1 Year!!!

This week was actually a pretty exciting week. It started off with a bang because on Sunday we received a call from the APs about some emergency changes that would be taking place, one of which involved a new records secretary coming to replace my companion Elder Galo! so that took us way off guard and we weren't informed why but we found ourselves at mayoreo that night to pick up Elder Chinchilla who will be my new comp! Elder Chinchilla is from Costa Rica and therefore perfectly completes my Central American trick because I now have had a companion from every country in central america: Castro (Panama), Galo (Honduras), Cordova (El Salvador), Ramirez (Guatemala), and Chinchilla (Costa Rica)! Alright so I guess that just leaves out Belize, but no one really talks about Belize being part of central america, plus there aren't any missionaries from Belize in the mission, so as far as I´m concerned it doesn't really count. Elder Chinchilla only has 6 months in the mission which I used to see as being pretty old in the mission, but now it seems pretty dang young! He is super cool though, is a great missionary, and even speaks decent english because he worked in tourism before his mission. I hope we become good friends because that'll give me a reason to go back and visit costa rica post mish! This week and next we will be in trio (Me, Chinchilla, and Galo), because Galo needs to train him in his responsibilities and then at the end of february Galo will get sent off to who knows where and I'll stay with Chinchilla. It's probable that I'll be receiving the next Financiero to train this change because I'm at about 7 months in the office as Financer, which is a long time!

As exciting as it is to have a new comp, the highlight of the week still goes to the last minute visit from Elder Rasband!. I say last minute because the meeting plan was changed like a thousand times which was a bit of a headache for us here in the office, but all in all it turned out great! Elder Rasband was coming to Nicaragua to speak with President Daniel Ortega, who is the eternal President of Nicaragua. Apparently Daniel Ortegas Office didn't want to release the exact meeting time until the day before, so we had no clue what time the meeting would be at, nor what time it would end, nor exactly how many people would be coming, all we knew was that Elder Rasband and Christensen were going to be in Nicaragua and were going to try to meet with the missionaries. We finally got the call confirming the schedule of the conference with Elder Rasband on Monday at 6:30am and were faced with the task of getting everything ready for the meeting which would be the following day. The good news was that lots of the meeting set up was taken care of by Church HQ, but we were assigned by Elder Ochoa to set up a Lunch for all of the General Authorities and there wives (which number about doubled every 4 hours throughout the day), plus the normal responsibilities of setting up transport for all of the far zones as well as food for all the missionaries. Needless to say Monday was a rather busy day.

Tuesday was the least significant Holiday for a missionary ( Valentines Day), but it turned out to be a pretty significant day as we got the opportunity to meet with the south mission and get a personalized session of General Conference. We had the privelege to listen to Elder Rasband of the Quorum of the 12 and his wife, Elder Christensen of the Presidency of the 70 and his wife, Elder Duncan (President of the Area 70 for central america) and his wife, and Elder Ochoa (first counselor to Elder Duncan) and his wife.. Also in attendance were all of the stake Presidents in Nicaragua and there wives as well as Elder Maravilla, the area 70 over Nicaragua. It was a very spiritual meeting and there was a huge focus on the fact that Nicarguans are a chosen people and the our job to love them and to help them from the moment we find them all the way until they arrive at the temple. There was also a huge focus placed on the importance of the united missionary workforce of the church and how we should think of members as our companions in the work instead of just sources of references (and food lol). I don't have time to get into all the details of the meeting, but a lot was learned and we are all hopefully awaiting a temple in Nicaragua pronto. Later that afternoon they would be meeting with President Daniel Ortega, and Elder Rasband Promised us that he would preach the gospel to him! Here is the link to the article about it in Nicaraguas national news website. https://www.el19digital.com/articulos/ver/titulo:52234-daniel-y-rosario-se-reunen-con-delegacion-de-la-iglesia-de-jesucristo-de-los-santos-de-los-ultimos-dias

As far as the rest of the week went things were relatively tranquilo and we were able to get a TON of work done in our area because we are 4 including Kevin, so we were able to do divisions everyday and cover all of our area! We had a few setbacks with a few of our investigators, because Joseling and her family suddenly dropped off the map and then a family member of Luzmara and Angela passed away, so they were out of town all week. Everyone else is doing really well though. Angela and Antonio are still working toward getting married and baptized at the end of February, so we will be visiting them constantly to help Antonio stay clean and put alcohol behind him. We were able to find a ton of new people this week as well like Carmen, Carolina, Javier, Joel, Cipriano, mykelin, Carlos and more! All of whom gladly listened to us and wanted to hear more, which is something that is really incredible about waspan. Everyone is so receptive to contacting! I can't get in to much detail this week, because I've gotta send this out, but more details are to come and we are excited for what is to come here in Waspan.

