Elder Parrish: 2012-12-02

Oy! Well, tomorrow I will officially be 20 years old! It's weird to think about...but someday I'll get used to it.

Today, the Monestel family took the 6 missionaries in the office on an awesome P-day trip to celebrate my birthday and the birthday of Elder Cruz, and Elder Puente who also have birthdays in December. We went to the Masaya Volcano and caves. The volcano is an active volcano that is pretty famous in Nicaragua. Learning about it was a very interesting experience!! A few hundred years ago the volcano was thought to be a God by the Nicaraguan people and was known as "la boca del infierno." According to what the museum and tour guides told us, the people used to do human sacrifices at the edge of the volcano, until a group of Spaniards came and placed a cross at the side of the volcano teaching the people that Jesus Christ was our God, and that they should focus their lives on the atoning sacrifice of Christ. From that time on the human sacrifices stopped. Now it is a preserved natural park with lots of history behind it. The cross is still there and people can walk up to it. Unfortunately, today the volcano was spitting out a ton of smoke, so the trail to walk up to the cross was blocked off. The caves we went to were caused by lava flows from eruptions that happened a couple hundred years ago.

Last Monday, our zone had an activity and we went paintballing! Normally, the office missionaries don't get to go to the zone activities because our pday is on Saturday, but the zone leaders talked with President Monestel, and he gave us permission to go paintballing with the rest of the zone on Monday. I never thought I'd go paintballing on my mission but it was really fun!

This week we have been working hard with our investigators. Bryan and Samantha got married and now Samantha is really excited about getting baptized. But of course Satan is trying really hard so that she doesn't get baptized. Her work changed her schedule on her and now she has to work every Sunday from 9 until 6...talk about frustrating. We have encouraged her to pray about what she needs to do so that she will make the right decision.

We are teaching two investigators named Emilio and Emily who are siblings. Emilio is 15 and Emily is 18. They have both gone to church about 5 times now and are more than prepared for baptism. They are both INCREDIBLE, smart, and have really important callings in their Evangelic church, along with their parents. Through a lot of praying, coming to church, and reading the Book of Mormon, they have received answers to their prayers and know what they need to do. I admire them a lot for their courage and because they are willing to follow what the Lord wants them to do, even though it is going to be very difficult for them. The struggle right now is that their parents won't give them permission to be baptized. Elder Pinto and I have been praying a lot so that the hearts of Emilio and Emily's parents will be softened and so their parents will realize that the answers that Emilio and Emily have received are from God.