Letter #20 - February 8, 2010

Hey lovelies,

Another week has come and gone and now it’s nearly time for changes again. I can’t believe six weeks has gone by already. And I’ll hit my sixth month mark in this next change. Crazy. It still feels like I have an eternity left, but time sure is flying. I am worried that I'll be leaving Nagarote on Wednesday... President Fraatz actually told me in our last interview that I would be staying here for quite a while, but who ever knows, and with our branch bishopric suffering like it is, I think President will put an elder in here as branch president until Pres. Antonio gets out of the hospital. Really, I have no idea, but I've loved serving here despite the challenges and I will be devastated when I have to change areas. I'll let you know what happens next week.

The big news is that in June, when President Fraatz finishes as mission president, they are going to divide the mission! So Nicaragua will have two missions and will open a whole bunch of new areas. Each change, following the one in which I arrived, we’ve gotten about 20-25 new missionaries and only ten have gone home. And that is how it will be until the mission divides. So we are getting a ton of new missionaries and right now, President Fraatz is really trying to train a lot of the younger missionaries to be zone leaders and district leaders. It’s an exciting time. Also, Elder Whitney Clayton of the presidency of the Seventy is coming to speak to all of Nicaragua on the 18 of February. I’m excited to hear him speak and to listen to what counsel he has for Nicaragua. I was also told that the church has begun to look for a temple plot in Nicaragua. That makes me happier than I can express. How wonderful it will be to have a temple here.

So this week mom turns 29! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMA! I didn’t get a letter in the mail last week for you, so I’ll have to try extra hard today and you’ll have to forgive me that it won’t arrive in time for you to read on your birthday. But I love you endlessly. I hope you have an amazing birthday and that you get to do exactly what you want to do all day.

Last Monday after I wrote, we did some service with the ward. They told us we were going to clean the church property (the plot of land where the chapel is going to be built). I was expecting to pick up garbage and such, but what the members had in mind was a big different.
They all showed up with their machetes and sandals ready to hack down all the plants growing on the property and with matches to burn the trash. The culture difference was funny. We also picked up bricks and rocks and piled them up near the front of the property. It was fun using the machetes and hacking away at the plants.

Of course there was the weekly baptism crisis this week. We had the baptism of Jose Antonio Olivas, a 14-year-old who is really solid, planned for Friday this week since there was an activity Saturday in the morning and the afternoon for the branch. He was all set to go, so I
wasn’t worried about him. We walked out the door of our casita to see water seeping out from under the door of the chapel. Hmmm… I thought, it has to be the day-of-a-baptism disaster. The crisis came in the form of a flood. Yep, a flood. “That’s a new one, Satan,” I thought, “but nothing we can’t handle!” Turns out, someone had left water on in the bathroom and that room, the room where the YW meet and the chapel all had about an inch of water (give or take, because the floor is not that level). We we grabbed a couple of brooms and went to work sweeping all the water out and onto the street. Luckily there is no such thing as carpet here to ruin, so once the tile dried, we were good to go. The baptism went just fine and Jose was confirmed this Sunday.

We have found a few new families to teach, but of course none of them are married. In particular we have been teaching a man named Maikel (pronounced like Michael) who is really ready and prepared to change his life. He made a goal to get married this weekend and quit smoking and we are going to start teaching his wife this week too, so hopefully they can be baptized together soon. It was awesome in our last lesson, we had given him the pamphlet of lesson 3 about faith, repentance, baptism, the holy ghost and enduring to the end, and he told us he had read it twice and wanted to talk about the atonement. Wow, that like never happens. He is solid and ready to commit to the gospel. I love teaching people the truths that will change their lives for eternity and bring them more happiness that they can imagine.

Being a missionary is truly the best thing ever – the Lord is preparing people’s hearts, we just have to find them.

Love you all to the moon and back,
Hna. Crosland

Letter #19 - February 2, 2010

Hey hey,

So I keep forgetting to tell you about the misión blog. It’s www.mision-nicaragua.blogspot.com There isn’t a whole lot on the site but there are a few pictures of the different zones. I’m in zone Sandino if you want to take a look.

I prayed a lot and thought of you a ton this week Daddy. I hope everything really went well and that you are happy with how things turned out with your surgery.

Of all the things it means to be a missionary, glamour is not part of the deal. It has been so windy and dry here and we walk down a lot of long dusty roads against the wind, covering us with dirt and making it hard to open our eyes. We have a couple of families in an area called Sonrisa de Dios (God’s smile, although it doesn’t really seem like God is smiling much on this particular area) and it’s pretty far away from everything. So after making a visit to Napoleon and Belkis this week, our most recent converts, we mentioned that our next appointment was in Sonrisa de Dios. Well, anxious to help, they told us of a shorter route to get there from their house. Unfortunately, I don’t know if we misunderstood their directions or if they were just wrong, but we walked for about an hour along this deserted road, climbed under a few barbed wire fences, passed a dead horse with it’s mouth hanging open and it’s neck arched back, and finally found ourselves on the outskirts of Sonrisa de Dios. Definitely not my favorite part of the week. I also had a dirt clod thrown at me this week! Ha, it wasn't a rock, but I finally felt like a legitimate missionary.