Love and miss you all, and see you all in less than a year!

Elder Hamson

Photos. The first is a picture of me and Elder Chinchilla in front of the mini version of the ancient cathedral. The Second is a picture of me in front of the full size version of the cathedral. And the third is a picture with Bishop Morales and his wife, who are actually from Ciudad Jardín, but we went to eat lunch with them today since Elder Galo will be on his way pretty soon. They are super awesome and also have an infinite source of food.

Here are some more photos. 1. Me at the replica house of Ruben Dario. 2. Me flashing back 1 years time in the airplane at salvador allende. The last photo is with Luis and Rafaela, wheo were two incredible investigators that Elder Galo and I found in Ciudad Jardin, they were baptized shortly after we left, but we went by today after eating at the Morales to felicitar them and say hi. 

Waspan, part two

This week went really well. We finally got the office moved over to Waspan which makes a huge difference to have the office in our area. We've had a bunch more time to visit people and we are falling in love with Waspan! For a quick description of Waspan and the people here see James 2:5. The members are awesome and have even set up a schedule for feeding us lunch and dinner everyday except pday which is pretty incredible. Also Kevin has been our Amulek here in Waspan because he works with us practically everyday and thanks to him we never get lost! He got his mission call like two weeks ago and will be heading to Guatemala on the first of March.

Another cool thing about Waspan is that there are tons of mototaxi/camponeras to get around on for super cheap and it's always an adventure because they don't really comply with any kind of safety standards. Lots of missionaries have flipping over in camponera stories and we got our first last Saturday. We felt something was off with the driver, but Kevin wasn't with us so we didn't know how to find the direction on our own, so went with it. But at one point there was a massive pile of dirt in the road and instead of going around he drove right up it and we quickly jumped out as the camponera rolled over backwards on top of the driver! He was fine and didn't even seem to care really and as we helped him right the camponera we realized he was really drunk, so we just went the rest of the way on foot.

We have found some more really cool families to teach recently as well. We are teaching two matrimonios were the wife is a member and the husband isn't. Well Yadder and Crystal aren't married, but are planning on getting married at the end of March and my last visit with them Yadder told me that he would like to get baptized the same day as his wedding and he's visited church a bunch with his fiance, so he is pretty solid and wants to make changes in his life! The other couple Anivel and Flor are already married, but Anivel is a skeptical guy and has lots of questions he wants answered, but we've become pretty good friends with him, and his wife is stoked that he is listening to us and actually looking into the church. She also introduced her to one of her neighbors, Katalina who is super awesome, but also super busy. She shared with us her interest in findint truth and figuring out what it is that God wants for her. We also found a family of 5 that was eager to hear us that remind me a lot of Saida and her Family from Somoto or Angela and her Family from the Maximo, who are both awesome converts, so we are pretty excited about being able to continue teaching Joseling and her 4 kids. Finally we met Angela (there are lots of Angelas here) and her granddaughter luzmara who are both tons of fun. They both gladly received us and we had an awesome plan of salvation message with them and they were both touched by the message and amazed at how everything fit together. Angela is hilarious but I can't even explain her funniness.

Anyways that's about all I have time to report today. It's been an awesome week of finding and teaching inactives and we are looking forward to seeing the progress of each of the people we have met! Hope everything is well back home, until next week!

Elder Hamson

Photos: The first photo is just to explain the difference between a camponera and a mototaxi. The motorcycle with the bench attached to the front they call a camponera here and is what we rolled over in. The little three wheeler car looking thing is what they call a mototaxi here. Both excellent means of transport. The second photo is of typical Nicaraguan fritanga (there is a whole pile of gallo pinto underneath. And the last photo is of my new office.

