Monday, December 27, 2010

They truly are modern day pioneers!

!¿Sup CHELES (white people)¿¡

Well first of all, I just want to say that it was amazing talking to you guys on Christmas. I really do feel like it was only 5 minutes, but I feel really good about staying within the alotted 40 minutes that we had. I think that only made the feelings from the phone call better.
Man, I'm such a baby! I seriously get so choked up every time I talk or write to you guys. I don't even know why but I think that I can just feel how much love you guys have for me, and its so comforting to know that I have family back home cheering me on. Mom and Dad thanks so much for your thoughts. You have always helped me in my hard times and just so you know you're the best parents I could ask for. I'm so glad that you've taught me well so that I can better endure the struggles of a mission.
So this week was a great one. It was definitely a tough one like I said before, but I'm learning so much. My first priority investigator is still my companion. I take great comfort in knowing that he is my companion for a reason and I hope that I can help him be a better missionary. At first I thought he's not much of a trainer, but we can learn something from everyone. I'm definitely learning a lot with Elder Rosa.
Christmas was pretty neat here. Two young couples in our ward had a wedding at the chapel and they bore beautiful testimonies to all of their non-member friends and family that were there. My companion and I and the other two missionaries in the area next to us came, and we contacted just about everyone there. It was a sweet way to spend Christmas night. We almost had a marriage of two investigators too, but it turns out that we're going to have a marriage and baptism this next weekend. Woo hoo!
Yesterday we went to a recent convert's house, Elizabeth, who is just so awesome. Its been a year since her baptism but she wasn't planning on going to the temple this trip because its such a big sacrifice to leave work and her little girl for 5 days. We talked to her about it and the Spirit was so strong. It was so humbling to walk up to the chapel carrying Elizabeth's bag and to see all the members with their sleeping bags and suitcases ready to make the 18 hour journey to the temple. They truly are modern day pioneers. If they can do that, the mission doesn't seem as hard.
Today we went to Managua because Elder Rosa had to get his ID. I had a Big Mac and it was so freakin goood! I'm pretty sure they make McDonalds better here. It was kinda weird that we went to Metro Centro which is like a big mall.
Anyways things are still tough and I'm not seeing tons of success right now, but I know that the Lord has great things in store for me and the people of Nicaragua if I continue to work hard and be obedient.
Oh and mom, I can't really think of anything else I would want for my birthday. For sure a new backpack though would be great. Maybe more candy, maybe a usb drive for pics and stuff. And so far, I only received letters from Aubrey, Brother Smith, and Aunt Lindsay. Tell them thanks by the way and I'll write when I get a chance! I don't think I will get letters next until January 12th or 13th.
Anyways love you guys so much and keep it real!!!
Love,
Elder Ward

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Christmas....probably the best one I will have yet!

Oh heyyy guys!

