June 3rd... 8 MONTHS

I complete 8 months today!!! Time goes by so fast! and the miracles don't cease.

This past week, we were contacting and trying to find more families when we see this family walking ahead of us. So we catch up to them and started talking. One of the things we try to do here in Puerto is to invite them to baptism in the initial contact. So when we did that, they said yes. So then we asked if they would like to do it that day. They then said yes again! So we took them to the church, married them, and baptized them. I later learned that my companion was just talking and that he surprised himself when he asked if they wanted to do it that day. So this family was literally a chosen family. We were guided by the spirit to find them and baptize them that day. Another awesome thing is that we found a less active family living in the same house as the family we just baptized! The Lord works in mysterious ways here in Puerto Cabezas.

The second miracle that I came across is actually a funny story. There is this girl in my Branch that left for a month to go visit family and friends in other parts of Nicaragua. When she got back, she brought a guy with her. They wanted to get married. He wasn't a member, but had been to church a lot. He actually helped build a lot of churches in Central America and the temple in Honduras. He lives in Masaya which is a part of the Nicaragua Managua South Mission. So when he got here, we talked to him and he wanted to get baptized! He is probably one of the most prepared people I have ever met. He knew so much and had the greatest desire to follow Jesus Christ. So what did we do? We baptized and married him on May 30th! Now here's where the story gets funny. The goal for the mission in the month of May was to baptize 100 families. At the beginning of the month, we weren't doing very well. In fact, we were doing terribly. So we fought hard and were getting closer and closer to the goal. So then we had 99 families. Then this guy showed up. When, for example, the wife is a member and the husband isn't, it counts as a family to complete. In other words, a family. So we find out that the missionaries in the South Mission put a baptismal date for him for June 8th. I promise you, if they asked him if he wanted to do it that day, he would have said yes, so that was a pretty dumb move on their part. And we also found out that the South Mission missionaries like to talk a lot of crap about us North Mission missionaries. Probably because they're jealous they aren't in the better mission. :)  Anyways, long story short: Thanks to the South Mission, we got our goal of 100 families for the month of May! And even better than that: It was my baptism that counted for number 100!!

Miracles exist! Every conversion is a miracle and God is a God of miracles. This is so much fun!!!!! I love it!!!! And I love all of you! Have a great week everyone and keep making miracles happen!

Elder Vogel