Week 19: GOOD MORNING VIETNAM

GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!!!!

The most important part of a speech is the opening line that's why I like to try out 4 or 5 until I get a good laugh! "Mitch explain to mom" haha I miss The Office!

You tell Calvin and Jack that's dang right never missed one practice or game in any sport my whole high school career even in baseball junior year where I was throwing up all day like everyone else in the family but I still went. #dedication

Time is flying crazy to think that at the end of this change I'll have 6 months in my mission.

Spanish is coming along just cherry, I feel like I'm picking it up really quick I can pretty much say most of the stuff I want to just need some work on the grammar but that's going good.

Our guy we baptized is Santiago super chosen and prepared by the Lord. We only found him 3 weeks ago the first time we talked to him after we finished teaching he asked if he could be baptized the next day. Amazing how many people every day that are prepared by the Lord.

Spiritual experience for the week for mom: it's the mission every day is a special experience. While on the divisions we were going to walk to Proyecto which is a long way out. It's the way we go when we visit less actives. We walked through and I had a feeling we should contact this one house, but it was a real rich nice house which we sometimes avoid because sometimes the people are prideful but we went and taught this lady who again is super prepared. She has a fecha for Octubre. Pretty cool when you follow the spirit and it leads to something amazing.

Wednesday we had the zone meeting and we always do a quien sois vos? Which is like a bunch of questions you just tell the zone about yourself. Usually we put a would you rather question and different stuff like that so we did that. Then we always talked about the investigators with fechas that we have stuff like that. Then we went on divisions I stayed in Condega with the new zone leader Renusso, who's from the Dominican Republic. All he says all day is panda because I guess that's his nickname he got from the rap song and because he's black but in a white shirt, haha.

Thursday we had the mission competition of putting fechas and invitations. We had 33 invitations and 5 fechas, which was one of the best but our zone did not win.

Saturday we had to get up at 5:30 because we had to go pick up our investigator at 7 for the baptism to go to Esteli so we did that in the morning. Everything went good. Before he had his interview my companion's like I'm worried because he is super peeles but I think he might have killed someone haha.

Sunday: had to pass by everyone as usual. One of our members said she would give a talk so we called her and asked her to wear a skirt or dress. She said okay, but when we were at church her family was all there and said shes not coming because she doesn't want to wear a dress or skirt. Being in charge of a church ain't no fun haha.

Monday we had a zone olympics, so we did a bunch of different activities. It was a good time. Then we went to eat and it was one of the hermanas birthdays so we sung it super loud all the people at the mall were like what are these people doing here haha.

Do I love the people yet? Hmm well sometimes yes sometimes they do things that make it really hard to love them things are just done a little different here haha. However, I respect that they literally have nothing-- dirt floors, no car, no enclosed house, but they are still happy with what they have. I saw some kids playing with a stick and hoop haha just like dad in the old days hahaha.

Hope y'all have a good week, remember I'm always prayin' for y'all.

Oh also another funny thing when we were passing by people, there is a little kid named Stick. He's 7 years old and his family is members so we are like, "Stick, you coming to church?" He said, "Ohh! I can't go I have to do some errands." 7 year old's these days haha

Con Amor,
Elder Thackeray

Week 18: Two Baptisms and a Marriage

Well, hit four months on Sunday so that's cool. We had changes today but staying with Elder Spence another change. It sucks having changes and someone leaves because it just screws up your P-day. So it's nice when it just stays the same. 

Well I'm gonna start with the story of Darwin and Mogoli. We have been teaching them for a little while but they needed to get married. So everyday we would go by and see if they would go take out their papers for marriage. Every day they said they would and then they would just give us a crappy excuse. This happened for like a week. Finally we sat them down and were like, Listen! What's up?" Finally they told us they just didn't have money for it. We were like why didn't you just tell us that in the beginning haha. So we got them the money they took out the papers. But Darwin had problem getting one because he needed two cedulas (passport mas o menos) to get it out. So we get them go back and the lady is in Managua so we can't get it out. So we are like nooo. Next day on changes with Elder Worden we went with him and finally got the paper out, but he said the lawyer we were gonna use left to Managua to; but he said he would figure it out, but we figured nothing would happen mainly because Nicas don't do nothing unless you do it with them. We had to go change back our companions. When we get back to Condega we get a call from Darwin and he said he got the lawyer, the testigos, all the stuff he needed. We were gonna have the marriage at 5. If he didn't take it upon himself we wouldn't have been able to have a marriage. He came in clutch. The marriage was on Friday and we were going to have the bautismales on Saturday so we were going good. Early Saturday morning we get a call from Mogloi saying she doesn't feel ready and needs more time. So we are like noo, well at least we still have Darwin. A few hours later we get a call from Darwin saying he doesn't want to be baptized either because the river is running to high. So we lost both of our possibilities withing a matter of hours super chupaso.

