New Assignment!!

Hey surprise! 

Haha, I know, really weird that I’m writing on Saturday right? Well, I'll give you a hint: I had changes this week and it’s honestly nothing that I expected. You might be as surprised as I was when I found out but I got assigned to be the mission financier (or financiero). Haha, I still don’t really know how I feel about it. That means that I’m serving in the mission office now. Want to know something else super crazy? My comp´s name is Elder Ward. Haha, he is from Centerville, Utah, he’s a gringo as I’m sure you can figure out, and he’s training me to be the financier right now. Basically, I’m going to be in charge of absolutely all of the finances of the mission, and have to manage all of our accounts. We also work a lot with President Monestel, the AP´s, and the two other secretaries to plan activities (the Christmas multi-zone activity is keeping us SUPER busy right now). Haha, basically its a pretty drastic change. I went from the hot dusty roads of Ciudad Sandino to an air conditioned office, McDonalds and Subway for lunch, a super big expensive house, hot showers, and doing pretty different work.

I think the Lord wants me to learn something really important here. To be honest with you, I did NOT want to have changes this time, especially because I was just really starting to love my area. Also, Edwin and Mercedes are getting baptized the 24th.  I’m also not a big fan of sitting in an office or in the car all day.  Our goal is to get to the field to proselyte at like 4pm every day, but we’ve been leaving at about 6 pm these first couple of days. In a way, I feel good about this new assignment just because you have to be a good missionary that President, and the Lord for that matter, trust to be able to be in the office.  President sat me down and told me that my success here wouldn’t exactly be measured by how well I have everything organized here in the office, but by how many families I baptized, so it’s going to be a super busy couple of changes. I guess what I continue to learn is that this is the Lord’s work and not mine. So if this is where He wants me to be, I’ll do it, and I’ll do it the best I can.

But still, I don’t know anything about accounting or anything like that! Haha, I’m feeling a little inadequate because it’s such a big responsibility, but I already feel that the Lord is helping me. The first day here I was so anxious to get out to the field to work and when we did I just prayed that the Lord would let us have success in the little time we had. We were walking up the street and this guy comes up and says, "Hey, this woman wants to know more about your church." Elder Ward and I were pretty surprised, but she invited us to her house in that very instant. Turns out that there are like 3 houses of people and about 8 of them came out to listen to us and they are all super stoked to go to church. Anyways, it was pretty awesome how the Lord just dropped them on our lap...and I know that He will help us even more to baptize since He understands that we’re busy doing other things.

So today (Saturday) is P-day for the office, just so you guys know for the future. The cool thing is that we can go anywhere we want for P-day. We went to the zoo today which was actually way awesome. The guys from the office are all super cool, and you learn a lot from them cuz they’re all really good missionaries. It was awesome at the zoo…we were looking at this huge jaguar when it came up and turned around and peed backwards in Elder Call’s face. Also, as we were leaving, a huge swarm of bees came and a bunch entered the car so we were all freaking out. Luckily none of us got stung. This morning we played volleyball for the first time in my mission and I SUCK! But it was way fun!

Anyways, I’m having a lot of fun here but it’s SO BUSY and the time flies. It’s been really cool to work so closely with President Monestel and to be able to be around his family and stuff. He really is an amazing man and he’s so devoted to the work of the Lord. Elder Ward is a really cool guy too. To differentiate between the two of us, I’m “The Good Elder Ward” and he’s “The Bad Elder Ward”. It’s kinda funny because President Monestel started that as a joke.

Anyways, I’ve written a bunch already and I could write more but that’s what’s been going on this week. I’m super excited to talk to you guys next week! The cool thing is that we have a phone here in the office that makes international calls, so I think that I’ll be calling you guys from that on Sunday. I’m sure that it’ll be in the afternoon sometime. I think I’ll probably be able to e-mail you guys again when I have a better idea. By the way, I’ll be able to read what ever you guys e-mail me back so please e-mail! I want to hear from you! I miss you guys a bunch and I hope that you’re thinking about Jesus this Christmas!

Love,
Elder Ward

Elder Leiva and Elder Ward