30: Refugio 9

It took a lot less time than I thought to get the package. I got it on Wednesday. The beef jerky was so good. My companion and I ate it after our baptism this week to celebrate.

Oh, I forgot. Remember that picture of the huge butterfly. Well, supposedly when one of those is in your house, it means someone in your family is going to die...weird superstitions. Be careful these next couple weeks.

So this week has gone by so fast. We have been working so hard, it's awesome. We're also getting results. I think we've baptized every single week since I got my companion. And we're going to baptize again this week. Yeah, that's right. Again. I'll tell you the story. Just wait.

So, first of all, Monday. That was a stressful P-day. After writing, we went to pull money out of the ATMs, and we hitched a ride from a member because it was raining a lot. Well, I'm always the most careful about money, and I keep it in a little bag inside my pants so that I don't get robbed. So I pulled my wallet out in the car so that I wouldn't have to do it on the street, then got distracted and left my wallet in the car. Do you know how stressful it is to be in El Salvador and know that your wallet is in the car of an El Salvadoreano. Well, that member is actually really awesome. His name is Adonaí, he's an English teacher, and studies a lot of his English on urbandictionary.com, so naturally he's awesome. Well, finally I was able to call him in the night and it all turned out all right...but wow, it was stressful.

We also had another family home evening with the familia Herrera. So much fun. We had this delish strawberry atol after and played some sweet games. But I need more. So send me some ideas for FHE games, please. I don't know what to do about this family. We've tried everything and just can't get them to commit to getting married. They are way awesome, know it's true, are already active in the church...it's just this whole marriage thing. People in El Salvador don't get married. They need to make some drive-throughs like in Las Vegas, except no one has cars...so they need walk-throughs.

On Wednesday I went on interchanges with our zone leader, Elder Perez. That was an adventure. That guy's crazy. He's a short little chapin (you already have photos of him). But yeah. He also didn't know the area that well, so we kept getting lost. But it was a lot of fun. We taught some cool people.

Thursday I went and made hamburgers with an inactive family. Man, I miss eating hamburgers. They were so good. I was basically in heaven. There's a picture of me and Rafael. That guy's awesome too. He needs to go on a mission. Don't be inactive.

Saturday was fun. First of all, we organized a soccer game. It's kind of funny. If you say, "Hey, can you come to church with us?" no one can go. But if you say, "Hey, we're going to go play soccer, wanna play?" they say, "Yeah. What time? I'll bring a team." So I played. Also, the familia Herrera gave me an EL Salvador jersey, it's new, but an older jersey, and it's pretty sweet. So we played soccer. Wow. They're good. I need to learn this game. It's so freakin' sweet.

After that, we had a baptism for Raul. Raul is the son of an ex-branch president, Luis. Their family is awesome, and Raul was never baptized because he drank, and never wanted to. But after a trip to the temple he changed his mind, and we were able to baptize him. He's an "hombre de la finca" as says the Hermano Ruano. He's kind of slow. He doesn't think too fast, but he did understand. Also, he really didn't want to bend his knees in the baptismal font. I had to force him down, then I looked down and realized he was only halfway under, so I pushed him down more. Then I had to drag him out too. It was an interesting baptism. His parents were really happy, they were both crying. Then his mom gave the closing prayer, and it went on for about 5 minutes. Interesting. But he got baptized, and he got confirmed, and it's so awesome how much success we're getting right now. My companion is so awesome. Love that guy. We work so hard, and have a good time. It's just great.

Ha. So a couple of days ago I had an interesting lesson. We asked the guy to give us the closing prayer, and he said yes, then just said a silent prayer. We just bowed our heads and waited for him to say amen, but it never came. After a couple minutes, I looked up at a member, and mouthed "amen." He didn't want to, and we had an argument about who would say amen. Finally, I said it, and the investigators were all like "amen." It was really weird. But that's El Salvador.

Sunday the president was telling us about the temple dedication, and after his dad, an eternal investigator, came up to us and told us that he wanted to get baptized this Saturday. Cool. It's a miracle, knowing all of the problems he's had, but I'm so excited. I don't know why we're having so much success. Maybe it's faith, maybe it's because we work hard. We're not really doing anything special, but things are just working out. So cool. Vamos a tener un otro bautismo este Sábado. [We're going to have another baptism on Saturday.] Maybe even 3.