Waspan

This week flew by and was actually unexpectedly crazy. To start Sunday was pretty sweet because it was our first Sunday in Waspan. There are two branches and a ward that use our church building, so we start at 10 and go in reverse order, with sacrament meeting starting at 12. It went well and we got to meet a bunch of super cool members. But the big surprise was when we were waiting for sacrament meeting to start and were going around introducing ourselves we ran I to nonmember after nonmember and realized that there were 9 investigators at church, even though we had only brought three with us! A bunch of members had brought family members that weren't members and were excited to have us get to know them. Now granted a few of them live outside of the area, but it was still a huge blessing to have members already bringing people to church on their own! 

This week was a bit of a headache as far as money problems were concerned because after months and months of waiting, all missionary cedulas were approved all at once. Apparently it was because of the elections or whatever, but once elections passed a new guy was put in charge of immigration and he approved like 157 missionary cedulas on the same day. I went with President and his family to all get our cedulas the week before transfers, but now that transfer week craziness had ended all the missionaries had to come this week to Managua on different days. And after two meetings last week, there were tons of missionaries asking for travel reimbursements and people running out of money. The good news is I no longer have to carry around my passport with me to go to the bank, pay bills, etc, because now I am officially Nica after a year of waiting. Also it was cool because a bunch of my missionary friends had to stay in Managua two days because the new missionary training meeting and their immigration appointment were back to back. So that was cool because I got to work with Elder Perry and his trainee Elder Sanchez. We also got permission to visit a family of recent converts in the Maximo, so that was sweet to get to stop by and say hi to Angela and her family before heading off to work in waspan. Wednesday there was a broadcast for missionaries with some teachings as well as changes to key indicators and the missionary schedule, so that was pretty exciting. Last week President and the Assistants were working on the new schedule for our mission to incorporate the changes, so that'll be interesting to have some changes. Although it's likely that my schedule as Secretary won't change all that much. 

We are still working hard to find people to teach here in waspan, because we only have a handful of  evenings working here in the new area. It'll be so much nicer once the office is moved to Waspan next week because right now the office is about 35 minutes from our area and with traffic it takes much longer, but once we move we'll be able to start working the second we finish with office responsibilities. One of the families we are working with right now is a family of six and they are super awesome. Two of the older kids have already been baptized, and the mom, Angela, always comes to church and is totally ready, but she wants to get baptized with her husband who has been struggling to give up alcohol. So we will be visiting with them as frequently to try to help Antonio leave alcohol completely in the past. There are some really incredible humble people in Waspan and we are way excited to get to know more of the area and continue finding cool people.  

The big shocker of the week was the passing away of one of our converts from the Maximo Jerez. Juan Jose passed away on Thursday.  The only reason we knew is because one night driving past his house on the way back from Waspan we saw them loading his coffin up into a truck outside of his house. We always knew he was close, but figured we'd be able to visit him before he passed. We'll probably get permission from President to visit his family sometime soon. It's not too sad though because he has been suffering for a long time now with his condition and even after his baptism he told us that he felt ready to go. We know he's in a better place now though and now it's just a matter of working with his family to get his temple work done. We are just glad to have found him and helped him when we did!

I always love to hear from you all and I'll talk to you all next week! 

Elder Hamson

Here are some quick pics. The first is of these sweet lizards, aquí le dicen garrobos, that we always see. They are generally like a foot and a half long, but definitely get bigger. In the pueblos there are always niños walking around with a slingshot in hand and a dead garrobo hanging out of their pocket. The next picture is by the capilla in waspan of the motor-tricycles that are all over the place in waspan. And finally a picture of Diaz schooling some local chavalos on Pday. 

Exhausting end to 2016 and fantastic start to 2017

Happy New Year!

