Birthday Celebration

20th Birthday Cake

Birthday Dinner - Fried Chicken and French Fries

Elder Palma rubbing the egg all over my head. Thanks elders.... haha

Cutting the Cake - Can you see all the egg in my hair and on my skirt?

We found this cute Italian Restaurant today that had MARGARITA PIZZA!! I thought about mom the whole time of course and it was actually pretty good. 

My moms in the mission. They take care of me! 

Hello Everyone,

Well this week has gone by SO FAST! Seriously probably the fastest week of my whole mission. Nothing super miraculous happened this week but we worked hard and are hopefully going to see the fruits from our labors in the upcoming week. This week we just have been working super hard to find new families to teach. We are teaching TONS of ppl right now and are just really trying to discern who is truly prepared to make this change in their lives right now. I think I have told you about Bydon and Fransis. We LOVE teaching them. They are so prepared and sweet. They keep all their commitments and always want to learn more. They have committed to be baptized the 14th. The only problem is.... THEY CAN NEVER COME TO CHURCH! You have to go to church at least 2 times to be baptized and they just never make it to church. Every Sunday we leave the house early and pass by EVERY SINGLE person’s house to try and get them to go to church. Members, investigators, less actives...EVERY BODY! Seriously Sunday mornings are so HARD! We work like maniacs to get ppl to church. I imagine what Sundays will be like when I return and it feels like a dream. It feels like I will always be leaving at 7 am to drag ppl to church haha. Anyways every time we stop by Bydons house they have some Catastrophe! It sucks!! SATAN knows they are ready and he is working so hard on them. Hopefully we can get them to church next week.

I think I have also told you about Edwin. He is supposed to get baptized this SATURDAY! YAY I am so hungry for another baptism! I love the spirit in the baptismal services. And watching someone enter into that covenant with God is super special. I can’t wait for his baptism. HE is SO READY. He came to church all on his own yesterday. It was incredible. Especially since his whole family attends a different church. He participated in all the classes and loved it. What a sweet experience it is to watch him come unto Christ and get to know his Savior.

So Thursday was our meeting with President and one of the Seventy, Elder Ochoa.  The meeting was seriously so great. I understood EVERYTHING!! Ahh that was a pretty awesome feeling. The spirit was undeniable and I learned a TON. It made me so motivated to just continue growing and to become the best missionary possible. I want to teach with all the clarity and power possible so there is nothing standing in the way for the investigators to feel the Spirit and make the decision to change their lives. AHH there just aren’t enough hours in the day to learn all I want to in order to be a powerful missionary. For now I will just focus on improving EVERY SINGLE DAY! If you aren’t going forward you are going backwards and others will pass you by. I want to get better EVERY DAY!! We also had our special musical number. We ended up singing my version of I Stand All Amazed. One of the Hermanas in my zone heard me playing it and singing it one day and decided we HAD to sing it. So we had a small choir of 5 ppl. I sang the first verse. Then I and one of the Elders sang the Second verse then we all sang the chorus. It was really beautiful. EVERYONE LOVED IT! I was so nervous though. Standing up there looking at the President and one of the 70 was intimidating. Hermana Teichert was there as well! YEAH! I love that girl so much! She had a cute little birthday present for me and we got to talk for a while. It was so great to catch up with her.

So FRIDAY we celebrated my birthday. What the HECK! I am so old.... I can't believe I can know say I am in my twenties. However, this year of being 20 is going to be pretty incredible. Can't wait to see all that is in store. During the day was pretty normal. We worked and visited a ton of ppl. That night we had dinner with a less active family the Elders are teaching. They were so sweet! They sang, danced and cooked for me. Afterwards the Elders told my comp and I that we needed to stop by Fransisco and Yudidas house real quick. (Fransisco was the Mission Leader that I have talked about a lot. Now he is Second councilor. We work with him and his family A LOT. Love them!) Anyways we stopped by their house real quick and all their family as well as Nohela and her son were they’re singing happy birthday and taking pictures. It was super cute. Well we sat and visited for awhile and Yudida kept saying things like AHH why didn’t you tell us you were going to come by we would of baked you a cake! I just kept saying oh don’t WORRY ABOUT IT! Well mid-sentence all the elders in our district come walking in with a huge CAKE singing Happy Birthday and doing a funny dance haha it was priceless! Afterwards, everyone said I needed to take pictures with the Elders and the cake. So I grabbed the cake and we started taking pictures. Next thing I know the Elders are SMASHING EGGS on my HEAD! Hahaha yes we got it all on film! I guess it is tradition here. It was super fun and the Elders thought it was hilarious. Afterwards the sang happy birthday and I got my face smashed in the cake. Haha it is a different kind of love here. But it was AWESOME! They even went to Tip Top - the only fast food restaurant here- and got us all dinner. We had fried chicken and French fries! It really was a great birthday. The real kicker though is that we got back to our house and didn’t have ANY WATER. There I was was covered in eggs and we didn’t have water...lets just say it was pretty smelly. We had a TINY bucket with a little bit of water that I splashed on my head. I am just going to pretend that the egg moisturized my hair.... or something like that.  I also got to read all my letters!! YES! That was my favorite part of the day. Seriously thank you to EVERYONE who sent me letters. It made my day. And I definitively cried when I read yours, dad's and the boys. I just love you guys so much!! Thank you for the earrings they are beautiful!

Well Changes are a lot different now with the new President. He is just trying to follow the rules and suggestions as closely as possible. It is great. However, we don’t really know how things are going to play out still. Supposedly we are going to find out tonight who has changes and then those ppl will go to Managua tomorrow to get their new companion and find out where they are headed. I am pretty sure I will be here for a little bit longer but no one knows for sure. I hope Hermana Justavino and I can stay together for at least one more change. I heard President Hinckley once suggested to try and have the missionaries in the same area for about 4 changes and supposedly President wants to try and do that. I will know soon and you will all know next week! Fingers crossed I can stay here a little longer!

At the end of every change (my two whole changes I have here have given me the right to say things like that haha) we play this game as a zone called Kingdom of Matagalpa. Basically we vote on who is the most Spiritual in the zone, hardest worker, goofiest, funniest, prettiest, laziest...just a ton of different things. I actually hate the game but it is tradition. Well this change I was voted most Spiritual and Prettiest...uncomfortable. Anyways, whoever wins the most categories is Crowed king or Queen of Matagalpa. Last change no one won more than one category so we didn’t have a queen or King. Well this change I was CROWNED QUEEN OF MATAGALPA. Yes that is right your daughter is Queen of some area here in Nicaragua. Haha I get to pick where we eat for pdays now.... if I stay!

I really am enjoying my time here a lot more now. I hope I can continue to develop my personality in Spanish as well as regain it in English. Sometimes I feel super awkward in English too now. I got so used to not saying anything and not understanding that sometimes I do that now in English. I am feeling more comfortable now though and I know it will just keep getting better. 

OH I was going to tell you! The power has gone out 4 days this week! It has been CRAZY!!! It is pitch black here without the power at about 6:30. The streets are super dangerous with out the power so we have to go home early and just chill in the dark. I have that tiny little flashlight so we usually sit in the dark with my little flashlight and talk.

Okay I have to go now :( I love you with all my heart though and I miss you!!!! Tell the boys I love them too and think about them every day! Ahh I don’t want to say goodbye. I know the next Monday will come fast though. Okay I love you to pieces!!!

LOVES!!!
Savannah