Hello from Nicaragua!

 
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2013 11:08 AM
To: Jim And Sandy Bever
Subject: Hello from Nicaragua!

Well hello,
It was nice to get your emails as always. I'm sitting in a cyber infront of some university here in
Managua waiting for pictures to develope and trying not to suffer too much from the heat. Managua is
always hotter than our area. My companion went to get his residence this morning so we've been here
ever sense.
To respond to questions, the food here is all fried and there 's a place a half block down from our house
in Ticuantepe that makes papusas and we are frequent customers there. I highly doubt that they're the
same as in El Salvador, because its really fried and comes in a little plastic baggie. (everything here is
fried and comes in a little plastic baggie) But anyway the customery dish for Nicaragua is called Gallo
Pinto. They eat it here for breakfast, lunch and dinner and every time inbetween. (they even sell it in
McDonald's). It's really just fried rice mixed with beans and fried again. Then for the first time last
week I tried a Nica-Tamal. Its like a regular tamal, but with chicken, potatoes, tomatoe, and onion in the
middle. I have never eaten in my life so much oil, I just want to go run for two days straight to get rid of
all of the grease that I've eaten during the last 6 months. Oh and the other day we were teaching a family
and they were making iguana soup! I had some. (here's a picture)
Anyway, this week Elder Garcia had his first baptism!!! Friday we had a baptismal service as a zone
where we had 130 people there including President Monestel, the stake president, and the bishops of our
wards and branch. It was really special. We sang as a district the primary song about rainbows (totally
forgot what its called in english) which was really nice. I always liked the primary songs in baptisms.
And then we baptized Madely ! (here's a picture) She is really special and has a really strong testimony.
She calls us her angles. She had to change a couple of things in her life to qualify her for baptism, but I
know without a doubt that Heavenly Father is so proud of her and loves her more than she nor I can
know. So that probably was the highlight of our week.
So this week finishes up 6 months in Ticuantepe which means that there are transfers this Wednesday. It
will be hard to leave there, especially Madely now that she is just baptized and Moises and his family. I
really do love them a lot. Its interesting to be in such a humble place as Ticuantepe with people who
have absolutely nothing. One can't help but learn humility being surrounded by people and places like
this. I think I, ve really changed.
Anyway, I hope everything continues to go well for all of you this week and that you can each be as
happy as I am. I don't know why, but for this last week or so I've been waking up every morning really
excited. I then realize that I'm about to be taking a really cold shower and going to eat raw oatmeal with
milk and then I'm a little less excited, but the point is that I'm still really excited every day that I have
here. So we '11 see ifl have transfers this week or not ...
Oh I thought of something that I can't find here that maybe you could send over in a package some time,
its a LED lightbulb for the little MagLite flashlight that I have. I use it a lot walking around at night but
it eats batteries. Just a thought.
Have a wonderful week,

Love Elder Bever