Letter 16: "Miracle miracles miracles!"

Sonsonate, El Salvador

April 25, 201

ERIC GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is my news for the week. I can´t convey the happiness and excitement i feel! it happened yesterday. the adversary definately didn´t want it to happen and tried his hardest to make it not happen. but alas it did. not only that but we got another baptisimal date for an investigador named William.

He is pretty hard core and when he gets a testimony of the Book of Mormon and all that jazz he is going to be a great tool for the Lord. he´s forty years old, so a full time mision isn´t in the near future, but he is going to be a great missionary in sensunapan! our baptisimal goal for april is 7 people.

We have two baptisms as of today and three baptisimal dates. its going to take a few more miracles to reach our goals, but we are hopeful! your prayers and love is much appreciated! they help! the Lord is awake, remember that. stay strong and pray hard. life is good!

i love you, God loves you. what else matters?

Letter 15: "Roses and sunshine"

Sonsonate, El Salvador

April 20, 2011

"Like yesterday"

So i know this probably comes as a shock to you all, but not every day in the mission is roses and sunshine (well here the sun is literally always shining). we have Horrible-rotten-no-good-very-bad days....like yesterday! :)

So we had 3 baptisms scheduled for this week...but all of them fell through.

1) Lisett-
Lisett has decided that she doesn´t have any desire to be baptized. she knows everything, she doesn´t have any problems with the commandments and she knows she needs to be baptized. but she has no desire...she feels like she has to read and pray more to have a firm testimony, we think she just doesn´t want to commit.

We know she knows its true, but she has yet to feel it. so in our last lesson we had her pray and then think and there was complete silence until she said the date that she´s going to be baptized...i felt like Ammon waiting to hear the response from King Lamoni! it wasn´t a full hour before she responded...more like ten minutes, but it was excruciating! anyway. the baptisimal date is for the 25th of April.

Thank you for your prayers on that front, we are going to need them for a bit longer though!

2) Yeldy-
Yeldy is the exact opposite of Lisett...she is like a little girl...very innocent! she has all the desire in the world to be baptized but doesn´t understand anything we teach. for example.

Yesterday. before a person gets baptized they need to attend sacrament meeting for at least two sundays. she came last sunday and loved it and has come to every activity that we invite her to.

This sunday she was going to go to church in the morning and be baptized at 2...we called her in the morning to wake her up and had a member of the relief society go to pick her up...but somehow she didn´t get to church...we went searching for her after church and she was chillin' in her house...we asked what happened and she said..no i didn´t come this morning, but at 2 oclock i´ll be there!...she had no idea...

Its hard to explain but you get the point. she doesn´t get it...but her desire is there and we are going to work for next week

3) Eric-
Eric is chosen by God to be baptized and although we didn´t get our miracle of his baptism yesterday i know that this week there is going to be a bigger miracle for him! and he´s going to be baptized this week!

Just know this

i have run out of time and can´t explain all about our Horrible-rotten-no-good-very-bad day... just know I know that this Gospel is true! the Lord lives and he is going to come...we just need to prepare ourselves...the small decisions we make every day determine our preparedness...are you prepared?

I love you, God Loves you. what else really matters?

Letter 14: "Being a missionary during General Conference!"

Sonsonate, El Salvador

April 14, 2011

"A few things!"

I don´t have much patience to write much today... just wanted to say a few things about General Conference!

Elder Cook

Possibly one of my new favorite apostles...if you are a woman and didn´t hear it saturday morning you need to find his talk and read it right now...all men need to read it too! its pretty amazing!!!!

Also the last session...i forget his name but he was one of the seventy that spoke before Elder Holland...the talk about 'to do' and 'to be' whew! I learned a lot from that talk!

"Awesome Things about..."
There are a lot of pretty awesome things about being a missionary during general conference...

• One: I didn´t fall asleep during the Sunday morning session of Conference because i went to bed the night before.
• Two: It felt pretty good to be off the hook (at least for now) when they talk about how you need to be married or at least dating...whew!

I learned more from this general conference that any other general conference i have ever listened to. i did get to listen to it in English. We had a gringo party in a small room by the bishops office. it felt weird cause i was the only sister in there. but it was fun.