But this week did contain some cool experiences as well. One day we showed up for lunch to find all the kids of the Garcia family, along with some other youth in the ward, gathered around a big bucket. Turns out they found a honey bee hive while cleaning the plot of land the church owns here, where they are planning to build the chapel. The bucket was chalk full of honeycomb, dripping with honey and a bunch of bees as well. They were picking the bees off and handing big chunks of it to Juan who was squeezing out all the honey into another bucket. Yesser broke off a little chunk and handed it to me and told me to try it. So I bit right into the wax and felt the sticky sweet honey squish into my mouth and drip down my hand. It was pretty cool. I wish I had had my camera.

The other cool experience was the baptism this week. Well, cool and kind of crazy at the same time, sort of like everything here. Our two possibilities this week were Marselino and Lilian. They are one of the two couples we married a few weeks ago. The elders had been out to interview them and talk with them twice this week, but I still didn’t really feel like they were prepared and there was also the huge problem of trying to figure out the details of the baptism since Lilian said she would only be baptized in a river like Jesus… seriously, a river. But we do anything here to baptize people, so find a river we did, arrange (and pay) for transportation we did, and round up a few willing members we did. All that was left was to help Marselino and Lilian feel secure and give them the push they needed to go through with it. Early this morning we had a bit of a struggle getting them to church, but even though we arrived late, we got them both there and getting them pumped up for the baptism was the same. Luckily we had the help of Elder Sanders, the ZL, as well. We were late getting off, all 12 of us piled into the back of a pick-up truck (don’t tell grandpa pete) and I was really worried that we wouldn’t have sunlight because the river was about 45 minutes away. But since there was nothing to do at that point but pray, I prayed and let the wind blow my hair and enjoyed the spectacular sunset. The river turned out to be really beautiful and the sunset really made the whole atmosphere beautiful. There were a few little cascades and some nice deep pools. We cut the actual service really short for the lack of light, just singing one hymn and a prayer. But both Lilian and Marselino were baptized and confirmed and it was a neat experience.

We had a good attendance this week at church again. These last two weeks attendance has been in the 80’s. But what really impressed me was the number of less-active members who came. We had a family of six and another lady with two small kids come yesterday who hadn’t been to church for about 4 years. The members are really started to work hard, to visit people and strengthen the branch during the week. It makes all the difference when the members take charge and care for their branch. We still struggle a lot with priesthood leadership here, but it’s nice to see a few things improving. Thanks for all your faithfulness and prayers. I know that I have not only my own faith and strength to draw from, but yours as well, and of course my Father in Heaven. It’s a blessing beyond words to have a powerful, faithful family behind me. I can feel your strength and your love in my difficult hours. Keep on keeping on.

Being a missionary is the best thing in the world – even when I’m covered in dirt with dust in my eyes.

Love you forever.

Hna. Crosland

Photos from Week #19 - February 1, 2010

Okay, here are the pictures for the week. They are mostly of the cool baptism we had in the Tamarindo river. Also one of my sweet tan (plus grime...) Love you more than spectacular sunsets.

Photos from Week #18 - January 25, 2010

Okay, if I remember right, these pictures are of Napoleon and Belkys (the couple we baptized this week), the ward members seated in the "court yard" of the church waiting for the baptism, a cute girl on a horse that I saw in the street on my way to write this letter, and an old picture from the Guatemala MTC with Pres. Christensen and his wife and my companion, Hna. Fuka. I don't remember if I already sent the one with hna. Fuka or not, but I thought you might like to see her. Love you heaps and bunches.

Letter #18 - January 25, 2010

Hey lovelies,

How are ya’ll? This week really flew by it seemed. Hey I got Paige’s package today! I’m so happy that it arrived and it was so awesome to see the pictures and get the letters. I also got letters/Christmas cards from the Wilsons and the Swifts. How great it was to hear all about the Wilson clan and to receive love from the ward. All my love and thanks to the Wilsons and Swifts.

I’m so jealous about your China trip. I hope you are still saving up money to come and pick me up and see Nicaragua. And tell Will that if he doesn’t get to go to China, he can come see Nicaragua too.