Practically all of the last month we were swamped with administrative responsibilities, which coupled with the fact that we were opening an area, made for a very trying month. So many things happened in this month that it feels like 4 months ago that Elder Ochoa came to visit, when in reality it was only like 4 weeks. If I were to share all of the details that happened in this month it would be as Juan once said "las cuales si se escribiesen cada una de ellas, pienso que ni aun en el mundo cabrían los libros que se habrían de escribir". Here is a quick overview of the month in the fewest words possible: Elder Ochoa visit, meetings, stress, holiday traffic, mission Christmas activity, get lost in new area, skype family, Christmas with the Poncios, road trip to the Atlantic coast, Christmas in Puerto, reviewing expenses from 2016, fireworks. It was an incredibly hectic month and we were barely in our new area at all, but there were actually lots of fun moments and cool experiences with all the festivities of the holidays going on, but no time to dwell on the past... On to 2017.

This Year started off incredibly relaxed and incredibly well. Now that we are back to our normal schedule we were able to finally really start to work in and get to know our new area and it is awesome! Monday we did normal Monday stuff. Tuesday was Leadership council which was sweet and got us all pumped up for the new year. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we hit the streets at 3:30pm and have seen tons of success in such short time. We took out the list of all the members in the ward and started using that to ask for directions and contact looking for inactive members. It started out rough. We got stood up by the first appointment we had made which was a reference from the south mission, so we just picked a name on the list that lived close by and started asking around for directions. Every person we asked for directions we also contacted, but everyone was completely closed off. We ended up getting the information that they had moved and no longer lived there, but we were shown which house it was. We decided to go contact the house anyways despite feeling completely discouraged, but then everything flipped around when we met Rafaela y Louis! Out of nowhere the most escogido, golden investigators that I have seen showed up on the street full of grumpy Evangelicals and Catholics. They came out and we asked them if they new the members we were looking for and they said yes, but they moved forever ago, and then wasting no time at all they asked us if we would be willing to teach them the discussions! So that took as off guard, but the surprises didn't stop there because as we got to know them more, they explained that they were there when the missionaries had taught the couple that used to rent there and so they heard a lot of the lessons and had been impacted by the message. They also confided with us that at the start of this new year they had decided to pray to find the religious path that God wanted them to take, and then the first day working in our area of the new year we showed up on their door step. After sharing a few lesson principles with them we invited them to prepare for baptism and they accepted right away! Then they committed to go to church. It was an incredible lesson and we left with our spirits recharged and ready to go find more people. Around the corner there was a big catholic church and I remembered seeing a bunch of the addresses on the list referenced "de la iglesia Las Mercedes.." so i decided to ask a young couple passing by and decided to ask them the name of the church and turns out it was Las Mercedes and then we introduced ourselves and asked if we could come by and share a short message with them one day. They said that would be fine, so we set up an appointment for the following day. Their names were Donald and Yalquiris (not a clue how to spell her name) and when we visited them the next day they shared with us that when they saw us coming the day before Yalquiris told her husband that she had seen us pass by her house several times and had been wondering who we were and what our mission was and boom we crossed the street to talk to them and there we were at her house to answer her questions. They confessed to us that they had been raised in the catholic church and still go regularly, but there were many things about the church that they didn't agree with or didn't like, but it was what they grew up with, so it at least felt familiar. They enjoyed the lesson we shared and willingly accepted the invite to go to church even though Donald Just started a new job that is a night job and he will be getting out of work one hour before church starts. The day didn't end there because we ran into our ward mission leader and he mentioned that there was an inactive family around the corner that we could visit and when we went there, Evelyn who had been inactive for years told us she had actually been thinking about coming back, mainly for her two kids who were getting big and she wanted them to learn the right path while they were still young. She even asked us if we would be willing to teach the lessons to her two kids, Adreana and Jonny ages 13 and 10, so they could be baptized. We were of course happy to help. There are actually a bunch more people to talk about that we meet this week, like Yaconda and her son and Silvia, but I am out of time!

I am looking forward to what is set to be a great year here in Nicaragua and I wish all of you the best in this new year!

Love,

Elder Hamson

Pictures: 1. Christmas Activity, 2. Life Size Nativities, 3. Arriving in Puerto after crossing the entire country, 4. Christmas Activity in Ciudad Jardin, with the surprise visit of two members from my last area.

Feliz Navidad from Puerto Cabezas

Editor's note: Mostly pictures of a crazy 360 mile drive over the back roads of Nicaragua that took 14 hours!

