Hey everyone, things have been great recently in chinandega and time is just soaring by! I was very happy to get some beach time recently because we did a zone service project in Corinto following some winter storms that washed away a bunch of houses including some member houses. The mayors office gave them a new spot to build, BEACH FRONT PROPERTY, so we showed up in the morning to help them build their new house. It's funny because beach front property is not very valuable at all here because it is the most likely to wash away, but if they were in california they would be sitting on a goldmine! Anyways that was good fun. Cutting the weeds with machetes, Setting the treetrunk polls and making fences out of giant sacks. We didn't get all the way finished but they were very thankfull for the help and it was nice to help out. It also didn't hurt that we were at the beach. Then the bishop in Corinto said he was going to invite us all to ceviche the next pday, so we came back on monday with the whole zone and played some volleyball in the morning and them ate some fresh ceviche. I love the beach!
another fun thing this last week was on sunday hermano Alfredo had a nice surprise for us and prepared us fried garrobo for lunch! Garrobos are these big iguanas that are all over the place here. I was stoked because i hadn't gotten the opportunity to try garrobo yet in my time here. It was pretty good. Basically just a darker, tougher chicken, although the tale is kinda like a fish texture. Fotos attatched below.
This week we also spent two full days in managua because Elder Cordon came to our mision and we had a general meeting with him on thursday and then a leaders meeting on friday. He is a pretty interesting guy and I really enjoyed listening to his teachings. He talked alot about how to establish the church. The church is established through stong and sealed families. He invited us to focus our work in helping families be strengthened and helping them go to the temple. He also talked alittle about companionship issues in the questions and answers part and taught that being right or knowing the truth doesn't matter, but rather how you use that truth. Because there are lots of things that may be true, but we can choose whether we will use the truth in a way that builds others up rather than tearing them down. He used the example of "you are a sinner" and "you are a child of God" as examples of two truths, one of which elevates the other degrades. THis teaching really can be applied to many things because any truth is power and how we use that power is what is really important because power can be used to degrade and oppress, or it can be used to up lift and build up. Another thing he taught in relation to the way we should teach is that people aren't always in a good position to be taught. In order to teach it is often necessary to lift the person up to a teachable position with love and then teach. This can be seen in numerous examples of the way that the savior taught because he often had to correct or admonish, but he always lifted the person up to a position where they could receive the teaching without resent. A finally subject eh touched on that i would like to mention is lying. He talked about how easy it is for us to lie and asked teh question if we could go a whole year without lying..or a month? or a week? or even one day? We often don't releaze or don't give importance to all the little lies we tell, but he taught the importance of being honest in all things and building our character by eliminating all lies. All in all it was an excelent conference and on top of the teachings I also got to work one afternoon in Waspan with the secretaries which was coolm because I got to go visit some of the families i taught.
To finish the week we had two baptisms in the ward and two families completed. We baptized Hermano Carlos and Elder Martinez and E Russell baptized Dionisio. Carlos is so happy to be making changes in his life and finding a new light and motivation to organize his life and do what is right.
Things really are great here in chinandega. I hope everything is well back home. I wish you all the best and am excited to see everyone in roughly ten weeks!
Love Elder Hamson
Photos: 1. Beach House! 2. Garrobo 3. Beach Selfie with part of the zone
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