Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 10:58 AM

It is great to hear from the people I love a lot. Again you guys are always running around doing stuff. Dad I am not too sure of that resource about Fruit Bats but I wouldn´t have liked to have been the person that did all of those studies. (Excerpt of letter that was sent to Elder Ochs: So that is pretty interesting about your Fruit Bat issues. You might want to share this information that I found online with Elder Talla: "Fruit Bats like to look for fruit in more elevated and soft areas, like bunk beds. They have been known to at times mistakenly think that human eyes are fruit. They will usually quietly sneak up on the victims face and gingerly begin eating at there eyelids in hopes of getting to the more desirable eyeball center. If you happen to awake and find a Fruit Bat chewing on your eyelids, usually just screaming and shaking your head vigorously will dislodge the little bugger, usually. Sometimes writing on your face with a permanent marker with such phrases as, "Stay off my Face, Sucker!" or just simple doodlings have been found to sometimes help keep Fruit Bats away." I am not sure of the validity of this website, but you still might want to warn Elder Talla with this important information.) I will give Elder Talla a heads-up about that though, haha. That was pretty funny, I didn´t know that Fruitbats "gingerly eat" stuff and hopefully they understand English writing. Yes, we had a meeting with Elder Christofferson (Church News article saying that Elder Christofferson visited the University in Managua, Nicaragua) the same day as when he talked to the students. He did that in the morning and then came directly over to talk to us. Hey I also want to see how Uncle Mark is doing. Mom you need to make that Rootbeer Pork when I come home alright, and please refrain from describing how delicious the food is please, haha.

Alrighty then, so this week seemed longer than the ones before because a lot happened. Like I said last week I am staying in Bello Amanecer another change with Elder Talla. We are working just fine. We have gotten some new investigators this week. One of them named Juan Pablo was a sailor back when he was younger and he visited every country in the world except two. I don´t know which two ones. So he has a lot of cool stories that he tells us about all of the weird cultures and experiences he has had. They live right by the church too so I don´t think it will be that hard to have them come. The wife is very forgetful of stuff, haha, so that may be a problem, but we will see. He is also a strong supporter of Sandinistas but I am cool with him. He said he will get a FSLN shirt for me and my comp. FSLN is the Sandinista/Socialism group.

Here in Bello Amanecer the missionaries will never not have an investigator in church on Sundays. There is a crazy guy that comes every single Sunday and even the activities but can´t be baptized because he doesn´t need it. He usually sits in the back and sometimes tries to make announcements in front. I guess he used to be a preacher of a church but now he is crazy so he just wonders around the town all week with a Bible under his arm and cites scriptures or some random stuff. Like today walking to the Cyber to write, we met him in the street and he gave me very important information. He told me to tell the Bishop that the United States of America is sending gasoline to Nicaragua, and then he kept walking. The cool thing is that this last Sunday the bishop gave him a triple combination. The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price. So he got rid of the Bible because it was too heavy to carry them both and is preaching the restored Gospel like us. He is already starting to read and cite scriptures too! Maybe we will get some references from it, who knows. He is really cool.

So the big story of this week happened Saturday night. So Elder Talla and I always come back to the house around 5 to turn on the porch lights and what not to keep away the bagos (bats). So we came to undo all of the locks and find out that we don´t have the keys and he left them inside the house. We are the only ones with keys to open it, I don´t know why there aren´t any copies. The house first has a wall that surrounds it that is all locked up and then the actual house is inside, also all locked up. It is very well fortified. So I remember seeing a space between the top of the wall and the razors around the back. So we talk to the neighbors to let us come around to go through. We had to take apart their roof to make a space to crawl through and then over the wall. We were able to do it but the worst problem was to some how get in the house still. All the windows are barred up and the doors locked from the inside. We tried stuff for hours but nothing worked. Our cell phone was already low on batteries and eventually died. We did every thing but without success. So we camped-out outside on the ground with all the critters and bugs. We didn´t really sleep that night and I chose the worst time to do a fast, haha. In the morning we had church at 8 and we needed to get our investigators beforehand. So we eventually got the idea to get a really long tube, about 15 feet long, that we had sitting in the back yard. Then we put a hose down it with metal wire tied to the end in the form of a hook, and then we feed it through a window. We used the tube to knock around stuff until we could find the keys. Miraculously we find the keys, hook them with the wire, and pulled it in. We showered around 6:30, got ready, and went to get people. I should send you guys some pictures so it is more visual. Next week I will. We got to church on time, and 3 investigators came, one was for the first time, the daughter of her, and the crazy guy. The people we thought would make it didn´t come and the ones that came we weren´t expecting. It usually works out that way.

So in studying I read about the gifts of the Spirit. It is funny because it talks about how most people don´t know what they are or which ones they have. When they think of the gifts of the Spirit they think of prophecy and talking in other languages because those are the ones visually seen. That most people make a big deal over the gift of tongues when it is practically the least of all the gifts that the Holy Ghost provides. I was thinking about that a lot because there are a lot of Evangelicals here and they believe that the Gift of tongues is talking in nonsense that no one understands. They don´t understand that the gifts that the Holy Ghost provides is for edifying and much more, not confusion. How have you guys dealt with experiences about the Gift of tongues with past investigators? I would like to hear insights.

I am still loving the work and the Nicaraguans here. Thanks for writing and supporting and loving. Big Hearts.

Elder Ochs