Whats up_  I don’t know how to do question marks on this crazy Nica keyboard and I don’t know how to change the language so these things _ are question marks. Anyways, I love the Christmas picture you sent me. It actually turned out pretty good...probably because I’m not there to ruin it. haha Man oh man! I don’t even know what to write about, like always. I guess I don’t have to write a ton though because I’m going to call you guys this week! Yessss!  I am so stoked!  Honestly, I don’t know when I’m going to call but I’m thinking probably like Christmas morning sometime around 10AM. Sorry that I’m not real sure about it though. I don’t really know how to communicate in this place. I’m probably just going to have to come to a cyber and call from there which I’m guessing is going to cost a bit. But I can talk for 45 minutes I believe. So...just be ready for a call Saturday morning like around 10 or so.
So, my thoughts on Christmas...honestly this one is a little different, but it’s probably the best one I will have, if not next year’s. For example, there aren’t the usual things that everyone loves about Christmas—rhe lights, the Christmas music, cool weather, the Christmas movies, you name it—but I was reminded of something last night. They had a stake Christmas devotional last night and as we all sang Silent Night in Spanish I felt the Spirit so strong and was reminded what Christmas is all about. Here I am in Nicaragua, so far away, and people are gathered together to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ.  I was reminded that Jesus Christ came to the earth to atone for all of us so that we might be able to return to live with Heavenly Father. Sure, this Christmas is a little different, but I feel so blessed to be bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ—the reason that He was born—to the people of Nicaragua. Mom, your story really got to me because I’ve thought about that quite a bit this week and I know that even if it’s hard sometimes for me to be gone, it’s worth it.
I’ve had to remember why I’m here quite a few times this week.  It’s been tough. The families that we had a baptismal date with for this past weekend are still trying to work through their marriage problems.  It was a little disappointing but I know that everything will work out when the Lord wants it to. We’ve found a couple new people to teach and they all seem very interested. This girl named Joseline that we met at the church this last Friday was there for mutual. We visited her yesterday and she asked us if she could be baptized whenever. It was pretty awesome so we’re going to work with her and already have a date set for her to get baptized.
Man the mission is tough...at least right now.  It’s such an immense calling and I’ve been feeling the weight of it this week.  I’ve talked a little bit about my companion and really I want to try to avoid talking bad about him in this letter but I will say what I learned this week. Unfortunately, there are a lot of missionaries that don’t really have their heart in the work. I asked my companion why he was on a mission the other day when things were really tough in an attempt to help him. After talking to him we came to the conclusion that our goals were the same. We are both here to bring people to Jesus Christ, to help people be saved in the kingdom of God. We talked about what we could do to do that for quite awhile which helped me to realize why things are hard for him.  I thought back to something that was said when I was set apart—“sometimes your most important investigator is your companion."  I think that that is definitely true right now.  Maybe more than anything my purpose right now is to help my companion be a good missionary.  It’s just hard because you can only help people so much until it’s their turn to make a decision.  Unfortunately, after our discussion not much changed.  As I thought about this I thought, what would Jesus do?  Well, we always make mistakes. We always fall short of perfection as we work toward our goal of eternal life, but He always forgives us if we work for it.  So, I’m trying to give my companion an opportunity to change, but it’s up to him now.  I can understand a little better now how our Heavenly Father and Savior feel.  They give us so many opportunities to change and They are just waiting, pleading for us to come to Them.  It gives me a better perspective of my role as a missionary as well.  In a way, the situation with my companion is not much different than with our investigators.
The challenge right now is not "playing down to his level.”  We always talked about it in volleyball.  When you’re playing a crappy team you’re always tempted to play down to their level. We should always strive to be the very best we can be regardless of what the other team or other people are doing. Only the Lord and we know what is expected of us.
Man...what else?  Seriously some of the people here are just awesome.  We teach a recent convert named Hugo every now and then.  He never leaves his seat that’s in his front yard and every time we come over he says, "Do you know what time it is?! The devil is out roaming the streets right now!" After we tell him that we’re there to conquer Satan he always excuses our stupidity for coming at such a dangerous hour.  And there’s Franklin... To anyone else, Franklin would seem like the scum of the earth.  He’s an old, toothless man that roams the streets pestering people for money and stuff. As we’ve talked to him more and more, I’ve come to realize that he is a loving guy that is so hungry to hear the word of God. Every time we see him he asks for a Book of Mormon and just starts crying and hugs us whenever we give him one.  It’s just amazing to me that a man that has no home, no family, hardly any food, wants more than anything to hear the word of God. It makes you realize what is most important in life.
Anyways, this letter is getting pretty long so Merry Christmas. I still don’t have anyone’s e mail addresses so if you could help me out by sending a few that would be awesome. Just of friends, family, whoever because I don’t really have any other way to write besides e mail.  Well, I do but I’m not quite sure how it works and I think it’s a pain. By the way, Mom, I don’t know if it’s too late but you asked me if I want anything for my birthday. The bag that I carry around right now is killer.  I have some pretty gnarly back pain because I have to walk around with a big bag on one shoulder all day. I’m bummed cuz it was kind of expensive but do you think you could maybe send a new one?  We can talk about it more when I call but just wanted to mention it. If you can’t send one that’s fine.  I can buy one here somewhere.
Anyways, I love you guys a bunch. Remember what Christmas is really about this week and try to make other peoples’ Christmas better!  I can’t wait to talk to you this week and I’ll be sure to have some good stories for you!

Love much,

Elder Ward

Monday, December 13, 2010

IT'S GOING TO BE ONE SWEET ADVENTURE!

Que pasa chavalos?!
 