Puerto cabezas was a really cool trip, but the drive there was plenty.. The drive back was quite long. I'll have to send some pictures. There was tons of crazy things we saw all along the road and some of them we got the camera out fast enough. The roads were horrendous. I mean it's only like 360 miles, but it took us 14 hours to get there.. It would have taken even longer too if we had been more careful with the cars. Most of the roads were like driving on swiss cheese. It was actually pretty fun at first flying down the road and trying thread the needle through all the pot holes, but after several hours it gets pretty old. We probably wrecked the suspension system on both cars and I was amazed that the layers of caked mud were able to come off. It was definitely an adventure though. An was way cool to drive through the tiny little pueblos in the middle of no where. Puerto seems like a different country completely. It felt like we were in a really poor part of the dominican republic, or haiti or something. And even though the majority can speak spanish they all speak in miskito when talking amongst themselves. I would have like to stay and work a day over there. Cool place. The activity went well too. The Zone is like a family over there because they are so isolated from the rest of the world. With them we ended up watching finding Dory and Ice Age 5(?). There actually isn't really much of a traditional Christmas dinner although the closest thing would be relleno navideño which is some sort of rice casserol looking think. Also most people kill and eat their pig this time of year. 

Thanksgiving

This is a week late because I didn't have a normal pday last week. It was really a wonderful thanks giving week though. A super busy week, but at the same time things were really relaxed and I was left with lots of things to be thankful for:

1. On last Sunday we talked with Romulo about moving his baptism because we were going to be occupied all of thursday and he said he would like to have it on Tuesday! So we rushed to get everything ready, which was actually a little crazy because there was some problem and all missionary phones stopped working on tuesday, so we could no longer communicate with members to help us get things set up nor with the Zls to show up and take care of his interview. Since we didn't have anybody to help us we had to go first to the chapel to start filling up the font, then we had to go make sure Romulo was in his house and was ready for his interview, so we quickly walked to Romulo's while the font was filling up and waited for the Zls to show up, hoping they would get there soon so we could do divisions and run back to turn the font off. Luckily they showed up on time and we were able to get everything ready for the baptism. The baptism went really well and Romulo was so happy to be able to be cleaned from his past mistakes and follow Jesus. One funny thing that happened was when we were changing into our baptismal clothes he pulls out an armed concealed pistol, from who knows where and sets it on the sink. He must have seen the look on my face, because then he said "nadie entra aquí verdad?" and I was like umm this is a bathroom.. People come in here all the time. So he just wrapped it up in his clothes and trusted that it would be safe since we were in a church. All in all though it was a great baptismal service and it'll be awesome to have his family as an addition to the ward.

2. Erick! I don't know if you all remember Erick, so I'll provide a quick refresher. Erick is someone we met in my first few weeks here in Managua. He had lived a rough life full of drugs and alcohol and wanted so badly to leave it all behind. He amazed us at how he faithfully showed up to every activity and meeting and completed with every assignment we left him. He was what we call in Nicaragua a "super pilas investigador" he was baptized and because of general conference and other complications he was confirmed on the same day. Shortly there after satan attacked and he fell back into the horrible trap that is alcoholism. Literally he went weeks at a time without ever being sober. It was the saddest thing to pass by everyday and to have his little sister tell us he was still drunk and out on the corner with the other bolos. His poor mom suffers too, because she has already lost one son to alcohol poisoning and has basically accepted that the same will likely happen with Erick. Now to the good news! One day we were passing by to visit a recent convert and he was drunk in the street. I didn't see him, but all of a sudden I heard "el ruso!", (when he's drunk he thinks I'm russian), so we said hi, but didn't expect to talk too him long because he was plastered drunk, but he completely opened up to us like alcohol often helps do and he poured out all of the guilt and regrets he has and how he needs help because he can't live like this. It was really sad, but there is really not a whole lot we can do for him when he's that far gone, so we just prayed with him and told him to go home and sober up so we could talk to him the next day. When we came back the following day he was home and mostly sober, but extremely sick from alcohol poisoning. We prayed with him again and continued coming back the next few days as he slowly came back to his self. And for the first time in like two months we got to see the real erick again. He is an incredible person when he is sober. We started teaching him again and giving him assignments to read and it was so incredibly good to see him at church on Sunday and also at Romulo's baptism on thursday. I am determined to work with him and do anything we can to keep him from falling again, because he really needs the help. It just sucks because with our limited schedule its impossible to visit him every day.

