give us some type of food or drink when we go to their house. The people here are so giving. 

I dont really know what else to say. I just know that this gospel changes lives, and the happiness that comes from it is eternal. I am so happy I am here and that I am working for the Lord. 

I love you all so much. I hope everyone has a great week!

Adio

Elder Sherle

Número 20

First off just want to give a quick shoutout to everyone and say Happy New Year!! I cant believe it is 2015, so weird. I cant even believe how fast 2014 went by, I hope the same this year! 

Well we werent able to write on monday because we did a super pday today with the President of the mission. We went to a different look out place and got to hang out with people from another zone, it has been a good day. I sent pictures of all my boys that I was hanging out with. I just love pdays so much haha

(His mission president is wearing the BYU hat)

Yesterday I hit my 5 month mark. I cant believe I already have 5 months in the mission. It has gone by very fast. In only one month I am going to be a fourth done with my mission already. Pretty crazy. I remember last week I did divisions with a kid who just got here about 4 weeks ago, and he had to have me translate to him almost everything that people who saying, and his spanish just sounded so gringo haha. I really got to see how far I have come. I feel so comfortable with the language now and it is such a good feeling. He has a latin comp too and his gets frustrated with him a lot because his comp doesnt speak english and he cant speak spanish. I remember those days when I just sat in lessons and could barely understand people, I am so grateful to be where I am at with the language now. 

Something funny happned this week with our recent convert. He showed up like 20 mins early to church and set up all the chairs for church. We showed up and saw that he had put up about 50 chairs up in the church. So I went up to him and told him that he needs to put some chairs back because there isnt going to be that many people that are going to come and we dont want the church to look empty, and he looks at me and says "How come you have such little faith?? I have the faith the a lot of people are going to come to church today." I was definitely not ready for an answer like that from my recent convert....he pretty much just put me in place and I baptised this dude 2 weeks ago haha. So i just told him that we will have to see. So about half way through sacrament meeting and there were 43 people in church. That is more than we have had in about 6 weeks here. So he turns around and just smiles at me right in the middle of sacrament meeting hahaha. So I guess you could say I got taught a nice lesson about faith from my recent convert this week. I never thought something like that would happen hahaha good times.

Well, thats all I really got for this week guys. I hope everyone has a great week and is enjoying life. I hope everyone has been able to think about how they will be able to better themselves this year of 2015. 

I love you all!

Adio

Elder Sherle