I also talked to an American on Sunday. We were crossing the freeway in the morning, and a biker slowed down and asked us in a hick accent if we knew where Santa Ana was. I explained to him how to get there, and after he asked if there was a restaurant around. I told him not really, there's just pupusas, and I don't think he was really excited. Made me think of Mike. Hmm. It's weird to speak English. I kept speaking Spanish without knowing it. Weird. Okay.

Well, I don't know what to do about the familia Herrera, but we're praying. Time is going so fast. It's kind of scary. We're just working hard. The mission is so much fun. I love it. We just have a good time, and we're helping other people come unto Christ and improve their lives. Well, thanks for the package. It made me baggy for a bit.

Keep choosing the right. El Salvador's sweet.

Elder Bailey

29: Refugio 8

Hello everyone!

So it’s me again.

This week has been an adventure.  Monday we went shopping, and I was actually able to buy bacon!  It is so good.  This week I’ve been able to cook some good food.  French toast, pizza, bacon, and I have a chocolate chip cookie mix...it’s so great.  But I need some more ideas of foods I can cook.  Give me some ideas and I’ll cook it.  I can get the ingredients, but make it simple.  Also, we don’t have an oven, just a stove and a toaster-like thingy.

Tuesday...I really don’t remember what happened, but I’m sure it was good.

Wednesday I got to do interchanges and went with Elder Arbon, our zone leader.  That guy knows a lot of doctrine.  Wow.  He wants to be a seminary teacher, which will be good for him.  Somebody’s got to do it.  It also rained a lot that day (it’s rained a lot every day).  We spent 20 minutes trying to figure out how to cross the river/street to get to the stake center.  Yeah.  It’s pretty cool.

Thursday we had a multi-zone meeting with the president.  It was a pretty awesome meeting.  Our president is so cool.  I love the guy.  Also, he bought every companionship a pizza, donuts, and chocobananos for lunch.  So good.  I kind of miss American food.  After that we got back to our area and it was raining a lot, so I decided to wear those HUGE rain boots that I’ve dragged here.  Well, they’re really ugly, but they work well.  All the guys who worked in the fields wanted my boots, and all the girls laughed at them.  Well, to be honest, I don’t like wearing them, but that day they served pretty well.

After a cool lesson with Raul, an investigator who’s going to get baptized this Saturday, we walked out and realized there was a huge river going down the street.  Well, my companion didn’t want to get his feet wet, so I ended up carrying him on my back through the river to get to the chapel.  Once we got there, we had a noche de rama, and we gave the lesson.  It was on service, and I ended up telling the story about the three pioneer boys who carried their company across the river in the freezing cold.  After, I started relating the story to reality and said, "Now, maybe we don’t have to carry people across rivers now, but—oh wait.  I just did that today.  Yep.  I’m going to heaven."  Yeah. It was pretty dang sweet.

Friday was even more of an adventure.  I had interchanges again, and this time went with Elder Hobbs to Magdalena.  First of all, he shares the house with cuscachapa because his area is really poor and there aren’t any houses that live up to our standards.  They’re all pretty dead.  Magdalena is about an hour from the house, so we had lunch at 11:00 (his cook is amazing) and took off to his area.  I’ll be honest, his area is exactly how I imagined El Salvador.  All green, dirt streets, water flowing through the streets (when it rains), a ton of rain, poor houses, terrible bathrooms--the epitome of El Salvador.  It was a pretty sweet day, and I’m not going to lie, being able to speak English is a lot of fun.  So we taught some pretty powerful lessons.

The last lesson we taught was the coolest.  It was an inactive family with a 16-year-old-girl who had not been baptized.  When we started out, they didn’t want to return to church.  The mother went to another church, and the dad and grandpa were both pretty lazy.  Well, let’s just say that that whole lesson was guided by the spirit.  Word for word—especially the questions.  By the end, they were saying that they wanted to go to church, and the girl wanted to get baptized.  So sweet!