3. Juan Jose was also baptized last week. Which was super awesome, but also a very long process because of his physical condition. To baptize him we both had to carry him down into the font and I held him up while my companion did the ordinance and then we both submerged and brought him up. It was a really unique baptism and awesome to see how happy was afterward and to have his wife and son there supporting him. He even said that now that he is baptized he feels at peace to leave his suffering earthly body. We'll have to see what God has in store for him. Now it will be a matter of getting the ward involved with helping him get to and from church.

4. The Poncios! The Poncios invited us over for a thanksgiving dinner at their house. It was way nice to have a big plate of turkey, mashed potatos, stuffing, bread, and gravy, and then finish it of with pie. We really are so spoiled to be close to President and his family. They are such an awesome family and it really is a pleasure to work with them in the mission. They will continue to do great things for Nicaragua through their mission service.

5. Health. I am really grateful for my good health and it really is something that we sometimes take for granted. There are so many people here that we meet that have all kinds of health problems and life really becomes a lot tougher when health issues come into the equation. Even our bishop who tore something in his knee, probably acl, but doesnt have the money to pay for the sugery so he just limps the 8 or so blocks to church every Sunday plus during the week whenever he is needed. I don't think I've mentioned it before, but let it just be said that Obispo Madrigal is awesome. But anyways i'm just way grateful that I can enjoy things like the fútbol we got to play on thursday with some inactive youth and their friends. I've regained a lot more appreciation for soccer on the mish. Such a fun sport. I don't really have the foot control that all latinos are born with, but im getting better and I destroy at corner kicks because all they have to do is kick it up into the middle and i'm the only one that can get up high enough to header it in.

There are really a lot of things im thankful for, but I don't have time to get into all it. Things are great here though. This week was insanely busy trying to get everything ready for next week which is going to be an insanely crazy week because it is transfers AND Elder Ochoa is coming and leading two multizone conferences, and then leaders council. Its gonna be a crazy week and every one in the office is pretty stressed except Elder Gonzalez because he's finishing his mission in 4 days! All of December is gonna be nuts though. Because after this week we have a few more meetings and then a ton of prep for the mission christmas activity, then the next week is the activity and christmas weekend, then the last week of december, President Poncio, hermana Poncio, Elder Neilson and I will be driving out to Puerto Cabezas for a christmas activity for the poor Isolated Puerto missionaries, which will take up three whole days because it means a 12 or more hour trek across the country through uncharted territory. Should be an adventure. On top of all that president needed us to go help out an area in Managua that has been suffering, so Elder Galo and I will be opening area. I'm not really sure how much we'll be able to do with our limited time, but president asked us to go work with the bishop to bring the area back to life so ni modo, we'll have to figured out a way to do it. Even though I'll still be living in my same house and it really isn't much of a change, it still sucks leaving all of the recent converts, members, investigators, and just all the awesome people we've met in the Maximo. I may just use my Pday time to visit them.. I'm excited to start work in the new area though because its a huge area and has a ton of potential, plus the bishop is way excited to work with us. The area is called Ciudad Jardin and it includes a portion of lake Managua and the mercado el Oriental, which is the biggest mercado of all Central America. Should be pretty fun. Other news with transfers is that Elder Diaz, from my Somoto days, will be the new AP, which is crazy because he is still young in the mission, but he has been doing extremely well as a ZL, so president has decided to bring him to the office to replace Gonzalez. As a refresher, for like two weeks of my first transfer I was in trio with Diaz and castro and then when Elder Galo came, it was me and Elder Galo, and Elder Diaz and Elder Mendez. Elder Galo and I have been back together for two changes now and with Diaz coming to the office, we are only missing Mendez to make the Somoto reunion complete!

Anyways thats all for now because I've gotta run. Love you all and hope you all had a good thanksgiving. Until next week!

Elder Hamson

Here are some photos!

Bautismo de Juan José

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.