Elder Wade Thackeray: Week 35: 18 Hour Bus Ride, McDonald's, Cedula, and Changes.

18 HOURS!

Quite the eventful week I would say. On Wednesday, I got a call that on Thursday morning I needed to go to Managua because I needed to get my "cedula" (basically like a Visa/ID so I could stay in the country). Also, they said that there was no room on the plane heading to Managua so I would have to ride a bus.

So, on Thursday morning myself, Elder Carico (MTC companion), Hermana Albrith, and Hermana Alfaro got on a bus and headed for Managua. The bus was basically a really crappy, old school bus with even less leg room and people standing in the middle aisle. We left at 10am on Thursday and got to Managua at 4am on Friday morning. LONGEST BUS RIDE OF MY LIFE!!! The potholes in the road were so big that everyone in the bus would catch air when the bus would hit them!

One of the "roads" the bus tried to take.

Some Mickey D's at the Officia de Imigracion!

When we finally got to Managua, we called the Mission Home to have someone come pick us up but there was no answer. We finally were able to reach some sisters in the area who gave us directions to the A.P.'s house. When we got to the A.P.'s house, we rang the doorbell for 30 minutes before someone answered and let us in the house. We slept for a couple hours and at 7am we went to the Officia de Imigracion. After spending 6 hours there, we all had our "cedula's" and we headed back to the mission home. Thankfully they let us sleep for the rest of the day and we didn't have to work the rest of the day. We thought we were going to head home on Saturday but there turned out not to be a plane back to Puerto until Monday so we worked in Managua on Saturday and Sunday. It was weird being in church with nothing to do. It was an established ward so there was way more people there then there typically has been at either of my area's.

On Sunday night we got the call for exchanges. My comp is going to my first area in Condega and I am staying in Puerto. My new companion is a gringo, Elder Basset. While I was at the mission home for those two days, all the people who were going home arrived at the mission home. I was able to see Elder Skaggs, my trainer, again. We had a good time reminiscing about the good ol' days together. I'm gonna miss him. We got back to Puerto this afternoon. All the new guys are coming in tomorrow so I will meet my new comp then.

Love yall have a good week.

Elder Thackeray