Then, it was 8:30, and we had to head back to the house to get back by 9:30.  So we took off, walking through the pitch black forest.  It was pretty intense.  We seriously could barely see anything.  We kept tripping around on rocks, holes, and puddles.  After about 20 minutes of walking, we were able to hitch a ride back in the back of a pickup truck.  Then it started raining.  Really, really hard.  It was actually cold, and the raindrops actually hurt.  I was soaked to the core.  By this time the water was about a foot deep and the pickup was basically driving through a river.  It was a pretty sweet experience.  We got back to the house and the power was out, so we got to sleep and eat in the dark.  It was such a sweet experience.  For a more detailed explanation, see Elder Bailey’s missionary journal 1.  Ask me about it in a year and a half.  It was pretty tight.  I’ll send a picture that Elder Hobbs took next week (he just got emergency changes and got sent to Atiquizaya because another elder was leaving).

all the bugs are bigger here...even the spiders

So that was an adventure, but it doesn’t beat Saturday.

Saturday we had a baptism for Adonaí Puentes and his daughter, Julisa.  His wife (we had to marry them) was already a member and all of the kids too.  He’s pretty sweet.  Kind of crazy, but cool.  He’s gone to the temple open house three times.  So yeah, the baptism and marriage were way cool.  I gave a pretty sweet talk, and after that sang that one primary baptism song.  The spirit was so strong.  When I baptized him, it felt so cool.  That was really the first time that I’ve really felt the spirit during a baptism.  The other times it was just kind of like... "Oh, you’re baptized now," but with him it was way cool.  After that, we also got to eat cake, which is always fun.  That was a really happy day.  We were both so filled with the spirit.

After the baptism, we went to look up a reference that came from the president of the east side.  Both of them had gone to the temple open house, and the husband more than once.  It was a small family: Adonaí and Jaquelin Reyes and their little like 2-year-old kid.  They are the most positive people I’ve ever had.  They are so amazing.  We taught them Lessson 1 and they committed to read the Book of Mormon.  So positive.  It was absolutely amazing, a miracle that we found them.

Sunday, in the tarde [afternoon], we went back to teach them, and they had read and prayed.  We started out and they both told us that they knew that the Church was true, and when I asked them if they wanted to get baptized, they both said yes.  It is so awesome.  We put a dead date (a dead date is when we commit them to a date, but they haven’t gone to church yet) for the 27th of August.  It’s pretty sweet.  I’m way excited for them.

So my companion is good.  The first week it wasn’t the best because we had to adjust to each other, but it’s getting much better.  He’s pretty chill.  He does like to be in charge totally, and since he’s the senior companion, I had to give it to him, even though I was basically senior companion the last change.  He likes to command, but I think that after a couple weeks of that, he’ll start listening to me and trying out my ideas, but until then, I’ll just learn from him.  I have a lot to learn from him because he is good.

Well, that’s some of the stories from this week.  It was definitely eventful.  Wow.  So cool.  Hope all is well back home, praying for you all, so be good.  Thanks for all you’ve done for me, and remember the Church is true.

Elder Bailey

28: Refugio 7

 Hellllloooooo from El Salvador!

So it feels like this week has gone by sooo fast (except for Tuesday).

Monday I got to go play soccer at the stake center with the members. Pretty sweet. I actually made a couple goals, but wow, can I not play. They are so good. It’s total deception. Soccer’s a pretty sweet sport. Well, after that Elder Webb wanted to play basketball, and wow, can they not play. I’ll be honest, I never played basketball before the mission, nor did I really want to either—because I’m horrible, but here...I’m soo good. I destroyed them. Let’s just say they struggle a lot with the whole hand coordination thing (more than me), plus they’re all short.

Well, after that I got to go return with my companion...prod him a lot. Tuesday the same. Then Wednesday finally came (my Sunday). I got a new companion, Elder Romero. He’s a short Latin from Guatemala. Pretty sweet. He likes to work hard, first of all. That’s just amazing. So since that day we have been working hard, and the time has passed by so quickly. We have so much to do. So many people we could visit. We got 6 people to sacrament meeting, we have our studies...it’s just great. Also, he speaks a little bit of English, which always comes in handy when we need to say something to each other during a lesson without the investigators understanding.

We walk a lot. Along one of the roads where we walk there’s a dead dog that just smells horrible. We’ve gotten to see its death cycle from the first day it died, to the second day when it got bloated, to the third day when there were other dogs eating it, to now, when for the most part, it’s just a skeleton. Yeah, pretty sweet.

