6 June 2011 "I am just a Boy"

Well lets see-
This week was good. There were 2 days when I didn't even work in my area because I was in Ciudad Dario, the area that is 1 hour and a half away. They baptized a family so I was out there helping with the interviews and stuff like that. I love my new comp., he reminds me a lot of dad. Well at least in his sense of humor. He says a lot of things that I would see dad saying.

Also I started going to the gym this week again. We wake up at 5 in the morning to go to the gym, it is way cool. It feels great to go to the gym again, but I am so weak I didn't realize how weak I was till I started working out and I can't even lift half of what I lifted before.

As for my area, most of the time we just go around looking for new people to teach and looking for those that we need to reactivate. Being here is definitely the hardest area that I have been in. I have been here 3 months and I only have 3 baptisms. We have 2 families that we are teaching that are pretty positive. One of the families has a baptismal date for the 18th of this month but lately they have been real busy so it is really hard to find them to teach. As for the zone, things are alright in the first week of the month we baptized 6 one family and 2 future holders of the priesthood.

WOOO WOO WOO!! Don't be calling me an adult, I thought I made it really clear that I am just a boy- nothing more and nothing less. Kara and I are just following the things that our mother taught us. So don't worry about us. We are just like the stripling warriors, we can not doubt that our mother knew it (even though you seem crazy to me) . But that is just my opinion.
Just kidding, Lovely

I DID NOT GET THE PACKAGE YET I put it in bold so you don't ask me again next week.

Like you said, it is amazing to see how we are in the true church and how easy it is to tell. That thought goes through my head every day because of the things I see here. It is just so ridicules of how easy it is but people just don't think. They can't recognize how lost they are. They think all the millions of problems they have in life are something common, but life can be so easy if you just keep the commandments. Keep the commandments and you will prosper on the earth, the lord tells us straight up in the scriptures he doesn't beat around the bush but every one has to read the scriptures in their own way so they don't under stand any thing.

Well I am going to go.
Elder Bloomfield

Oh yes, Defig goes home on Thursday.


Checking out the Art work in Esteli




My comp. with the cows in the country side of Esteli


Esteli in the country

30 May 2011 A New Companion, Again!!!!

Cassi still doesn't know how to read? (I told Kyle my goal for Cassi this summer is to help her to be a better reader) Do what you did with me in Korea, you got me up at 6 in the morning every day to sit on the couch and read the amazing "3 musketeers". it seems like it worked. I am reading and writing to you right now, so it had to have worked.

WAIT, Travis had 100 percent attendance in early morning seminary (He really did!! Travis did not miss a day of early morning seminary this year. He got himself up and drove himself every morning. We are soooooooo proud of him - it is huge to be able to do that with everything else he has going on). That is impressive, he has to be beat, but he did have Tim Burton as his teacher, he is the bomb. I love that guy.

So lets just take a look back at this week together. Monday consejo de lideres I had changes and had Elder Peña put as my companion. Tuesday night he gets a call from President asking if he would be comps with an Elder that has a ton of issues. He accepted so Pres. Arredondo said at changes in 2 weeks it would be done. Later Wed. night we get a call from the aps and they tell us that Elder Peña has changes and that he leaves first thing Thursday morning, so Thursday at 5:30am he left and I stayed in my house all alone until 2:00 waiting until my new comp got here. His name is Elder Lopez. He has been in the mission for 10 months and we lived in the same house together in Puerto. He is way cool and a great missionary. He got baptized 2 years ago so he is still a recent convert. I am training him on how to be a zone leader, so every thing here is great. Even better news he has a camera (Kyle's back pack with everything including his camera and suit got stolen so now he does not have a camera, he just puts his media card in other people's camera and takes pictures that way. That is why he is excited his comp has a camera. I offered to send him a new one, but he said no that it will probably just get stolen too) so now we will be able to send photos and stuff. So just be ready for those.

I can't believe Marc Lucas is home already, that is crazy and Kyle Robinson gets home in like 2 months and I get home 2 months after that. It is crazy how fast time flies and I think Ben Patty gets home the week before I do even though I started 3 before him.

Sounds like a good book( I am reading a book by Henry B. Eyring called "Because he loved us first". Kara recommend it to me. She read it on her mission. It has great references to the Atonement and I was telling Kyle about it). I have so much to read when I get home. Right now I am just reading the Book of Mormon and studying all the little details. it is awesome!!

love
Elder Bloomfield


These pictures were taken of Kyle while we skyped with him on Mother's Day.

24 May 2011 New Companion, Elder Pena

I am writing today because yesterday we had leader council so we were in Managua all day long. Also I have a new companion Elder Peña. He was born in Granada, Nicaragua but lived his whole life in Costa Rica. It was sad to see my other comp go. He told me I was one of the best comps. he has ever had and that he is really going to miss me. He is a really great guy. I really enjoyed working with him. Elder Peña is real cool. So far I like him and I am real excited to work with him.