"Baptism"

we had the baptism of Yeldy inbetween sessions of conference on Sunday.

it was crazy because we started the program and when it came time for her to be baptized, Elder Winters (our District Leader) had lost the key to the baptisimal font!!!!! so Kerin (the guy performing the baptism) jumped over the glass banister thing, into the font to open the door...that was definately a baptism she will never forget!

The work is moving we have a TON of positive investigadors and we are going to have to work really hard to help them progress!

We've been focusing a lot on the things they have to do and not enough on the way they have to be. so my goal is to not just get them baptized, but to help them become converted to the path...

Anyway.

I'm alive and life is good! time is flying!

Letter 13: "Changes"

Sonsonate, El Salvador
March 10, 2011

Cambios de mi vida!
Changes in my life! This week has been crazy! Especially yesterday! But I guess we'll start at the beginning!

So we had cambios* (Transfers*), I'm in the same place, but a lot of our district changed... so [many] new faces, a lot of gringos! Every companionship has at least one gringos.

I'm speaking a lot more English, which I don't like, but also my Spanish is a whole lot better... it's hard to think that I spent five years learning French , little by little, word by word, lesson by lesson... and in less that six months BAM! I speak Spanish waaaaaaaaaaaay better than I ever did speak French!

That is the power of God right there! It's amazing!

Anyway... so lots of new faces and a new District Leader. He's great, and he has a lot of animo (Enthusiasm or excitement) and he holds us accountable to our goals. So that's nice.

This week we taught a lot... it wasn't much different in that aspect from any other week... but yesterday was insane!

"Dates"
So, the assistants have been breathing down our necks for fechas* (dates)... for baptisms. Yesterday they came to our zone specifically to put fechas.

There were four investigators in sacrament meeting and I had no faith that we could put fechas with them... we had only been teaching them this week. We only taught half of the first lesson to one of them, and the other we had only met with twice.

Long story short, they put the fechas [anyway]...

Two things I've learned: (1) Miracles really do happen! (I knew this one before... but it's always nice to have it reaffirmed) and (2) I have a lot to learn about teaching!

I guess I better get to it! So here I go

I love you. God Loves you. what else really matters!?

* "Cambios": Spanish for "Changes" but in this context it means "Transfer"
* "Transfer": When a missionary is being move from one location or job to another.
* "Fechas": Spanish for "Dates" : missionary-lingo for 'reporting' the progress of investigators.

Letter 12: "A Day With Hermana Pappas"

Sonsonate, El Salvador
March 10, 2011

This is my life
Have you always wondered how it would be to be one day with me, Hermana Pappas? Well, wonder no more, here we go:

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6:30 am: Awaking
The alarm beeps and Hermana Bermudez and I jump out of bed (in reality we slide off the bed onto our knees... some days we jump out of bed because if we don't we wouldn't wake up)...

I am actually amazed that I have been able to do this really, it is a blessing. And Hna. B. is great because she told me the first day: "Don't think, just do it..." and it works!

7:00 am: Cockroaches time
Usually I take a shower at night, but if I don't want to deal with the cockroaches I will take one in the morning. I don't know why but the cockroaches LOVE the bathroom.

Perhaps because it's the darkest place in the house... most especially they love the shower! I don't get it and i don't like it. Before the mission I never. NEVER saw a cockroach, but here it's a daily event.

I think at the beginning I hated cockroaches more than I hate spiders (for real!) but I'm getting more and more used to them and RAID has become my best friend... speaking of which, I think I need to get some more today.

7:30 am: Breakfast time
My diet has changed drastically here, I must say the food is definitely a highlight! Platanos are my new favorite food, I have them almost everyday.

Platanos fritas (Fried Platanos) or platanos con carnela... mmmm Magical! I need to learn other ways to make them too... oh and beans. Always, always red beans. They are delicious!

8:00 am: Self Study
ESTUDIO PERSONAL!!! I love it. I can't believe " never spent an hour a day before the mission studying the scriptures! There is so much to learn!

I always learn something new and I always find something that helps strengthen my testimony and can help me teach others.

9:00 am: Companionship study
Estudio Compañerismo... Also a highlight. We are supposed to share what we learned in our personal study and read and learn something together, but a lot of times we never make it past talking about our personal studies.

