This week flew right on by, but it didn´t exactly end how we would have liked it to! This week we visited Manuel pretty much every day to prepare him for his baptism, and he was super excited and so were we, because he didn´t have any doubts! He had told us that he had prayed and felt that he should be baptized in the church and he understood that only in our church did we have to proper priesthood authority to baptize. He told us that he couldn´t do the baptism on Saturday, because his whole family was going to Masaya for the day, but that he could do it Sunday morning before church. So yesterday morning we got to the church early and we started preparing everything for the baptism. We had a bunch of ward members show up early as well to help support him. Well, 8 o´clock came and passed...then 830...then at 9 started church...and then he didn´t show up to church either! Needless to say we were super confused and bummed. So, after church we decided to go to his house to visit him to see what had happened. He told us that late Saturday night his old preacher stopped by his house (I swear this ALWAYS happens) and began to talk to him about baptism. The preacher in the matter of an hour confused him all over again...telling him that if he got baptized again that he was rebelling against God and a ton of stuff like that to scare him. When we got there yesterday after church we regained his trust and shared a short lesson about baptism and proper priesthood authority...and that if he was confused all he needed to do was pray and ask his Heavenly Father what he should do. We weren´t there a long time because we basically just needed to regain his trust so that we could start fresh. It was a little frustrating but everyone reassured us that this kind of thing happens a lot in the mission. I am still confident that he will make the right decision, he´ll just need a little more time to prepare and strengthen his testimony so that the next time something like this happens he will be able to trust more in his feelings and answers to his prayers than in the words of a preacher!
Other than that, the week went by pretty normal...nothing too exciting! We have a few investigators who are consistently coming to church and it´s great to see the changes they´ve been making in their lives.
There are basically only two seasons here in Nicaragua. Summer is from November to about May, and the rest of the year is the rainy season! It´s still super hot during the rainy season but it just rains a ton. This week it has only rained a few times but it´s been nice because the weather has been a little cooler.
Today for Pday we went to San Marcos, and played soccer, basketball, and water-balloon volleyball with all of the missionaries in our zone. It was a pretty fun day! Unfortunately I forgot my camera...whoops.
Elder Salguero and I have been getting along great! Our personalities are really similar. The ward members really like him and trust him and I think we will have a lot of success this transfer! I keep forgetting to have someone take a picture of us...but I promise that next week I'll send a picture of him so you can see what he's like.
I love and miss you all, and you are always in my thoughts and prayers! Until next week!
Love, Elder Parrish
