Monday, September 25 to Sunday, October 1, 2017

Monday, September 25, 2017

We met two Elders at the hospital this morning for a Doctors appointment. After the appointment, we took them back to the office and dropped them off. We spent the rest of the day working from home.

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

President Poncio told us that Sister Morales passed away last night. We are so sad. She went back to Guatemala at the end of March because she was diagnosed with Leukemia, after having her appendix removed here in the mission. We fell in love with her while we were helping her through her hospital stay. We were with her, I was holding her hand, when the doctors told her they thought she had leukemia. Sister Bell spent several hours with her during this time, talking, crying and visiting. We are grateful that we know she is continuing her mission in the Spirit World. Our prayers are with her family and friends.

We trained 10 new missionaries this morning. Four sisters were from the US. One Elder was from Brazil and 1 Elder from Guatemala. The remaining 4 Sisters were from Central America. We taught the 10 commandments of good health. Sister Bell talked with each individually to discuss their health. 

We got a sweet note from Hermana Golding. She went home today. She was in the MTC when we were there and we have a special place in our hearts for her and for Elder Alofipo. He was also in the MTC with us. She spent most of her mission in Puerto Cabeza, so we didn’t see her much. Sister Bell helped her several times with health issues and we saw her a few times when she came back to Managua. Even though we didn’t see her much, we will miss her.

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Today was a fix missionary apartment day. We started in Villa Venezuela. Our primary reason to go by was the check their clothes closet. The closets are wood closets, with four drawers on the bottom. A couple of the drawers were hard to open. They had asked for a new closet. I checked the drawers and make some repairs so that they open fairly well now. However, while we were there we checked for bed bugs. We had problems in the apartment several months ago, right after the sisters moved in. Fortunately, they don’t have bed bugs.

We then took a new mattress to Ruben Dario. But the missionaries were not there. So we left the bed (the old mattress was supposedly really bad) with the landowner. Then we went to La Rotunda. The sister missionaries needed a bar for their closet. This is a new apartment and furniture was delivered on Monday. But the closet didn’t have a hanging bar. They had a shower Curtain rod, but they couldn’t get this to work. So we went by. I was able to use the shower Curtis rod. I had to put a couple of screws in the closet to hold it in place, but it seemed to work just fine. I hung their smoke alarm on the wall.

We gave two fans to another set of missionaries, who also moved into a new apartment. While we were at the office. We also made a stop at Simons at Metrocentral to check for memory foam pillows. One of our missionaries is having neck problems and we think this pillow might help. Simon usually carries them but they haven’t had any for several weeks. While we were at Metrocentro, we eat at Carl’s Jr. We love their hamburgers. Then we stopped at the Colonia for food, a pharmacy to check prices for pills to put into the missionaries pill boxes and then home. Fatima had cleaned our home. It is always nice to come home to a clean house, especially one we didn’t have to clean.

We are going over to the Helbergs for dinner tonight and to continue planning our Turtle Excursion.

Thursday, September 28, 2017

I ran to Sinsa to get a mouse trap and a knob for a drawer for Villa Venezuela. Then I stopped to get a haircut. We spent the rest of the day at home. Sister Bell worked on her quarterly report for SLC and I worked on Visiting Teaching in Somoto. I put together a couple of sheets to help the RS Presidency organize and then keep track of VT statistics. All in all it was a quiet day.

Friday, September 29, 2017

Sister Bell worked on finding a filter bottle for our Brazilian missionaries.  Most of the missionaries come with a filter bottle. But the last two Brazilian missionaries didn’t come with a bottle. Sister Bell, through her SLC contact, found that the Brazilian MTC doesn’t give out bottles any more. So we bought a case of pure water and a small container of Clorox and took it to our Brazilian missionary. We then went by the sister’s house in Villa Venezuela and put the knob on the drawer and to try to clean the bugs out of their microwave. We spent a few hours in the office, then came home. We were out of power for a while so we couldn’t do much without the internet. But I am working on the next newsletter using Elder Curtis's handout on exercises.

Saturday, September 30, 2017

Today we stayed in the house and watched all three sessions of General Conference. We find that we need the spiritual lift from Conference. Here are some of the messages I took from Conference:

·         When we lose our lives in the service of others, we find ourselves. We need to be selfless.

·         We all have unique gifts and accomplishments that we covenanted to do in the pre-existence. We need to find out what those gifts and accomplishments are and do them.

·         WE should not be discouraged, but try to do our very best. Be gentle with ourselves.

·         Heavenly Father is the master planner. He is helping us and directing us. There are no coincidences.

We also watched the face to face with Elder and Sister Renlund in Africa. He said something that struck home with me. He said in one of the African airports, there is a sign that says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”.  I liked that. 

In the mission field, you make do with what you have… even using a nut container as a flower vase.

Sunday, October 1, 2017

We were sad to hear about the passing of Elder Hale. He was a wonderful Apostle.

We enjoyed conference. We stayed in our air-conditioned bedroom most of the day. I left to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner, but we eat in the bedroom. There were several talks about the Book of Mormon. We have been reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish everyday of our mission. We have read it 1 ½ times. For my personal study, I had been reading in Spanish, but I was not understanding it very much. So I began reading it again in English. We enjoyed Elder Swicks talk (probably because we know him. He released our Stake Presidency). He said that what we sometimes see in others is usually only a small part of the picture. The Holy Ghost can help us see others the way the Saviors sees them. He gave the example of the missionary who came into his mission not wanting to stay. For several weeks he gave council to this missionary, but it didn’t change his desire to leave. Finally, he asked why. The missionary said that he couldn’t read. Understanding that, Elder Swick was able to help the missionary, not only to stay but to read. We sometimes judge people and situations, without understanding the whole situation.