12 July 2011 Sanya, a girl we are teaching

I will tell you about the people I am teaching .....so first off, we have Sanyra, she is a single mom with a 3 year old son.  She is like 22 years old.  We were contacting and we came across her the first time we talked to her she had amazing questions like why are there so many churches and which one is true and stuff like that. We have continued to teach her but after 3 weeks she always said she would come to church but never came so we stopped teaching her and didn't pass by here house for that week and she randomly came to church this Sunday so now she has been to church 3 times and we are going to baptize her this Friday.  She knows like every thing about the church now.  Every thing that we have taught her she remembers it and puts it in practice.  It is way cool.  This last Friday, we were in her house teaching her and so we asked if she had a testimony and she started off saying no because her whole family is Catholic so she was thinking it can't be true or my family is all false.  Eventually she was like I cant lie,  I know the Book of Mormon is true and that the church is true.  Just to help her understand and grow her testimony I asked her to pray with us kneeling down on our knees.  So she prayed and it was a beautiful prayer, she asked for help and to really know if the stuff she had learned and read is true.  After the prayer we just stayed kneeling in silence feeling the spirit.  I asked her how she felt and she was like I feel RARO ( weird)  but then she said that it is a good weird and she knows that it is the spirit telling her the truth.  She then said she had only felt like that one other time in her whole life.  I am fortunate to feel those feeling every single day of my life, it is the blessing of the gospel.

This week was great as a zone we baptized 3 families, that is super good for our zone so we will see how the rest of this month goes.  We also have some new members in the ward that are really helping us out.  They planned the baptism and encargarse in every thing, so we just have to show up to the baptism.  That is the first time ever in my life that I have had to do that.  We have possibly 2 more families this week.  If we can baptize them that would be amazing.  Also it is District Conference this weekend so I am way pumped for that as President is coming and Elder Duarte.  Also I am pretty sure I am going to get a new President of our Branch.  So that will be nice.

I have no clue what I am going to do about college.  I will have to figure it out when I get home. I talked to Pres about the scholarship and it is the 2000 from the return missionary plus 500 dollars so 2500 in total. That is that,  but who knows what I am going to do.   BYU Idaho is a no go.  It is UVU or SVU but who knows.  We'll just have to see.

Well life is great here!
Love,
Elder Bloomfield


Olivia, 
We can go teach your friends when I get home.  If you want we can invite them over and we can watch one of the videos put out by the church cause little girls like to watch movies.  Then we can teach them a little about the church, sound good??  We will have to teach your friends parents cause we don't baptize kids we baptize families.

Well you should read the Book of Mormon and work so you are not bored in the house.  Invent something.  or get a job.
haha

Love you,

Elder Bloomfield

4 July 2011 Another Super Crazy Week!

It was another super crazy week!!!!!!

We had interviews with President Arredondo, that was cool. He thanked me for all my work here in Esteli because he knows it is really hard. It's actually kind of sad. It is really easy to tell that the leaders don't have very high expectations of us and don't have much faith in us here. All the missionaries can see that they don't have faith in us so they have lost there faith and aren't working like they should. It is way frustrating. It is not that way for us in this area. We should have a baptism this week if we can find our investigator in her house. Also we have a branch mission leader now that is real great, so I am super excited for these next couple of weeks. Hopefully we can make some kind of change here in my area.

Well I think that is every thing for right now.

I hope you have a great week!!
Love you,

Elder Bloomfield

Mission office 28 September 2010

Hey how are you doing?? Well things like usual were really crazy. Oh just so you know my p-day is now Saturdays so if you want to write me you should do it before Saturday.

Alright lets start with Sunday of last week. We had 14 investigators in church. It's super crazy how every thing is going because we work for like 3 to 4 hours in the field every day. We don't have much time but we are killing it and should have a ton of baptisms this change. These days I am finding people just have the weirdest doubts and problems. Like one lady past a ton of time and didn't want to get baptized but when we sat down to talk and figure out why, she said it was because she has always had the dream to learn how to be a belly dancer and if she got baptized she wouldn't be able to do that. Also this other girl stalled for like 3 weeks and didn't get baptized cause she wanted to get baptized in a river and not in a font. It's crazy if the investigators talk the whole lesson and us as missionaries just talk a little it is just far better, the spirit is so strong and we can figure out what peoples problems are much faster. That is what I have been learning about teaching these days.

Oh then Sunday night we went to President Arredondo's house to eat dinner. It was fun. I played the guitar for him, it was kinda awkward but cool.

