Monday, July 25, 2011
Week 83 in El Salvador
July 25, 2011
Hey,
Don’t worry about my birthday or the medicine, the books are fine and I don’t have space right now, also I’m good friends with one of the local doctors, so I get free medicine here.
Well, I didn’t have changes, and I’m still with Elder de Leon, things are going well, but the work is kind of slow. A lot of the people we had progressing are lacking faith on their part to take the last final steps. I’m starting to realize that the missionary work is mostly just about finding the right people, because they do their part in gaining their own testimony in going to church, and everything.... sometimes I don’t understand the mission.
On Thursday we went to the temple...I did see Sister Ferrin...she comes running up to me “Elder Day! Elder Day! I know your mom!”...I looked at her and was thinking, “Look, I have no clue who you are lady”...then she mentioned facebook, and it all clicked together...her and her husband were picking up their son from the West Mission.
On our way to the temple the bus’s front left tire exploded, we were jerked hard to the left, dust and smoke flying, but the bus driver held it all together well...I’ll try to send photos.
All right, first photo...Elder de Leon me and Elder Bol
Second, the bus tire
Third, the temple, one of my best photos
Fourth and fifth are some of the branch members and me and Elder de Leon
---Well, this week we did a couple more service projects, but I didn’t have my camera. One of our investigators is going to plant his farm, and so we had to clear out all the trees around his borders so the sun could hit all the crops. So I was up in the higher parts of the trees, and my companion was in the lower. The guy called it work, but I thought it was pretty fun twenty feet up in the air swinging from branch to branch with a machete in one hand...I did have a small quarrel with a wasp nest, and was stung several times in the face, but it didn’t swell up, at the end of it all, the guy decided to give us coconuts, and each of us has drank about fifteen or more this week.
---Well, some bad news, I’ve been feeling kind of weak for the past couple weeks, or months, and getting skinnier, so when the diarrhea started I went in to get an exam, and I have a new friend-- quistes of Endolimax nana, the mission nurse of course got mad at me, told me this was some kind of super rare parasite, didn’t tell me anything more.... our friend that works in the hospital got me the medicine for free, along with the amoxicillin.... its a form of quistomeb.... it really doesn’t bother me too much. I don’t know how long I’ve had it, but supposedly it is like a little blood sucker that nests itself in my intestine.
Well, I read that discourse that Grandpa sent, very interesting, thanks.
Well, I hope everything is well.
Chow for now,
Corey
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Transportation
This is a photo from this morning, coming back from breakfast...sometime I want to get a photo of one of these next to a nice car, transportation here is like a free for all, same with the clothes, some people are driving modified Hondas, and some are driving carts with oxen, some are dressed like little Wayne and Brittany Spears and others are dressed in potato sacks and trash bags, that’s just how life is here....
Week 82 in El Salvador
July 18, 2011
Hey,
So, I’m with Elder de Leon, at least until this Wednesday. He’s a good kid, reminds me of a lot of my friends back home, and we get along well. Also we are teaching well together...we both have about the same level of understanding of the doctrine, so we switch off well in the lessons...I’ve had too many companions think that we always have to teach from the book, in order 1, 2, 3 like it is layed out in the manual, and treat the manual as a lesson plan rather than a guide.... but with Elder de Leon, it goes well, and together we use the doctrine as a puzzle, just the pieces we need, to fill in the doubts and worries of those we teach. I’m not worrying as much with him, though I still need to watch him...I should say, I trust him but not completely.... but it is not for open rebellion like my last companions have had, but for weaknesses that he has openly expressed to me.
He is from Guatemala, and speaks English. He is tall and white, so many people think that the president has put two gringos together. We have both been sick...I think we have the same infection. I have had some kind of throat infection, to the point that my ears hurt, it started off with phlegm, but I don’t have that anymore...it was a lot worse (I haven’t talked to the nurses or anybody yet, just a couple members who are doctors, seeing that the nurses of the mission don’t do anything)...so I was taking amoxicillin and acetaminophen twice a day for three days and I took 1 of each the fourth day.... the infection has died down a lot, but I still have pain. It switched from on side of my throat, and my ear to the other, and then back again.
The week kind of passed by without success, and our main investigators didn’t show up, so we were kind of bummed. We decided to look for new people after church, and we came up to a T in the road, and turned right, because on the left turn we had previously knocked all the doors.... we started walking about halfway down the road when I got this thought like “what are you doing going down here? “...At the same time my companion said, in English “I don’t know man, but I think we need to go down the other road”.... so we turned around, and got to the other street, and passed the first house, then turning back around again talked to the lady in the first house.... her door was open and she was watching TV, and upon seeing us said, “No, I’m Christian!” ---Somehow we got in the house, sang the hymn “73: Yo se queue vive mi Señor”---almost immediately catching their attention.... the lesson went very well, there was no thinking, no planning, when I left off, my companion picked up, when he left off I did the same...but it wasn’t us speaking.... anyway, we could finally feel good about some thing that week. She’s going to read the Book of Mormon.
