December 17, 2014

December 17, 2014

Mi Querida Familia! :) 

I love the pictures of Ash playing Basketball!! That is super awesome! I hope he goes somewhere with that! If it means I have to practice with him during the nights, I will do it!!! :) That is super awesome! At two (one for you guys) will be great! :) Elder Hayes and I were talking about how this Christmas will be, and what we will be doing. The 25th we will be working like normal, and on the  24th and 26th we will be doing the multizones haha, which means no work haha But I think this will be one of the most memorable Christmases that I will ever have. The first away from family, and we will be outside knocking on doors and teaching people about the birth of Christ. I'm pretty pumped to see what it will be like :) But I know I will remember this Christmas forever. Because if everything works out like it should, I will be home on the 10th of December the next year, so this is one of the only Christmases that I will have away from home. 

That is super awful that that friend of Lauren's killed himself.... When we lose hope in Christ, is when we give ourselves to the other side. There is no grey in the life, we are on the team of Christ or we are on the team of the enemy of all righteousness. Many Nicaraguans, and much of the world thinks we can just sit on the fence, and be fine. I love the Scripture in the old testament in Joshua 24:15, 

"And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." 

And the other Scripture, Mathew 6:24

"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."

We have to decide today whom we will serve and be faithful to that decision. 

Anyway, missionary rant of the week complete. I'm glad you guys had a great week though! sounds like you guys got a lot done, and that Christmas seems to moving forward at full speed! :) I'm super pumped about being able to talk with you guys! I'm stoked! haha :) If You can invite Jessica, that would be great!

Well our possibility got moved back to this week because he was not ready, and still was having problems getting baptized because he did not want to get baptized out of hypocrisy. He did not understand the concept of one true church in all of the world, so we re taught the Restoration and he understood it this time, and was willing to progress for this Saturday. So this Saturday for sure we will be baptizing :) Alison has disappeared again. I think Elder Hayes and I are going to drop her and put her in the old Investigators part of our Area Book because she really has been more of a pain than a pleasure to teach. We will see if we can find her this week, and if not we will  not be going back. Kind of sad, but that is the truth of the missionary work here in Nicaragua haha. 

We have this really cool guy name Mario who is super stoked to get baptized in January, the only problem is, is that he is going on a vacation outside of our area for a month, and will not be back till the 15th of January. So we put his baptism date for the 24th, and we are going to give him the Book of Mormon tonight in English (he speaks a lot of English) and in Spanish so he can grow his testimony in that while he is going on his trip. 

We have some other investigators kids that are progressing for the 3rd of January, and will get baptized! The only problem is getting the moms signature. That is such a huge problem here in Nicaragua!!!! The parents never want their kids to be baptized! It is a pain, but the mom here is pretty calm, so we should be fine on that! :) 

anyway that is about all that is going on here right now! We are prepping big time for these multi-zones, which has sucked a lot of time and energy! But those will be coming up really fast, and will be an absolute blast! :)

I love you guys a lot! :) I hope you guys have a great week and I cant wait to talk to you next Thursday!!!! :) 

Love you a ton!

Elder Naisbitt

12-9-2014

December 9, 2014

Mi Querida Familia! 

Como Estan?? :) Hopefully great! Thank you so much for the addresses mom! I will be working on those as soon as I am done writing you guys! So just so you know I will be planning on calling on Christmas day! and whatever time is best for you guys! afternoon of morning or whenever! :) The church has changed the time for calls now though, its 45 minutes, so just to let you know now! :) I'm super pumped to see you guys! I just keep thinking about how awesome mothers day was and that was like 7 months ago! haha crazy right!? :) Anyway, just let me know on the time of day! :) Anyway, yes mom I love your calendar! The scriptures you used are super awesome! You and Dad are so great! :) I will never take you guys for granted ever again! :) I have received my Christmas package! It is just chilling next to my study table :) Sounds like you guys had an awesome week! I loved the photos of Lauen, especially the one of her and Uncle Fester! HAHAHAHA I about died laughing hahaha :) Nice work on that dad! The Pictures of the Temple in Cordoba are looking great! Seriously! super pretty! Lots of Fun San Diego too! 

Well this week we could not get Alison baptized! she literally disappeared on us! We tried looking for her every night, but she just never was home! Kind of Disappointing, but we are going to have to start over and figure out what scared her and what she did not like! The mission is all about patience and diligence.... However we are preparing our possibility this weekend who is named Yarlin! he is cool, just a little timid and does not have a strong testimony yet, but we are really pushing in these last days to read the BOM and keep on praying to the max!! 

