Week 23 Layco District, El Salvador--December 28, 2015

prospero año y felicidad


hey! i hope you all had a great christmas and were able to enjoy time spent with the family and thinking of the Savior! Christmas here was great of course because i got to call my family and then the rest of the day we spent visiting less active members and families. this week was mostly full of activities and things so we didnt have as many visits with investigators like we have in the past. but it was still a successful and busy week because we had our baptism of Gerson saturday! hes super great and so happy to be a member. now hes helping us teach his sister and his friend so we are looking forward to the next cambio working with all of them. its also nice to have a recent convert so close to our house now that we can visit often. so this week is the new year! i cant even believe it because i can still remember the festivities of last year so clearly. this past week my companion out of the blue asked me what has been my favorite year of my life. i thought about it just a little bit and quickly realized that this year truly has been one of the best years of my life. and i am not saying that as a missionary because i am now in the mission. really, i feel that this year i have experienced great joy, even through my trials. i understand better the role of the Savior in my life. I have a deep appreciation for every aspect of my life that i have enjoyed: my home, my school, my friends, this church, the gospel, my experiences, and so on. but honestly i can find great blessings such as these in any year of my life. even some of the hardest years were filled with great joys and blessings if we could only look to find them. because i have learned and experienced these things i know that this past year was one of the best years of my life. however, it shouldnt be THE best year of my life. we now have the opportunity to look forward to the new year and continue forward with Christ so that the next year can be our best year. and so on forever. the Lord councils in His gospel that we must endure to the end. By that i believe that we can continue working and improving and growing every moment and every year of our life so that we are always enjoying the blessings that the Lord has given us. I hope all of you can take a moment to reflect on your own growth and who it was that supported you in this growth, and then you can look forward with a steadfastness in Christ to continue growing in this new year. I love you all so much! I hope you all have a great week and an even better New Year! Saluuuuuuuuuuuuuuud

Pupusa Count: 54 (i had a week long fast from pupusas and ended it last night with some pupusas con ayote with Gerson. They were delicious)

 

from the multizone! elder portillo (de guatemala) hes been the ap since i got here and he is goin home next week. hes the best!

we (as a zone) gave a baby christmas tree to one of our less active members here in layco! his name is roberto hueso and he has a lot of health problems and cant walk, work, or attend church because of it. he was super happy to see a whole army of missionaries march up to his house

we also caked elder piñeros cuz it was his birthday last wednesday (the 23rd)

bautismo de gerson!

 

Week 22 Layco District, El Salvador--December 21, 2015

I don't know what to call this...Christmas?

so this last week was quick and like stuff happened but im drawing a blank. this last week on thursday i went on intercambios with elder harris and i went to barbarena. it was a great day and we taught a ton a lessons and gave service and all the good things that you wanna do as a missionary. we also found out that for whatever reason little caesars is the best pizza here in el salvador. literally havent enjoyed a pizza more in a long time. then on friday, to end our intercambios, elder harris and i came back to layco to meet up with our companions and we went to the house of hermana alvarez to give service and clean out her house/yard. it was a grand ol flag for sure. tomorrow we have our multizone and ward christmas dinner. wednesday we will be doing a triple intercambios cuz we have a baptismal interview for our investigator gerson and i have to do three interviews in the district and then thursday we will be enjoying working christmas eve and friday is christmas! this cambio just flew by and especially these last 5 months in the mission. really its unreal but i love it so much. the church is true! be good! pray! receive blessings! saluuuuuuuuud!

pupusa count: 52

oh we also had a family home evening and i made hamburgers.

oh we also had a family home evening and i made hamburgers. here with investigator gerson

we also had our meeting for trainers and new missionaries. distrito pedro trainers and their sons (minues elder kreutzer because he left for some reason)

servicio!

servicio!

avada kadavra!

layco selfies!

layco selfies!

Week 21 Layco District, El Salvador--December 14, 2015

The Wise Men that came from the West (Mission)

Hey so this week was super tough but super fun! also really short which blows my mind. on monday after p day we had a family home evening with a member family and their less active relatives. elder piñeros made some colombian food! it was a great time. then on thursday we had intercambios and elder kaufusi (comp of elder harris) came to layco with me. it was a tough day because we did about 7 hours of straight contacting people with little success but we had fun and he was able to see the majority of my area haha. then, this saturday we had our activity in the temple where we brought investigators, recent converts, and less actives to visit and learn about Christ and the temple. Elder Piñeros and i were given the assignment to speak about the Nativity scene so we dressed up (more or less) as the wise men and talked about all that right outside the temple where the Nativity is set up. It was way fun and we were able to see all of our friends in the mission and everything. It was dang hot though too. the one day i put on sunscreen and i actually got burned (just kidding mother i always put on sunscreen). But anyway thats what we got goin on here. cant believe christmas is next week but here it is. its a good chance for us to talk about Christ with others because they all believe in that! (except those dang jehovahs witnesses am i right?). But yeah baptisms coming up hopefully next saturday the 26th so pray for our investigators! love you allllllll! remember who you are and stuff!