The senior couple, the Bell's stopped by to drop off a package for Spence, so they took us to go to their house but they weren't there so they told us an experience about how prayer softened hearts. So we had a prayer that their hearts would be softened and they would want to be baptized, so they dropped us off and we just waited at the house for them. Finally they showed up and we were throwing the casaca hard at them but they kept beating around the bush. Finally we got out of them they just didn't want to be baptized in the river, they wanted to be baptized in Esteli. So we are like okay lets go, so we packed up and left. The problem was that the last bus leaves Condega at 5:00 and it was 5:30. So we prayed there would be a bus to take us and just as we got there a bus came by because they were running the torch across Nicaragua, so the bus was late, so we had a ride to Esteli!!! We got the baptisms done but didn't have a way to get home because all the buses were done so we prayed again that we could find a way home. Right after another senior couple called us and asked if we needed any help because they heard about the baptism. So they were able to drive us and our investigators back to Condega. #prayerswork Every prayer we had that day was answered and we were able to baptize them. 

Things are going well down here Independence Day for Nicaragua is the 14th and 15th so there should be a big party for that mostly. It's in Managua because there's free buses to there. 

The other day we get stopped by this one guy when we were going home and he's like I have this stuff for you guys its real good. We figured when he was getting it that it was probably drugs but when he ripped open the bag it was just a bunch of weeds he picked from a field haha! He was like I'll give it to you for only 20 cords. We gave him a pamphlet and left. 

Elder Spence is from Utah, He played soccer at Riverton. I forgot to tell you guys last week during sacrament we started after we sung, Spence started giving his testimony and I was like shh hey shush stop. He was all mad like whattt?! He had started giving his testimony before we had the sacrament haha. He was pretty red and everyone had a good laugh about that haha.

We go to church in someone building where they work as like a tailor basically, every Sunday after we pass by all of our people we have to take 30 chairs there, clean out the place, and set everything up.

Jobs are but not limited to: branch president, home teacher, Sunday school teacher, priesthood teacher, relief society president, nursery leader etc... haha It's just starting up so we do absolutely everything. If the missionaries weren't here nothing would be done so sometimes it sucks just because like the members rely on us to do everything and don't wanna help us like give prayers talks stuff like that. Some days they get real annoying because everyone gets butt hurt if we don't pass by them everyday because that's what the missionaries before did. Also people here love to talk gossip about other people so we've been trying to deal with all that casaca. Sometimes its chupa trying to do all that because like we need to find and baptize people but then also take care of all the ward and stuff like that. 

Members basically give us the same thing. There's two kinds of food here: rice and beans or gallo pinto. They are the same thing just gallo pinto is basically just rice and beans mixed together instead of separate haha. 

Lessons learned so far:

• Well I'd say the biggest one is never trust a fart haha. 
• Someone's always got to be awake on the bus so you don't miss your stop. 
• Always invite people to be baptised the first contact. 
• Don't carry your cards with you in case you get robbed. 
• Don't waste time teaching people who don't want anything because there is millions of people prepared by the Lord every day so we as missionaries cant waist time teaching people who aren't prepared we gotta go find the people who are.

Anyways! Hope Y'all Have a good week!

Les Amo,

Elder Thackeray

Week 17: Pizza Hut???

Bueans! 

Well 17 weeks in and they havent sent me home yet so I would have to say things are going pretty good so far haha. Hope everything is going good at home. 

Scripture of the week- 3 Nephi 12:14-16 let your lights shine, share the gospel with someone this week!!!

Well I don't have much time to write. We spent most of the time in Esteli with some of the people in our zone, 3 people are dying. Zona Este Li donde los missioneros vienen a morir. We went and ate at Pizza Hut so that was good haha. When we were coming out of the house (we live on kinda a hill) and when my companion was walking he fell and slid and rolled down the hill. Oh man it was so funny! I couldn't control myself. He was pissed and didn't appreciate my laughing because he fell into some mud but I couldn't control myself. I was dying laughing haha.

More crazy Nica beliefs- Can't go outside after you iron because you will get sick. If you drink a cold drink and eat soup you will crack your teeth haha. I swear these people are crazy. My zone makes fun of the way I talk in English they say i have an accent, but such is life I suppose. It continues to rain super hard here. Always makes things suck to be all wet and when it rains nobody comes to church so that's a big bummer but it happens. 

It's been a while since we baptized, which is a bummer, but this week we should have anywhere from 2-5 baptisms, so looking forward to that! It's been like 4 weeks so that'll be nice if we can finally get some people in.

Hope everyone has a good week. Love to hear from ya!

Love,
Elder Thackeray

Week 16: Buenas Buenas son de pollo bien callientitos

Buenas Buenas son de pollo bien callientitos.

