Why Do I Do What I Do?

Hey!

How is everyone doin? It was good to hear about your trip to California and Dad and Collin’s camping trip. We just got back from a little trip of our own. We went to San Juan Del Sur this morning, which is SUPER beautiful...played some volleyball on the beach and hiked up to the big Jesus statue that is there.

Before I forget, I want to answer Dad’s question. Why do I do what I do every day in Nicaragua? I’ll share an experience that I had this week to answer that question. We didn’t have much time to work in our area this week because we had training meetings from Tuesday till Friday and we had to be there to translate. This week I’ve been trying really hard to "be the man", like you said, and just work as if I had been in this area for only a couple of weeks. Well, all of our appts. fell through but we had one appt. that was going to be crucial. I know that I’ve talked a little about Henry and Maricela, the family that I’ve been teaching since I got here (about 8 months). Henry is still struggling with his alcohol addiction. We went with a recent convert, Jaime, who had also overcome a serious addiction to coffee. We had prepared so well, and I knew that the Spirit was there. Even with all of that, Henry, who I really have come to love, seemed to just shake it off and just kept changing the subject. When we invited him to repent of his sins he just said, "We’ll see."

We came home, planned, and I just threw myself onto my bed, completely exhausted and still in my missionary clothes. I began to think about the events of the day…oh, I had lost my bag with my scriptures in it that day as well. Anyways...I just asked myself, "Why am I doing what I’m doing if I don’t seem to be making a difference?" In that moment I got a call from Elder Call, who is serving in my old area in Ciudad Sandino. He began to tell me that a family that I baptized that had become inactive was active again and that he had given them some pictures that I had sent to another family, Edwin and Mercedes. He said that when they saw the photos they began to cry and express how grateful they were for the gospel and for us missionaries and that they would continue strong for the rest of their lives.

Well, that pretty much changed my whole attitude. That was my answer to WHY I was there. So here is my answer. First, Jesus Christ. I could never REPAY Him for all that He has done for me and you, but I can MAKE IT WORTH IT. Two, the joy that comes from seeing people come unto Christ is unlike any other.

Anyways, that’s my experience from the week. As you can tell, I’m still here in the office.:) I learned SO much from the training meetings we had this week. Our AP’s sister, Alisha Payne, was one of the sisters that was in the Preach my Gospel DVD’s, "The District". So she came and taught us a bunch of stuff. The gift of tongues is something real. I had never translated for anyone before and I was amazed that I could with the Lord’s help.

Um...well, I think that’s pretty much it for this week. I love you guys a bunch and here is a challenge for this week. Pray for missionary experiences and ACT on them. I promise that you will have them and that you will feel the joy that I do. :)

Love,
Elder Ward

Here are a few pictures that Sister Pace sent to me from their visit to Nicaragua to pick up their son, Collin, at the end of his mission.

Elder Ward with Elder Pace and his parents.

The "goodbye" as Elder Pace heads home to Arizona

Elder Ward (right) with Elder Pace (middle) and other office elders.

Quote Sister Pace found at Trevor's desk.

I AM SO READY!

Hey Family!

Honestly, even though I’ve been getting these e-mails every week for about 22 months, I still love them. HAHAHA Dad, let me just say that I’ve always respected Carl Bloomfield for his engineering skills and was thoroughly impressed on a number of work trips, but I could’ve told you guys that that was a bad idea from the start. I know that because of experience...let’s just say that we didn’t exactly get to that bend in the river on our homemade "pirate ship".  Mom, thanks for your Ava story and for the parts of that talk from Elder Uchtdorf.

I guess I’ll answer some of the questions that you guys asked. To be completely honest, I’m not sure when I’m going to the field, but I AM SO READY. Haha…I’ve been training Elder Miller super good so that he can just completely take over. Honestly, this week was really, really a tough one, not so much for things that happened, but it was more of just an internal battle. I feel like Satan really tried to get me down by saying that I had been in that area for too long to do anything else and that the people we were teaching probably weren’t going to get baptized while I was there anyways. Somehow we don’t have as many families to teach like we always did...a bunch of things. I spent a lot of time on my knees and in the scriptures and this is what I’ve learned:

A person’s faith is truly measured by how well he works after all the warm and fuzzies have gone away. Also, the true test isn’t about your diligence when things are going just fine but when everything is telling you to just give up. I thought about how Christ, the creator of thousands of worlds, the Son of God, could become weary as he approached his crucifixion. A lot of the time the Lord gives us tests that are optional...we can either stand up to them or just sit back and say...ehh, it won’t really matter if I go out and work a couple hours later today. I think the greatest lessons are learned though when we faithfully face up to those tests.