Like [happened] this morning, I studied "Our Purpose as a Mission" and she, Hermana B. studied "King Benjamin's Speech"

Anyway, she started talking about service which led us into a half an hour talking about how we can serve the ward we're in. It was pretty enlightening.

10:00 am: Language study
Idioma....hmm...it's hard! But I am surviving. Sometimes it hits me that I feel like I've known Hna. B since forever but we've only known each other five weeks and have never spoken English...

It's amazing to me that I have been able to get to know a person through another language... I don't know why but sometimes I have no idea how I communicate with people... but i'm learning... slowly... (very slowly...)

Yesterday we taught Relif Society and I'm pretty sure the sisters just pitied me. But I'm alive and grateful for this hour... even though I really only get it three or four days a week.

11:00 am: The day begins!
We usually spend this hour visiting MARCs (Menos Activos y Recien Conversos) (Spanish letters for Less Actives and New Converts)

Not too many people are at home and we are lucky if we find three before lunch. I like visiting the New Converts (NC) because they are thirsty to know.

The Less Actives (LA) always have excuses that they feel they need to share with us. I like it though when we can call them out on it.

Usually we try to serve them mostly. There is a family with three little kids that are CRAZY! So, we go share a message with them at least once a week and help around the house.

There are a lot of old men that live alone, Enrique, for example, supposedly lives with his son, but his son is never there and Enrique can't do much.

So we go clean his house... most people don't let us serve them, and the people that do it's because we don't listen to their "No, thank you" and just do it anyway.

1:00 pm: Lunch
Almuerzo!... We have a Cook for lunch. Her name is Hermana Arminda. [The food] usually is really good. Sometimes it's not.

There is always rice of course! And fruits and vegetables that [before my mission] I've never had before... There is this one vegetable that I love, but I never remember the name and I've come to find that I hate, hate, hate papaya... I will be quite alright if I never eat it again! :)

Anyway, our cook is great. Hna. Arminda is always happy to talk to us and her family is really nice.

2:00 pm: Back to work!
From 2:00 pm until 9:00 pm we find, teach, pray, listen, pray and hope to Heaven that there is somebody that will listen to the message. It's pretty hard here.

The people are so nice and helpful, they are willing to listen but they don't understand and they...[?] hear the message.
I can't tell you how many times we explain about authority and how we need the authority in the Church of God, prophets and all that... And they "Understand" but then we ask them to read the Libro de Mormon (Book of Mormon) and pray and go to Church, they say "Oh, I have a church," "Oh I've already been baptized"...

DID YOU HEAR A WORD WE JUST SAID!?!?!?! bah!

I'm getting used to this whole patience thing, but sometimes I have relapses... on a great day we will teach 9 or 10 lessons but usually it's 6-8 and we've had a few days where we have only taught 3 or 4...

It's hard to imagine that there are missions where you are lucky if you teach once... I am greatful for my calling here... I couldn't imgine going to a place where I didn't know the language, and where the people AND the weather were cold! I am blessed to be here!

I love the warmth too... I am going to be in trouble when I get home I love the heat! Good thing I still have 15 months! Whoa! I've been out three months!!!! I can't believe it! Anyway. ...

9:00 pm: Back at the house
Planning for tomorrow. Not really all that interesting.

9:30 pm: Dinner time!
We eat dinner when we get back to the house at night because the time that the handbook says to eat dinner is prime time for contacting...

We usually eat pupusas three or four times a week.

Iif we don't eat pupusas, weeat platanos and beans... this last week I got spaghetti to change it up a bit, but we ended up making it for a family that is investigating the Church... I made Hna. B some garlic bread, it's the first time she's had it and she loooovvveeed it!

10:30 pm Bed time
I'd be lying if i said it wasn't one of my favorite parts of the day! And there you have it. day in day out. This is my life.

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"But at the end of the day"
This week though was different because ever day we had something different to do, on Monday we had p-day, on Tuesday I had to go to San Salvador (and hour and a half by bus!) to get my visa, on Wednesday we had a District and Zone conference, Thursday we had a conference with Elder Fallabela (Area Seventy... Awesome!!!!!!!!!)

Friday is our weekly planning (we don't start proselyting until 2:00 pm) and Saturday we helped out with a Primary activity...

So this week was crazy, but you get the idea... it's hard... dirt, tears, and a lot of sweat!

But at the end of the day...it's amazing!