My apartment
My bed with mosquito net in place....take that mosquitos!
The outside of my apartments
Beautiful lake
P-day hike!
Volcano!
My name is Hermana Anne Pearson. I am 23 years old and Im serving as a missionary in Nicaragua. I know I´m too young to be having an identity crisis but here´s why....I don´t know my last name anymore. Here´s the problema. If I say it how it is pronounced correctly, I sound like a gringa and nobody can pronounce it or remember it. If I say it like its pronounced in Spanish it just sounds crazy. I just dont know anymore.....
The mom wants details so Im going to give details! Currently, our most positive investigators are Karen, Maria and Miguel, and Jose and Fanny. Karen is a single mother of 3 boys. She seems to understand the lessons pretty well and she is reading the Book of Mormon. I have so much hope and faith for her and know she will come to accept the gospel but she just needs to come to church! Maria and Miguel have a baptismal date for this Sunday. Maria is expecting a baby and has attended church 2 times now! Miguel has attended once and he really liked it. They need to get married before they get baptized so if everything goes well, they are going to get married and baptized this Sunday. Jose and Fanny are our other investigators. I understand the importance of teaching the first 3 lessons of the gospel before baptism but I learned for myself how important it is to "teach people, not lessons" this week. We were planning on teaching them the gospel of Jesus Christ. At the beginning of the lesson I asked Jose if he had any questions. He got out his Book of Mormon and said, "Lets read!" We read 2 Nephi and they both had lots of questions. The spirit has an interesting way of teaching people. This chapter is not about baptism and we didnt mention anything about baptism, but after we read the chapter, Jose started asking questions about how we needed to be baptized. The Holy Ghost is the greatest teacher! Jose is praying to receive an answer but wants to have a dream witness to him the truth and were trying to help him understand that God doesnt always give answers the way we want him to. We are constantly teaching people so I cant write about everyone but we keep praying that we will be able to help people receive the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and let it change their lives!
I have learned a lot from my companion, Hermana Abrego this week. She is an amazing teacher, so bold, teaches by the spirit and really loves people. The culture is just so different here and it has caused some miscommunications. I felt like she was frustrated with me this week and during weekly planning I asked if we could have companionship inventory where we talk about strengths of each other and ask where we can improve. I talked about all of the qualities about her that I loved and then asked what I could improve. She didnt open up. I pryed a little bit and we were able to work out so many problems that have come as a result of the language barrier and differences in how we need to be obedient. Most of the time in this culture people are very blunt and open but she is very closed. Im so grateful that we were able to communicate and I feel so much better. I truly love her and have a fun time joking around with her. She gets sarcasm! She is the only member in her family. She sister is inactive, her mom is a Jehovahs witness and her dad is Catholic. Her family has not written her the past two weeks and I feel so bad! She is such a strong person and Im grateful she is my trainer. I have heard that many trainers dont let their companion teach in lessons when they arent fluent but she lets me teach and it is so helpful in learning! Im trying to teach her English but she doesnt know anything. Any ideas of how to START in teaching someone English? She has 3 months left on her mission.
Any ideas for simple FHE games that dont require a table? Just a dirt floor?
More details.....We are in the Leon zone. Our district consists of two companionships of sisters in Nagarote and 1 companionship of elders in Mateare. Occassionally the elders come and help us find people or teach lessons. We eat lunch every day with the other sisters. Hermana Escudero is from Bahia Blanca Argentina and Hermana Vasquez is from Guatemala. Every Tuesday we take a 1.5 hr. bus ride to Leon for our zone meeting. Every Tuesday night we have "Noche de Hermamiento." H. Abrego and I are in charge of it and we share a short message and play a game. the rest of the days we contact and teach lessons. On Sunday morning we leave the apartment 2 hours before church to go and wake people up and help them get to church. Church begins at "9" this translates into 915, 930, 940......for a girl who likes to use her planner and try to be punctual this has been huge adjustment.
I had the wonderful opportunity to see 10 people (3 families within the same extended family) get baptized yesterday! They all looked so happy and I was grateful to witness that.
Mom. Im becoming you. Every day in comp. study we read Preach my gospel in spanish out loud. I fell asleep in the middle of the sentence. Que verquenza(how embarassing). It reminded me of growing up when you fell asleep reading to us and dad had to come and finish the story. I love those memories.
The way H. Abrego and I always start our lessons is by singing a hymn and saying a prayer. Usually this goes well and people understand what is going on. Sometimes they dont. This week we taught a family how to sing a song and then started to sing. They proceeded to not sing, but read in a very monotonous tone, the words of the song. It was really hard for us not to laugh. We taught a woman how to pray. At the end of the lesson we asked is she would pray. She said she would and we were excited that she accepted. She asked if we could remind her how to pray and we showed her the model to pray in one of the pamphlets. She "prayed" with bowed head and closed eyes the directions for how to say the prayer word for word and everyone except us.....said amen. Haha.
We all need to be missionaries whether full-time or part-time. The talk, "Missionary Work and the Atonement" by Jeffrey R. Holland is so good! Read it. He says, "I bear witness that He (The Savior) came from God as a God to bind up the broken hearted, to dry the tears from every eye, to proclaim liberty to the captive and open the prison doors to them that are bound. I promise that because of your faithful response to the call to spread the gospel, He will bind up your broken hearts, dry your tears, and set you and your families free." What a wonderful promise! I love this gospel and know its true. Open your mouths to spread the gospel and it will be filled!!!
Thats all for now family! I love you very much!!!!
Hermana Anne Pearson
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