This week Ricardo, one of our recent converts, gave us a referral. It was a younger woman named Mariela, who explained to us that her child that was born with severe disabilities had passed away a couple of years ago. It felt so good to explain to her that he was automatically saved and to see her tears of sorrow turn into tears of joy. She told us that she was ready to change her life and accepted a baptismal date before we could even finish giving her the commitment.

Funny story from this week….remember Tonio?  Well, sadly he continues to drink, A LOT. Anyways, we were having FHE at Norma, Carlos, and Delvia’s house with lots of other members and investigators when Tonio shows up TOTALLY WASTED. He starts yelling something about how we were in a war...luckily we had just sang the closing hymn and it was time to play a game. Long story short, we ended up playing "escond te" or hide and seek.  We had finished for about ten minutes when we hear something fall from the mango tree on the side of the house. It was Tonio, and seemingly unphased by his 10 foot drop, stood up and screamed, " I WON, I WON, I WON!!!!!" It was super hilarious.

Well, I should probably finish. I love you guys a ton and love your lives!

Love,

Elder Ward

I'm Training a New Financial Secretary!

Dear Ward Clan,

Que me diciembre? Hey guys! Man, I feel like you guys were just waiting for one or two kids to leave the nest until you guys decided to go on vacation every week. No, I’m jk, really that’s awesome that you guys are spending lots of time with the family. Thanks for the pictures by the way, everyone looks pretty much the same except for those two little blonde girls that aren’t so little anymore.

Well...lots of news for this week. I’m training a new financial secretary! Mom, you’re right. Even though I’m ready to go back into the field and experience new things, I’m really going to miss this assignment and this area. It was extremely difficult to say goodbye to Elder Santana. I know I don’t talk a lot about my companions, but I have come to love and appreciate every one of them. Honestly, I think Elder Santana was one of my favorites, maybe just because he’s Nica. Not once did he get mad at me, he always went with me to do the tedious things that nobody else likes to do, he loved the people from his own country, and he changed a lot of lives. We had a family night with almost all of our converts in the area and just about everyone got up to say something about Elder Santana. I think that we were all in tears. The sweetest part was them promising that they would go to the temple and Elder Santana promising that we would go with them.

I think it was about equally as difficult saying goodbye to 25 missionaries on Thursday morning. Many of them had been in my district or zone, and Elder Leiva, one of my companions too. I felt a sweet spirit as our mission choir sang "God be With You Till We Meet Again".  It’s good to know that if we all continue faithful that we will not only be with our eternal families but with our eternal friends. It really hit me that that will be me in 3 months, and that I’ve really got to give my all in the time that I have left.

IT’S MILLER TIME! My new comp is Elder Miller from St. George, Utah. He has about 8 months in the mission and he just came from Las Flores, Masaya, my first area in the mission. He’s a very reserved, quiet, hard working missionary and I’m pounding every darn thing he needs to know about being a good financial secretary into his brain. By the way...something terrible has happened in my life. Eating the following foods ya no me gusta (I do not like): McDonalds, Burger King, Subway, and just about anything else that you can find in Nicaragua. I’m ready to go eat gallo pinto again.

This is starting to get long but let me just tell you guys about a little miracle that happened this week. I think I had told you guys about our convert, Magali, who started going to a different church right after her baptism. Well, last night we went over to Norma, Carlos, and Delvia’s house and Magali was there. She apologized for not having come to church and explained that her friend that was letting her stay in her house for free would kick her out of the house if she continued going to our church. Long story short, she dreamed about her baptism day and felt a strong desire to move out and continue going to church. I know that the Lord answers prayers and helps His children come back to the path when they get lost.