Man, it sure was good to hear from you guys this week. I even started to get a little choked up. It is so strange to think about home. I try not to very much while I'm here and don't have much time to honestly, but it is strange to think about Christmas time there and all that. What really got me though was when you gave me "spiritual advice", I guess you could say.
So...where do I even start. First of all, thanks for your prayers because I definitely do feel them. I have been praying really hard this week as well and things are getting better. There have been times this week where I've had inexplicable joy. Sure, there have been times that are really tough but that is how its going to be for two years. I'm trying to be thankful for these trials and I'm trying to see them as growing experiences.
This week we have three fechas or baptismal dates for this Saturday and we're going to have to work our tails off to make them happen. In every case, they are women that have companions who are less active members and they need to get married. I'm figuring out that this is one of the biggest problems here in Nicaragua. I've thought about our family a lot as we've been talking about the blessings of eternal families and how the gospel blesses our families. It is amazing how many little miracles happen on the mission. Yesterday, for some reason I was really not excited to start the day and was finding it hard to get motivated. I went in to take my bucket shower and realized that there was no water. It was a pretty big bummer but I said a quick prayer asking Heavenly Father if I could at least take a shower that day. The water spout was already turned on and immediately after I ended my prayer, water started coming out. On a larger scale, yesterday we went to one of our investigators homes (one with fecha) and she came up to us and just started breaking down. She went on to explain that her and her companion had just gotten in a fight and we bore testimony to her that the Savior knows her pain and that if she would go to church she would feel the Spirit and His love. Guess what the talks were about in church? Eternal families and how we can have happy marriages. Whoa...
Today has been a pretty sweet p-day. We played futbol at the stake center with our zone. Speaking of my zone, I went on splits with the zone leader and that was definitely and answer to prayers. It gave me a good example of what a good missionary is and now I know what I can do to help my companion. Things are definitely getting better though. Its just so hard when you are teaching so many good people, helping people receive eternal salvation, and then temporal desires get in the way. I'm learning patience though and I'm doing my best to serve and love my companion.
I love Nicaragua. The people here are amazing. I love the food (for right now). Spanish is tough but I'm understanding more and more every day. I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of things and I love the mission. I'm so excited that its just starting too because I know that it's going to be one sweet adventure.
As far as birthday stuff mom, I'm not sure what I would want. Its kind of hard to ask for anything after living amongst the Nicans. By the way, forgot to mention that I got the Christmas packages when I got here. The first thing the AP said to me in the airport was, "Elder Ward...you little poop. We have three packages waiting for you already..." I guess there is another Ward in the mission and they originally took them to him. He was pretty bummed. But thanks so much for the packages! I love the tree and everything else in it (that I could open). The only thing I could think of that you could send would maybe be like a memory stick that I can put pictures on. I have no idea what else, but I'm not too hard to please.
Oh, and if you could send me e-mails of Joey, Travis, and whoever else that would be great because I don't have them.
Well, I love you guys so much. I wasn't planning on writing this long of a letter, but you guys truly mean the most to me. I miss you, but its ok because I have my own families in Nicaragua. I want them to have the same love and happiness that we have in ours. Glad to hear that you're all doing well and having fun. This week give someone a spiritual Christmas gift (invitation, BOM, you name it).
 
Love much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Elder Trevor Ward
 
PS- I get to call you guys on the 24th or 25th (my choice) but I'm not sure what time yet. They talked about it in Spanish in the zone conference, so not completely sure how that will work. I think I might just have to go to a cyber or something and call but I'll let you know about that.
 

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

First week in Nicaragua

¡Adio familia¡

Soo that's how people say hi in Nicaragua. Man do I have a ton of stuff to write you guys about and I don't even know where to start. I guess I'll kind of just go from when I got here.

Monday was just a long day of traveling. It was so nice to talk to you guys and sorry that I didn't get to talk to you Connor, Collin, and Aubrey. I'll be calling you again pretty soon here on Christmas day! But, it was way neat. I sat by this nice woman on the plane who was going to visit her friend from Miami whose wife just passed away. It was neat because she said she didn't really know what to tell him so we talked a lot about the plan of salvation and I gave her a Book of Mormon and my copy of the conference edition Ensign with a note for her friend on the back. So, I guess you could say that she was my first investigator.

When we arrived in Nicaragua, the Monestels (Mission President and wife) and the APs came and picked us up along with a super beat up, barely operating truck for all of our bags and whatnot. We all had to run and push it down the street for it to get started. I knew from that moment on that Nicaragua would be an adventure. That night we had McDonalds, which by the way, is like a 5 star restaurant here. We had transfers the next day which everyone just goes nuts about. Its pretty cool. I got to see Elder Pace (a friend from our Stake) which was pretty neat. Anyways, I ended up being called to an area called Masaya.
New arrivals 11/29/10 with President and Sister Monestel

Masaya, and Nicaragua in general, is truly an amazing place. I really can't even describe it in an e-mail, but it's beautiful. The people here are so nice and so humble. It was pretty neat when we were in the house of a member earlier this week and she offered us food and took one of the few ornaments off of her tiny Christmas tree and she started talking about it. I couldn't understand super well, but she was talking about how reindeer work hard all the time or something and gave the ornament to me. I politely tried to tell her that she could keep it, but she insisted that I keep it to remember to work hard. The thing is, that's how everyone is here. It's amazing! They are all so giving and all love to talk and it seems like everyone wants to be friends.