Staying in the office is awesome. The mission finance secretary, the 2 AP's, the secretary that is training me, a sick kid and me all live together in this huge 2 story house that has one shower with warm water. woo hoo It has air conditioning in the room that we sleep. We don't have any people that make us food so we just eat out all the time. In other words I am going to get fat real fast here. But it's fun.

Wed. morning at 5 we got up to go play soccer. It was a lot of fun but I have really bad news. My soccer shoes soles fell of so I am going to take them to a guy to see if he can sew them back together or glue or magic or something. If he can't, I will have to buy new soccer shoes. Sorry.

Oh other news here in the mission, we have 2 cars a truck and a small SUV. The small SUV is a manual. I am one of 3 people in the whole mission who have permission from Pres. to drive a car. It is crazy driving here. It's like driving in Malaysia, kind of like I am driving in the formula one race, plus the streets are just straight crap. It is really sucky Oh well I love an adventure.

So on an average day we get to the office at 8am and work here till 5pm then we go to work in the field. It is pretty different from what we did before.

Well I think that is all, things here are awesome!!!!
Love, Elder Bloomfield

Miracles and Flat tire 25 September 2010

Alright, we had some pretty sweet road trips, but they don't stop here. We leave in like 20 min. on another road trip to Siuna where Elder Brown, Sanders and others are to help with there first baptisms ever. 25 at one time. I will take pics, it will be sick. Well we have already drivin over 1000 kilometers this week, so we will probably drive another 1000 today and tomorrow. It will be 2 long days. ( heard from the mother of one of the Elders Kyle was traveling with, that they drove from 3pm to 2 am to get to Siuna. They had to help pull a truck up a ledge that had gone over and was blocking the way. Siuna is the place I sent the email from the other Elder about last week. The missionaries have only been in over 2 weeks and they had 25 ready for baptism. They were baptized in a river as they do not have a font there yet.)

Wed. or Tuesday night we slept in a hotel in a little town called Ocotal. It is up by the border of Honduras. It was pretty awesome!! We found an amazing new area for the missionaries to go to.

Also we had a super awesome experience, I think on Tuesday. We were visiting this other area that we were going to open called Rio Blanco. We looked up on the computer to see if there were any members that lived there and there just so happened to be one family that lived there. So, we went to Rio Blanco, it's like a 5 hour drive. We got a flat tire on the way, but no biggy. Check out the cool pic from that. So, we searched around the town to just see how it was. It was really cool. Then we started looking for the families house. We found them and it is a family of 10 people and some of the kids are married already so it is a huge family and they are all members. When we got to the house the dad of the house took us to the back room of his house and started talking to us and letting us know about the family and about his life. It turns out he is a member and has been sealed in the temple to his family and use to be a branch President when he lived in another city. You couldn't ask for any better of a set up. We left with him immediately to try and find a place for the missionaries to live and a place to have the church. We had great success. After that we went back to the house to talk with the whole family. We all shared scriptures and sang and every thing. They had a little six year old kid that had the hymns memorized. It was awesome, after that we gave them the message, we gave every single family member a blessing of comfort, then we dedicated their house with them. They were really scared that we were just coming to see and not to establish the church there. They had been praying that the church would come to the town and every thing. It was so awesome. It was an amazing experience. They all cried as the spirit was so strong and they were happy to have the church in their town.

Well we got to go, love you and talk to you soon.
Elder Bloomfield

27 June 2011 Starting to think about coming home.

Hey thanks for taking some thing over for me to the Bergam's, you are such a sweet heart (Kyle said I should take something over to the Bergam's and see how they are doing after having just lost their father). So Dad tells me it seems like I am back home.....cause you are a wreck... and crying about changes. Look on the bright side. There is a possibility of moving over seas again. Just listen to the Book of Mormon, if you keep the commandments you will prosper in the earth. You don't have any thing to worry about the Lord will provide. Lets see, this week went a little better. We had some crazy rumors going around about some of the missionaries. I have never been in a zone with so many problems. So we fixed all those problems that were going on and after that the week went real smooth. We have found some pretty good families. One of them was going to go to church but he got way sick and looked like he was going to die, but his wife went to church so it was pretty cool. I will read the scriptures and stuff and get back to you on how they are. Dad said I have to talk on Gratitude when I get home. I was thinking there is a story about 2 rock climbers one falls and the other one catches him. I think his name is Zenskush. You might have heard it before (Kyle is teasing because this is a story Steve likes to use in his talks and we have heard it so many times from him)? How are we going to do this SVU Open house thing if I have to give a talk that Sunday?? We could just put it off another week. Just kidding not funny. If there is a will there is a way. So Travis likes hanging out with my friends, that is good. They need a good influence in their lives. Well I don't know what else to write about. Is Travis working yet or is he just being a bum?? He should probably get a job. I will need to get a sweet job also where I can make millions ever week. Don't know where that job is but I will find it. My dream job would be... to be an owner of a hotel and resort chain and have hotels and resorts in exotic places like Indonesia, Fiji Islands and Bora Bora and Virgin Islands and Africa. You feelin me? That is my dream, but don't know how it is going to come to pass, but that is my dream. Uhm I think that is all for now. Hope you have a great week. Take the jetski out for me and I'll see you in 4 months. Yours truly, Elder Bloomfield

