4/7/14
So I'm not going to lie. My first week was pretty tough. It started out really good. My flights were both good and I was able to sleep on them. And when we got to Nicaragua our mission president met us with McDonald's for breakfast. Then we went to his house to have interviews with him and to meet our companion and some other small stuff and we have Pizza Hut for lunch. I think its pretty funny that my first two meals here were McDonald's and Pizza Hut. Anyway, my companion is Elder Castro. He is from Guatemala. He has been our for 21 months already so I am , as everyone says here, killing him. Which means I am his last companion. He is pretty cool. Everyone says he is a great missionary and I can already tell he is. But its still hard because he doesn't speak perfect English. He speaks it, but not enough that we can just talk about anything for a long time. So hopefully I can learn Spanish fast haha. So after we met our companions and everything we went our to our areas. We are in Mateare. Its....Nicaragua haha. Everyone lives in shacks basically and every other house is a Puleria which means that they sell stuff. But that is pretty nice because if I ever want a water or a snack, it is always there. And its pretty hot here. Hot and humid. With no AC. That was soo hard the first few days but I think I am getting used to it a little bit. And my companion told me that Mateare is one of the more hot areas. But, there are like no bugs. There are bugs but not nearly as much as I was expecting.
So on our first day we just went around and met some of the members in the branch. And we contacted(went tracking) some too. When we contact though we don't teach lessons though. It's weird. We just say that we have an important message and talk to them about their religion and maybe talk about one principle like repentance or something and then we ask to come back later to teach them. At least that what I think happens. I don't really understand what any of the people say or what my companion says because its all in Spanish. Understanding Spanish is the hardest part for me. And its really hard because I feel like I don't do anything when we talk to people. So anyway we kind of did the same thing the next day too. This day was really hard for me. I was soo hot, and I felt like I wasn't doing anything other than sitting there being hot. It got pretty bad and I wanted to just give up but then our of no where I just started to feel a little better. It was right when the sun went down so I don't know if someone just said a prayer for me or if it was just being out of the sun that made me feel better lol. But if someone did pray for me, thank you. Then we went to Noche de Hermamiento. Wish is basically brotherly night. It is kind of like mutual but for the entire ward. That was pretty fun. We played scripture charades. Then the next day I was having a really hard morning. It is so hot in our house (we actually have a house but it still doesn't have ac) and I was just having a hard time. But I prayed earlier for strength and that morning my companion stopped our study and talked to me about how I was feeling and stuff. It helped a ton. That day was a lot better. And then I asked him later and he said he just had a feeling to talk to me about it. I know that he was an answer to my prayer. Then later that day I went on splits with another missionary because my comp is the DL and he had a meeting in another area. So we taught someone and and went around to some members and it was just a better day. Then in the morning we watched the Saturday morning session of conference. IT was amazing. I loved watching conference. I have never appreciated conference as much as I did this time. But then after that we switched back to our normal companions and we missed the second session of conference. I was pretty disappointed. I though on my mission I would be able to watch all of them. Nope lol. But we luckily got to see priesthood which was incredible. We went to the stake center so I got to watch it in an AC-ed office with three other white guys who wanted to see it in English. And the session was also amazing. It was probably my favorite one. I had a couple prayers answered in that session. The next day we watched both sessions of conference again in the same stake center so I love that. Then today I had my first p-day. We went to another town called Leon and played soccer with our zone. I didn't really like it though. I suck at soccer lol. Then we left and shopped a little bit and toured this cool Cathedral. I think they said it is the biggest one in Nicaragua. And there are a lot of white people here. They are either old and totally look like tourists, or they are really young and look like they live here and they have no direction in their life lol. But I shouldn't judge them. Sorry people. And then we went to Burger King for lunch. I don't like burger king but that was amazing. A taste of home was nice haha. And that reminds me, I haven't talked about the food yet. Its all pretty good. Its a lot of beans and rice. There hasn't been a meal here yet that someone fed us with that didn't have rice. And then there will be a fried banana and some kind of meat too.
Well, I am doing a lot better than I was in the beginning of the week. But still keep me in your prayers. And oh, like none of the computers here have sd slots so I don't know how often I will be able to send pictures. Sorry about that:( I love and miss you all!