I’ll send photos. Chow for now.
Elder Day
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Week 81 in El Salvador
July 11, 2011
Hey,
Well, this week passed a little slow...the new president came in; we had interviews with him, and the first multi-zone...lots of days in the church, and not outside.
I will be with Elder DeLeon...from Guatemala, at least until the real day of transfers (next Wednesday). [Had an emergency transfer]
P-days are going to change here, we will no longer be able to meet as a zone every Monday to play soccer.
I’m feeling sick...I hope it’s just a normal sickness, and nothing bad.... for the past month or I’ve had a cold, but now I have diarrhea and body pains too.
We got rained on hard yesterday. We were in an area called La Plancha...and we stayed late, until about 6, and there weren’t any more buses, so we had to walk about 2 1/2 miles under a storm, we were walking in water up to our shins most of the way.... all my books are wet, and my Bible is about twice its size now, with water.... my books are veterans.... survived about 6 heavy rainstorms of that severity.
That’s all I can remember from this week, I’m kind of tired cause I was up until 1:30 with my companion, and we woke up early to get the bags to Usulután.
All right, chow for now
Elder Corey Day
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Week 80 in El Salvador
July 4, 2011
Hey,
Sorry I’m writing so late...we went to the temple open house today, so we just got back...a lot of the missionaries haven’t written today, because they live far away from the stake center (we write in the center of family history)...I asked special permission, and am here with my district leader....
So, we had a couple of service projects this week, I’m sending photos.... We were cutting trees down with machetes, and we had to climb up in the trees to get the branches down first. (You probably would have killed me if you had seen that we were cutting super close to the telephone wires, and yanking the branches and stuff out.... I’ll send those photos later).... Miguel has helped out a lot...I cut one of the trees down, and he cut the other one (he is in the photo, but he is up in the tree...)
Work is going kinda slow, Elder B is getting more baggy, he’s making songs about it now, and sometimes when we do divisions with the members, he makes a whole bunch of appointments to go and eat...in part it’s good, ‘cause I’m actually getting dinner a couple days.
We have a couple people who are progressing, one sister who had a fever this Sunday, and couldn’t come, and the deaf man. (My sign language is a lot better now, but it’s going to be interesting when we have to teach the law of chastity...).
Alright, I’ve got to tell you about the temple...I saw Elder Rivas today...he’s from the fourth quorum of the seventy, and he’s from here in El Salvador.... while they were choosing grounds to build the temple, (they had a few spots selected), they were in a meeting with the stake presidents, without having decided where to build it, one of the stake presidents asked where the temple was going to be built, and they said that their fingers were directed and they pointed to the spot of ground it now stands (which was not on their list of “chosen spots to build”)...so they asked the first presidency, and got permission, and bought the land. A lot of the architects were skeptical of the spot of land chosen, because the earth in the capital is really weak, and many times they have problems building heavy buildings.... but when they tested it, they found out that it was among the most sturdy ground in the country (I heard a little bit about some kind of volcano rock too, but I didn’t catch it all)...so they started to build to lay the foundations, and were worried, because it was hurricane season, anyway, the rains came, and came closer, and the people that were in charge of the construction almost doubted that it would get messed up, because the rains were coming closer and closer to temple ground, but when the rains came, the clouds split in two around the temple ground, preserving the foundation, but flooding almost everything around the dedicated ground....
So, the artistry of the temple is the best I’ve seen.... I’ve learned something about painting here...they had Salvadoranian artist do landscape paintings.... the creation room was made in the USA by an artist and shipped down in pieces...he used 1,800 photos of the best spots in the country to do the painting...they shipped it down in pieces, put it together, and the artist sealed the crack perfectly.... the crystal for the lights was brought from Austria, and shaped in New York.... the stones were brought from south America...also, the oxen that support the baptismal font...in all the temples around the world they are white, except here.....they made a mistake mixing the paint to paint the oxen, but it turned out so beautiful that the painters asked the first presidency permission to keep it that way, and it was accepted....it’s a brownish white mix...and it looks far better than white.....also, in the entrance of the temple, there is a painting, the artist from the USA, Jesus in the Jungle, an Indian child on his right, and one on his left....Elder Rivas explained that one is a Nephite, and the other a Lamanite.....the stonework in the temple is impressing also, the flowers designed into the walls are the Izote flowers, the nation’s national flower.....I’m sending photos of the outside.
Chow for now.
Corey
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