There's this guy on a bike that drives around Condega selling tamales and he has a voice recording that says this over and over pretty much all the members in Valle de Jesus have it memorized. But the tamales are really good and only 10 cords. You can't beat that. Sometimes I'll buy like 10 cause I don't wanna lose money on the deal. (Mitch) haha

This week went alright not great nothing terrible.

One of the guys in my zone is a real good running back from Hawaii he was going to play for BYU but Bronco left so now he's gonna play for Virginia pretty neat. Wayne Tuliapapa

I found this quote in the Ensign: "The doors of history turns on small hinges, so do peoples lives, the decisions we make determine our destiny."

Also 2 Nephi 26:33: God wants all to partake of his goodness if we don't open our mouth and talk about the gospel when we get the chance it could cost someone eternal happiness. Don't be afraid to open your mouth.

Tuesday: We had to go to another news meeting so we got to get up at 3 in the morning to catch a bus when we got on we were literally so close up against the people on the bus we should probably go talk to our mission president, haha. But seriously, like in the States there's a lot of order, it doesn't get to squished, you can't really have that many people in the aisles cause I think it's against the law. But that doesn't apply here in Nicaragua. They pack as many people as possible into a bus so they can maximize their profits so I barely am even on the bus literally standing on the steps getting into the bus squished in by about 100 people standing in the aisles and doorways. I had to ride that way to Esteli which is about an hour away. Once we got to Esteli a bunch of people got off so I had some breathing room then about 20 minutes left of the 3 hour bus ride we finally got to sit down in a seat so that was good. Anyway we get to the capilla still have a little bit so we just talked with people I went and talked to Carico and Spears. I feel bad for them they are having a difficult time picking up Spanish and Carico has a Latino companion that doesn't speak English which will be good for him. Spears hasn't baptised yet and that sucks really bad too because when you;re baptizing things just go easier-- your companion sucks less, the food's better, members are more fun and helpful, the bolos (drunks) in the street don't annoy you as much. But the meeting went fine. President had to send his first people home so he was not in a good mood. They macheted us about obedience the whole meeting. We wanted to take a trip to Buffalo Wild Wings after the meeting (in Managua they have some restaurants like that to my suprise), but we didn't have enough time. We went to the bus stop, got tickets, got a hotdog (that was a mistake). I'm not a big hot dog fan in the States and a Nica hot dog is.even worse. But after the long drive we finally made it home.

Wednesday: We had a district meeting. They kinda suck because like everyone in our zone and district are dead. 3 people go home this change, 2 the next, they are just kinda fried, which sucks. Hopefully this change we get some people with some ganas.

Friday: We had changes today elder Spencer came down to Condega. We had a good day. One of our investigators named Chito is gonna get baptized on the 10th. He has been an alcoholic his whole life but he's stopping which is awesome but it's making him really sick because he's not drinking. 

Elder Spencer gave me a tie I said I wanted when I first met him. It's a pretty sweet looking tie. Also when Scaggs left he gave me his Marilyn Monroe tie. It's pretty much pointless and there really is never a good time to wear it, but it's cool to have. Everyone we passed by today, investigators and members, all gave us stuff to eat by the end of the day we just had to take the stuff home with us because we were so full. Also it rained hard and my clothes were still drying so they're gonna stink now.

Saturday we went to Esteli to pick up Spence. We got there, get him, and we headed to the bus stop. We decided to take a bus to Yali which is a community past Condega because those buses are always less cramped. So we get on going good and all of a sudden we wake up and we are driving down a dirt road somewhere. We had gotten on the wrong bus. So they kicked us off and we just had to start walking and find a highway or something. We see a sign that says 15 km to Esteli, so we are like crap! We walk for about, oh I don't know maybe half way there, and this nice car (a Land Rover in Nicaragua?) gives us a ride back to the bus stop. That bus was just as crowded as the bus we took to Managua except it wasn't as nice and I was on the first step getting into the bus holding on to the bars on the outside all the way to Condega. Pretty sketch. But we made it back finally.

Sunday we had a conference in Esteli so we took everyone there in a bus; we had more people than I expected (about our average 26- 8 investigators). So we got to Esteli and pretty much doubled the people in church. It was weird seeing people in shirts and ties like usually it's just the missionaries and a couple other people. It was weird having church in an actual capilla because we just have it in a house. It was weird not having to do the sacrament, direct the meeting, or teach the classes, because that's what we usually do. It was just relaxing, just laid back and chilled. The senior couple there made us all sack lunches to take home so that was nice of them. Once we got home it just started pouring super hard again but the power didn't go out this time so that was good.

Anyways that's pretty much my week in a nutshell hope everyone is doing well. Have a good week! Love y'all!

Love, 
Elder Thackeray