Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 4:50 PM

Hey it is really great to hear from all of you. I really like the spiritual experiences you are all having because they help me also.

The Mission President's wife likes our hair cut this short so it is fine and my head didn´t get sunburnt.

So we are definitely into rainy season now because it is raining everyday here now. But we had transfers this last week. Luckily I am here again in Managua as a Retention missionary and I am still with Elder Flores. Only one person left from our District this last change so that is pretty cool. We got to help out with the new missionaries coming in. We got 32 new missionaries and our zone was in charge of training them how to contact their first day here. It was funny because I remember being just like them when I got here only 3 months ago.

So my emergency money that I have been saving has really come in handy because they always seem to send us our money about a week later than when we are supposed to get it. But don´t worry at all because I saved a sufficient amount haha. I also have been using it for service and helping people out. Something cool I found was some actual American donuts at a little store around the corner from us. There is this store here called Price Mart. None of the missionaries are allowed to go there because they sell American food and the missionaries would waste all of there money there. These donuts are from there but I am not at liberty to tell you how they are getting to us, haha.

So Elder Flores and I have this game we play pretty much all the time when we are in the street, where we try to kick stuff between each others legs. Because there is all of this trash here that people just drop on the ground, we have plenty of items, like bottles, rocks, and a bunch of mango seeds. Sometimes we get pretty competitive and I am getting a lot better haha. The bigger the item, the better the score.

So the other day Elder Flores and me were walking and this drunk guy came up and started talking to us. While talking to us he took our Glu-Glus (Nicaraguan "Capri Suns") and my comps pen, putting it in his pocket. He would just look at it and then snatch it. I didn´t care to much about the Glu-Glu because it was empty but I wanted my companion's pen back. So I took out my agenda and asked him if he had a pen I could use. So he reaches into his pocket and hands me my companion's pen, haha. I said thanks and we walked away, haha.

But one of the scarier things I saw was last Friday. Again we were walking and this little dog was scurrying across the street which was strange because they don´t usually run around because they don´t have much energy. Well he went by and there was this other one just as short following. One of his eyes were squinted and his mouth was foaming spit. It ran right past my leg too. I always thought that the foamy mouth was an exaggeration for rabies but it is true and very scary.

The craziest moment though this week was when we were giving service at the house of the lady that cooks our meals. We were cutting branches down from this big mango tree in her cement back yard. This tree grew in this little patch of dirt and they built the house all around it. She wanted it cut so it wouldn´t fall down during the storms this season. Well my companion, Elder Montierth, and I were in the tree. Elder Flores was cutting, I was passing the branches to Elder Caulderón on this wall so that the branches wouldn´t land on the roof. Well Elder Montierth passed me a branch and I was leaning to pass it to Elder Caulderón when I lost my balance. I fell out of the tree, went through the roof, took out a clothes line underneath, and some how landed on my feet on the ground haha. My arm got some tiny scratches and the back of my leg a little bruised from hitting the clothes line but other than that I was perfectly fine haha. Hermana Nubia thought that I had died because of how high I was. Good thing I´m a missionary or that could have turned out a lot worse haha. We are definitely being watched over out here and I don´t doubt the Lord was watching over me that day. So that was my crazy story this week in Nicaragua.

I am looking forward to doing the Lord´s work. We are going to beat the record of the highest retention here this next week so I am pretty excited. The highest they have ever got it was 91% percent and we got just below that this last week but we will easily get 100% percent this next Sunday. I am really excited to be moving the Lord´s work along and getting to love the people here. I have definitely grown and learned so much in the short time I have been here. I Love you all and Big Hearts.

Elder Ochs