Excursions... Service Project... the Christmas Party--- Nica Style

We took another excursión to Selva Negra to celebrate the Birthday of one our senior missionaries who turned 70.  We spent a couple hours hiking through the jungle looking for monkeys. I'm sure they were watching us and we could hear them but never saw them.  The trees are huge and the foliage reminds me a lot of Jurassic Park.  Most of the building and cottages have plants growing on top of the roof. It's quite unique to this area of Nicaragua.

Here's Elder Lee, our Birthday boy. There were murals on all the buildings and found one that he really liked. We've come to love the Lee's. We wish they were closer.

This past week the mission had a day of service and each zone was to organize a service project in their respective community. We helped the Estelí zone clean up the surrounding area of an elementary school. We had loads of fun working with these wonderful missionaries. They work hard but know how to have fun. We had to be very careful what we were picking up so we used plastic grocery bags as gloves. You'd be amazed or grossed out at what we found. There is a reason why we don't own a dog, or a cow or a horse.  

 I'm still trying the selfie thing.

We had a Branch Christmas party last night. It was the most bizarre event we've attended thus far on our mission. It was supposed to start at 5:30 but didn't until 7:30. They began with a song and a prayer then had a mini testimony meeting. We're still trying to figure that one out. Afterwards, they played musical chairs which we couldn't play because they ended up on each other's laps. They finally got around to serve dinner around 8:10. We took advantage of the Christmas card frame and snapped a picture. Despite the uniqueness of this Nica Christmas party, everybody that stuck around had a good time. Unfortunately, some had to leave early because they had to walk several miles to get home and couldn't wait for the food.

We were eating dinner the other night when we heard the banging of drums in the street in front of our home. When we looked out we saw a 12' "Gigantona" and an "Enano" following close behind. La Gigantona is a giant puppet figure representing the Spanish lady in all her power and majesty, her imposing stature demonstrating the power of the Spanish over the indigenous peoples. La Gigantona was first created by Nicaraguan mestizos. El Enano is a small dwarfish figure with a 3' diameter head symbolizing the intelligent mestizo. Each Christmas the Gigantonas come to entertain the people of Nicaragua. It was fun to talk with them and learn another aspect of their culture. Feliz Navidad.