June 21st Elder Dunford and Elder Scaggs La Florida

What is up guys!!!!! This week went pretty well we dropped some people who were not progressing and others who did not want to change for the better. We also picked up some new, crazy awesome people. In the beginning of the week we spoke with the family of E. He and his mom are members but the father and the two siblings are not. We taught a small lesson on Tuesday and this week we hope to set a baptismal goal with them. They sell milk and make all different kinds of cream for a living. We also began teaching a fairly large family, and are helping them prepare for marriage and baptism. Right now the father is working to kick his smoking habit and overall everyone is learning to build good spiritual habits. We also started teaching a small family with two parents and a little girl but they have not come to church and the father works a lot. We hope to prepare them for their baptismal date, but at this point it is not very sure. We do have 3 youngins preparing for baptism, they have gone to church multiple times and are keeping the commitments we give to them. One of them has the name of Manuel de Jesus. He is 13 years old and taller than both Elder Dunford and I. Both his parents are of different religions but want Manuel to attend some kind of church. Manuel has told his parents multiple times that he wants to be a Mormon and a missionary as well. He is progressing rapidly and we have faith that he will keep being dope!!!!!. The other two are about the same age as Manuel.  One of them is named Milton he is 17 years old and the other is named Daynersi. They are progressing fast as well. This week I learned that to be a missionary you gotta love your area. I will be honest I think about my home a lot.  Unfortunately, when I am thinking of home I am not thinking of the people. When this happens my teaching skills and language skills just suck!!!! People nod and smile but they don't care because I don't care. When I am focused, the words just flow the lesson rolls smoothly, and I feel love for the people we are serving. It takes a lot of work guys, it is not easy, but it is very very worth it. Like I said before I want to learn how to love the people of my area, I want to learn how to be dedicated to the work. We will see how things go this week I'Il keep you guys posted!!!!!

June 15th Elder Dunford and Scaggs La Florida

Alright guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this week was more crazy than the other ones!!!!. I'll begin with all the good things. Elder Dunford and I threw some serious fire in La Pedro this week. We placed some baptismal dates and arranged some marriages. We also contacted a great amount of new but very positive families. We also found a handful of ancient inactivos!!!!!!! Unfortunantely not all of the inactives want to listen nor go to church some just don't even talk, it's all good though. On 

Friday we had a pretty killer activity with three zones, Chinandega, Chinandega Oeste, and Leon. We all gathered in our chapel in Chinandega. We had inter cambios with all three zones. I was partnered up with Elder Baldwin. Elder Baldwin was the comp of Elder Reese in the CCM so we have talked before and when we were paired up we were pretty excited. We worked in my area and we went ham!!!!!!!. We had 11 lessons in total and almost placed 4 fechas. In the end we placed two fechas but we were pretty grateful for those! With the help of Elder Baldwin we made some serious advances in our area. I am super grateful for the them I had to work with Elder Baldwin. He teaches with the spirit and he really cares about the people. He is also very patient which is a necessity when working with me. Also my Spanish is getting better and better every single day. Before I could not read the scriptures without my english translations, but now I can read them more or less with ease with the help of a dictionary. Also, I can understand a great amount of what people are saying to us. I'm not perfect by any means. I still need a lot of help but I'm at the point where the more effort I put into my studies the more I will get out. Before I was literally trying to survive! 

Aftermath of Food Poisoning

Now for the bad news (mom no worries) Wednesday I about died of food poisoning nica style. In the night I didn't feel to well. Our lunch ceta gave us 4 tacos. I only ate 3 and I could barely get them down. When we got back to the house I could barley stand. We managed to plan. Afterwords I went to bed and woke up around 11 and just let loose in the toilet (I broke my no puke streak of 7 years). I had 4 or five sessions of vomit during the night. When I woke up I felt much better but could barely walk, but the sickness continued with diarrhea.I could not work that day and ended up sleeping the whole day. Now I'm feeling great but I have vowed never to eat fish in Nicaragua again!! This week was awesome though!!!! I learned a lot and made a ton of progress. Right now I think about the people much much more than my family and my home. By the end of this change I hope to be dedicated to the work. I've learned that being dedicated isn't weird. Once you become dedicated to the work you start having fun and the work becomes less of work and more of a game,  it becomes fun. Any way love you guys your boy in Nicaragua!!!!!!!!!! 

June 8th

Elder Reese  Bethxi  Elder Scaggs

Hey guys just finished another week in Nicaragua!!!!!!! This week was a little on the crazy side. We started strong with menos activos and investigators. We placed baptismal dates and even ended the week with a baptism. The baptism we held on Saturday was for a young girl named Bethxi. Her family is menos activo but we reactivated them and taught their youngest daughter. She is very smart and picked up the lessons very fast. We also managed to reactivate a different family and bring 5 investigators to church. Now time for the crazy stuff. On Thursday Elder Dunford had just finished a baptismal interview and we were preparing to go back to our area when a white dude stopped us. He spoke english and he was from america. We taught him a little about our religion. Elder Dunford and I had a little trouble doing that in english. When we finished explaining he took over and began preaching to us about the hebrew name of Jesus and how he was sent from God to change the world. He said all religions were from man and that the whole world are sinners. During the lecture two girls walked by and he immediately turned to them and flirted with them. He asked if they were going to the gym and showed them his guns. He was a really weird dude.

The craziest part about the week was Saturday. The day started pretty relaxed, very hot like always, but around 6 it started to pour...then flood. we were up to our shins in water. All the streets we completely flooded. It was like walking through a river. We did not give up. We searched for people to teach. After practically swimming we stopped at a local investigators house and had the opportunity to meet her husband. We taught him that we do not worship Joseph Smith and a little bit about prophets. The Experience was very cool. After words we took a taxi home. Throughout the whole experience huge bolts of lightning were crashing all around us!!!! very fun Very crazy !!!! That's it from me this week guys love you!!!!!!