5 Apr 10 email

Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 2:36 PM

Hey there, it is me again. I made it through the hottest week of the year supposedly. One of the nice things about it being so hot and humid here is the effect it has on your clothes. No matter how wrinkly your shirt is, you walk around outside for a few minutes and it is practically steam pressed nice and straight haha. It is really awesome here. I am loving my bed more and more every night now. I have already eaten some interesting food here. The other day we had soup over at a members house and it was very interesting. I think they boiled bamboo or something and put it into water with crawdads. They only way I was able to get through it was because I had a lime to suck on after every bite haha. I have also had cow stomach, some crazy juices, and fresh coconuts too. I actually opened up the coconut, drank the milk stuff inside, and then ate the white stuff too on the inside.

The other day was our service day so we went to this place way out down the freeway. It was in the back of this long dirt road too. They had a huge pasture with trees all around and they had us walk around with machetes to chop up dry wood. There was about six of us chopping up stuff. Then afterwards the kids were climbing these trees to get those coconuts down like I was talking about. There are a bunch of mango trees everywhere here, so what you do is use a unripe mango that is close to the ground and you throw it at the good ones up top. It is pretty fun. Afterwards they fed us beans, rice, and fried chicken which is pretty popular. There were six dogs and two ducks waiting by me for food haha.

I borrowed a hammock from one of the members here. He had a few so he lent me one to try out and see if I liked it. Well we have this back porch thing with a cage over the top of it to keep out animals and people I guess. I hooked up the hammock to the cage thing but the only problem was that it was like 5 feet in the air. I got in it anyways and attempted to stay the night in it. Well I woke up a half an hour later and I had bug bites on my legs and arms, so that didn´t last very long.

One of the funny things about our ward here is that no one knows how to sing. At church everyone is all over the place. Luckily our church is like the only church in the this area that has an electric piano. It can play any song perfectly by just pushing one key the entire time haha. It helps a little bit. We play soccer down in the gym and outside at the church on pdays. We can take the locals pretty well. They don´t stand a chance in basketball though haha.

We had a scorpion in our house for a few days because Elder Pérez wouldn´t let me take care of it. Finally we took care of it with marbles, lemons, and a mop. I will see if I can send a picture of it.

Some weird things they do here in Nicaragua is: one they drop their trash everywhere all over the streets. There aren´t any trash cans here. They just drop their trash in piles and someone comes by and burns it. Second is that everyday, I don´t know how many times a day, they throw water all around their house. They cover every square inch of dirt around there house. Old ladies and guys just fill up buckets and throw the water around haha.

General Conference was really great this last weekend. We got a room for all of us greengos with a TV to watch the conference in English. I really liked the talk by Elder Uchtdorf about patience with trying to learn the language and everything. The talk about diligence was also great. It was really awesome how much they talked about the family and how to take care of them. I didn´t catch all of the new temples though. I also heard that there was an earthquake in California on Sunday. Where was it at and how strong was it?

I did get that attachment about the camera. Thanks. I think I figured it out. How did the pictures look?

I don´t really know what my address is though because like you said it it is like saying two blocks west from the graveyard on the right, which is our address, roughly. There are a few little stores around us too. The front of the house is red and flat. To send letters I think it is just sent to my mission in general and then it is distributed by the leaders within a few weeks. Sending emails are a lot faster but I appreciate letters also.

Brennen, that is awesome that your baseball season is going good and you have caught bunches of coons. Keep up the good work in school too Nenee. Your Freshman year is almost already up, crazy. What have you made in woodshop so far? Happy Late Birthday Ryan. I will bring back stuff for you guys when I get back. They have some pretty cool stuff here for really cheap. The nice hammocks are like $5 dollars and some other pretty cool stuff. I don´t know if I could get everything to fit though. If you could Dad maybe also is send me the birthdays of people if you have time.

I Love You All.

Elder Ochs