August 6, 2012 El Salvador

Buenos!!

Hola from El Salvador!

Holy cow what a change it was from the mtc to the field. So many things have happened and i´ve only been in the field for five days!! But anyways I'll try to remember everything that has happened first off my mission president. He is pretty cool and has a way powerful testimony, he is pretty strict though well actually he is very strict but that's alright it sounds like this mission really needed him because it was kinda a wicked mission. So there's a lot of extra rules but we are being exactly obedient so the blessings should just start rollin in haha jk.

My area is called Cuscatlán it is outside of San Salvador but not very far we are still very close. And this area has the steepest and most hills out of all the areas, that's my personal opinion and other missionaries opinions as well haha. And it is poor here lots of tin shacks and just tiny cinder block houses its so sad. The people here are nice but very sinful I was just like holy crap people come on. And they aren't nearly as accepting of the gospel as i thought they would be and almost none are willing to change who they are, its heart breaking.

Alright next off my companion you'll never believe it but my companion is Elder Michael Hammond from Montpelier, Idaho!! Can you believe that?! But he is a way good trainer i am his fourth kid in the mission field so he knows what he's doin which is great cause i can't understand hardly anything that people are saying. He has helped me a lot to stay focused and not miss home so much and just helped me with everything its hard to explain in just an email. But i really like him so that's good, the only thing that kinda gets irritating is he does tend to talk himself up quite a bit from like high school and stuff which is fine I guess, I just don't care to hear it sometimes ha. But anyways with the language I can tell the difference between words a lot better it doesn't just sound like one mumbled long word anymore. But i have no idea of what each word means so i just smile and nod and look from them to my companion and back to them, smile, and repeat, occasionally i will bear my testimony. I have given the first lesson once and then shared like favorite scriptures a few times but its hard. And it gets really frustrating but I'm trying not to get too down. But its been good. We do about 25 LPE which are some words in Spanish i don't know what they stand for street contacting ha-ha. Elder Hammond pretty much does all of them. I've done a few but they're pretty shaky, i get nervous trying to translate and then my Spanish really starts to suck ha-ha. But its alright.

My first night here we were doing our last lesson and it started pouring and neither of us had our umbrellas or jackets so the guy gave us some sacks for our scriptures and we start booking it home. We are at the bottom of a dead end road and there is a stalled taxi at the bottom so me and my companion push this taxi like 300 yards in 6 inches of rushing water uphill, and im serious not exaggerating at all. So we get him to the top of the hill and turned goin down a different hill and then popped the clutch and it started up. so then we gave each other a high five and finished running home. I was so freaking exhausted after that run ha im out of shape big time.

Another pretty awesome story is we had two baptisms on Saturday a 25 year old mom Claudia and her 12 year old son Miguel...how sad is that but so happy for them. Their testimonies are so powerful its awesome! They are gonna be solid members too so that's even awesome! And then we have one more baptism this week Miguel's friend Raul. But other than that we cant talk to anyone like zero people. We spent a lot of time with less actives this week too we had 14 lessons with less active families and none of them came to church. Our church attendance was 73 before the Sacrament and 83 after. And our ward membership is 400 so that tells ya a little about our ward. Elder Hammond said this week was kinda bad usually its around 100 but still i was like  holy crap. and he said it was terrible before he came to this area seven months ago. So well keep workin.

Everything else is really good though, we have a mini fridge and a hot disgusting shower. The weather here is very nice a cool 95 degrees in the house during study time plus humidity so our fan really makes it just nice and chilly..... that was a joke i sweat like well i don't even know how to describe how much i sweat. I drink probably 4 gallons of water a day and never go to the bathroom ha ha  freakin ridiculous.

But its all good here and sounds like home is wonderful too i love you all so much and hope you all are all healthy and well and loving this gospel as much as me!