About Sept 26, 2011
First snail mail letter from Nicaragua
My dear family,
I’m sitting at my desk—with 4 piles o books- scriptures,
PMG, PME, journals, miracle books,
Grammar books, manuals, information guides.
I haven’t sweated through my shirt yet today, and I have a fan going, so
it actually feels pretty good. I’ve had personal
study, comp. study and lang. study and now I get to write you! I’ve been dying to write a letter for a long,
long time. And this is it. I’m emailing later today, so I’ll probably
write more later – after email time.
Let me tell you about the people we live with. They were baptized last year. I think they’re married, but I don’t see the
men…hardly ever, so I’m not sure. Hna
Carme is the Mom/gramma. Her daughter is
Sobeyda. Sobeyda has 2 kids: Abel 11 y/o and Axel 3 y/o. They are fun.
It’s fun to be able to talk to kids.
They feed us lunch and dinner – and it’s delicious. We eat omelettes, noodles, potatoes, rice,
beans, tortillas, ketchup, crema, geletina, queso, and we’ve had platanos
once. Platanos + cheese, and fried =
deliciousness.
Yesterday we woke up early to do splits and invite people to
come to church. We have 21 recent
converts. We left before 7:00 with Hna
Gladis and went to pick up Hna Belkin, who visited people with Hna Castro. Hna Gladis goes on splits every domingo, and
so she knows where everyone lives. We
visited lots & lots of people, recent converts, menos activos, and Blanca y
Cruz – investigadores. Only one person
said he would come. And he didn’t. Oh
well! At church I just wanted to cry
because the morning had been a little rough.
But we sang “How Firm a Foundation” & “Secreta Oracion“ which made
me feel a little better. After church we
ate lunch and I played with Abel y Axel a little. We visited a reference with
Hna Gladis and then visited with Flor y Narcisa, who are R.C. Flor agreed to make divisions with us. So Hna. Castro gave Gladis a lots of R.C.’s and
their addresses… told us to contact a lot!
And we did more splits from about 3:00 – 6:45. I was scared because I can’t really
understand Hna Gladis, but I stopped and talked with 3 people who were chatting
and was able to talk about who they were, who I and Hna Gladis were, and I shared
some of the 1st lesson with them.
I have their addresses, and one of them asked a lot of questions. Hna Gladis had to help me out because I didn’t
understand his questions very well – some of them. But I told him I couldn’t understand Spanish
very well, but I could say that I had a testimony and that I wanted to answer
his questions – it was good to have questions and they can be answered.
The next person I contacted was drunk. That was kind of fun, but it was a waste of
time because he kept on talking y talking y talking. I couldn’t really cut him off, but I did
eventually. Ha ha. After that, we visited RC y one
investigator. We sing a hymn, pray, and
share a scripture and make an invitation or a compromise. The first lady, I asked her to bear her
testimony. Gladis told her about Gen.
Conf. plans. I usually don’t talk much
when I’m with Hna Castro in a lesson because she’s way friendlier and she
actually speaks & understands Espanol.
But, this Sunday there was no Hna. Castro so I had to talk and ask
questions and listen and be friendly and all that jazz. It was great.
Really great. Especially after
the morning. I understood a joke and I
even made a joke! I was funny in Spanish! We visited 6 houses and invited them to come
to Gen. Conf. I need to be more persistent
about getting people to pray. My miracle
on Sat. was that I didn’t feel scared out of my mind for splits the next
day. But tomorrow I’m going to have to
rely on the Lord as my companion. That’s
how the sons of Mosiah did it! . . . I’m going to be like Nefi someday. I’ll just do stuff. I won’t doubt or murmur or wonder how it will
work out. I’ll just say YES! and follow
through…..miracle time! Time for
fe! Time to read and go to bed! A word they use a lot here is “animo” and
yesterday I had animo. That was the
miracle. I was able to be someone better
and do the things the Lord wanted me to do.
And that felt good. Usually being
friendly wears me out. But yesterday I
wasn’t tired. God loves us and he can
change us. I love you all and I think
about you and pray for you everyday.
In Nagarote we don’t have street names. I’m going to learn a lot. Our area is very large and very flat. It’s beautiful. Green, green, green. The people live in houses. A lot – the majority- perhaps, have dirt
floors. They have old broken
chairs. Hna Carme y Sobeyda have a nice,
big house with a big refrigerator, stove and oven. A lot of people cook on a fire on the
floor. I smell like smoke every
night. During the morning, we
study. All new missionaries have an
extra hour of companion study. We get to
watch videos from the district and practice.
We eat lunch and work. We eat
cena and leave again. At night, it feels
great. There are frogs that make noises
like---I don’t know. But the evenings
are lovely. Our area is part of a
branch. There is a companionship of Elders too that attend the branch. We eat with them everyday for dinner. This area is pretty safe. My first day here, Hna Castro y yo practiced
contacting. She got Hna Carme y Sobeyda,
so I contacted both of them. Then she
said, OK There’s a man working here (a gardener) and he’s not a member. You’re going to contact him. So, with a few complaints, I contacted him
and bore my testimony. I told him that I
love flowers (he was working with the roses in front of our house.) I didn’t understand but I guess he said, I
want to sit down and study with you sometime.
Hna Sobeyda said, yeah, the Hnas can help you to stop drinking. So that was exciting! Miracle!
My first contact in Nicaragua asks to be taught. The next day we taught him about faith and
repentance and he said he wants to change.
I hope he keeps his commitments.
He told us later that he had a dream of him and his kids playing at a
templo – which means church, I’m pretty sure – that‘s still pretty cool. And that’s why he wanted to study with us
because of his dream. Okay, love to
all! Congrats to Chris Allen! -- Hna. Tew
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