My Spanish is definitely getting better. These last three and a half weeks have been really good for me, not having a senior companion to hide behind. I still struggle for words and make a lot of mistakes, but I understand most everything (when I am concentrating) and am able to communicate while teaching and also while chatting. I definitely have a specified vocabulary but it’s growing…

Thanks for the big email this week. It was fun to hear from the whole gang. I love hearing from my missionary aunts and I am way impressed with Amie and her musical and Heather and all she is doing with missionary work. That is so cool. We don’t see much of the technology the church uses here (the branch doesn’t even have a computer) but it’s amazing to hear about all the ways we are spreading the gospel.

I’m also glad you are having fun in the snow. This week was especially hot and I kind of feel like I’m melting all the time. I miss snow.
This week our new challenge is that the branch president is in the hospital. He has something wrong with his prostate (I don’t know if it is as serious as cancer… ) but that is really going to be a challenge. The counselors are pretty unreliable and don’t really know how to do a lot of things (such as do confirmations, lead the church meetings, give priesthood blessings) because President Antonio really did everything himself. So we are missing him and relying on the elders in the nearest area. Wow, the priesthood is so important and vital in running the church.

My favorite Nica words are:
salvaje = wild, sweet, crazy
tuanis = cool, awesome, great
como no = yes, sure is
de le pues = alright then, okay
asì es = that's how it is, that's right

So I thought it might be fun to give you a few scenes from my life…

Scene 1: I am now the proud owner of a hello kitty wallet in which I keep all my cordobas. It is red and pink and does just what a wallet should do. I had been using that plastic Ziploc bag to keep all my money in, hoping I’d find a really cool artisan wallet hear but necessity called and I bought the first one I could find. Hello Kitty is my constant companion, along with Hna. Pineda and the Holy Ghost, verdad?

Scene2: I have nicknamed Hna. Pineda “The bone cruncher”. You should see this girl eat chicken. She cleans the bones right up, chomping and swallowing cartilage and all. It’s actually pretty disgusting to hear her crunching and look up to see a squeaky clean chicken leg bone…

Scene3: We found a huge scorpion running around in our casa. We chased him around with the broom until he ran under the beds, so we used it to sweep him out and then Hna. Pineda gave him a good pounding with a rubber rain boot that was left in the casa by the last missionaries. Ha, take that scorpion man. It was about the size of the palm of my hand.

Scene 4: I really felt like a pioneer this week. We have an investigator who lives in an area called Sonrisa de Dios (smile of God) where most of the houses are plastic and cardboard and none of them have running water. There are actually a few houses spread out around the area that have been built by the government and have cement floors, a main room and two bedrooms and are actually pretty nice and Maria Cristina lives in one of these houses. But she still has to take her cart to the community water spigot to fill up her buckets and yesterday we found her in the middle of that daily chore. I felt close to my pioneer heritage as I pushed the two-wheeled cart full of buckets of water, up the dusty hill to her house. It was actually pretty fun and then we taught her a great lesson about how we can feel the promptings of the Holy Ghost. She is really progressing, coming to church, paying tithing and I know she has a testimony. She has two cute kids that want to be baptized as well. The problem is, she’s not married to the man she’s living with and he is actually still married to another person. Big problems right? So hopefully there will be a divorce and another wedding in the near future.

Ah! I wish I had more time to write.

We baptized Napoleon and Belkys this week (Napoleon is Maria Cristina’s little brother) and they are doing great. We had a lesson about temples and eternal marriage this week and I got a glimpse of how wonderful their future could be as we were talking about when they could go to the temple and be sealed. Hna. Pineda is from El Salvador and the temple that is being built there will be done by the time that Nap and Bel have one year, so Hna. Pineda might get to go to their sealing. How amazing would it be to be in the temple with people you had taught and baptized? Wow. I feel so urgently that we need to really take good care of Nap and Belkys in the next year to strengthen and support them and continue to teach them. I hope that the next missionaries here will take good care of them and all of the people we’ve baptized. It made me look at the rest of the recent converts here differently. They were baptized before I got here, but they were some missionary’s converts and I know that that missionary is hoping the same thing, that Hna. Pineda and I are taking good care of them to help them become deeply rooted in the gospel. I hope all the members throughout the world and paying special close attention to the recent converts in their ward and helping to point them towards the temple.

I’m out of time, darn it. But I just wanted to let you all know that being a missionary is the best thing in the world – it’s being able to see more clearly the eternal possibilities of people’s lives.

Love you all so much,
Hna. Crosland

Photos from Week #17 - January 18, 2010

Editor's note: The Hermana sent us a few emails this week in addition to pictures (how lucky!), so make sure to keep scrolling down and read the post from last week as well as the email from this week.

Doing laundry

Cleaning out the maggots from the mini-fridge. (For more on the maggots, click here to read the Hermana's story).

