February 1st District Leader

Elder Williams Elder Scaggs La Paz Centro

Well guys I finally left the Paz Centro. It was a bitter sweet ending.  We had the blessing to see a great change in many families. Out of all the families, we passed by Hermana Marcia and her family, Juana and Jose and her family. Juan and his family was the most difficult to get through. I thought I was going strong until Marcia started balling and I lost it. Shortly after, the whole family started tearing up, it was a toughie but it all worked out.  Hermana Marcia and her family felt like my family away from home, there was a lot of love between the missionaries and them. I felt like I had another mom, another dad, and three more brothers, super funny, you gotta keep track of them for me
   Elder Williams stayed behind to build the area up. I 'm confident he will make a big difference in La Paz. I'm going to miss that guy a lot, he has helped me out so much and has bettered me as a missionary. Now I'm in Esteli with Elder ajquejay in San Isidro and La Irinidad . It is located in Esteli and it is so great!!!!!!!. I met Ajquejay when I first came to the mission. He has the exact same time as me and I am very thankful to be working with him. He is an honest, true, hard working missionary and I know we will throw fire together!!!
Oh by the way guys, I'm a leader now, woohoo, lots of responsibility. I got a notebook especially for my district and I'm really excited.

January 25th The Lord Loves You Mom

Questions:

• What can you get there that you can't get here?
• What makes it hard for them to do well or survive?
• Who has made a difference in your life as a missionary or otherwise?
• Your Dad is interested in how you feel about your mission right now?
•   ready for a new area/not ready for a new area

So the fruits that we eat here that we don't get in the states are mangos. Yeah we can get mangos in the states but here there are so many that people throw them away. They are amazing. You can eat them when they are ripe or when they aren't it works well. The fruits here thrive because its super hot and super tropical. My mission president has made a huge difference in my mission, as well as my patriarchal blessing,  the scriptures, and prayer. Before the mission I didn't really use those resources well but here on the mission that is all we have.  I have received so much revelation and so much help just by using it a lil bit. Those things have saved my butt every week. So right now in the mission I feel pretty good about it but just recently I've felt just so great. With Elder Williams I feel like the missionary I want to be. We are honest, we are hard workers, and on many occasions we have exhausted ourselves on the street and kept working to complete our goals. Dad I now understand exactly what you have told me before, Elder Williams and I are doing our best down here. I want to complete a year in La Paz Centro, and I want to leave this area better than I picked it up.
This next message made me cry.
Mom I thank you every week but I want to thank you again. At the end of every week I'm tired, I'm beat, I'm kinda sad, and I look forward to your messages, because I know you always help me out. You always make sure that I have something to read. Mom you are doing a great job please keep it up. Even though you may not see all the results from your work now, you will see the results. Don't loose hope, keep reading, keep praying.  The lord loves you mom the lord is well aware of you.

January 18th Hermana Ortencia Baptism One Year Mark

Hey everybody, this week we had many miracles and many awesome experiences. We wanted to help a family of 2 get baptized, but in the end only the mom Hermana Ortencia got baptized. She is an awesome lady of about 5o years. She lives way out in the middle of no where with her family but she has a lot of  fight in her. She has come to church with us without fail for 3 Sundays in a row. My favorite thing about her is that when we pass by our other investigators to bring them to church, she shoots down their excuses. Sometimes they come out with a headache or clothes to wash, and she walks up to them and says "we are going to church though right."  She taught Elder Williams and I an evangelical song about oil from heaven it was pretty funny. When she got baptized, our recent convert Juan showed up. Juan has helped us out almost every single day this week. He wants to be a missionary, so he is reading and helping us teach. Every day we can see that his knowledge of the gospel is growing.

