Week 88 in El Salvador

August 29, 2011

Hey,

This week has been kind of interesting. The fair is going on in Jiquilisco, so there is a whole bunch of noise and activities. There are parades, tents, people selling things, the arcades, the Ferris wheel and roller coasters...this week has been absolutely terrible for work. Nobody is in their house.

We have done various service projects...

We built a yoke for oxen, or at least part of it.

We hauled water from a well for about an hour, until the pila was full (it was a huge pila).

We helped family fix their car tires...

...We have had very few real lessons this week

We did have one interesting experience....

We were invited to dinner by a family that is member, and when we arrived they had just finished arguing...they were going to go to the fair as a family, and the baby girl had an accident, and fell from the hammock, and was bleeding from the mouth, and the wife had accused her husband of trying to kill the baby, and they started arguing.... when we got there the argument had ended...the oldest of the teenage daughters, Judith, had invited two friends, both members of the church to also go with them. We thought it would be a good time to teach them, just some principle of the gospel, to bring it back to order.... so we did...a hymn, a prayer...and then the argument started out in an uproar again, and the wife accused the husband of not listening in priesthood meetings, and the husband accused the wife of not learning in the relief society (now they were bringing the church into it, and raising their voices)---what could we do? ---We were with two other members of the church watching a family fight---soon Judith interrupted her parents, and said she was not going to live in a house with them, but out in the street with her friends (which she had done before)...so it got worse, and obviously we couldn’t teach them, because then they would bring up priesthood class, so we tried to get them to the fair, spend time as a family, and forget it.... but nobody moved, and kept arguing...by this point Judith is crying and yelling at her parents, the parents are yelling, and Wendy-the younger, and shy teenage daughter---has tears rolling down her eyes to the point that her cheeks were black with makeup........so, what we did is we left...it was about

8:45 pm---we had fifteen minutes before we had to be in----but we went to the house, and prayed---we asked and said, “we know we have hardly nothing to do with this, and the members aren’t even under our authority, but as their friends, and thy servants, we feel obligated to help---please send something to help us.”-----so we went to the fair, and bought some coconut candies, and headed back, and in the way back, we saw four men.... they were a mariachi band, walking next to us...both me and my companion had the same impression, but contemplated it for a second, because we weren’t sure if we could do it as missionaries, we weren’t sure, and I’m still not sure, but there was nothing bad in its nature, so we hired them for one song (not with the mission money, but with my personal money--$4)..........and we came back......you should have seen the families face when we burst through the door with the trumpet player, the band and the candy.......everyone started laughing....and the four men played beautifully, and we left, and went back to our house and entered about 9:05......and we felt good about what we did. We didn’t know the full impact of what had happened until Sunday morning, the next day...one of Judith’s friends that was there the night before, a return missionary, said that after we left, the whole atmosphere in the house had changed, and they were able, as the families home teachers, to sit down and talk as a family and about the gospel and the role as a family.

--Well that’s about it for this week, I’ll try to send photos....

chow for now,

Corey