20 June 2012 "I am happy I have the true Gospel in my life!"

Hey Mom what is up? Sorry I am writing so late (his email did not come until 9:00pm) I finally got back from Managua we had consejo de LIderes today. Every thing went real well. It was really sad for me personally cause I was one of the oldest missionaries there. It is sad when one comes to the end of his mission. Sounds like you guys stay way busy back home (Steve and the boys had high adventure last week and the girls and I had our own adventures- Sea World, the Zoo, Movies, slumber party in the TV room with Movie and popcorn, Snowcones, shopping etc. We had a really fun week). I thought people only stole things here in Nicaragua but I guess it happens in the states also (we got 2 wake boards stolen out of the boat this week while the boys had it on High Adventure). punks... Hey tell Erin Bergam that I got her letter and that I am going to write her back soon. Well as far as things go here, I am better and every thing is good (last week he was sick and had a fever), but now my comp has some kind of bug and he likes going to the bathroom a lot these days. Saturday the sister missionaries baptized a family so we helped get all that stuff planned. This week that was cool. Here in Esteli it is so much different from the rest of the mission. I have such mixed feelings about this place, I want to help establish the church here but it is so hard, on the other hand I want to baptize and reach my goal of baptisms or at least get closer but being here makes every thing so hard and being Zone Leaders makes things harder. Well this week in the mission is preparation. Funny thing in our mission we baptize so much that we aren't aloud to baptize the last week of the month. We use it to prepare for the up coming month. We have a ton of work to do this next week so we can prepare our families to baptize the first week of July so we will use the rest of the month to help out the Zone. Hey what are you thinking about college these days?? I really have no clue what to do. I just want to go to the temple and pray but there is no temple here so I can't do that. Also Sunday I gave a talk on temples, it was good I used the Prophets talk from this last conference. We also had a miracle this Sunday one of the investigators that we stopped teaching randomly came to church and she loved it and now wants to get baptized, the only problem is that it is just a 25 year old woman and not a family. (their mission has set a goal to baptize families so they will stay strong). I talked to some pretty crazy guys this week that just have a ton of apostasy in their minds. It makes me so happy to know that I have the gospel in my life, the true gospel! It is so amazing¡¡¡ Well that is all. Love, Elder Bloomfield Only 4 months left to live the dream

Candy Poster we sent him.

Yummy Bananas!!!!!

13 June 2011 Drama in the Zone

That is crazy that he died all of the sudden (a man (Paul Bergam) from our ward passed away from a massive heart attack this week. It was very sad and I wrote and told Kyle about it). I haven't gotten a letter from Erin (Paul Bergam was her Dad) in ages. Do you know what she is going to do for college?? It will be very interesting to see if this makes them stronger or weaker in the gospel. Oh also, Patrick St.Piers Dad died that is rough. He is a good kid. I like him. Is High Adventure only 4 days long this year or am I just bad at counting days? What is up with the ward these days? Is it small or why are there only 13 kids going on High Adventure that is not the High adventures that I remember. We had 13 but just leaders. But there is one thing that I really like about this high adventure is going to the lake and wake boarding. Down here it is always so hot these days. I don't know what is happening here, it is rainy season but it hasn't rained all week long. I have a cold and fever but life goes on. Well this week was really rough, we are working so hard out here but all the missionaries in the zone are causing a ton of drama. I don't understand why you can't just come on the mission and serve the Lord like you are suppose to. Why do they have to make every thing so difficult? Today we had an activity to unite the zone and it turned into a disaster. Before we even started all the sister missionaries were out side of the church crying cause they don't like their District Leader. So after all that planning the activity turned into talking to them the whole time to solve all the problems that they have. I think things are going to be a little better now. As far as my area it is a little rough still but we have 2 familias that hopefully will get baptized next month. Oh we had some sweet investigators but their Pastor came over and talked to them and told them all kinds of crap and now they don't want any thing to do with us. Got to love that. It happens a ton here in Esteli. Well I think that is all for now, Love you, Elder Bloomfield