Hola from Linda Vista – Semana dos

So, I am on now. I think I just missed Elena, but whatever. Life is going well here and I am doing great. I got some DearElders on Friday and a few letters so that was good to celebrate my year mark. I mailed letters today. You will enjoy the Queen Mother stamps that are on them...funny Nicaraguan stamps.  I am a happy camper. We are going to have a baptism this week. It is a wife of a less active and she is really good and I was happy to see her ready for church when we got there. She has given up coffee and is ready to be baptized. She has had some difficulties with her son getting sick and stuff that has been happening since she decided to get baptized, but she says she won’t let that stop her so I am super happy for her. So, as long as everything stays calm she will be baptized on Saturday. We have another hermano to be baptized but he is just waiting to get married. He is ready and came to church with a white shirt and tie yesterday. So I am happy. It is a little discouraging like Elena said to go a while without baptizing and I know there are companions who may have not liked my attitude of just do what we can and if we don’t baptize we´ll just keep working.  I have had 4 of my 7 changes without baptizing too, but things will always work out and get better. I don’t let that get me down. We had a Stake and Regional Conference here yesterday. It was Regional Conference for El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama that was broadcast from Salt Lake. Our stake president moved and so Elder Martino and another seventy came to reorganize the Stake beforehand. It was a good meeting. I wasn’t expecting to have him there in person or our mission president because I thought it was just going to be the broadcast but it was really good. Elder Martino reminded me of Uncle Howard. It was a good meeting and the new stake president is from our ward. He has only been in the stake six months and has a really great family. Two of the recent converts here got ordained elders yesterday too so that is cool. We have a mission conference this week on Wednesday in Granada with all of the mission so that will be fun. I am excited. Anyway, it has been a good week and should be even better with a baptism this week. So, a few random things from the week... I ate sardines for the first time in my life. The gas went out in the house we eat at, so she was figuring out how to make things without using gas. I started picking out the little bones until they told me I could eat them. It actually was better than I expected. I also won someone over with my math skills. She is in a math class in the university and I helped her and will probably help her again this week. She is hard to win over so my companion was happy when the girl was super happy. Last night I put my arm around her to give her a side hug and she liked that and said the other North Americans didn’t hug her, so I am on her good side now. (A note for Chessy... our Bishop has a Subaru and he and his wife took us home from church yesterday in it. Gotta love Subarus!)   At Stake Conference a lady asked me if I knew her daughter in the MTC and I was like, I don’t think so. The daughter is in AZ, I think Chandler, and I might have seen her in Provo. Her mom said she has a year in the mission and comes home in September and I was just imaging how you talk about us and how soon we will be home. Gotta love the proud parents of missionaries!  Also, I was reading this morning in 1 Nephi 13:40 in Spanish and liked how it said that the Book of Mormon will help convince all families of their Savior Jesus Christ. We are really focused in finding families right now in the mission and it stuck out to me. In English it says kindreds instead of families. It is fun to learn different things reading in Spanish and sometimes things take on a different meaning. Anyway, I am happy because we are going to baptize this sister to complete her family, so that is exciting. The gospel is true. I love you sooooooo much. Love, alc