I have learned a lot about self mastery this week and about how to get over the natural man and live as God wants me to live. it has been a really hard week because I am pulling myself out of old habits and focusing myself in obedience to the commandments. However i have seen miracles in my life as God has blessed us with new investigators as well as a closer relationship with Him. 

Just some fun stories that happened this week too :) there was a group of 28 members coming in from Bluefields, to Managua, and were going to stay in one of the chapels here in Managua, and because President Russell is basically the stake president for the District of Bluefields, we were in charge of getting 28 mattresses to this chapel :) and we only did it in 2 trips, with one truck.... :) There are some pretty blurry, but good photos of the Hilux with 11  and then 17 mattresses :) it was pretty sweet! The other photos are of one morning we were shinning our shoes and saw that the shoe polish bottle said it was flammable, so you know that we had to light that on fire :) and the last pictures are of a recent converts little baby puppies! they had just been born that afternoon, and were so cute haha :) anyway, our convert just handed us two little ones and so we took some photos of them :) 

Office work is tiring right now. We are preparing for the Christmas Mulit-zone meetings. Basically that whole meeting is all day and is run on our backs haha. It is pretty crazy! and then a week after those are done on the 24th and the 26th of December, we have on the 8th of January, change meeting again! AHHHH so much stuff to get done!!! But we are going little by little! Eating the horse bite by bite! :) 

Anyway, kind of a slow week here, but hopefully next week is a lot better and more happens :) 

I love you guys a ton!

Elder Naisbitt

December 3, 2014

December 3, 2014

Mom and Dad!

Wow it feels like forever since I have emailed you guys! It has been pretty crazy here in the office with changes, and President is preparing to start the Interviews for the Semester, so that is a lot of planning for us and getting all of the missionaries on the right time schedule! As well President has been loading my plate up with work and stuff to do, so it has been super super super busy! Elder Hayes and I are still companions, and for how long I don't know! President told me yesterday that I will probably be here in the office until at least February..... GYARRRRR hahaha. I am kind of sick of the stress. But we are going little by little :)

Your guys week sounded super crazy!! But San Diego sounds super awesome! Buca de Pepo, sounds like a great Thanksgiving dinner though! We had two dinners, one at Presidents, and the other in an American member's house named the Rasmussens!!! The husband works at the US embassy, and they are members! So we ate REALLY good! The turkey was way great! I had not had that great of food in a year! Seriously! But we ate too much at President's, so we got to the Rassmusens, and we were all too the point of throwing up because we were so full! ugh! :) But it was soooooo delicious! The Rasmussen's sent us home with food, so we are still snacking on it occasionally :) She made homemade rolls, which were almost as good as moms! Nothing can beat Mom's homemade rolls! I would like those one of the first night I am back! :) Sounds like Dad is on his last trips to Argentina, which is super crazy! When is the finish date!? Hopefully pretty soon! That would be really cool if we went there when I got back! 

Well, This past two weeks have been good in the field, we are just struggling to find people to teach right now! because this area is so dangerous, we have locked ourselves only in part of our area, which has really cut down the area in which we can contact. so its been a bit of a trial looking and looking. We did find a cool guy yesterday that kind of contacted us and wanted us to visit him, so we will be heading up that way tomorrow night to see how positive he is. We should have a baptism this Saturday of a girl we have been teaching for a few weeks, named Alison. She is a daughter of a recent converts, and loves the church, just never has time on Sunday to visit because she is always working and going to the university. But she is on Christmas break right now, so we took advantage and have been teaching her! She is super awesome and loves to learn! I just hope that she can keep going to church after school starts again! Her mom and dad are was cool though! Her dad is the Ward Mission leader, and loves the mission work!

 Then in the following week we should have another baptism of a Kid Named Yarlin (Jarline)! He is was prepared by the Lord to receive the Gospel! We found him because he is the boyfriend of a recent converts sister! But he is 17 years old and has received an answer from God that our church is true, and Joseph Smith was a prophet! That is about it for the month of December, and we have a few new possibilities for January! If they progress, I will tell you about them in the coming week! 

I have received a few packages, and I love the Calendar! Mom that is the Coolest thing you could ever give me! Seriously! Sister Russell saw it and was like, I love your mom, and then cried because it was so awesome! Thank you for all of the time you put into that! Really mom, your the greatest! Thank you so much! I will keep the other package closed until Christmas! I have received a package from Grandma and from Jessica! You guys are the best! :) The gift I had gotten for you guys with your scriptures got put on hold, because the guy made them wrong, so I have to go back and see if he can fix them. If they are late, I'm sorry!!! But I have some cool souvenirs I will pack up in a box and send out! But the guy will fix them it is just a question of $$$ Now :) 

Love you guys a ton!

Elder Naisbitt