Numero 96 ~ found some cool new people!

Hey fam!

Well this week was pretty good!

This week will be a weird week because President Collado leaves and President Poncio comes on Tuesday. We will see how the change goes. 

My comp and I got to know eachother a little bit and we have gotten along really well! Its really cool being together because we both have a lot of experience in the mission so we are using all the ideas that we have used in our missions together to be able to find new people and to be able to have success. 

We are going to be doing some misison activities in the ward to try to motivate the members a little more to help us out in the work and so that our investigadors feel comfortable at church. 

This week we found some cool new people! My companion is pretty lost in the area so I have direct everything which isnt hard but i had a hard time remembering a couple of streets haha because our area is really big.

We had two investigadors in church this week. One is named Roger and the other Wilfredo. They are awesome. They really like the church and are willing to learn more. Wilfredo is preparing to be baptized on the 23 i think of July and Roger still doesnt have a baptismal date but he has gone to church 3 times now. We are just waiting for his wife to come back from Managua to see if she is willing to get married to him and if she is interested in the church. They are really positive. We have some other cool people but they need a little more work because they didnt come to church. We are working hard to get all our investigadors to church because it is a key if they want to come to Christ. We are pushing strong and we are working hard to be able to find the people that the lord has ready for us in the month of july.

My companion and I have been studying a lot of doctrine together and it is really cool being able to clear up the doubts of our investigadors throught the scriptures. One of my favorite parts of my mission is helping something really understand the doctrine of christ. You can see that their mind just opens up and they understand it. 

Well, thats what I got for you guys this week. I love you all!

Have a great week!

Elder Sherle

Are those the whitest whites ever hanging to dry??
How many bananas do you need to feed the missionaries? 

Numero 95 ~ Good Bye Meeting with President Collado

Heyyy fam! 

This week was filled of some weird stuff.

On Tuesday, we had our goodbye meeting with President Collado and his family. We sang Sister Collado's favorite hymn and they were crying pretty hard. There was also a video that a zone made for them of memories of their time in the mission and we all sent pictures with President Collado and

Sister Collado in them. It was pretty sad actually. I really am going to miss that family. They are a great example to me and a great example of how to be happy through trials and difficulties. Just being around them I can see the light they have with them. They have really helped me a lot become who I am today and have helped me gain a testimony of the gospel.

This week we had changes. My companion, Elder Esquivel, had changes. He got sent to Managua to be a district leader. I was happy for him. I am pretty sad to say bye to him. He was a really funny companion. Always making jokes and getting me to laugh was what I will always remember about him. 

My new companion is named Elder Aviles. He is from El Salvador. This change is pretty crazy because Elder Aviles and I go home together......and this is both our last change together. So that means that we will both finish together and we will both leave this area together. I have never seen this happen before in my mission so I was a little confused with this change. I told Elder Aviles that I want to give it all we got so that we finish with no regrets. We will see what happens! I am excited, I got faith that we are going to see some miracles these last 6 weeks.

There have been a lot of changes in this last week. It feels weird that so many missionaries that are good friends of mine are leaving and now President Collado is leaving too. Its really weird to see. 

Gotta finish strong though! No regrets!

I love you all!

Elder Sherle

Numero 94 ~ Chinandega 6.3 earthquake

Hey fam!! Well this week was full of interesting experiences!

Im sure you have heard but this week about 15 kilometers from my area hit a 6.3 caliber earthquake. The first one was really strong and then there were a couple other ones that we felt strong too. We were walking to our house when it hit and by the time we had got to our house 3 earthquakes had passed through. It was pretty nerveracking because we had nowhere to go and we were afraid that a lamp post would fall or that a house would fall. Nothing happened to us. We were protected by the Lord. My comp didnt get sleep that night and i got a little bit of sleep. We stayed up to get ahold of a companionship in the district that was right by where the earthquake was born. They were all good just really shaken up. It has still been shaking. There has been a ton of replicas and even this morning we felt it shake a little bit. We have been a little nervous but it looks like we are going to be okay and that we will be okay. The people here were pretty scared. They are all worried that the volcano that is here in Chinandega (the biggest one in central america) is going to activate. So everyone is on their feet and ready for whatever that comes. It is good for us because these are signs that the lord is coming. Earthquakes are only the bigging of what is to come. It was a little hard to teach the next day because a lot of people just wanted to be in their house and listen to the news but we are trying our best to use these signs to help people repent and come closer to christ. 