I have continued my skill with making moms cry. For mothers day, I had my zone write letters to Hermana Arredondo. We were the only people to do something for her for Mother's Day and she started crying for how kind we were. Her kids told me about it as they made fun of her for crying. Does that sound like our family a little??? Yip Yip

Johana got baptized Saturday, it was great. Right now we have one family that we are teaching that is pretty cool other then that we don't have much so we have a lot of finding left to do here in Esteli. Oh and I will be here for at least 8 more weeks. I might be able to finish my mission with only 5 areas. haha

So how is every one doing now, are they all healthy and fine or still a little sick.

Well got to go.
Love you,
Elder Bloomfield


Johana Baptism


Our latest investigator.




Just checking things out!!


Lovely Apartment


Baptism

16 May 2011 Rainy Week!!!

Wow busy week!!!!!

Let's see the highlight of this week was that it rained and it actually got cold here in Esteli, it was way nice. The rain part sucks though as the roads were all flooded and we were soaking wet, the roads turned into 2 feet deep rivers haha It was way fun. Some of the roads you just couldn't even walk down due to all the water. So I did some wake boarding of my own. hahah Just kidding!!! Other than that it was a good week.

One of the areas in my zone baptized the first family in a year, so they are way happy for that.

This Saturday we have a baptism for girl, her name is Johana. A friend of hers brought her to church and now she has been to church like 6 times and wants to get baptized. She already has her own scriptures and hymn book and goes to institute. It was way funny, she is single and has a kid and was telling us about how she prayed and told God that if she gets baptized, that God will help her find a good husband. Then she told us how she felt really good so she knows that God is going to help her out over time if she gets baptized and follows all of the commandments.

Yesterday we found a really cool new family. but the problem is that the guy is going to leave to the states to live soon. He comes and goes for his work, but the wife is awesome and seems like she will be super positive.

I talked to my comps. mom on the phone for 3 mins. on Mother's Day. She seems real sweet. Turns out my comp. has a brother that lives in San Antonio, so he is pretty close to our house. Also my comp. this morning was telling me how he is way sad and doesn't want to leave Esteli and how he doesn't want a new comp.. He says that I am one of the best comps. that he has had and wants to stay another change with me. That was cool to hear. We have already been together almost 3 months I figured he would probably be bored of being with me.

Well talk to you next week.
Love,
Elder Bloomfield

2 May 2011 A week in the life of a missionary.

Well lets see, this week we had fun- like all weeks.
lets see, Wed. we had changes. I am still with my same companion, he is way cool still. haha We got 2 new sister missionaries, so that puts my zone to 6 sisters and 6 elders. haha Plus me and my comp. It is great. Nothing against sister missionaries but they are a lot more work then elders. Also we got an elder that is not to obedient so we will have to keep our eyes on him. Since I was in the office I know the dirt on all the missionaries so it helps to help them progress and move on spiritually.

Thursday was just another normal day.

Friday we went to the area of one of the sisters to do baptismal interviews. That went so well that I baptized the guy right then and his 8 year old son. That was cool. I prayed with him and he was like I need to get baptized but if I wait till tomorrow maybe Satan will work in my mind and I won't want to so he was like can I do it right now. So we baptized him right then.

Saturday we had a cool activity in the church the attendance wasn't what we wanted it to be but it was cool. We talked about the Sabbath Day then I talked about Joseph Smith. I dressed up like Joseph Smith and talked about my life, played a guy in stick pull and beat him (Joseph Smith never losses) and I made gold plates and I showed them to every one it was way cool. It was a fun activity. Saturday night I got a phone call that Elder Duarte, one of the seventy of the area, was going to have a meeting with us and was going to come to my branch.

So, Sunday at 7 in the morning we went to church to have a meeting with him and we made plans of what we can do to raise the attendance here in Esteli. In the meeting with Elder Duarte was the branch presidents, the district presidents and 6 missionaries. It was way cool, but we were talking about what we can do to help Esteli grow because it is falling right now. He told us about how he was in a meeting with the prophet and the first presidency and all the apostles and some of the seventies and Elder Packer stood up and said "a day will arrive when being a member won't be pretty." That is a powerful quote, I got to thinking about who all will actually make it to the celestial kingdom and there really aren't many that will make it there. It is way sad to think about how many people will be lost, good friends, family members, brothers, sisters, parents. Hopefully, the leaders took to heart what he said and start to help us to work. It would be so cool to be a General Authority. I really like them.

We have a lot of work to do here in Esteli, but I am not sure what we can do to get people excited here.

Pedro now has the Aaronic priesthood and blessed the sacrament Sunday. His family doesn't live with him they live in a city just out side of Managua and he is separated from his wife, but I think he is dating or has a thing with a lady that got baptized the week after him. We will see what happens with him.

Also Elder Falabella was suppose to come this week but he had some kind of problem in Guatemala and isn't going to come any more. bummer.

Well love you and talk to you later,
Love, Elder Bloomfield

25 April 2011 Leadership Council

Missionaries at Leadership Council


Every one had the whole week for vacations so they all left to the beach or a river and got drunk then drowned or got in a car crash such a great way to celebrate the death of the Savior of all of them. But don't worry they did better this year only 18 people died this year apposed to the 22 last year so things are improving.