Love,
Elder Dessauer
4/14/14
So as some of you know there was an earthquake here this last week. It wasn't bad or anything. And it only lasted like 10 seconds. It didn't really do any damage do anyones houses either. It could be worse in some other parts of the country though. It was still kinda scary though just because Ive never been in an earthquake before. And I said there was AN earthquake, but I meant to say there are earthquakes. It is really annoying. There was the bigger first one, and then little tiny aftershocks everyone once in a while. And there are still some bigger ones too though. The first one was on Thursday but last night we still felt a kind of bigger one. We have to sleep outside because of it. The first night I got almost 40 mosquito bites too. But the other nights I put repellent on and slept under my sheet lol. I hope they stop soon, its just annoying lol.
The other big news here is that I baptized two little girls this week. They were like 10 years old each. But I don't know if it counts as like my first baptisms. Because their mom is a recent convert so we met them just because of that. And they were just kids so we didn't have to convert them from a different religion or anything. But it was still really cool. My comp let me baptize both of them two. I had to re-say the prayer for the first one like 5 times though because I could not get her name hahaha. Everyone here has like 6 names in their full name and then I had to try and say the prayer in Spanish.
And speaking about prayers I had another prayer of mine answered. This week has still been so rough for me. I miss America so much. It is so hard for me to live here. I don't know why but every morning I am so "trunky". Like I just think about home and my family and how hard it is and everything bad. Another thing that makes it really hard for me is that I don't feel like I do much here. I feel like teaching people is different than what I expected. A lot of people let us talk to them because everyone here goes to some sort of church. So sometimes I feel like people just think we are trying to get them to come to our church like its just another church. I feel like they don't appreciate the fact that its the true restored church. We get a lot of baptisms here but the retention is really low so that demotivates me a lot. So one morning during my prayer I asked for the Lord to show me that I am here to actually help people and that some people really do understand it. Then that night me and my companion found this man who was really interested. When we talked to him he said that he has been to a bunch of the churches here because he wants to know the truth. And then he said that the whole time when he was talking to us he felt something different. I know that that was the spirit that he felt. And after we talked to him me and my companion talked and we both said how we felt prompted to talk to them. Elder Castro said that when we were walking he had a feeling to turn down a certain street and when I saw them, I really felt the spirit hit me and I realize now that we were both prompted to talk to that family. I also know that that was an answer to my prayer. It made me feel really good when he said everything that he did. I really hope we will be able to baptize him.
Other than that my week has been alright. I mean every morning I have a very hard time, but once we start working it gets a little better. Its kind of hard having a native comp too. Everyone says that he speaks really good English but after two weeks I noticed that he doesn't. I mean he does for only learning it on the mission but its still really hard to communicate sometimes. And that's really hard, its hard not having someone to always laugh with and have fun with. I also went on splits two more times this week. Well I think that's all for this week. Ill talk to you all next week.
Love,
Elder Dessauer
4/21/14
Hey everyone. So I don't have as much time today so sorry if this email is a little shorter. This week started out great. We had a training meeting Tuesday in Managua with the president and everyone who is within the first twelve weeks and their trainers. It was pretty good, it was a basic training meeting for anything lol. We learned a couple principles about being a missionary and learned about obedience and safety stuff. But then the best part was that because it was a meeting with the president, we all got our mail! I got 5 letters and a package:) I was so excited haha. And everyone was jealous of me because I had only been there two weeks and I got a ton of mail. And I also I got to see all my friends from the MTC that came to the same mission. And I met some cool elders there and we got burger king for lunch. So after all those things, I was in a pretty good mood haha. The next couple days were some of the best of my mission so far. I was a ton happier. I wasn't really homesick in the mornings like usual and we had pretty good success with finding families. But then on Friday, I had to do splits again where I went out to Leon and my comp stayed in Mateare. And they were there so that the ZL could interview a girl that was getting baptized. But, I guess they couldn't do it Friday because she was out of town and then they couldn't do it Saturday either. They finally did Sunday though. But this whole time I was stuck in Leon. And I only 1 change of clothes the whole time. And it was with a missionary that isn't my favorite person to be with lol. So my weekend got a little worse and I started getting homesick and frustrated with everything again too so that wasn't too fun. But my comp came back Sunday night and he brought me clothes but we still stayed in Leon and we are going back to Mateare today. I got to see the Eclipse this week too, that was pretty cool. Next week Ill try and talk more about actual teaching and about church and stuff maybe. Sorry this letter has to be a little short. I love and miss you all!
