Suffer patiently and the Lord will give you success.

Dearest family,

Thanks so much for your letters. Its always so good to hear from you! I’m sorry to hear that there are tough times at home but I’m so glad that you recognize them as blessings. The Lord has promised to bless the families of His missionaries, and I think He is doing it right now with trials. :)

Mom, that scripture you shared with me is probably my favorite scripture thus far on the mission (Alma 26:27). Dad, thanks for the poem and for your words for the Familia Chavarria.  I think I’m going to print them out and read them in our Noche de Hogar with them tonight. There seems to be a recurring theme or things that I learn over and over again in the mission: that if we suffer patiently in our afflictions as it says in Alma 26:27 the Lord will give us success. For example, this week started out slow. We weren’t teaching a lot of people and a lot of our possibilities for baptism that we had before fell through. Elder Rodriguez has been sick and it was hard just to wake up. I prayed that the Lord would help me that day and I’m sure that your prayers helped too. We ended up finding a bunch of new families to teach and the Lord literally placed people in our path.

It’s basically a miracle, but after over 3 years of knowing the missionaries the Familia Chavarria is going to be married and baptized this weekend. :) We are sooooo stoked!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, we had changes this past week and I’m still in Las Flores, Masaya. But I’m glad because we still have work to do here. We have a new Zone Leader though and 6 hermanas in the zone (which is a lot). Anddd to answer your question mom, no I haven’t gotten any packages (yeah kind of a bummer but I still have hope) haha.  I’ve heard that it can take a long time.

What else...Elder Rodriguez has some weird sickness and this week I gave him a blessing. It gave me an even stronger testimony of the priesthood and that the miracles that the Lord performs in our lives.

Other little things: ITS SO HOT! Haha…but its ok.  I’m getting used to it and it makes the work have even more value. I drank a ¨fresco¨ (juice) made with avocado eyes (and almost threw up).

 Also, I’m going to try to send some pictures right now. Two are of Family Night and had to be secret so they kind of are of a stinky quality (it was fun trying to take them though), the baptism of Mayory and Francisco, at Papa Johns with the Zone, and others...

Anyways...love you guys a bunch. I know without a doubt that this is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that we are so blessed to be members of His church. Even though your lives are busy with lots of other things to do REMEMBER that the most happiness comes when we are doing what the Lord wants.

KEEP IT REAL IN THE U S OF A.

Love much,

Elder Ward