Lifting up a zone

Good luck to the Aggies this week at Duke. That should be fun! This last week was a lot of fun, with lots of hard work! Super sad for Annie. Didn´t the same thing happen to Liz back in the day? But I guess that is cool that she is in the dances. I have always loved the Pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Dinner! Remember when Wild Bill came? That was fun hahaha. But anyways, let´s get onto the work from this last week!

Nicaraguan ID

Tuesday and Wednesday were lame. Tuesday was a really successful day for Elder Medrano and I, and Wednesday was a really good day for Elder Hanson and Smith! I told you guys about Adolfo and Dany, who were our investigators preparing for baptism last Saturday. On Tuesday they passed their interviews, but it was still a little up in the air.

Thursday, we had interviews with President Russell! We have these normally every three months, so it was weird to see how fast these last few months have gone. It was a really long day, because Elder Hanson and I have to overview everything. We start out going in with President and telling him what to look for in the Zone, and reviewing everyone´s goals. Then all the missionaries talk to him! My personal interview was great, talking about how to help this Zone and how to efficiently contact. I have worked really hard this last year, but really without a lot of success. We could say that it is the Lord´s will, which it may be, but that is a conformist attitude and keeps us from working. That is what I love about what we do here. We are constantly looking for ways to improve, knowing that the Lord WANTS US TO HAVE SUCCESS.  So we talked a little bit about that and some other desafios in the Zone. Then Elder Hanson and I go in one last time to review the day. President talked about the Zone is doing well, and we are doing a good job trying to change the attitude and make it into a winner. 

Friday I went out to Boaco, La Ciudad de Dos Pisos. It has a ton of hills! We just went to do District Meeting for the sisters. I taught about the importance of verification. Extremely important here ahahaha because people here don´t really have great priorities. Then Elder Smith and I ate a hamburger, interviewed a little kid for baptism and went back to Juigalpa.

Saturday was our baptisms! Well, they were supposed to be at least. We passed by in the morning and little Dany was good, as well as Adolfo! In the afternoon, Dany was still gone and Adolfo had left to ¨run an errand¨. They always run errands here. That is my least favorite thing to hear. He never showed up that night! We kept contact with him and decided to do it the next morning, but we thought he was just playing around with us and wasn´t gonna want to do it. So this is what we did. Sunday morning we woke up at 4:30 and were outside of his house by 5:15 to make sure he wouldn´t escape from us! He woke up at 6 and actually got baptized! It was a miracle, to be honest. Super grateful for that. I didn´t go to the baptism because I was getting investigators for church, but everything turned out well!

Dany's Baptism

Dany

That is about it for the week. Hope you all have a great thanksgiving this week! I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to be in the service of the Lord, doing everything I can to help my beloved Nicas come unto Christ! I am grateful for the Savior and all He has done for me. I love being in His service!

Go Aggies. Beat BYU!

Elder Merrill

Baptismal Font

Adolfo