Monday, January 9, 2017 to Sunday, January 15, 2017

Monday, January 9, 2017

The lights were off for most of the day. They came on about dinner time so I put a meatloaf and potatoes in the oven. About 15 minutes later, the lights went out again. Fortunately, we had gone to the store and bought a roasted chicken. So we had that instead, since it was already cooked and hot. Life in Nicaragua….

I took a little time this afternoon to look up the church in several of the towns I served in Uruguay. In Florida, my first area, there are now several wards and chapels. We had a small branch and met in a house. In Melo, there are now 4 Chapels. The Chapel we met in is still being used. There are two chapels in Mercedes. We also met in a house. Paso de los Toros now has several buildings and are now wards. We were a branch and met in a little home. I am reminded of President Eyring's Conference talk when he talked about seeing the Church grow in the NE over a period of 40-50 years. We get discouraged when we don’t see immediate progress, but it is very obvious when we look at the progress over time. Hopefully, my efforts contributed a little to this progress.

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

We spent a good part of the morning at the dentist office next to the Hospital Metopolitano Villian Pellas, finding out why a missionary is having jaw pain. We have taken several missionaries to this dental clinic before. They have always been very accommodating. We have seen different dentists each time, and each time they have made room in their schedules to accommodate the missionary. The Dr. we saw this time was Dr. Martinez, an oral surgeon. He actually did a quick exam, ordered an panorama x-ray of her mouth and emailed the x-ray to her dentist in the states. He charged nothing. He is a third generation dentist and the clinic is as modern as those in the US.

We hosted our Senior Missionary dinner tonight. We cooked Lasagna, salad, garlic bread, fresh pineapple/apple juice, and apple pie and ice cream. We found out after dinner that we needed to go to Immigration tomorrow morning to get our cedulas (residence cards). We were scheduled to go to a Multi-zone conference tomorrow, but since the President, Lees, Koellikers, us and a few missionaries from our mission and from the South Mission needed to be there, we changed our plans.

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

WE ARE IN NICARAGUA….. We met at the south mission office at 7:30am in order to be at the immigration office at 8am. However, Betty Castro, our immigration specialist arrived 20 minutes late. So we arrived at immigration at 8:30am. There were about 20 of us, waiting to get our Cedulas. After waiting another 30 minutes, we found out that their machine to make the Cedulas was not working, so we ended up leaving with plans to come back tomorrow. WE ARE DEFINITELY IN NICARAGUA….

Thursday, January 12, 2017

After Two and ½ hours, we walked out of the Immigration office with our Cedulas…. We are now official residences of Nicaragua.

Friday, January 13, 2017

We had our multizone conference in Esteli today. We left Managua about 5:30am. We were loaded with Book of Mormons, pamphets, packages and letters for the missionaries. Sister Bell gave her presentation about chiggers, fleas and bedbugs. I did the little test at the end. Sister Bell talked to several missionaries about health issues, but we had one sister that was having problems with her eyes. It was serious enough we made an appointment for tomorrow in Managua and brought her and her companion home with us. We plan to take her to the doctor tomorrow. So instead of staying with the Koellikers, we went back to Managua, taking our sister missionaries with us. 

Saturday, January 14, 2017

We spent the morning with two sister missionaries at the eye doctor. He found that the sister missionary would need laser surgery on both eyes. We talked to President Poncio and called her family. Sister Bell made sure that the Church’s insurance would cover the surgery. We scheduled the surgery for Monday. We took them to McDonalds for lunch and then back to their area in Jinotega. It was 17 degrees (62) in Jinotega which is the coldest we have seen here.

We then drove to Esteli, ate dinner at Rosti Polli and stayed with Koellikers. 

Sunday, January 15, 2017

We started early, having a Temple Prep Class in Somoto with President Alaniz and his family. We talked about the blessing of the temple as outlined in D&C 109 and 97. We then attended Church in Pueblo Nuevo. We are sad to see Elder Esquivel go home. He has been a positive missionary there. Elder Chinchilla will get a new missionary on Tuesday. This will be his first training assignment, but he is ready. He is a good missionary and has been trained well by his trainers. We then took Hermana Agustina, an older member who lives several miles out of town, to her home. She normally walks or takes a bus. She lives in a little farming community. We had to cross the river to get to her home. Sister Bell thought that was a lot of fun. She wanted to show us her house. It was a little adobe home with a porch and a beautiful garden. We had Dania and her brothers with us.

There are thousands of white flowers on a particular species of tree in the mountains. We don’t know what it is but it is beautiful.

We then went back to Hermana Nuvias home and taught her and Dania (her daughter) the 3^rd Temple Preparation Class. Then we headed to Jinotega to pick up the Sisters to take them back to Managua for the eye surgery tomorrow. Tomorrow is changes. There is a lot of coordination that has to go on to get missionaries to their new assignments. Most of this coordination is done by the zone leaders. We have several young or new Zone leaders so getting missionaries to and from is a little more difficult this time. With new missionaries coming to the mission, their trainers have to come to Managua to pick up their new companions that arrive on Monday night (north Americans) or Tuesday morning (Latinos). It is a logistical nightmare, but somehow it all happens with little problems every 6 weeks. Amazing….