Another Adventurous Week

Hey!

BE AN INSTRUMENT NOT A TOOL! Haha…I like that phrase, Dad. I know exactly what you mean about developing other skills besides a strong testimony. But seriously...this week I had to go buy some stuff for our mission activity in one of the biggest markets in Nicaragua. We stuck out like a sore thumb with our white shirts and ties...but even then I got to work on my bargaining skills. Almost every time they gave us the first price I said, "¡¿Que va a ser hombre?!" which here means, "Dude, are you crazy?!".

Elder Pace, Elder Galvan, Elder Ward (Arizona boys)

This week was another adventure. We had a conference for the whole mission for the first time ever since I’ve been here. So, as you can imagine, planning for 180 missionaries was pretty crazy...from buying 10 Spiderman kites from a street vendor to hiring a gay guy to take an aerial photo of the whole mission...(at least the picture turned out really good). Anyways, the activity was a success and everyone had lots of fun. We did it at this Jockey Club in Granada. It was hard work but it definitely paid off.

Time to work in our area was pretty limited this week. We did have a couple of good experiences though. We got a referral from a member of a mom whose son was just killed about 2 weeks ago. All of her other adult children live their too and they’ve been having some pretty tough times, especially because one of her 19 yr old sons, Tonio, continues his heavy drinking even after the death of his brother who was killed for the same reason. It felt good to be able to talk to them about the power of the Atonement and its fruits, such as forgiveness and life after death. Norma (the mom) was so happy to hear that her son would have the chance to hear the gospel in the Spirit World. Tonio went to church with us on Sunday and loved it...he said he wants to be a missionary. I think I really got to see how our Heavenly Father feels about us this week. We committed Tonio to stop drinking, nevertheless, we’ve seen him drunk, usually laying down in the middle of the street, every day this week. It broke my heart every time we saw him, so we would walk him back to his house, sometimes carrying him. Yesterday he was with his "friends" and had a bottle of alcohol in his hand. I said, "ahh man...again?? alright, how much does that cost?" he told me that it costs 10 cords (less than 50 cents). I gave him ten cords, took the bottle and dumped out all of the alcohol as his friends winced in pain and hollered as if I was pouring out liquid gold. I made him promise that he wouldn’t use the other 10 cords to buy more alcohol. I got to thinking that that is how the Lord works with us often times. He always directs us back to the right path and lets us repent by carrying us to the house or dumping out the alcohol, but he always gives us those 10 cords back (the ability to choose) and lets us do what we want with it.

Unfortunately Ricardo and Sobeyda weren’t confirmed last week because we had stake conference and they won’t be able to this week because they have another commitment and next week is general conference. Trying hard not to get down about that...guess the Lord has His reasons.

By the way, sorry I complained about going to Disneyland so many years ago (what a spoiled brat right?)...I know kids that would kill to just go see a movie here in Nicaragua. Oh and...GO GET EM HAWKS!!!!!!

Love,

Elder T WARD

PS: Mom, you won’t believe this, but that other package came THIS WEEK. Something has got to be wrong with the mail system. I also got a letter from Joey so tell him thanks. I already started to give away the stuff from the last package, so don’t worry.