Letter #38 - June 7, 2010

Hello loved ones,
Thanks for the great emails this week. And a special thanks to Willy-face. It was good to hear from you. :) So I think I've reached my maximum ugliocity here on the mission. Chubby, sweaty, bug-bitten, and sun-burned with damaged hair. Good thing there is no one to impress... although it does make sending photos a little embarrassing. So don't judge. Haha, I'm taking care of more important things than how pretty I look these days.

Me in my rain boots, which I've used three times.
(Editor's note: "maximum ugliocity? try cutesiosity)

Happy happy birthday ALI DEAR! Sorry I didn't mention it in the last email so the shout out is a day late. But I'm happy to hear that the package got there safe and in time. Did the jicaro cup break or did it get there in one piece? And you can just stash my journal and agendas somewhere where I'll be able to find them in 10 months. Of course you can use whatever part of whichever letter you want to use. If they can be of use to uplift another, please use them.

We had another "preparation day" where we just wore ourselves out and didn't prepare a thing. Haha. It was another "Super P-day" where the whole mission got together and went to the Masaya Volcano. I actually had already seen it (in December with Hna. Bustillos) but this time we didn't get to go into the cave. But it was really fun to be together will all the missionaries and see friends. We were all together last monday as well, looking at pictures of all the weddings from the activity on May 28, playing soccer, and eating pizza. I think Pres. Fraatz is just super happy to be finishing a successful mission and wants to celebrate a bit. But travelling was definitely less than comfortable. We had to leave Jinotega on the 4am bus to Managua to meet with the rest of the zone and get to Masaya in time. And to my utter dejection, the bus was standing room only when it pulled up so we were sardined in there and rode on our feet for three hours this morning. Needless to say, I'm little tired in body and mind.

The Masaya Volcano

A bug that Elder Speer found and decided needed to be in my picture. Thanks Elder Speer. :)

The Hermanas at the volcano

(Our favorite Hermana)

This week Omar Castillo was baptized. His wife Idaida felt unprepared and wanted to see a baptism first and there was nothing I could say to reassure her and convince her to get baptized this week with her husband. So we're going to work with her a lot this week and she'll get baptized this coming Saturday. Omar's baptism went really smoothly as far as baptisms in Nicaragua go. We had to make a few last minute calls to get enough priesthood holders there to be witnesses and there was a bit of a clothing crisis, but nothing we couldn't handle. The biggest lessons I'm learning this week have to do with patience and my companion, but I'm not going to say more on that subject. Just that I really am learning no to let outside circumstances affect my attitude. I've been happy despite a lot of interesting stuff this week.

Omar's baptism

Hna. Hernandez and I on a street in Jinotega next to a little fruit market

I'm excited for Dad to get all plugged in and started with his new ward. When is the first Sunday? Soon right? I'll think of good ward prayer ideas and hopefully have time to write more next week. Also, I think the mission is already essentially split and unless something drastic happens, I'll be staying in mission north. Our new president is named Pres. Arredondo from Guatemala. We'll meet him soon I think. The change conference is the 16th, and we have a sending-off surprize conference for Pres. Fraatz on the 22 and Elder Sanders (AP) asked me to sing a duet with Hna. Lee. We're going to sing For Good from Wicked and I think it will be really nice. So things will be changing, I don't know how much, but we'll find out. Elder Gomez, one of our zone leaders who is actually from Nicaragua, but has lived in the US a lot too and speaks perfect English, in fact we call him a fake Latino, pointed out the supposed plot for the temple as we were driving through Managua today but I don't know if he actually knows. They haven't said anything more than they are looking for terreno, so nothing new to report there.

Well there is actually not a whole lot to tell this week. I love you all mucho mucho mucho.

Being a missionary is the best thing in the world - even if you're an ugly one. :)

Love, Hna. Crosland

Me and Becky, the cutest thing in Jinotega