Well family, the first half of my cambio is over and I´ve got to say that it was super fast. Thanks for your letters and updates about life. They really are a blessing. Now....what to report on. This week was really interesting and little sad. Almost all of our progressing families dropped of the face of the earth which, I am not gonna lie, was kind of a  bummer. We spend so long trying to help them see the blessings that are just around the corner that it is hard when they reject them. Maybe I just need to be a better teacher. Anyway, patience is key and it is something that I am trying to  develop right now, especially with my spanish and my investigators. 

Now a little more about NIcaragua. Everyone here has bicycles and the public transportation is tricycles so every now and again hna Rojas y yo use them to get around. Sometimes whole families fit on one bicycle which is incredible. The streets are cobblestone and the floors of all the houses are either tile or dirt. 
Well the fourth of july passed and I didn´t even think about it until we got back to our house, and you all know how much a love the USA so I had to sing the Star Spangled Banner and God bless America and whatever other patriotic song popped into my head. Luckily my trainer is awesome and although she said she didn´t, I´m pretty sure she enjoyed it as much as I did. 

Other things about my trainer: Her name is hna Rojas and she is from Costa Rico which is interesting because Nicaragua and CR arent on the best terms. She pretty much knows how to do everything and takes special delight in teasing me, I try to fight back but my Spanish is pretty weak sauce so she usually wins. We have a lot of fun together. Today for P Day we cleaned our entire house which pretty much means that we flooded the house and then scrubbed the floors down with soap and brooms. Hna Rojas said it is probably the first time in more than 6 months that anyone has done anything. Yeah it was pretty gross before. What started as cleaning turned into hna Rojas dumping a bucket of water on me, which she thought was hilarious. I will attach the pictures. 

Now onto the important things. The woman and son that we baptized last week are called Maria and Francisco. They are incredible. If every member of the church could have their faith and humility we would have Zion on the earth. Well we went to check on them and see how things were going and as we always do we kicked things off with a hymn. They liked it so much that we ended up singing for an hour, one  hymn after another and we only stopped because it was getting late. I guess at times we take for granted the simple things like hymns but the spirit was so strong in their house and this is the power that we have available to us always. What a privilige it is to be here with these people. El himno de poder para esta semana es Santos Avanzad, or in English Press Forward Saints. The gospel is something to be celebrated and when hope and love are our motivation, all things become doable. 

Well family, I love and you and pray for you always. Please keep me in your prayers and keep the emails coming.
hna Manning