Week 9 Layco District, El Salvador--September 21, 2015

It's inevitable

So lets start by saying how im kind of a germaphobe now. always clean my hands before eating absolutely anything and i only drink from my water bottle and im just super super careful. but im sick again. you just cant stop these things i guess. but i got sick last wednesday so im getting better. this past week was really tough though being sick. and we had very little success overall. our baptism on saturday fell through because the hermana got sick and didnt show for her interview. but this week we have plans to get two baptisms so im excited. supposedly i might be baptizing both so we shall see. i dont know exactly what things to talk about this week. even though it was tough it was super super fast. crazy that im writing you guys again actually. yesterday we had a stake activity with the youth preparing to go on missions and we went tracting with them. i got to be the senior companion for an hour and i wasnt really scared at all! and we got two future appointments out of it so it was pretty successful! but heres something that i really wanted to talk about. america. so obviously being here i miss america here and there. but what really gets me is when we talk about the restoration and joseph smith. that went down in america! you never really think about that. but when you see the members here having strong faith that some kid in new york had a vision of God and Jesus Christ you just know that there is some great power in that account. and realize how special america is. and now i mean especially salt lake. honestly i miss salt lake. i miss it because i never appreciated it like i do now. salt lake is fun but its a big city and i really dont like big cities right? but realize that salt lake is so rich in church history. look at the temple and see that it is the house of God. but also see the sacrifice that went in to the 40 years of building it. see the sacrifice of the saints who travelled there to establish it. see how the progress of the church in its early years brought it to salt lake where we base ourselves now. where the prophets and apostles congregate and receive sacred revelation for the world. the power of the church that is in america is great because of the history of the restoration. but the history of the church is strong here too as i stand in the lands of the nephites and the lamanites. here its harder to see through all the garbage and wickedness that runs through the street but i can feel it. so this week think of where you are in terms of history and in terms of how the Spirit resides there. i wish i could just go back to the salt lake temple and look at it to fully appreciate it. but that can wait 21 (nearly at 3 months already!) more months because there is a lot of work to do here. love all of you and i pray for only the best for you all. i know that this church is true and i am grateful that i can carry on the work that joseph smith started almost 200 years ago. ¡Salud!

He's only eaten 42 pupusas, up 13 from last week--major slacker! ;)