We’re still working hard with the familia Herrera. They are so powerful, but we just can’t get the woman to accept a marriage date. Sunday we got to have a lesson with them in the house of Marlon (the member). It was good, but really long, because everyone wanted to talk. Yeah, can’t make that mistake again. On Saturday we’re going to have a baptism for Adonaí, and we’re going to marry him to Sandra. I’m pretty excited for that, because Adonaí is pretty sweet. He’s gone to the temple three times and just loves it. So that’s going to be pretty cool.

Oh, I forgot. So before we taught the lesson to the familia Herrera, Marlon´s wife cooked us food. I ate a chili, but forgot to wash my hands after. The thought never really came to me that chili burns other parts of your body, not just your mouth. So I rubbed my nose, and that started stinging and running, and wow it was weird. Then I rubbed my eye. That was a really bad idea. My eye started burning. I seriously couldn’t open it. So I took off to the pila and was washing my eye out for about 10 minutes until I could finally open it, then I returned. It still stung a lot and it was bright red, and I was crying. Hopefully no one really noticed and they just thought that I was having a spiritual experience.

Also, Saturday was our final trip to the temple open house. Wow. Bien chulo. Bonito. The temple is so awesome. The dedication is going to be the 20th of August, and the missionaries get to have a special conference with the leaders of the church a couple days before that. I’m stoked.

So, really we’re just working hard. We have a lot to do, and with a good companion, I can finally make some progress. Hope it’s all good back at home!

Elder Bailey

27: Refugio 6

Hello!

So this week’s been interesting.  Let’s take a look.

Tuesday we went to Tazumal.  It’s a big ancient ruin in Chalchuapa.  After writing, I went and ate at Pollo Campero with the zone (the big fancy fast food restaurant that’s not really that good), then went to Tazumal.  We walked through the museum, but I really didn’t want to take the time to read all the plaques and stuff, so I just took pictures.  We ended up taking a LOT of pictures, caught some sweet shots.  It was a lot of fun.

After that I went to work, and my companion really didn’t want to.  After our first appointment, he just took off walking back.  Then I saw a member carrying some beans and asked if I could help her.  That’s really the only way I could get my companion to work—if we were around members—at least that day.  The member then told me that her mom was really sick and needed a blessing, so we walked with her for about 15 minutes to her house and I ended up giving a really spiritual lesson.  It was so sweet.  After, we got to give her a blessing too.  It was a cool, humble lesson.  I was grateful for it.

Friday we went to the temple again.  There weren’t many people, but we were able to bring Amner and Rafael.  They are two inactives who were baptized a long time ago about the same time and are cousins.  I’ve already talked a bit about Amner.

Rafael has another interesting story.  He was a really faithful saint.  He’d walk two hours in the madrugada to go to church.  He ended up leaving his studies two years into it to go on a mission, but he wasn’t able to go on his mission, and he lost all his schooling.  He ended up marrying outside of the church, and now just has a little store for his work instead of a good career.  He still has an amazing testimony, but just doesn’t come to church because of his history.  Well, we got him to the temple, and now he’s finally starting to change.  He wants his daughter to be able to be sealed in the temple and wants to come back.  I think he’s finally going to be able to get over his fears and return to church, especially now that his cousin’s coming back too.

The temple’s still amazing.  I like it better and better every time I go.  One more trip this Saturday, and then I’ll be able to see the dedication from the stake center in August.

Now, let’s go to Sunday.  Sunday I got to work with Marlon.  He’s the elders quorum president and is awesome.  The first couple of weeks he was basically inactive and wouldn’t help us at all because he doesn’t like my companion.  But we get along really well together, so he’s started working a lot with me.  We went first to talk to the familia Lopez.  The wife and kids are already members, but the husband, Adonaí, is not.  He’s way sweet.  He’s gone to the temple twice and loves it.  He has a date for the 6th of August.

