Letter #41, June 28, 2010

Dear Mom and Dad (and everyone else),

I'm so hot. And sweaty. And itchy because I'm sweaty. And because there are gazillions of mosquitos in Managua it turns out. But I'm happy and getting to know the area and the members here. The send off of Pres. Fraatz was really nice. All the choir numbers turned out better than we had practiced, the talks were good, my duet went well, and I think the Fraatz family really enjoyed the day. After the spiritual part wehad lunch together and the APs hired a Gigantona (a costume of huge lady that someone puts on and dances) and the accompaning folk band. It was pretty funny and we got a lot of pictures, but unfortunately I didn't have my camera. I told some of the Hnas to send me some but that probably wont happen. So maybe in a year they'll show up on facebook. We still haven't met the new president. He arrive in Nicaragua yesterday and is with Pres. Fraatz for three days for some training. I imagine we'll meet him soon, but they really never tell us until the last minute when we have conferences or things. Luckily I'm actually in Managua now so it's not so hard to travel last minute. I suspect that the mission will change quite a bit with the new leadership, so I'll keep you updated. Hey Hna. Medina told me that 60 people from the stake were sent to Guatemala to be trained as temple workers... hmmmm! They haven't announced anything, not even the terrain of where the temple might be but I think it is coming!!

Sounds like you are busy with house stuff and vacations. Aren't summers wonderful like that? What day do the Adlers arrive? And are all four of them coming? How fun, I'm sad I'll miss them. Maybe we'll just have to take a visit to Germany and stay with them when I get back. Thanks for all your talks last week. They were lovely and I even translated a part of Dad's talk because I think it is really poignant what you said about what makes a ward great. I think the ward here could benefit from your talk daddy.


So Axel was baptized on Saturday. He's the son of a member in the ward, but her husband isn't a member and when Axel was 8, he didn't let him get baptized. But we visited and taught him a lot this past week and the week before and even had a Family night with the Dad and he gave his permission for Axel to get baptized. It was probably the smoothest baptism I've had so far. Being in sort of the center of the church here in Nicaragua does have it's benefits as far as how things run for the most part. Axel is 15 and loves to play soccer. Sofia and Erlin are a family we found last week. The first time we taught them, both were there but after that we've only been able to teach Sofia and they haven't come to church yet. But Sofia is really receptive and I really hope they come to church and start really progressing. Dennis is the son-in-law of another member, although he and the daughter aren't together anymore. It's a little hard for him to understand all that we teach him but he's a good guy and he has a baptismal date for the 10th of July. I hope the testimony really arrives in his heart and that he can understand the importance of the gospel.

Well, I was reading Jesus the Christ this week (I started reading it for the second time but this time a little slower with my Bible side by side, looking up the references), and I really found one of the notes at the end of chapter 9 to be intrigueing. It talkes about all the missing scripture that is mentioned in the bible but not contained therein. And in conjunction with 2 Ne 29 where it talkes about how all the nations of the earth will write the revelations from God and one day we will have the words of all. It was really cool. Ah! I totally ran out of time today... Love you all and being a missionary is the best thing in the world - because of all the study time!

Love,

Hna. Crosland

Happy nine months to me!