Hola from Esteli! I made it!

MOMMASITA,

¿Como està? I hope that all is well at home right now! I know, the first thing you want to know is why I was not able to call on Tuesday. Trust me, I seriously feel so bad about that. We got to the airport a good 3.5 hours before our flight, so the plan was to have plenty of time to call, but we had to wait for 1.5 hours to finally have workers at the desks to check our baggage!! It was so frustrating! The whole time I was thinking about how I was losing time to call. And the whole time, it did not help that I was unfortunately diseased with diarrhea. Not a fun experience! We finally made it and I went to go call to at least tell you that I had no time to talk because we were just about to board, but of course, the pay phones were out of service... basically, I just wasn't meant to call home, but I knew you were going to lose sleep over it, so I felt so bad when I couldn't. 

After that though, the flights went just fine and we got on a bus to go to the mission presidents house. As we got on, they were handing us breakfast, a McSomething from McDonalds. For those of you who don't know, I don't really like McDonalds at all, but honestly, I was so hungry I didn't even care! haha

Arriving at the Mission Home on a bus.

Me with President and Sister Collado.

 We went to the presidents house and had an initial interview where he told us who our trainer would be and where our first area was. My trainer is indeed Elder Alfaro, and he is from Costa Rica. He is a native Spanish speaker, but unfortunately (for me) he speaks very good english. This is good for when I have moments  that I need to communicate something, because I can do it in English, but the temptation to speak just English is so real. I need to learn Spanish, and speaking English is not going to help me do that...imagine that.

My new companion and trainer Elder Alfaro.

My first area is Estelì. You can go ahead and look it up on google maps. It is actually the most mild (in temp) area in the entire mission! That is perfect, except it is still so hot... and it is also one of the richest cities in Nicaragua, behind Managua. So it is definitely more up to date that other places. That being said, it is still a very poor and humble area. Just what I was expecting.

New missionary paperwork and training at the mission home.

After all of the activities at the presidents house, the trainers came and we left for the three hour bus ride for Estelì. So long, and so hot. We finally arrived, and luckily my luggage was unharmed! haha Elder Alfaro asked me if I wanted to stay and unpack, or if I wanted to head out and visit some recent converts. Trying to be the best missionary I could be, I opted to go out! That is the moment I discovered how hard it is to understand Nica Spanish... Great! Seriously they talk so fast, it is not even real, and they take out so many of the ``s`` in their words!!! Its like a whole new language! The house, if you want to call it that, is tiny tiny tiny! haha I will send pictures to follow! It is just one room that hardly fits two beds and two desks, and a bathroom. But it is actually pretty nice and up to date. We are one of the only ones in the area with semi warm water to shower with!! haha

                                     The room. To put it in perspective, I don't really fit in the bed...                                                                                   but at least we have them!! haha and a mini-fridge!

The bathroom, equipped with a functioning toilet,a warmish water shower, and a nice sink :) one of  the better ones in the zone from what i have heard. One elder was complaining because he has been using a bucket to shower the last few days...

Honestly, things have actually been super great and super different. We do so much walking and that contributes to the heat, imagine that. It will seriously take some getting used to as far as the heat goes,especially because this is the coldest area! As far as teaching people goes, it is so weird! Every person here will let you into their house and listen to you! No one denies an opportunity to hear about Christ. Now the Evangelic people here just let us in to argue,which is fine, we just let them talk, and we leave them with our testimonies and then we leave! But all of the other religious people are very open to listen! teaching them is the easy part. 

What I have discovered is that it is getting them to follow through with their commitments that is hard. Elder Alfaro taught me a phrase that everyone uses when they want to say yes to something they they aren't going to do: ``Voy a hacer todo posible`` in English meaning I will do everything possible. That basically means they aren't going to do it..I haven't gotten that much yet though. We have committed about 8 people to baptism this week. In order for people to be baptized here, they have to attend church 2 times. We only had three of those investigators at church yesterday. Elder Alfaro has informed me that when they actually come to church, they will probably be baptized, so will see if that proves to be true. If so, we will have a baptism this Saturday, July 5. That will be my first one in the mission, hopefully with many following.

Elder Alfaro only likes to eat lunch. Being the scared trainee companion, I never questioned it much, I just went without breakfast or dinner the first few days. Finally, it was just unbearable. I told him that I needed food! We always have a lunch appointment at Hna. Ana`s house. She is a member in the ward, and we pay her c$1600 a month for lunch every day. ($1 is equal to c$25) I don't want to do the math, but if I am seeing this right, its about $2 a meal. Otherwise we just buy stuff from the shops that people run inside of their houses. We finally had the opportunity to go to the supermarket today, thank goodness for pday. I stocked up on food, but honestly mostly just snack stuff, cause we have no means of cooking anything :) I have not experienced any weird food yet, and I don't plan on it while I'm here, because all we ever get from Hna. Ana is some variation of chicken, rice and beans haha.

There is also a member  that does our laundry for us too. We pay here c$300 a month, so it is very very cheap! 

Funny story: (no intention of bashing other religions)

One day, it began raining super hard, and we just kept walking through it. I was literally soaked to the bone. Obviously E.Alfaro could tell that I was having doubts in my head, because he then said ``i wonder what the Jehovas Witnesses are doing right now.`` Obviously nothing needed to be said, but that gave me the motivation to push on. Take it how you will, but I took it to mean that they are probably sitting out under some protection from the rain. I did not want to do that, so I kept on walking.

Spiritual Thought:

I was reading in 1 Nefi because our mission president made it a goal that we read the way through the Book of Mormon while we are being trained, and I was reading about Lehi`s dream about the tree of life. I believe it is in verse 12, he talks about how when he partook of the fruit of tree of life, he was filled with great joy and he desired to share it with other people. That needs to be us, as we partake of the gospel, and the blessings it brings to our lives. We need to have that desire to share the gospel with others! We know that this is something that will bless the life of anyone who participates. Whether they are in a bad situation or not, we know that the gospel blesses all people. I encourage everyone to share the gospel with a friend any way you know how. If you are unsure, ask the missionaries for help. And if you are not a member already, start working on that. Talk to someone who is a member. Come to church and listen to the messages we have to share, and you can feel that it is true by the power of the Holy Ghost.

I hope you have had a good week and I hope all is well at home! If you have questions please ask. And if there are things that I left out, let me know and I can touch on them next week! Love you all!

Love
Elder Moser

A few more pics...

                             Probably the nicest location in all of Nicaragua.Yes, that is a Burger King                                                                        in the bottom corner, and yes, I've been there twice.

                                     Us at Burger King after playing soccer all morning long at the Church.

Don't be fooled by these pictures,next week I will have some to share  that will really portray Nicaragua a little better!

                     Just a quick picture using the computers. The places are called cybers and they have                                                  4-5 computers that you can pay to use. They are all over and super cheap too!