Watching a Video of the Restoration
Notice the Chair

The biggest thing Elder Williams and I learned this week is that we need to pray to receive help from God, but we need to pray for specific things. Before we have been praying very very generally and working in a very broad unproductive manner. We decided to pray and ask where we should go, ask to put people in our path. We presented a plan and the lord helped us find a whole bunch of people who are super positive.
I asked him a few questions in my letter and these are the answers.
Here are a few of the things that surprise me about the people in Nicaragua. For example, people here have a ton of superstitions. People don't like to drink cold stuff or shower at night because it will make them sick. They also don't eat very much chili because it's bad for your kidneys.  So dad raised me to drink stuff super fast and devour food. Elder Williams eats very slow and drinks stuff sip by sip and it bugs me so much, but it has grown on me, now I sip my food and eat slow, I get less sick in the end and I have more food. I think I'm going to miss all of the families we have baptized. Our recent recent converts are really awesome so it will be tough to leave them.

Chinese Food Celebrating One Year Mark
Scaggs/Williams

January 11th

So this weekend the greatest guy in the world decided to get baptized. His name is Juan and he is one of the most honest and most dedicated converts we have had. He works with us, talks with us, and actually wants to learn, instead of saying yeah yeah mhm  si si claro que si. He plans to be a missionary and he is already working with us in La Paz to help build the rama (branch).

 Hey guys this week was a fight to the death to keep our head above the water, We had to look, teach and prepare for baptism. It all worked out really well but it was tough. At the end of the week we managed to bring Hermano Juan to baptism. He is a great guy and loves to learn. He is also very humble which has allowed him to forget about the worldy things that hold us back and seek our Heavenly Father. We have seen others who want to change but cannot manage to leave the world behind. Elder Williams and I are working hard here in La Paz. I'm really thankful for my companion Elder Williams. This week he has really taken the lead while I have been sick, and in the end he has learned a ton and is super awesome. I'm excited to see where he will go and who he will become in the mission. He teaches in a  very clean very direct manner which causes the people to think and to act in a very secure and sure way. We have finally gotten down a pattern of teaching and we are making it work.

Frijoles con Crema

 So the converts that I relate to the most are almost all of them. I really love spending time with them and I've been here for a while so they feel like the are my family. For me its really hard not to spend two or 3 hours with them. One family talks to us and asks us questions so that we can't leave. With the family of Juana and Jose she always invites us over to eat tacos.  We try to split up in the mornings so we can pass by more people, but basically we go to the most positive people and wait and walk with them to church.  So, unfortunately New Year's is a lot bigger than Christmas, but it's still fun. Everybody buys fireworks and gets super super drunk and they blow up scarecrow doll things that represent the old year. They make the maniken look like an old man and they fill it full of firecrackers and blow it up. We were sleeping by that point but we definitely heard it.

January 4th

 Sunday went well. We had pretty good attendance and we brought some investigators to church. We bare our testimonies every week.  So, being a "father" for another missionary has helped me learn a whole lot more and get better. New Year's Eve night we hung out with some members and our investigator Juan.

Hey guys!!!! This week went great. It was tough but it was great. We finally found a way to work efficiently. Before we couldn't crank out many lessons. Right now we are doing things short, and simple. We met some awesome people this week and are helping them progress towards baptism. One awesome awesome guy that we are teaching is called Juan. He is the brother or cousin of one of our recent coverts who is named Felipe. When we first met Juan he was a very gruff looking bago( street walker). One day we we started talking with him, which led to  a lesson, which led to him putting a goal to get baptized. He has not had much experince with churches but he has a fairly strong background in the basics. He prays alot and even prays over his food which is amazing! He learns very fast, and once you get him interested, he reads, investigates, and studies without us pushing him along. He is one of our favorite investigators. We have another family that lives out in the boonies.

Being Ridiculous with Maricela

We have David, Maricela, Urtencia and Ceiner.  The single mom that leads the family brings everyone along behind her. More than anything I learned how to keep the hope and excitement going even though the circumstances are so incredibly draining. I found a scripture that teaches us that we should be happy, we should not fear because our Lord is with us and understands us. If we are obedient, everything will work out fine even though we may need to pass through some tough trials. 