Then, in the night, we got to have an AMAZING lesson with the familia Herrera.  No joke, this is probably the best lesson I have had on my mission.  We brought them down to the chapel where the president had prepared a lesson.  We had to get them out of their house because her mom has started talking against us.  So there was me, Elder Gonzalez, the president and his wife, and Marlon (and for a little bit, Angel).  The president started off talking about the atonement, Jesus Christ, then about love, charity, then brought it in to marriage.  He talked about how wonderful it was to be married, the blessings, the problems, etc.  Then his wife shared her testimony, and I was like...awww, how precious.  Then Elder Gonzalez talked, then tried to end it without really a commitment or anything.  So I was like, hey, I’ve got to say something.  What I said was basically guided by the spirit, totally.  Then Marlon started adding, and we were able to ask some awfully amazingly inspired questions and really got to the core of them.  It was so amazing.  Oscar said yes.  Irene said she still needed to pray, and Marlon asked if they had prayed as a couple.  They admitted that, no, and we got to talk about that.  We had a really open discussion and made so much progress.  Then at the end, I asked them if we could kneel down and pray together, and that she could offer one prayer, and then after that, he could.  A completely sincere prayer.  It was so cool.  Everyone there wanted the same thing, and there was a lot of faith.  The spirit was so, so strong.  Awesome, awesome lesson.  I have learned to use members.  They are so powerful.  It is always tons better when we have a member with us.  I think they’ll get baptized on the 6th.

After that we went to Marlon’s house to eat.  It was about 8:00 and was getting dark.  And it was raining.  Well, he lives about 15 minutes away, and the rain and wind started going crazy.  My umbrella broke, which is too bad, because it’s awesome.  It was seriously pouring.  We were all soaked.  At times, it got so dark that we couldn’t really see anything and we were basically running up a river.  Marlon’s cool.  We were joking around and laughing the whole time.  It was so sweet.  Then we got to have a good dinner with him, his wife, and his 2-week old baby.  It was definitely an adventure.  I enjoyed it.  When we finally got back to the house, we were soaking wet.  My mission manual was soaked to the core, my umbrella destroyed.  So cool.

Then we got a call from the zone leaders.  My next companion’s name is Elder Romero.  He entered the mission at the same time as me, but has one change more than me because of the MTC.  Elder Webb, a missionary in our zone, says he’s amazing.  Well, I’m really excited.  I hope I can finally get to work and have a companion who actually wants to study.  But I have to say, I’ve grown so much from having Elder Gonzalez as my companion.  You have no idea how much I’ve grown.

Well, that’s all for now.  Hope all is well on the home front.  I guess school’s going to start again.  That’s weird.  I’m basically forgetting everything I learned in school.  I guess that’s just what happens when you get old.

Till next week,
Elder Bailey

26: Refugio 5

Hello!

I’m writing you today because today we are going to go to Tazumal—it’s a ruin.  We’re going as a zone, and they aren’t open on Mondays, so for this we have P-day today!  My companion’s really grumpy because he just wants to sleep and doesn’t want to go to Tazumal.  He wanted his P-day Monday, and was literally banging his fists on the table Sunday when the zone leaders told him this.  Then he basically told them that he wouldn’t work Monday, and didn’t.  We missed a lot of important appointments, so I’ve kind of decided to just not set any important appointments this week.  Luckily, all the members know and are willing to do splits with me while another one stays in the house with Elder Gonzalez while he sleeps.

But I have found a lot of cool people and am excited to start teaching them...in a week.  I had a cool experience with an inactive.  His name is Amner, and we found him through a member, Hmo. Ruano.  So we had an appointment with him at 7:00, and he lives a ways away.  It was raining a lot that day—like rivers.  Literally.  Hmo. Ruano came and picked us up in his truck and we drove down a long, dark dirt road.  When we got there, there was lightning everywhere and Amner didn’t have power.  So we ended up trekking in the dark and rain and lightning for about 5 minutes to get to his house from where we parked the car.  This guy, Amner, is really humble.  He’s had a hard life.  He fought in the war about ten years ago and lost a lot of friends.  He also went to the states for a few years and had a really rough time there too.  His wife and kids aren’t members, and his kid has a sickness.  I’m excited to teach them.  He wanted me to look up a missionary who changed his life, and I figured I’d give it a try.  His name is Adam Gibbons Kimball from Utah.  He was a missionary here about 10 years ago.  So you techno geeks, see if you can find him, then let me know.  I need to reactivate this Amner.

On Friday we had interviews with the new President.  He is so awesome.  He’s from Guatemala, was one of the Area Seventies here, and is so cool.  I’m way excited to work with him.  He gives really good advice, and speaks English when he has to say something important to me.  He’s also really tall.  The tallest Latin I’ve ever met.  He’s seriously like 7 feet, and really skinny.  Also, he served his mission in El Salvador a long time ago.  He is changing everything around and it’s getting a lot better.  He’s having the leaders focus more on goals and encouraging rather than on chewing people out, and wants converts. 

