Week 14 -- Cuidad Sandino

In front of Lake Managua

Elder Elison didn't end up getting changed this week, to everybody's surprise. The other zone leader, Elder Hironaka, ended up getting bumped up to Assistant to the President. So fortunately, I get to go through training with just a single trainer, which is nice. Unfortunately, Elder Elison has now been in this area for six months, and is starting to go a little stir crazy. He'll be fine though. We started tracting in an area that hasn't been touched in a few years by missionaries, so it's at least of a little bit of a change for him. And time-wise, things get a little weird on the mission. The weeks generally fly by, but the months are dragging a bit. It's crazy to think that I've already gone through three months of my mission, but at the same time, it's crazy that it's only been three months. And add the fact that it's Chrismas next week, and it's even weirder. We did buy a Christmas tree today, though, so that was fun. And wow, had I forgotten how small my room is back home. I hope Isaac is going to be willing to give it up in about two years ;)

Cooper and his trainer, Elder Elison

I'd have to say that the most memorable thing about this week was the opportunity to be in a choir. Thursday night, we get a call from the APs saying that Elder Elison and I are going to be in a small Chrismas Choir whith three other Elders and four sisters. We had a practice on Friday night and Saturday afternoon, then sang that Saturday night for all of the stake presidents, district presidents, President Russel, Elder Maravilla (one of the area 70s for Central America) and their wives. We sang Silent night, where during the first verse, the choir hummed and I read the Nativity story, and a medly of four hymns whose names I can't quite remember at the moment. It was a lot of fun. And as for people we're teaching, we don't really have any that I haven't written about yet. But we'll probably have more next week, and I'll write about them then.

Volcano Momotombo

As for where I shop, what I eat, etc, I shop at a place called Maxi Palí, which is basically like a really small Walmart. Breakfast and Dinner we usually prepare for ourselves (we don't really do planned dinner appts., but sometimes members/investigators will feed you). And then Lunch, we have Hermana Virginia, who I wrote about earlier. The Most common thing we eat here is rice, generally in the form of gallo pinto, which is basically rice and red beans, fried in a little bit of oil. And to drink, it's almost always Coke, some form of fruit drink, which they call refresco, or Pino lillo, which is a drink made out of corn that is good, but extremely difficult to describe. 

But anyways, that's been my week! I love you all!

Love,

Cooper