"To This End Was I Born"

is a tarantula that we killed.... there’s been a lot in the house lately, and we saw this one and then it hid.... the funny thing is that when we killed it was climbing up the wall, and we threw a shoe at it, and it fell on the video case of ``To This End Was I Born``---so the photo has a bit of irony to it.

Painting...

our other service, painting the house

Previously a jungle....

our service project---where we are standing was once jungle---

Week 93 in El Salvador

September 26, 2011

Hey,

No, I didn’t know that Liz was pregnant...I lose track of all my cousins...there is one elder in the mission, Elder Orton, whose grandparents had something like 16 kids, and each of the kids has a big family too---he 19 yrs old, is the oldest of 63 + cousins---he showed me a picture with his grandparents holding all their grandkids---I don’t remember the exact numbers, but a big family.

This week we have done a lot of service projects, especially for the families we are teaching. We cleared out one guy’s yard...it was before a jungle, but now he has a yard. We spent most of the day with machetes and cumas. We brought the leaders too (the first time the leaders here have supported a project).

We also painted a house for another family.

We are doing pretty good. Two of the three families came to church again, the others were going to come, but they are in a kind of economical crisis right now.

Yesterday I came down with a fever...yesterday it was about 100. 2 degrees F, and today at 2:30 am it was 101.4 F---I’m feeling a little bit better, though I feel weak, and I didn’t sleep much, my whole bed is wet from sweat, and now our room smells like a giant tree sloth. But we are doing pretty well. I still don’t know what it is though, because apart from weakness, I have no other symptoms.

I’ll try to send pics.

Chow for now,

Corey

catching a ride...still 100+MPH on the highway

I’m sending photos...it took me like twenty minutes to get them downloaded onto this comp..... I’ve still got a virus, and had to edit them in paint, and copy them like three times on the desktop.... I still hate computers by the way

my companion with an iguana

Baptism of Elizabeth

"football"

our game this morning...my zone, and like 11 invited people (you’ll recognize them from some of the last photos)

Week 91 in El Salvador

September 19, 2011

Hey,

Who’s in the photo with the bear?

That’s weird about hearing about flight plans right now--18 hours??---It still doesn’t feel like my last change. Just yesterday I was saying goodbye to Louis and Ian at 1:00 in the morning after playing pool.

Well, we baptized Elizabeth, and she’s progressing farther than we ever thought she would. We took the chance she was giving us, and we taught everything this week. She’s coming to church without our having to bring her, and is progressing, still it is a little hard though, because she can’t read or write.

We also set the new record for bringing investigators to church on Sunday----the old record was 12 people, was set by Elder Shinners, a year ago, he came in my group and just got home recently, because his brother was going to Iraq. This Sunday we brought 16 invited investigators, composed of three families and a couple other people. We found a family last Sunday night, and they all showed up this Sunday, and they loved it. The Santana family showed up again, despite their economic problems (they don’t show it, but they are suffering---we’ve met couple of their friends) they all came again, and with a friend.

We had a conference with Elder Martino, of the second quorum of the seventy. We learned a lot of the same stuff that Elder Clark taught us last year.

That’s crazy about the hunting trips, especially the photo.

Today was the first P-day since the rules have changed that we all got together as a zone.... I’ll send you pictures.

Well that’s all I can think of, it’s a bit resumed [shortened], but I’m a little tired today.

I’ll send pics--chow for now

Corey

Week 90 in El Salvador

September 12, 2011

Hey,

I really don’t have a lot to write this week...

The last few weeks my companion has taken pretty hard, so he’s become more disobedient, thinking that things don’t matter here. I’m trying to encourage him, but it’s been tough. He just turned a year old in the mission, and is probably more baggy than me.

We did have a couple miracles pass though, on Sunday...we thought the week would be the same, we’ve almost dropped all the old people we’ve been teaching, and finding new people (we give them about 3 weeks if they don’t progress, but it depends on who they are)--The branch we are in covers a huge area---like seven towns---we found a family a couple weeks ago in a town called Tierra Blanca ---they are very receptive, but haven’t come to church in two weeks, so when they didn’t arrive on time on Sunday we thought that they were just making excuses and didn’t want to come, like all the other people we talk to, but they actually came, a little late, but all of them showed up.... the husband---was investigating the church for two years in Zacatecoluca, and he’s not sure if he’s baptized or not, but said he hasn’t been confirmed---we need to look up his dates, but we challenged him anyway---we asked him if he would get baptized by someone that has authority, and he said “they have a quorum of the elders there, they have authority, sure”---his wife was a little more hesitant, but we’ll be working with them.

Also, one of our old investigators, a single 16 year old mother named Elizabeth, came back to church, at first she was just going for her boyfriend, and she was super hard to teach (it’s kind of hard when they’ve never gone to school, and don’t know how to read or pay attention).... anyway, a while back she quit going, and then her boyfriend moved to San Salvador, so we thought that after three weeks of going to church, it would be hard (plus she lives a couple miles away).... so we quit visiting...anyway she came to church today, ALONE, without her boyfriend, she stayed for the second class too, and then pulled us out and said , “I’ve been talking to my boyfriend, and I want to be baptized.”---I was surprised, it took me a minute to actually process that she said that, so we’ll see how it goes....

So, thanks for your prayers, keep praying please, we need everything we can get.

---We have a multi-zone this week, with Elder Martino.

That’s about it for now---

Chow for now

Corey

Week 89 in El Salvador

September 5, 2011

Hey,

Well, sounds like things are going good up there. I’m surprised winter is starting so early...or is this when it normally starts?

That’s cool about the caribou hunt. And the photos are cool. What rifle was he using?--it looks like a shorter barrel, but the photo I’m looking at is 2" by 3"... it’s kind of interesting to think about guns now, here they don’t use guns to hunt animals.... I’ll have to get use to that idea again.

Hey, tell Jason Dexter that today I saw Josè Cruz in Usulután. I think Elder Dexter was the one to baptize him. He’s doing well and his family is still active. They say the missionaries still visit them.

I really don’t have a lot to write this week. We have been working, but with little luck. Sometimes I don’t understand, because the mission says that if we do all the things we are asked than we will have success.... what is success?...normal weeks we can hand out 2-3 books of Mormon a day and maybe find 20 people a week, and of these people maybe 2-3 will actually take the time to read it...this week we have had the same books in our backpacks for almost five days.... nobody wants to read, or commit themselves. We literally had about 16 people that said they would come to church, and we went with members and everything and assigned members to go pick them up on Sunday, but very few have showed up the last four weeks. I don’t know if it has anything to do with the fair (the Ferris wheels and rides were literally in front of the church)...there are really no excuses, so I don’t know how we can make it better. We’re trying activities and everything.

Ha-ha--someone right now just set off a rocket in the other room, some kind of dynamite type bomb...probably leftover from the fair.... I didn’t know that one of the girls a couple computers down was gringo until she heard the explosion and started cussing in English. She thought it was a gunshot, so I’m guessing she’s not from around here.

---Well, don’t have photos this week...I hope you got them from the last few weeks.

Chow for now

Elder Day