So after that I went on a companion exchange for the rest of the night, and went with Elder Hobbs, from Idaho.  He’s got one more change than me and is a good missionary.  We had a lot of fun and got a lot of good work done together.  We found a way positive investigadora.  She told us she felt far from God and really wanted our message to be true, and told us she wanted to pray with a sincere heart even before we read Moroni 10:4-5.  Too bad she lived in Santa Ana because she was awesome.  I really wish I could find people like that in Refugio.  It would be so sweet.

On Saturday I got to go to the temple again (the president changed the rules again and said we could go one time every week).  So I got to go with the familia Herrera.  They brought about 20 people.  It was so sweet.  They loved it, and after we walked out of the sealing room, Oscar (the husband, almost) told me: "one year, one year."  It was so sweet.  There is definitely a spirit in the temple that is different from anywhere else.  The El Salvador Temple is so sweet.  It is definitely a good looking temple.

Later that night, I got to eat chuco with the familia Herrera.  Chuco is like atol, but acidic.  It’s like...black corn, with a couple pinto beans....really acidic.  It was definitely an experience.  It tastes so weird, and it made me so tired that night.  I slept like a baby.  But chuco is actually pretty big here.  There are restaurants that only sell chuco.  It was actually pretty good for what it was, it’s just that I prefer sweet food.  I’m not big on acidic I guess.  But wow, that family is so cool.  I think they’ll get baptized the first of August, but we have to set a date with them first.

Also there’s the family Lopez.  The mom and two of the kids were already baptized and were inactive, and the dad wants to be baptized.  I asked him what he wanted the most, and he said that he wanted to feel free from his sins.  I took them to the temple too on Saturday.  They had some pretty sweet experiences.  Later that day we taught them too, and sang ¨Families can be Together Forever."  They were just staring into each others’ eyes....aaw cute.  He just needs to find a job where he doesn’t work on Sunday.

Then there’s Eduardo Lobos.  Here’s a picture with him that he took from his phone.  He received the missionaries a year ago and knows that the church is true.  He knows it, but only doesn’t want to get baptized because he’s heartbroken.  Last year, Eduardo had a girlfriend and they had been dating for four years.  He wanted to get sealed to her in the temple.  Then the girl dumped Eduardo, and Eduardo has been heartbroken since.  He knows the church is true, wants to go to the temple, but just doesn’t want to get baptized because it pains him.  So yeah, I’m trying to figure out how to help out Eduardo.

Sunday I went on splits with the stake high priest who was assigned to our branch.  He’s lived in Orem before, so wanted to talk to me about Utah in broken English.  It was cool.  Made me a bit baggy.  We taught a family of women, the familia Albarez.  We brought them the sacrament, but they didn’t have any bread, so we ended up using a cookie that I had in my backpack.  Pretty sweet sacrament.  The mama was sick, so we got to give her a blessing, then the others said that they wanted a blessing as well.  I got to give two of them, in tu form.  It was actually pretty cool, and there was a strong spirit there, it was so strong I probably could have cut through it with a knife.

So the more I learn and understand Spanish, the more meaningful and cool this mission is.  I have a lot more spiritual experiences now that I can understand and explain.  I still have a long way to go, but it’s pretty good.  It’s better than a lot of other gringos who’ve been here for longer than me.  I just finished reading the BOM out loud in Spanish.  That helped a ton.  The BOM is pretty sweet in Spanish.  I would read it every morning for a little bit.  Well, I’m starting over again because, let’s be honest, that book gives you power.  I’m also trying to memorize key scriptures because I really struggle finding scriptures and using them to help investigators because I don’t know them well enough.  That’s something I kind of wished I would have done before.  So really, I’ve already said this before, but I’ll say it again.  If you haven’t yet, get to know the Book of Mormon.  That book can change lives, but you just have to know how to use it.  It’s like any other tool.  A crowbar or lock pick set can be really useful tools, but if you don’t know how to use them, they’re good for nothing.  The same with the BOM.  Learn it.

Yesterday, I got to eat conejo [rabbit].  It’s been one of my goals in the mission.  Turns out that rabbit is really, really good.  It tastes like chicken...but better.  It was so good.  Probably one of the best things I have eaten here.  We got to eat it with Hermana Flores.  Here are some pictures. 

