Justin and I arrived last Saturday night. We're living in Colonia Bolonia--around where Daniel Ortega lives...we haven't hung out with him yet.
Well, there's a lot to recap since I haven't written anything at all since I got here...
I'll start from the beginning:
I took a red-eye flight from SLC to Atlanta where I was able to be with my family for about 12 hrs, which was nice because I was able to see all of my nieces and nephews
It was a nice time.
Anyway, from there I met up with Justin to take our flight down to Managua, which was a nice flight, pretty quick, really. I was able to fly first class on both flights which was extremely nice. Anyway, we arrived and were greeted by our manager Pedro Avilés, a really great guy that runs the LDS Employment Resource Center down here. The following day we attended church here in Barrio Alta Gracia (our ward)...the members are very kind there, we feel pretty at home. Anyway, the week began and instead of us teaching the employment workshop, we were able to sit in on the two-day workshop taught by our amigo and assistant manager (not assistant TO THE manager, rather assistant manager) Nelson Eddy Cortez. During that workshop we met our friends Araceli and her sister, Silma. As we spoke with them, they asked us what our plans were and we mentioned that we wanted to get out of Managua and head to Masaya, which is a nearby city known primarily for their artisan work in their markets. Luckily, they were planning on heading down on Saturday, so they offered to take us along...and so we went. It was really sweet...we first went to the volcan Masaya (Masaya's volcano), which was really pretty cool. I'm including a short video clip from there. Following that we headed to Masaya where we walked through the markets, but didn't end up buying anything--neither Justin nor I really have much interest in buying "souvenirs" until we heading back to the states, but regardless we saw lots of cool stuff. Most hammocks.
Following our time in Masaya we headed a few kilometers down the road to Catarina, a tiny pueblo that is really only known for it's "mirador" (which in english is something like a look-out point), as you can see, I've posted pictures from there as well. It was an incredible view and albeit a bit hot, there was a nice breeze. The 4 of us just hung out there for over 3 hours listening to marimba music and talking, which really just fried my skin (as the pictures clearly show). We finished the day/night off by going back to the girls' house to hang out with their family, who has since become our family down here...really amazing people.
Anyway, I don't feel like writing much more, because I doubt that anyway has even made it this far in this post, but I'll just say that Justin and I taught our first solo workshop on Tuesday and Wednesday and that it went really well. I'm really grateful for the opportunity to try and help others in this capacity, it truly is a blessing from Heavenly Father to work with His children to better their lives and find employment! We started another workshop today, which is a lot smaller, and kinda nice for that reason alone. Tomorrow we'll finish and then go dancing and have the weekend to catch up on homework and sleep. Additionally, Sundays we always travel to give trainings about the employment workshop in other departments (which are the equivalents of states). For example, last Sunday we went up to Jinotepe, where we had a meeting with Stake Priesthood leaders. All-in-all, it went really well.
I'm really enjoying Nicaraguan life so far. The food is great. The people, especially the people we meet in the center are incredible. The movie theater prices are sooooo cheap ($2 US), though we saw Angels and Demons tonight, which really disappointed me. Anyway, I'll post more later.
