Elder Merrill's LDS Mission: Rice and Beans

I realized last week that I have never talked about the food that I eat here! Oops... I have kinda not really thought about that. Sorry. So here is an update on my food! Rice and Beans. Alright now lets do an update on my week :)

This last week was awesome, as always :) And as always..... I can't really remember what happened. Oh yeah.... STRESS. This last week was completely full of just plain stress. Being the last week of the month, there are people that need to get baptized! We have not had a great month in the zone, so we have had even more pressure. We finished solid, but it definitely could have been better. The thing here in Nicaragua, is that you never know what could happen. Because here, out of the nowhere, people will decide that they are not ready to get baptized, or they will move, or the long lost uncle will show up all of the sudden and tell them they shouldn't get baptized in the mormon church, and a million more reasons. It is so fun :) So, we have been working a lot harder, and August should be a huge month for us and the Zone. We are going for the Zone Record :)

And our area... is literally the hardest area in all of Nicaragua. The thing about this area is that EVERYBODY is active in other churches. That would be awesome to teach the Restoration and the Book of Mormon in any other situation, but these people don't believe that there is a true church, and they don't understand the whole authority thing either, so it is really hard to find new people and convince them of their wickedness ;) This week we had an AP come and work in our area. He contacted about 30 people, and didn't find anything. That is very unusual for an AP. So we just gotta work really hard and depend a whole lot on the Lord.

I wish that over these last 13 months I had been more focused on seeing the tender mercies of the Lord. The little miracles that he gives us every day when we pray with faith. I have improved so much in my scripture study and prayer, and it has helped a bunch! As we pray with faith, specifically, and search to see the answers, they will always come. I know without a doubt in my mind that God answers prayers! He wants to answer! This last Saturday night I got on my knees, completely humbled by the love that God has for us, because even with all my imperfections, he was able to answer my prayers this week. Pray as if everything was in God's hands, and then work as if everything was in yours. I promise we will see the difference!

I was joking about the food... we do eat a little more than that! They usually give us some lil piece of meat. And the other day we got like a lil shiskabob thingy! That was cool. The weird thing about this place is Gallo Pinto. Rice and Beans mixed. That's what it is. Now, let's not get confused here. Rice and beans separated is pretty gross. But when you put them together... the best thing I have ever eaten. It is the weirdest thing in the entire world, and I will never understand how it works out that way, but it does! Rice and Beans!