Williams, Scaggs, DeLeon, Ward, Spence, Crane

 Love you guys a ton see you later

December 28th

Hey guys,

Yep, I really enjoyed the call yesterday. It felt great seeing you guys again. You are so awesome, when I heard your voice again it made me so happy. I miss you so much. It's not a super horrible missing feeling but I definitley miss you. Thank you so much for arranging that mom. I could tell that you put in a lot of effort to coordinate it. Also, thank you for helping it to be organized mom, you are awesome, I love you so much. We are doing our best down here. On Sundays we usually get up and eat breakfast, then we leave the house at about 7 to bring people to church. Just recently we decided to sit with the families and actually walk them to church in the mornings. Every Sunday we end up blessing the sacrament and teaching the priesthood class. There are not many people in the church so the classes are pretty quiet. This past Sunday we brought one of our investigators named Juan. He helped us out a lot and brought some animation to the group. The Christmas party was fun.  We watched minions and had a talent show. They gave us microwaves and a fruit basket with apples grapes and chocolate. We also ate delicious Christmas food, like chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy. I sincerely loved the packages, I love them everytime. They're awesome, but the truth is, to be happy here I don't need packages. Getting packages is awesome but it makes other missionaries feel bad, like the Latinos. They receive maybe one package in their entire mission. Also, to send a package, it costs 20 to 50 dollars. With 20 or 50 dolars here we can pay for a wedding, we can feed a few families, we can help a lot of people out with it. The gospel helps people a million times more than money because they have the opportunity to pull themselves out of sin and out of poverty. When we give people money its like a soda here a bag of bread there, a wedding here and dinner there, or we buy snacks for an activity. WE DO NOT NEED MONEY WE ARE NOT ASKING FOR MONEY,  but I would rather the majority of the money that goes to me for packages go to the people here. Plus, like I've said before, packages are cool but the only thing that I really want is to be with you guys again and its still not my time to go. Dad I like what you said about the Santa thing, we could do that but it would  be in a different more secretive way, so that instead of the money being linked to elder Scaggs or the missionaries, it shows up in the form of surprise food visits or activities with food and stuff. Dad I LOVED HOW WELL THE POLAR EXPRESS TURNED OUT. That is such an incredible experience. I'm sure that polar express movie made that kids year. The Polar Express is getting bigger and bigger each year. I'm so excited for you dad.  I can see that the Polar Express is making a big difference in the community. Thanks you for being such a great example to me dad. You have a natural way of just knowing how things work and you have touched a lot of peoples lives in the process. You have taught me a lot just by being the way you are. Keep being awesome dadeo.

December 21st

What is up my friends,
This week, Elder Williams and I had a great amount of success. It definitely was not easy though. These past couple weeks we have had a lot of trouble with people saying that they will go to church with us BUT in the end never go. Our leaders called us Sunday night to help us out. They gave us a couple of awesome awesome tips, things that were exactly what we needed. Throughout this week we have been trying to mention church a lot. We commit them to go to church on Monday, Tuesday, and throughout the week we continually commit them to church. We also make plans to pass by them on Sunday to bring them to church. We have found that once people hear we are going to pass by and bring them, the truth comes out. Sunday church attendance is so important if we want to keep our people active. We plan to do the same thing next week but secure the plans days before. This week we managed to bring 3 investigators to church, they were ready and excited to visit. We also had some killer experiences with investigators and less actives. One family, that showed up for church last week, after years of non attendance, told us this week that we showed up at the perfect time for them. Their marriage was at the point of going under permanantely. They told us that it was because of our persistence that they finally got something done. Obviously it was not thanks to us, God did all the work but I feel pretty happy that we managed to do something right for the big man down here in La Paz Centro. Other than that not to much has happened. Lots of praying and lots of scripture study got us through the week. By Sunday morning both Elder Williams and I were running on fumes. I know that God has our back and wants to help us out but we just gotta ask and take action.
 love you guys