Also, attached is a picture from the Fourth of July.  We played volleyball and ate hot dogs.  Let’s just say the hot dogs here aren’t nearly as good as in the states, and the ketchup tastes way different.  But it was still a lot of fun.  We spoke English, sang “The Star Spangled Banner,” etc.  Good times.  There’s some sweet people in my zone.

Yesterday, I also got to eat arroz con leche with the familia Herrera again.  Mmmm.  So good.  Unbelievable.  Mmm.  Yeah.  It’s good.  So off to Tazumal.  8 days more with my companion.  Sunday will come.  Sunday will come (the talk by Elder Wirthlin).  

¡Woot!

Elder Bailey

25: Refugio 4

¡Buenos Días todos!

So I guess it's been an eventful week.  First of all, we got our new president, President Cordon.  To start out, this guy is tall.  I'm pretty sure he is the tallest Latin that I have ever seen.  Secondly, he's awesome.  There is so much love flowing from that guy.  I think pretty much every missionary immediately felt close to him...like they were already friends...within the first 10 minutes of meeting him (except my companion--he was drawing).   He is absolutely awesome, and I'm excited to work with him.  His wife is a lot of fun.  She was a convert and told us her conversion story.  Then she told us how she was able to look up the missionaries who converted her 20 years later and talk with them.  She then talked about how we need to convert, not just baptize, then always be worthy after.  If we're not worthy after, what are our converts going to think?  President Cordon talked to us about love, and that we can love everyone, and about the doctrine of Christ.  It was a really cool lecture.  In all, the meeting was pretty awesome and I'm way excited to work with this president.  Oh, and also, he speaks English—not that I need that anymore.

So Spanish is a lot better.  I understand and communicate, but still need to refine and learn a lot more.  But at least I'm not always out in the dark.  I think it has to do part with the fact that I'm basically in charge of my whole area, my branch, and my companion. I'm learning so much from this experience, even though it is hard. I'm learning a lot of Spanish; I'm learning little by little how to get things going.

Also, I'm learning a lot of patience from my companion.  He's so baggy right now that he doesn't really believe he's a missionary and he doesn't act like one either.  It is so difficult to get him out of the house, and then he just grumps along behind me.  Many times he'll just take off in another direction just to bug me and never really helps me teach.  I'm basically his babysitter and just have to make sure that he doesn't do anything stupid in the next 16 days.  But I'm kind of worried because I'm pretty sure he's planning something.  I've learned a lot a bad words from him too, poor kid.  But now that I've said that, I would like to say how grateful I am for him.  He frustrates me like crazy, but has helped me get closer to God more than ever.  Like it says in Mosiah 23:21-22, it's the trials that make us grow.  To be honest, I feel really sorry for him.  He's going to have a hard time when he gets back to his house and doesn't have a companion there to help him.  I'm trying to help him...but it's really difficult.  Really difficult.

Wednesday we had a baptism.  La Maritsa.  She's the daughter of a member, and her sister is a member too, but she was never baptized. She already had had 3 baptism dates before and had been interviewed and all, but kept disappearing on her baptism date.  We taught her and she still understood and remembered everything and wanted to be baptized, but said that she hadn't yet because she didn't like the other missionaries.  So we set a date with her and got to know her well.  Well, the date finally came, her birthday, and wow, that was stressful.  The baptism was supposed to start at 7, but didn't start until about 8:30 because she was in her house changing for an hour and a half.  We finally got her into the baptismal font, and to be honest, she looked like she was about to run away.  Finally, my companion dunked her, but her feet went up, so he had to dunk her again.  It was pretty suspenseful for me.  But we finally baptized her and she was really happy, and I bought them pupusas the next day in celebration. She really was ready to be baptized but she just needed a lot of push because she's...well...I don't know.  But she's keeping the commandments and even went to the temple on Friday.  So it was good. Here's a picture of her.  She was really nervous, so we couldn't really get her to smile.  We took about 10 of these pictures.  I got bored after about 5, and this was number 7, I believe.