My companion is Elder Rosa and he is from Honduras. He is an awesome guy and he has been in Masaya for about 6 months (on his mission for that long too). It's kind of tough having a Latin companion because of the language barrier, but he´s teaching me a lot. I'll talk more about that in a sec.

So living conditions...well first of all Nicaragua is not what I expected really. I expected like pure jungle but Masaya actually has lots of paved roads, buses, taxis, dogs roaming the streets, you name it. Our little house is actually pretty decent sized we have a room where we both sleep and a pretty big living room, I guess you could say, where we study and stuff. Yep, I get to take cold bucket showers every morning, which in reality isn't that bad. Luckily it's not that hot in Masaya too. The food is actually pretty good too. As expected, I eat rice and beans every day and usually some kind of meat. They also like bananas a lot too. We have a lady from the ward that cooks and washes our clothes for us, so that is nice. I haven't had diarrhea yet so woo hoo!

Spanish...so they speak a different language in Nicaragua. They have a lot of their own words like 'tuanis' which means like sweet, awesome, beautiful, cool, whatever you want really. They also use 'salvaje' a lot which means savage but they use it for everything. Here's the catch though, they don't use 's's when they talk. Like ever! Usually just the ending "s" of words like for example we are misionero de la iglesia de lo santo de lo ultimo dia. There should be an "s" at the end of just about every word. Anyways, I'm being patient with the language. Everyone tells me that I know a lot for just getting here, and I feel like I can speak ok. But at the same time, it's tough to understand because they speak so fast and I don't know all the words yet. Interestingly enough, we taught two people that speak English this week and I've met maybe 3 others that speak English. President really wants the Latins to learn English too, so we speak English in the apartment every now and then.

So, all in all...Missions are TOUGH. When I got here I just wanted to get to work and baptize all of Nicaragua. It's not really that easy though. Honestly, the food, cold bucket showers, bugs, heat, or any of that really don't bug me. The Spanish is tough because it's so hard to teach people when you don't know their language that well. It's been amazing though because I've been praying really hard and I've felt many times this week that the Spirit has told me what to say even if I don't understand the investigators situation that well. Also, I underestimated that it could be tough to love your companion. Elder Rosa and I are completely different in every way, which is fine, but he has been here for six months in one area and I think that he is losing his 'animo' or excitement or desire to serve. It's tough because sometimes he will just want to go to an investigator's house and talk to them for a super long time without really teaching a lesson. But I continue to do my best to love him and I'm learning lots of patience. I know that he is my companion for a reason and I'm trying to focus on the good things about him. Please pray for both of us that we can get a long and both be excited about the work and to work as hard as we can.

Gosh this e-mail is long and I have so much more to say. Unfortunately, I don't have any e-mail addresses of friends with me now so I think I'll just be writing you guys this week. Sorry to anyone else that reads this! But right now we are teaching quite a few different people. I don't have time to talk about all of them but its amazing to see how the gospel can bless every one's lives. I know I already said it, but the people are amazing here. The members travel 18 hours to go to the temple. An old man named Alfonzo, who is a recent convert and only has one leg, walked about two miles all the way to the church building this week. ahhh There's so many stories! But about the members, they are amazing. Church was pretty neat this week and I got up the nerve to bear my testimony. Yesterday, I also had the opportunity to participate in two blessings, one to one of our investigators named Gilma who was sick and one to a brand new infant that was sick. It was intimidating doing it in Spanish but it was miraculous. The spirit guided me to give a simple prayer and it was definitely a spiritual experience.

Anything more...I don't know. Well one more story. A man that I obviously have never met came up and shook my hand and we kinda were just joking around a little, but then he said, "wait, I want to say something serious". He went on to say with tears in his eyes that he was a drunk and that his family is struggling and that they need help but that the missionaries always just pass by him. I looked him straight in the eyes, thinking of what the Savior felt for this man, and I just felt love for him. I gave him a hug, and even though he reeked of alcohol and was dirty, I didn't care one bit. I just felt pure love for him. I told him that Jesus Christ suffered for him and knows exactly what he's going through and that if he would listen to our message He could change his life.

Sorry this e-mail is so jumbled, I just have so many thoughts right now. All in all, I love the mission. It is tough and I'm sure the couple first weeks will be as a get accustomed, but I know that the Lord will help me. Thank you for all your encouragement too. I love you guys so much and it was good to hear from you. Oh, and to my sweet sweet sister Ava, I love you and happy birthday!!!!! 5 years old!!!

By the way, lots of people have seen our family pictures, and they all say that we have a beautiful family. That always makes me happy and I think about you guys every day. :)

Love much,

Elder Trevor Ward