Elder Dessauer
4/28/14
Ive been out for almost a whole month now. Sometimes it seems like this month has gone by really fast, and sometimes really slow haha. This week has been a lot better though. I didn't really get homesick really bad like usual. Only yesterday for a little bit. But anyway ill talk more about the actual work today.
We have 3 families and 1 other girl we are teaching. The girl and 1 family have baptismal dates. But we are having a hard time getting in contact with the girl again and we haven't visited the other family since our first visit (we set the date with them on our first visit). I don't know why we haven't gone back. I think my comp doesn't tell me what we are doing sometimes because I cant understand him too well. I need to learn Spanish! lol. But we are teaching this one family, Marcos and Ivani and they are really cool. I don't think they have a baptismal date yet though. And I think their situation is that they met with missionaries before us but didn't get baptized. But hopefully we can baptize them soon. They really like hymns so we always sing with them when we teach. But, Marcos has a hard time praying in front of us. We always really try and get him to but he never wants to. I really hope we can get him to pray this week. He prays every night, but just not in front of us. And they have a son who is probably like 10 and I think he likes when we come over and teach. He always looks really happy. I hope we can baptize them so they can send him on a mission haha. But they didn't come to church this Sunday so that was disappointing. None of our investigators came to church this week actually. That was pretty disappointing:/ but hopefully we can change that this week!
I really like Sundays here though. Church is always good even though I don't really understand much. But I always feel like the spirit so that makes me happy lol. But its funny how there are a lot of little things about church that are different. Like for example, I had to help pass the sacrament this Sunday, and the the people here don't take the tray from you after the first person in the row takes the sacrament. So I have to squeeze in front of everyone to personally give them each the sacrament. And its weird not having piano is sacrament. Just little things like that I find funny. And it was also really weird my first Sunday here, during sacrament there was like some catholic parade going on right in front of the church so we couldn't hear anything for 10 minutes. And then every Sunday night we go to the branch presidents house for dinner too. And he is pretty rich so we get a pretty nice dinner. I always love going there. He lives in like an actual neighborhood and he has a car and the inside of his house looks like a normal house lol. I'm not trying to diminish the other peoples houses or anything though. Most people just have dirt floors and sometimes all they have in their house is their beds, a closet, a place to cook, and a TV. Just trying to give you all a picture of what its like here haha.
On Saturday we also had another baptism. It was the wife of a member. I don't really know exactly what the situation is though because we taught her and baptized her but they weren't at church the next day and I have never seen either of them at church in the past Sundays. They live far away but its in the same neighborhood as our branch president, so idk.
And in other news, I eat chicken liver yesterday. I think. I'm 99% sure. But I don't know how to say liver in Spanish lol. So if someone wants to find out what higado is for me, that would be nice haha. But yeah after they explained to me what it was they asked me if I still wanted to eat it and I couldn't get myself to keep eating it haha. Because here we are supposed to eat all the food that people give us. But if I learned that if they ask me if I like something, that they want me to be honest. Because they aren't offended and then they wont make that for me as often. That's how our food cita is in Mateare anyway. I'm pretty grateful for that.
Oh I also want to say how it is really funny here how everyone thinks we are Jehovah's Witnesses. One day we contacted this guy and he let us in and we gave him just a short 15 min lesson about the sabbath and then afterward we always ask if they have questions and he asks, "Yeah I have a question. Why do Jehovah's witnesses believe this?" Then we have to reexplain how we are from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints lol. And whenever we contact someone we always explain tell them that. And then one day we taught this lady the whole first lesson. And then we went back the next week to teach her again and we asked if she had questions from our last visit and she said yes," are you guys Jehovah's witnesses or evangelicals?" Then we just explain that we are neither lol. The people here are really funny sometimes. Anyway, I hope everyone is doing good. I love and miss you all.
Elder Dessauer