A view of the Hermana's lovely accommodations. Who's next in line for a shower?

Thanks for your continued love and support of the Hermana.

Letter #17 - January 18, 2010

Queridos Amados,

Thanks so much for your emails this week. What a wealth of wisdom and strength you all are. I am grateful everyday, nearly to the point of tears for what a strong, united family we are, full of love and eternal. I can’t say thank you enough.

Ali, thanks for your story of the lady at Days and your insight. We truly can’t change many of the situations that make up our day, but you are exactly right-we sure can do a lot about how our circumstances affect us. You are wonderful. I loved reading your email last week and hearing about your busy and exciting life. Are you sure I did

n’t respond? I must have done it in my mind. I think a lot about you while I’m walking around in the streets, especially on P-day right after I read your emails. Don’t you love life’s new experiences. I think you’re amazing.

Will, thanks so much for your email. It made me way happy. You seem so much older and mature, really understanding and applying the gospel. That is amazing. I wish we had even one of you in the young men’s program here to strengthen the branch. It would work miracles.

Mama, I did get the birthday package with the flowers and the brownie mix and the dress. It was delicious and the members I shared it wit

h loved it. The flowers have sprouted and are growing at the casa of the lady who cooks for us. I get to check on them twice a day:). And the dress is so pretty, it’s just the buttons all the way down the front are a little problematic… I can still wear it, it’s just not an everyday dress. But I’m doing fine in the clothing department. Except for the fact that the left sole of my Danscos split already! I’m so mad. I can still use them and because of the nice inserts I can’t even tell. It will be a problem in the rainy season though. Good thing I have two pairs of shoes. The SD card you sent was the wrong size… I need a mini SD, but it’s not urgent. Seems like the packages are arriving. The only one I didn’t get was Paige’s (boo :( Maybe it will still come). And I’m thrilled that the package I sent you arrived so quickly. Sorry abou

t will’s shirt. Now that I know how easy it is (and pretty cheap), maybe I’ll send another shirt when I get the chance. And I’ll have to send stuff for Dad and Ali’s birthdays too.

Speaking of birthdays… HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Paige and Leslie tomorrow and to Rachel Ilene last week and to Erin Sorenson about three weeks ago. I think you’re all stars and I hope you have(had) lovely birthdays.

The big events this week were two weddings

and two baptisms! I wish I had more time to write about them but I’ll have to give you the short versions. The weddings were a little crazy. We had talked to the members to get a budget to decorate the church (toilet paper and ballons look lovely when done right…) and to have a small refreshment of sandwiches and soda. And we talked to the Relief Society to do the decorating and food. But the day of a lot of things fell through and I ended up buying the decorations (minus the toilet paper flowers and bows that one of the ladies in the ward made) and helping make the food and carrying everything to the church where we had Alberto (the husband of our cooking lady, Johana) saw off the lock to the outer gate/door because the keys were with another member who was in Managua with all the young women at girls camp. Then Hna. Pineda and I proceded to do the decor

ating ourselves for about a 45 minutes before the RS pres showed up. All in all, after a lot of running around and waiting, we got the two pairs of investigators married. One pair was Napoleon and Belkys, a young couple with a little boy, and the other was Marselino and Lilian, an middle-aged couple with like six grown kids. I think that if we work really hard with them this week, they will all be baptized this Saturday.

The baptisms were two great-granddaughters of a cute little Recent Convert in the ward. We actually had a lot of support from the members at the baptism which was nice and everything went pretty well. We still need to teach the girls (Marvia and Yahoca) a lot more of the gospel but they are coming to church regularly, and like it.

I had a very important conversation with my Father in Heaven yesterday. I was feeling very inadequate and completely overwhelmed with all that was being asked of me. I know how important our work is and I didn’t feel like I was accomplishing all that I needed to, nor that I had the ability or knowledge to do so. But I know that my Father in Heaven does. I poured out my heart to him and pleaded for help, for strength, and for the spirit to guide me. It’s interesting how much I’ve realized that I can’t do this on my own. And the Lord answered my prayer with success last night in finding four new families to teach. We do all that we can and fall short many times. Our efforts might feel tremendous and still seem to yield very little at times. We are very human, and very limited in many ways. But luckily we are members of the only true church on the earth and have received a very important gift called the companionship of the Holy Ghost. We have a Father in Heaven who knows us, who knows what we are trying to accomplish, and who knows the right way to accomplish it. He is always there with his arms wide open, waiting for us to ask for his help and willingly follow his guidance.

Being a missionary is the best thing in the world – we are never alone.

I love you all so much. Keep being the wonderful people you are and don’t be content with only working on your own spiritual growth. Find those you can help everyday to draw closer to Christ.

Love, Hna. Crosland