By the way Mom, it was tough seeing Elder Pace go. Also, when I said hi to Sister Pace the first thing she said was, "Hi, Elder Ward, how are you...I know that this isn’t really allowed but I promised your mom that I would give you a hug..." and boom she gave me hug...so whether it was allowed or not I didn’t have time to think hahaha. But, thanks for the hug, Mom. If I’m bright red in the pictures she sends, that’s why.

Love you guys a bunch!

Love,

Elder Ward

I'm Still Going Strong

Volcano Boarders

Hey guys!

Cerro Negro (Black Hill)

Sorry that it took me a while to write again. President gave us a nice little surprise on Thursday. He asked what we had planned for today (Saturday) and we told him nothing because President’s counselor had to take the truck to visit one of the branches. He told us that he was going to take us to Leon, so that’s where we were all day and where we just got back from. I think my companion was the most stoked about it, considering that that is where he’s from haha. It was super weird; we saw his house, his high school, every now and then he would say, "Hey, I know that guy!" The highlight was Cerro Negro, or Black Hill, which is an active volcano. I’ll just say that volcano boarding is pretty sweet :).

Anyways...this week has been very busy. Sadly enough it was one of those weeks where we didn’t get out to our area as much as we would have liked. Sunday was NUTS. I think that we really take for granted how awesome our ward is. Sunday, as you know, was fast and testimony meeting. Some of my most fervent prayers in the mission have been that our investigator’s eyes and ears will be miraculously closed in those meetings…haha. First speaker: Harold Castillo. Crazy old man, no teeth, cusses like crazy and says the most ridiculous nonsense in the world about how he sold his soul to the devil for 50 million dollars blah, blah, blah. 3rd speaker: An evangelical-mormon lady who apparently had some bad feelings towards a member that stood up and SCREAMED about hypocrisy and love. Elders’ quorum was the same talk about how we’ll be condemned for not doing home teaching visits. Also, I learned that you can only get the Priesthood if it is given to you in the room where the Elders’ quorum class is. Interesting... We’re working hard with the members too.:)

Our recent converts are awesome! Everyone is starting to give us referrals and we’re starting to go with them to teach lessons. It’s truly amazing how much they help in the work. Last night we taught a lady with one of our sharpest converts, Juana, and she bore a powerful testimony of how she wanted nothing to do with the church at first but really became converted when she read and prayed about the Book of Mormon. A cool little miracle happened this week. Ricardo, another recent convert, took us to a family and at the end of the lesson we gave a blessing to the daughter’s sick child. The next day she was running around just fine and now the whole family is very interested in our message. We taught them how they would get an answer from the Spirit and the daughter said, "honestly, that’s what I felt when you gave my daughter a blessing and when you guys were teaching me now." I love it when the investigators recognize the Spirit!

Mom, to answer your question the whole office still lives together in the same house. It’s a way cool house and we’re excited about being there. Also, I’ve already been told that I will start training a new financier starting next Wednesday. It’s kinda weird since I’ve been here for so long. Random comment...I’m so glad we get circumcised when we’re born because there is an elder staying in the office house because of that. OUCH!

Don’t worry about me though, I’m still goin strong. I taught the lesson in district meeting on "enduring to the end".  I used the example of a marathon runner. I’m sure dad is familiar with this phrase known as "The Wall", when your body has used up all of its nutrients and is basically just going on empty. It’s the time where you either drop out of the race completely or give it your all and just keep pushing. We’re all gonna hit "The Wall" various times in life, but the question is what will we do when we hit it? I love you guys a bunch and let’s keep running towards our eternal finish line.

Love,

Elder Ward

volcan=conquistado

PS. I hate to talk about this but here it goes. There is a young bishop who helps us out in the office who is a really good friend of mine and is offering to drive us around for free when you guys come to Nicaragua. In other words, we would just have to pay him with meals. I know everything pretty well so I could do it, but I want to know what you guys think. He’s done it for quite a few other missionaries and he says it’s nice because they can just sit and talk while he drives. He’s also offering to come pick you up from the airport and stuff when you get here and could drive you around so you don’t get lost. You’d probably have to pay him a little for those days that you’re here without me. It’s up to you guys though. Just let me know. LOVE YOU!

Welcome to my City (Elder Ward and Elder Santana)

The Horsecream man