This week we found a new cool family. The wife is an inactive member and the husband is not a member. We are working to reactivate the wife and baptize the husband. The husband is really interested in our message and he wants to change and the wife is a little difficult right now. Her first marriage was in the church and she got divorced so she is scared to take the same step over again. She also has 3 kids that arent members so if we activate the mom and help the dad get baptized the whole family will follow and they will all be blessed. The husband, named Justo, has accepted a baptismal date for the 8th of July. So we are working with them. 

We are working with another guy named Roger. Roger is awesome. He has been going to church and he loves our message. He doesnt know how to read but he has his son read to him the things we leave for him. He hasnt accpeted a baptismal date because he is waiting for his wife to get back from a farm she is at. She will be coming back this week so we are excited to meet her. He is a very positive invesitgador and this week our plan is just to help him feel really comfortable through the members and we are helping him receive an answer from the lord that this is the true church and that he needs to follow the path of the lord. 

This week we had stake conference. We had 2 members of the 70 show up. One from Guatamala and one from El Salvador. President Collado was there too. There were some great talks and the favorite thing that I heard was from President Collado. He said "The excuse is the anestisia so that the sin doesnt hurt." That is so true. Sometimes we put excuses in our lives so that our mistakes dont hurt. Its better to just learn from the mistake, take the pain and move on because when we put excuses we are just fooling ourselves into believing something that is not true. Good stuff. 

Well, that what I got for you guys. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Elder Sherle

Numero 93 ~ Elder Knight showed up

Hey fammmmm. This week flew by again.

Well this week a couple things that happened was on wednesday we had a zone meeting and our old zone leader, Elder Knight, showed up. It was a cool zone meeting because we all wrote something that we want to do better this month of june and we put it into a pinata and at the end of the meeting with all got to hit the pinata and destroy it haha. Elder Knight worked with me for a little bit in divisions in my area after the meeting. We had a good time together. He goes home with me too.

We got some more references this week from members. Not all of them were open to us but we found a couple new investigadors so we are going to keep going with the references. 

Thursday was a good day. One thing we are doing together as a companionship is looking for all the members that dont live in the area anymore. As we have done this we have been able to find some new people. We were looking for a guy that was a member and when we went to the house we found a different guy and so we started talking to him and by the end of the discussion he accepted a baptismal date for the 24th of June. It was a cool miracle. 

This week the attendance at church was down because it was raining all morning and when it rains a lot of members dont show up for church. No one has a car so its hard for them to walk in the rain and have to deal with all the water that builds up in the street. This next week we hope that it doesnt rain again so that we can have a good attendance. 

We had an investigador in church this week named Roger, he is really cool. He showed up by himself and stayed for all 3 hours and after he told us that he really liked it. The testimony meeting is always good for the investigadors because they can hear the testimonies of the members and listen to how the gospel has helped the lives of the members.

I had a cool experience this week. We ate lunch at a new members house on sunday and when we were eating she sat down with us and she started to tell us about how important missionaries are to her. She expressed to us that when she sees us she sees angels of the Lord and she told us that she can feel the spirit really strong in her house when we are there. It was cool to hear that because it reminded me that I am a servant of the lord and that we carry a strong spirit with us in this calling as a missionary. It was a cool experience to reflect on. 

Well thats what I got for you guys this week. I love you all and i hope you have a great week!

Elder Sherle

This week the bishop made them French Toast - YUMM!!

This week the church changed the dress code for sister missionaries.
They can now wear pants! whoa!! :)