Friday I got to go to the temple open house.  Wow, I miss the temple. The temple here is so amazing.  It is absolutely chulo [cool].  I got to go with the rama [branch] to write down all of the references. There were tons.  Of course, a lot of them weren't so positive, but they all enjoyed the temple.  There was definitely a spirit there way different from any other place.  But I have to say, I do miss the temple.  If you haven't gone to the temple lately, you should go because it really is different from any other place on earth.  The El Salvador Temple is so sweet.  I can't wait to go there and do an actual endowment or something.  Also, I got to eat a chocolate chip cookie after, which is good because I have been craving those things for weeks.  I really am dying for some chocolate chip cookies.  That's something that they really haven't mastered here in El Salvador.

Also, the familia Herrera are finally making up their minds to be married.  I think we're going to get to baptize them the first of August when they have vacation from their work.  They are so awesome, and all their neighborhood loves them.  They're taking a trip to the temple this Saturday and are basically going to fill up a bus with people.  I can't go again because missionaries can only go once, but my companion will go with them (we did divisions on Friday).  I really wish I could go with them, but maybe in one year when they get sealed. They're so great though.  I'm so excited for them.

So it's hard, and there are not as many baptisms as I'd prefer, but it's good.  I'm so excited for the familia Herrera.  Today we're going to have FHE with them and eat Chuco.  I have no idea what that is, but they say it's really good.  I'm a little iffy though because the other definition for chuco here is "dirty."

Also, I found a post office yesterday, so I might actually start replying to letters if I can find time.  But I do like getting letters, so write me if you can...just know that I'm not really good at replying.  I hope all's well in the land of the free.  Happy Fourth of July.  I'm going to go to the stake center in about 30 minutes to celebrate.  I just changed a car tire today.  I am getting so good at that.  People are always getting flats.  It rains a lot here.

Hurrays!

Elder Bailey

24: Refugio 3

Hello from El Salvador!

So this week we got to say goodbye to President Lopez and his family.  We had a huge multi-zone meeting with a bunch of the zones close to us.  Each zone got to sing a song for the president and his family, and we sang...I don’t remember, but it wasn’t very good.  Let’s just say that my zone tried.  But the meeting was really awesome.  First, the president talked to us about how to have success.  That was a cool lesson.  After him, Hermana Lopez told the story of how they met.  So funny.  Basically, they never really dated.  Instead, the president just said, “Listen, I don’t really think dating is worth it if we’re not going to get married.  So if you want, we can plan on getting married on (this date), but if not, it’s not worth it."  So basically, it’s just like a baptismal commitment.  It was a great talk because the whole time the president was back behind her shaking his head and smiling.  Then the president gave us his final speech, and boy, was it spiritual.  I think everyone in the room was pretty struck by the spirit.  Yeah, pretty sweet.  So after, they told us that this once they were going to change the rules and that we could all give the president and Hermana Lopez a hug.  It was cool.  A lot of people cried.  I’ve decided that the mission definitely makes people a lot more emotional.  I would never have cried before my mission.  But now... yeah, it’s weird.

Well, tomorrow we are going to have a new president, President Cordon.  On Friday, we get to have a conference with him.  I’m kind of excited.

So my area is way difficult.  I came into the mission thinking I would baptize 100 people.  But now I’m realizing that there’s a lot more to it than just baptizing.  I could just baptize, and there are people that do that—but I don’t want to do that.  I want to convert.  The whole point of the mission is to bring people a happiness that I know they need and to help them learn and receive the ordinances necessary to achieve exaltation.  And that is really hard, especially here in Refugio where there is a lot of apostasy. 

This morning I was reading in Mormon 5 that the Lamanites would have so much suffering because of their iniquity, and that there really would be a lot of iniquity.  I testify of that.  There are a lot of problems here in El Salvador, and especially in Refugio.  So it’s hard.  The branch is sleeping.  None of the members really like to work.  It’s difficult.  And I’m not really getting results, but I am learning a lot, especially since my companion doesn’t do anything. 

I’m learning how to run everything, and I get to keep trying out new ideas to see if they can change things.  While nothing has really worked yet, I’m going to keep trying.  So it’s kind of good and bad.  I like being in charge and running things, but at the same time I’m not really getting any results.  Well, I am learning a lot.  The work of the Lord is not easy.  The diablo [devil] is working hard against us, but we’ve got a better team.

So it’s going in El Salvador.  I should have my first baptismal date on Wednesday.  I’ll tell you how that goes.  Hope all is going well back home!

Elder Bailey