6 Screaming Girls!

I will always love the people and time I spent in Matagalpa!

Fransisco came to the bus stop to see me off.

The Senorita I lived with in Matagalpa



Hector seeing me off at the Bus stop.  He is so sweet.  I'm going to miss him.

All my suitcases

My companions so far!  I am so short.

The Church across the street from our house.

My New Bed

Our House

Our Study Area

We played pool as a Zone today for Pday and yes I was terrible, but I have other strengths. ;)

Hello!

Sounds like your guy’s week was great! A good football game at AF? Pretty shocking but AWESOME! Also all the spiders...EW! We are dealing with a ton of spiders in our house right now too...so gross. Today we decided to clean the house and try to get rid of them. We took a broom to EVERY nook, cranny and corner! In return I think we just made all the Spiders mad. There were spiders crawling EVERYWHERE! I may have turned into a psycho for a moment or two. There was lots of screaming and I literally had 2 pairs of shoes in my hands trying to kill all the spiders, as well as stomping all over the place because I figured I would get one or two. So horrible! I am just praying we got the majority of them and I'm not going to find any in my bed tonight. Sounds like the missionary night was great as well! I am sure everyone learned a lot of valuable information. And yes I am a little sad I didn’t get to see the house COVERED in goodies for the activity Hehe. 

Well this week has FLOWN by. Seriously we are just so busy. I have so much on my mind and we are working so hard the time just ZIPS by. I am always wishing for more time at the end of the day. Then I hear my feet SCREAMING at me because they are so tired and I know it is time to go back to our house. Like I said last week we have a ridiculous amount of recent converts. We have been working hard to visit all of them this week and help them have spiritual experiences. It is really hard teaching them because literally more than half don’t know who Joseph Smith is, don’t have a Book of Mormon and don’t know how to pray. OF COURSE they aren’t going to feel a need to come to church if they don’t have a testimony of those things! So we are literally starting from ground zero. We are trying to help EVERYONE gain a basic understanding of the Restoration and the Book of Mormon and also of the Importance of prayer! We really need EVERYONE to pray to our Heavenly Father so they can receive a testimony and witness for themselves that this church is true. We are also reading the Book of Mormon with ALL the Recent Converts we have. I really have such a strong testimony of the POWER of the Book of Mormon. There is a whole chapter in Preach My Gospel about the importance of the BoM in ones conversion and the power it has. We are working hard, visiting as many ppl as possible, studying and doing our best to follow the spirit. However, we are not seeing as much success as I would like. I am really stressed right now because I have a LOT more responsibility. If we aren’t baptizing or if we don’t have very good retention the fault falls on my shoulders. I am trying not to let those thoughts run my actions though. I am just trying to work with the Spirit and follow its guidance. God is merciful and I have confidence that if we are doing everything possible he will make up for our shortcomings. And the things that we will learn along the way are just as valuable experiences! This week we have had to really search for new investigators.   Everyday we had a goal to at least find one new family to teach and we DID IT! Not all of them are super positive but now we have a pool of ppl to teach. 

This Sunday was SO HARD! We left really early once again to go by all our converts’ houses and SATAN attacked. As soon as we left it started POURING rain and the streets we completely filled! We couldn’t get to half of our converts houses and nobody wanted to leave their house in that weather. Ugh it was so disappointing. It literally took everything in me to not break down into tears right then and there. I didn’t though. In that moment I had to remember what I have been telling all my converts, that God puts trials in our lives so we can grow. He knows exactly what challenges we need and he will never give us something we can’t handle. We just have to remember that during tough trials we are growing the most. I hope that is what was happening yesterday.  I just needed to show my faith, diligence and hope and I know we will see the miracle.  Maybe we wont see the miracle we are hoping for but I know the Lord is watching over us, he is conscious of our efforts and knows the intentions of our hearts. He won’t let us fall! 

I am doing pretty well! I am getting eating ALIVE here but good! The bugs are called sancurro or something like that. I think they are some type of Mosquito. My legs and feet are COVERED in bites. Seriously, it looks like I have a disease. The members are starting to get worried so I asked them what I should do and they said Put GAS on our feet. Like car Gasoline!  Well I decided that probably wasn’t very safe so I am stinking with the Terrashield.  I have that Benadryl spray to help with the itching and it works really well.

I am my own personal trainer right now and sometimes my training includes lying on my yoga mat while the fan blows warm air on me haha. No, I try to work out everyday. It is SO hard sometimes though because it is ridiculously HOT! Seriously I am sweating while sleeping so if I even start to exert any type of effort I am DRENCHED! It’s pretty gross. I can’t even imagine how weird it will be to not be sweating 24/7 when I get back! What's worse is we don’t have a mirror in our house so I cant even try to make myself look better. Thank goodness I don’t have to worry about boys in the mission and dating! I really have been trying to eat better. Last week I went on a sugar free diet and I have done super good (except for the food members give us of course. That is unavoidable but not very common). So the sugar free is going good, however, the ppl here just eat HORRIBLE. EVERYTHING is fried in a huge pan of grease. Yesterday for dinner a member literally gave me a BLOCK of fried cheese to eat.