As far as the work, it was nice to have the vacations cause we were able to find some families from the church and re-activate them. It is way cool. We reactivated like 3 familias this week, but some how the attendance at church still goes down. I don't get it.

Well I have to go to Managua for leader counsel, so I can't write any more but I will probably write tomorrow.

Love, Elder Bloomfield

Alright I am back now in Esteli and I have a little time to write now.

Let's see for council of the leaders, we got to the church at 3:30 and we started at 4:00, so we finished there at 6:45 then we went to dinner with all the ZLs and Pres.. It was way cool he took us to a way nice restaurant. It is a little expensive so we just got a set menu and then ice cream for desert. Then we went back to the house where the office missionaries live and we slept there and early in the morning we got up to come back to Esteli. Then we had zone meetings, lunch and then finally showered for the day and worked a little. Now I am here doing numbers and finishing writing my family.

Well changes are tomorrow so we will see who has changes in my zone. It will be exciting.

Got to go
Love Elder Bloomfield

Hermana Arredondo and the missionaries with their turtle CTR rings




Elder Whatcot and Elder DeFigueredo

18 April 2011 Work goes on

I saw on the tv that there were fires in Texas and jokingly I said to my comp well my house is going to burn down, cause I wasn't kidding it really might happen. (We had a huge fire near our home last Sunday. It is so dry, hot and windy here we have fires all over Texas - From mom).

So before every thing, lets take a recap of the week. We only baptized one more family in the zone this week. That is way sad as we only have 3 as a zone now, and one that my comp and I baptized. As a mission we have baptized 72 families, that is crazy in just 2 weeks we did that. Next week we will baptize 28 more to get to one hundred.

As for my area we have dropped all investigators and we are starting from scratch, except for one baptism this week so we kept one investigator. She is a reference from a member that comes to church. I say a member that comes to church because only 30 people come to church in my branch. We work all week long and on pay day Sunday, we never really are able to see our work pay off. It is way sad. We have a ton of plans made to get the place up and going again, but only with time. 2 years ago my branch had a attendance of more than 100 members every week, but now who knows what happened - every one is asleep. All the leaders are all tired of this stuff and depressed and have stopped working. It is way sad and the future of the church doesn't look good because we have no young men or young women in our branch. I was the branch chorister this week. I was leading the hymns as if I was the director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. haha It was epic. Any ways, our investigator already has her own triple bible and hymn book and has come to church twice. She knows like every thing. Her name is Johana Del Carmen, we will probably baptize her this weekend and hopefully the zone baptizes 5 families but we will see how every thing goes. Satan is working hard against us. haaaa I hate you Satan!!!

Alright best story from Esteli: This didn't happen in my area, but I was a part of it. It was way funny as well as spiritual.

So the elders in the area Ciudad Dario were contacting and it was close to the end of the night and they needed to contact like 6 more people to complete with there goal. So they saw a group of men sitting on a street corner and figured they were just drunks hanging out on the corner, so they went over to invite them to church. In that group there was a guy and his name was Pedro. The next day me and my comp went to Ciudad Dario to do some interviews and to help out for the day. We taught like 2 lessons then while we were walking we passed this Pedro guys house so we asked if we could have a lesson with him, he said yes, but not in his house, it would be better if we go to another house. So we took him to the house of the missionaries and we got chairs and we were sitting out side of the house of the missionaries and so we started the lesson. We started out with questions to see how he is doing and every thing and he just talked for like 20 mins. telling basically his whole life story. Turns out he went to the church in a different city for a year and all of his kids are members. We start teaching the doctrine of Christ, faith, repentance, baptism, the holy ghost and fight till the end. haha We get to the part where we ask if he would like to get baptized and we asked if he would get baptized on Saturday and we were talking to him for the second time ever on a Wed.. So we pop the question and he is like um that is way to early I don't think I can get baptized. I have to think about it. We started to talk and figure out why and eventually we said if we do it Saturday night, what do you think. He was like yeah that's perfect that will give me enough time to think about it. haha Saturday afternoon was to early but in the night it was fine. We were all just way confused so I did a baptismal interview right then and he was ready. He got baptized 2 Saturdays ago. Turns out he has now read half of the Book of Mormon and half of the principals of the gospel book and on Saturday he went and talked to one of the ladies that was going to get baptized and shared his testimony and every thing. Way cool! Sunday he was in a white shirt and tie and received the Aaronic priesthood. That's the story for now.

We also had interviews with president. It was nice to see him and his wife again. I talked to Hermana Arredondo for a good 20 min about life it was way fun.

Well yeah running a marathon is on my bucket list still but more important right now is getting back into shape to do normal things like run a mile, after that we will move on to a marathon.

I started working out every morning to get back into shape for when I get home. I am curious to see how much I weigh these days because I am looking really skinny. President says my hair looks a lot whiter these days. So that is good to know my blond hair is still looking good.

Um I think that is all I have for this week.

Mother's day you can probably just call my cell phone like we did in the office. I have a nice cell phone again, it worked well at Christmas time.

I can't believe that April is almost over. Time is just booking past.

Love, Elder Bloomfield