Bello Horizonte (the office) - Jan 19th

Elder Boice, Elder Gonzalez and Elder Jake

i am now official. elder cua is not my companion anymore he will die (mission lingo for "go home") in april. elder boice and elder gonzalez are now my companions. elder boice is a new zoneleader that i am training. they are both sweet haha

honestly dont know what i did to get here. 2 changes ago i was a nobody in esteli with elder sherle haha 

Some of my new responsibilities as an AP (assistant to the President)

-with president all of the time

- we are in charge of the changes. all of it. after president comes out with the companionships we figure out how everyone is going to get everywhere, where they are going to live, if they need things in their houses, everything. we have been doing these shananigans for the last 3 days. 

-i now get to drive president's cars and the mission truck

- we are in charge of all of the meetings in the mission. Zone conferences, new missionary meetings, leadership meetings, every meeting. we have to bring all of the president's equipment ie computer, projector, and other materials. we organize and direct all of them

- we do a mission wide summary of the numbers for every district which we send to president. we do that every monday in the morning. 

- if we dont have meetings, we travel around the mission doing splits with other missionaries/zone leaders 3 days out of the week. 

- we also are in charge of housing and putting to work all of the missionaries that are going home

- i also do not sleep because there is not time to sleep haha

hey i still love you guys so much. i really just don't have to time to do anything anymore. i am so freaking busy. i will try to have something decent put together for next week. love you. stay sleezy.  Elder Jake

DJ vs the Volcano - Jan 13th

(Elder Jake's Buzz Lightyear pose)

hey i am alive. we had a big multizone pday thing. also ya boy will have a new title on friday had a little talk with the big dog (President Collado) a couple of days ago haha. love you guys.  

(So I asked for the lowdown on the “little talk")

the jist of the big dog conversation was like this. I had an interview with President Collado on friday. We talked about my training period and about my two "kids" sherle and clark. He then asked me why i was able to have success with my kids and not with my trianer. I told him hard work and obedience.  He said are you ready to help other missionaries do this work. I said yes. Are you ready to be the next ap. I said yes haha. Then he talked about how i would be driving and would be traveling with him all over the mission and that i would still be expected to baptize. and then we prayed and that was it. 

I dont have a lot to say this week and im pretty freakin exhausted today haha. love and miss you tho. 

(Elder Jake and his comp Elder Cua)

yesterday we went to a volcano in masaya. (a half mile wide crater filled with a boiling lake) it was pretty cool. my companion and i planned the activity. To other zones, one from managua and one from tipitapa, went with our zone. president was also there. we visited some caves that had some bats in them. i asked the tour guide if the bats had large talons and he didnt think it was very funny but i did get a few laughs from a couple of the white guys. then we looked at a big hole in the ground aka the volcano haha. im not one for sight seeing unless its the ocean you guys know that but it was still a good time hangin out with all of my buddies in the mission. 

Thanks for your email on goals mom. I have a couple of goals this year. One of which is being patient. Trynna to work on that one. The mission in general has helped me wait for good things just because i am away for 2 years but i really want to try to be a little more patient with people. trying to learn how to keep my head cool and love even the dumb people. probably a good life skill. 

love you guys. take it real sleezy this week.

Burning the Bad

Happy 2015 everybody. Hittin you with the update from Managua this week. 80 with a nice breeze is lookin a lot better that that dumb white stuff that was fallin in T-town. 

We are currently teaching a house of 12 people and three different families. Card board walls. Barely a tin roof. Bunch of little baby boys runnin around without shoes. ALL of them went to church on Sunday. Some went in flip flops and some without shirts but the 14 of us sat together and it was pretty sick. They will hopefully be jumpin in the pool in a week or two. 

We had a leadership meeting with the prez on friday and there were some cool stats that he showed us about the mish. 

- Nicaragua Managua North Mission baptized 2014 people in the year 2014

- Nicaragua Managua North MIssion baptized more than any other mission in central america

Couple of weeks ago my home girl Martha took a little dip. She is way sleezy and we are great friends. Her son Emanuel and i enjoy shooting here with the buzz lightyear lazer gun that he got for Christmas. 

    

New years eve was pretty sleezy here. Everybody makes manikins out of their old clothes and burns them in the street. Bryce and collin would love the little kids that push around these huge carts filled with Ronald Reagan sports park caliber fire works. One of my highlights was waking up at 2 in the morning to see a crowd of about 30 people nearly beat a man to death that tried to rob a house down the street.

I asked one of my good buddies here why people burn these life size figurines made out of their old clothing. He told me that people do it as a representation of all the bad things they carry with them and had done the year before. He said it symbolizes a new start and is hope for better things in the coming year. They burn all the bad so that good can fill their lives. 

I personally had a little time to think about this past year. My life is completely different than it was 1 year ago. I live happier and with a purpose. God has given me those things. And i am so grateful for it. 

32 Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and denyyourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may beperfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

Burn all the things that keep you from being a better person. Spend more time with the fam bam. Make God a bigger part of your life. 

Take it sleezy in 2015