Tuesday, August 22nd - Monday, August 28th

Thanks to my mom for the title. I honestly didn't realize I'm on week 50 right now, but she has been keeping track haha.

Anyways to start this week off. Well Tuesday was a nice day it was pretty low key, just worked like normal. Nothing really noticable

Wednesday is when we had our District Meeting. So we had that and it was alright. Afterwards we went back to our area and worked. All pretty low key. Though I had a bet with another elder. Soooo more or less I sent him a message jokingly saying "If you crush the dreams of some child I will give you 5 cords tomorrow." (equivelent of like 16 cents) he responded. "If you take a picture with 2 drunks 5 cords" So I had to one up that. "If you take a video of you dancing with a drunk or a cochon 20 cords" So in the night time I was looking in all the normal places the drunks hang out.....I COULD NOT FIND A SINGLE DRUNK! I was like wait what happened? It was super weird. Was it like they all conspired against me and decided to stop drinking for 1 night out of spite. (I mean it doesn't help that recently a couple of the more prominet ones died....but still.) So I came up with an idea. I almost gave up but was like - I have one last trick up my sleeve. There is place near the church. So I walked up to it, saw a couple people eating dinner (and drinking) Outside. Walked up, no word, selfie. Turned on flash, 2nd selfie, and walked out. And Bam.......He also won the bet so I ended up buying him a snack worth 20 cords the day afterwards. But yeah it was nice, I enjoyed the video.

Thursday. We had to wake up bright and early. Well a bit before bright. More like Dark and Early at 4Am to be able to make it to Matagalpa in time to catch a bus to Estili because there was a Multi Zone meeting going on. So made it there in time, and sat chatting with the one I made the bet with the 2 hour bus ride....I had to take a leak so bad. I won't go into details, but wow once I got off the bus we rushed straight to the bathroom. Then afterwards we headed to the meeting, but it was in a different church than normal, so we also had to pay for a taxi.... I ended up seeing a couple old companions, like Elder Alfaro, and I also got to see Elder Price from the MTC with me. It was a nice meeting. The normal routine, but it was alright. Then we headed back, but we ended up getting back pretty late, even after the last bus to a far area had already left.  So another set of Missionaries headed to our place since we were the closest, and the only ones with more matresses. But the leaders got mad at us...but I had a good time. 

Friday. Working like normal

Saturday. same working like normal. At night time the secretary of the ward found us in a house in the night and was like. The Branch pres said I had to preside tomorrow since he has some other thing going on and can't come. And the Stake called me to Matagalpa, so I won't be able to go too. So you have to preside and do everything. So he gave us the keys. 

So Sunday yeah that's what we did. We opened up the church early and prepared everything, then closed it again as we went to go for people to bring them, then we opened it back up and had a nice day at church. The attendance was pretty low, but all things considering it was a nice day.

And now here we are. I be writing you all. Thanks for reading. Cya next week. 

- Elder Vogt

 

Tuesday, August 15th - Monday, August 21st

So I'll start talking about the week we had over here.

So since we didn't have changes or anything like that it started out pretty normal. Just working like usual visiting the people who are learning and all that stuff, so that was Tuesday.

Wednesday

Well Wednseday we started out a bit further down the road with some members. And they gave us a boat load of mamones. (it's a type of fruit. But it's also what people sometimes say for the mormons. Mama Los Mormones!!! Mama los Mamones! Same thing pretty much. So we were enjoying thouse, but also sharing with some of the people we came across. Though my hands were sticky the whole day from constantly earing them. I stopped when I was like this acidity will destroy my teeths haha. 

So Thursday we started off in Matagalpa for our zone meeting. Then we headed to the store and bought a small cake. It was the birthday of one of our converts, so we celebrated with him, and gifted him some ties too.

Friday well just the normal jazz, though the Miss San Ramon Pagent was going on so there weren't a whole lot of people at home, and since our house is only a couple streets down from where they were holding it, we could hear everything going on until like 12 at night. And boy was it loud. One of the members here participated. (she is the primary president who's 19) so she almost won. She got 2nd place. And with this all started the whole august festivities. So we will have a lot of junk going on for a while now. Like as I'm writing this a whole lot of fireworks are going off.

Saturday. Well a band and fireworks woke us up at like 4 Am I have no ide why they started so freaking early. But oh well. it was something different than the chickens. Working like normal though.

Sunday we had a Stake conference. Since we dind't have transportation due to a problem in the signartures for the banks in other works we aint got no money in our branch haha. But yeah due to that not all to many people were able to make it, but it was a nice time. Got to see all the other missionaries here so it was all nice. 

And yeah, that was pretty much my week.

Love, Elder Vogt

Additional tidbits from family emails:

* He is still doing all of his laundry by hand (going on 20 weeks of that!) but he says that he doesn't mind

* Still raining every day but it is a much lighter rain these days

* Most nights he either eats at the "local fried food joint" (where he gets enchiladas, rice stuffed tacos and cheese) or at a members house

* He's found a dog that he REALLY wants to bring home (see last weeks letter to see the picture) and has gone so far to looking into the legalities of bringing a dog back to the US from there

Tuesday, August 8th - Monday, August 14th

Today is my 11 MONTH ANNIVERSARY!!

So yeah, that title says it all. Today is August 14th, so I started my mission and left home exactly 11 months ago. It's crazy how the time flies.

 

So more of less this is how this week went. We started out working like normal I guess. Didn't do much until Wednesday when we got the house and everything ready for interviews with the president which went well. So this time for the interviews they went to each individual house so they came here to San Ramon to check out the house. The interviews went well and then the next day Friday we had the baptismal interviews for a couple people who had been preparing to be baptized.

So Saturday we had 2 baptisms. A kid named Bismark, and a youth named Edixon. So the baptisms went well, we did that there in Matagalpa, since there was an activity there afterwards. An open house. So they stayed for that also, and that went by nicely. 

Then yesterday we had church, and then heard the news that we wouldn't be having changes. So I will be here with Elder Garcia for another 6 weeks and I'm looking forward to it.

 

- Elder Vogt

Tuesday, August 1st - Monday, August 7th

So we shall go on about how this week went over here.

I guess in a couple words. Pretty low key and chill.

The days we were just working like normal, Saturday we went to a baptism in Matagalpa and brought a couple people over there to see how a baptism is So that was nice.

And this Sunday we had a good day at the church, the assistance at the church rose a bit from the weeks past, so that was really good. 

And today we had a zone activity because it's the last P-day of one of the sisters (since she finishes her mission in a week) and a birthday of another elder.

But other than that stuff all pretty chill.

Some highlights. We finally got proof of the monkeys here. This whole time we knew there were monkeys here in the area, but the other missionaries wouldn't believe us (me and elder Baez) since whenever they came nothing would happen. And I've only seen em a couple times, and heard em a bit more, but we managed to catch some on video.

And also something else pretty chill this week was one of the members who told us that he was leaving the city for a couple months (and one of the people who helps us out the most) he didn't go after all so that was nice.

Thanks everyone for all you do
Love, Elder Vogt