My first morning in El Salvador. I sweated the paint off the mattress.

Hey,

This place is so weird I'm not in Kansas anymore. El Salvador Day One:

The humidity punches me in the face. There is razor wire at every house and a guy with a 12-guage shotgun at every other. A guy is walking his pet cow, and the cars are going a minimum of 80, and taking ninety degree turns at 45 mph. Everyone either has a sledgehammer or a machete, and music is always blasting in the streets. This place is lagitimo, but I'm not sure that this is spanish.

Kendra wouldn't like my companion. He curvestops kittens. He hates cats, calls them sucio or dirty, because they always rub on his leg and messes up his pants. His name is Elder Gomez. I like him though, but he's a native so i can't really talk too long. I'm in the area just south of San Salvador, it's called Zacuatacoluca, and there is a family that supports us really well, the Baraona family. The've got a 14-year-old boy that goes on splits with us, his name is Henry. The food is terrible, I´m sick, and trying to hold down my gag reflexes. They have awesome fruit drinks though. I'm so dehydrated all the time, and when I say I'm thirsty, they give me this hot sugary milk with some kind of rice in it.

I am the baby in my zone. Everyone else knows spanish. I had to give a talk on Sunday, and I also did my first baptism. His name is Javier Guiermo Barahona Escobar, but around here everyone just calls him the chill-dude-with-the-long-hair. Baptisms are hard, because latinos have two first names, and two apellidos, or surnames.

My spanish is improving, and I can mildly communicate with everyone, but I can´t pick up conversations yet.

Another english elder told me that north americans are just sidekicks to the latinos, we don´t do a lot for a long time, 'cause it is so different.

This place is so beautiful, but at the same time it is completely filthy. People just piss in the street, and there is trash everywhere, and everyone is cool with it. There are always chickens and dogs in the street, and billions of ants. Where I am, it's a jungle, and small town. There is a pretty big volcano, and lots of little streams we have to stone step across. Right now it's mostly dry, except the sides of the roads where the sewage runs. Very hot. I don't know what I'll do if I am sent east, because there is a desert in the east.

I can't drink the water, but they have this stuff called bagged water that is clean. Basically a ziplock, that you have to bite the corner off of, and its crystal water.

So I heard if you send something for Christmas, it will get here at Easter, but I could just be misunderstanding.

Sorry I forgot the address to the mission home. You might have one, but I'll get it to you next week. I'm so lost all the time.