This week the power went out 3 TIMES! I hate when that happens because it is dark here by 6 and without the power you really cant see ANYTHING so we cant work. Well one night the power went out so sadly we started heading back to our house. One of our investigators, Carlos, lives about 4 houses down from us so we decided to stop by his house. I had my tiny flashlight and cell phone for light and we decided that was sufficient for a lesson haha. Well we stopped by and he really didn’t want to talk but finally he decided to let us in. Ahh it was such a blessing that we were able to talk with him that night. There we were, my companion, Carlos, his wife and daughter (who are members) and I in their little house, gathered around my flashlight and we had one of the most beautiful lessons I have had in the mission. I have never felt the Spirit guide me like that night. I literally felt like the Lord was FILLING my mouth with the words to say. I am so grateful for that experience, that chance we have to know him. He still hasn’t committed to baptism but I know if we can continue to help him have these spiritual experiences we will be able to make the right decision with confidence.

The Elders in our District are really sweet. They are always watching out for us and trying to take care of us. My District leader is awesome. He reminds me of Brandon a lot. He is always calling to check on us and see if we need anything. It is super sweet and kind. I just hope we get some more Hermanas here the next change. I miss having GIRLS around. The ppl HERE are freaking out whenever they see two Hermana’s. EVERYONE is always telling us how crazy it is to see girl Mormons and they didn’t know we existed haha.   Flirts here are called MUSAS or MUSOS! We have tons of musos it is so hilarious. The Elders are always running over to ppl and saying...HEY you cant say that to the Hermanas. THEY ARE MISSIONARIES! So funny. We get a kick out of it!

Tomorrow we have to go to Managua for a Trainers and Newbies meeting. So... I get to see HERMANA JUSTAVINO!!! YES!! I miss her so much. Sadly I don’t get to see Hermana Teichert. I am really sad about that. But I do get to see the other two new Hermanas that were in Matagalpa with me. They are both very sweet and I am excited to see them! 

There is a rumor going around though that Hermana Collado is going to make sure we all get stoves in our houses within the next couple changes so we can COOK! She is AWESOME!! Seriously she is really looking out for us all. She is making 72-hour kits; we now have more money for food because of her and now the stoves! Seriously Presidente and his wife are AMAZING! They really do want to take care of us. I am so grateful I came to this mission when he was made president!

I got a bunch of letters this week! Ahh that was the best surprise I could ever ask for! Getting letters really is like Christmas. I eat up EVERY WORD! I love dear elders never be afraid you are sending too many letters.... its impossible! THANKS TO EVERYONE that sent me a letter!

I just have to tell you about our latest bug scare.  The other night I saw this super tiny bug crawling on the wall. I thought it was a spider but as I got closer I saw that it was in fact a SCORPION!! So of course I did my usual freak out thing. My comp was in the bathroom and came running out to help me! I got even more worried when she, a Nica, started to freak out as well!! She killed the scorpion and then told me she was stressed because there is never just one baby scorpion. There is always a Mama and tons of babies. Well we searched our room but didn’t find anything.  Well I had forgotten about the scorpion, then two nights later we had the scare of our lives.  We were sitting at out desks talking Thursday night when all of a sudden I see a HUGE SCORPION crawling down our wall. My mouth just dropped! Hermana Lopez was facing me and just said...I don’t even want to know. She slowly turned around and started screaming. We were quickly both running around the room screaming!! The Lady who owns our house has a little daughter and she came running to see what was wrong. When she saw the scorpion she went WHITE and ran off screaming to get her mom. I was actually pretty terrified by this point after all these Nicas were freaking. Well the senorita came running in with her broom followed by her 3 daughters. So there we were, 6 girls screaming and squealing while Senorita Teresa, killed the thing! It was quite the sight I must admit. I just hope we don’t have any more visits from Scorpions in the near future. The ELDERS were absolutely no help. They are actually pretty disappointed we didn’t take pictures...I am too haha

Well I have to go! I could stay here all day but that probably wouldn’t be very good. I love you with all my heart! I miss you all terribly!!  I will see you all SOON!!! The time is passing by super fast! Soon I will have 6 months here! Then I will practically be coming home! OKAY I LOVE YOU WITH MY EVERYTHING!!! I MISS YOU!!!

Until next Monday!

LOVES, 

Savannah