Families!

Well these past weeks have been busy as usually, but we managed to find lots of times to work in our area and we are teaching some incredible families. Next week we will have two baptisms. You may remember them from the last email I sent out, Romulo and Juan Jose. Romulo is a young father, who's wife is inactive, but she was happy to receive us when we met them for the first time. Romulo was a little skeptical at first. Like I mentioned last time he works in the intelligence division of the police and he heard rumors from his police buddies that missionaries were US spies and work under the supervision of the CIA to gather information. We joked a little about the absurity of that idea and reasured him that wasn't true in the slightest. We then started teaching him and his wife and even though he had lots of questions and doubts, he really had an open mind about it so we were able to discuss things and even his wife helped because she knew lots of the answers. He has been progressing really well these past weeks despite his busy work schedule that takes up a lot of his time. Last week they hit a speed bump because his work kinda feeds his paranoia and distrust, so he and his wife had gotten in a jealousy fueled fight and he left the house for like 4 days. Luckily we were able to run in to him the day he came back to talk with here and we were able to teach that families are important! And the role that the gospel of Jesus Christ plays in strengthening families and creating succesful families. It was a very spiritual discussion with the two of them and they were able to work things out between them. Romulo will be baptized this thursday and hopefully he'll be able to present their little 6 month year old girl some time in December!

Juan Jose has been coming to church faithfully even though its means a rough journey for him in wheel chair. He is always in lots of pain because of the illness he has in his tendons and bones, so the journey to church over not so smooth Nicaragua roads isn't the most fun for him. But when we asked him if he wanted to take a break in the shade he said "no hermano, no quiero llegar tarde! Si Cristo aguantó todo, ¿para que no voy a aguantar yo?".  Translation: "No, brother, I don't wan't to be late! If Christ endured all, why shouldn't I endure as well? Such a strong guy with an incredible desire to follow Jesus. His main worry with baptism is the logistics, of everything because of his condition. Everything will work out great though and he will be a great example for the rest of his family. 

Another awesome Family we have been teaching that I contacted at the start of this transfer has been progressing really well and finally accepted a baptismal date. Ernesto and Karla are both workers for the state, so they were extremely busy during elections so they haven't been to church yet, but Karla has free this week , so she will be able to come to church for the first time with one of her sons. They have three kids: Roger 17, Josue 13, and Juan Carlos 6. Roger and Josue volunteer at a local church on Sunday so they won't be able to make it, but we hope the following week we can get the whole family to come. They have lots of questions and curiosities so they are always a fun family to teach and it's been really hard to keep the lessons under an hour. Sometimes it's good and even necessary to have long lessons like that but when your area time is as limited as our time is, an hour long lesson takes up a lot of valuable time. Wednesday we were really far behind on our schedule so we were sprinting from place to place and we finally got to their house an hour and 20 minutes later than we had told them we would be there. They let us in and after some brief talk they confessed to us a big domestic problem that they were in the middle of. It's kinda a long story, but basically Ernesto's sister who lives in the same house had been causing them lot's of problem and ended up getting the family in legal trouble. Ernesto was furious with her and was just waiting for her to get home to go off on her when we showed up. We decided we would share a short message with them and shared a couple scriptures and with the last scripture we shared the spirit communicated to them the message they needed to hear. Ernesto now completely calmed down thanked us and explained that that was exactly what he needed to here and that he could see God was with us because we were guided to share the message he needed at the exact time we needed it. Then when as we were finishing the lesson we asked them if they had been praying about the truthfulness of the message we have been sharing and whether they had received an answer and Karla said, well we have been praying and I know that God sometimes gives answers in signs and I think it was a sign that you guys showed up exactly at the right time even though it was much later than you had planned and the message you shared was what my husband needed to hear. I think that shows that you are guided by God. It was an incredibly spiritual lesson and we invited her and the rest of her family to prepare to be baptized and testified that as they continued listening, praying, and going to church they would be able to continue to receive confirmations of their answer to be able to feel ready to be baptized. 

The fourth incredible family we have been teaching is the family of David Perez. He is awesome and has been coming to church regularly, but there were a few weeks where we were only teaching him because his wife didn't want to listen to us. He feels that this is truly the church of Christ, and wants to be a member of Christ's church, but values the unity of his family and doesn't want to let this to be something that causes problems between him and his wife. These last two times we have visited them we have been able to teach them both together plus one of their daughters and his wife has been a lot more receptive. She has been listening and asking questions again and refuses to let us leave without feeding us something. We and David are fighting to get her to come to church at least once, but she works on Sundays and is still hesitant to sacrifice a few hours of work. We are hoping that her heart will be softened a little bit and she'll be able to get to know the church, so their family can enjoy the blessings of the restored Gospel. 

Ok that's all I got time for this week. Things are going great here and it's nice to be coming up on Christmas. Also this last week I hit my 9 month mark! cannot believe how quickly 2016 has passed by. Unfortunately thanksgiving isn't a thing here, but President and his wife are going to invite us over for thanksgiving celebrations, so that might end up being my pday and if I don't write next Saturday it'll be because I'm working in my area! Love you all and wish you all the best!

Elder Hamson

Only two pics this week. Christmas in the mall with Elders Galo, Neilson, and Gonzalez.