-pupusa count: 42

noche de hogar con la familia funes y la familia ponce

intercambios con elder kaufusi (im calling the missionaries for dl duties...)

i am forever the prettiest princess!

my first attempt at looking like a mago....

the definitive look of the magos

Week 20 Layco District, El Salvador--December 7, 2015

I dont have much to say. But if you vote for me all of your wildest dreams will come true

but really i dont have much to say. this week we went to the temple on wednesday! the temple here is totally beautiful (i think ive mentioned that before) but goin inside finally was great. we didnt work at all that day because it was in the middle of the day that we went. also we had the christmas devotional last night so i hope you were all able to watch. it was seriously awesome. if you havent seen it repent and watch it. ummm other than that we just went contacting a lot this week. nothing too crazy to report. apparently we are going to be moving houses this month so hopefully no more cucarachas for us. Okay love you all have a good week!

Pupusa Count: 29

Some additions from his emails to his mom and sister:

we have two progressing investigators only right now. gerson came to church yesterday so hes super good. xiumara didnt and she has her baptism for the 19 so we are starting to worry a bit because if she doesnt come to church this week she cant be baptized that day. and we still need to teach her a bunch of stuff. we shall see.

 tell everyone i say hi! especially the cottos haha. there have been people that i have met here that have reminded me of them. and sometimes people say they have relatives in the church that live in LA and i always hope that its the cottos but it never is. its funny because now i can totally see how they are salvadorean. look a lot like the gente here haha.

yeah we have seen a lot of fireworks. they dont bother me anyway. gunshots dont bother me either. we live near a military zone so there are practices going on from time to time so really hearing gunshots is a daily occurrence almost. its been really cool and windy here actually. hasnt rained in a few weeks. the people here are freezing but i just wanna wear shorts and enjoy it.

templo and stuff

Here´s a picture from our english class from saturday! on the far left we have la familia gomez (a family we reactivated) Hermana Alvarez (whose son just recently left for the tijuana mission) and my bud on the left is from LA! he has a crazy backstory and hes so cool. i will talk more about him at a later time maybe

templo de la noche

elder harris and i a month ago on intercambios

Week 19 Layco District, El Salvador--November 30, 2015

Uh I wanted to use a song title here but i dont think anyone would know it. also not like the best reference either

Hey how are things? all good things here. its starting to get cooler here and its nice and breezy so it feels like california on the off days of fall when its not 80 degrees. if that makes sense. the people here think its cold and wear jackets and shiver a lot so its kinda funny. this past week feel crazy fast. especially considering how much contacting we had to do because we now have a lack of investigators/areas to visit. but we never stop working! this past week was fun though! last monday we cleaned our apartment some more and especially cleaned out a very large box. cucaracha count: 50+. i counted at least 50 large ones but couldnt identify where the tiny ones went that we killed and so it could have easily been 70. super gross but now our apartment is just a little bit cleaner! haha. on thanksgiving i had the great opportunity to eat my 200th pupusa! so my thanksgiving dinner was a giant pupusa of course. we had an activity in another area of our zone where all the missionaries set up a table to hand out folletos and stuff and this old guy from the stake high council was shouting about the church like some evangelist preacher and we had a choir and everything. it was super funny and really fun. no pictures though unfortunately from that. also this week i found out that my new favorite thing to do around here is go around at night and look for the old guys with guitars waiting for the bus and ask them to play us a song and talk about God. its pretty amazing because some of these guys are sad or dont have much but they really have a lot of talent with singing and playing music. even in just little ways the Lord blesses us with talents or whatever other things that we can enjoy. its fun being here in layco and knowing the people pretty well. still we get rejections and are walking back and forth across town just to find one person to even talk to but im enjoying it immensely! love you all! roll around on some carpet cuz that junk doesnt exist here! saluuuuuuud!

Pupusa count: 14

Pupusa 200!