One Day More‏

So, most of you seem to be pretty baggy. I thank those who are not. :>

Saturday was a triple baptism! I baptized C and two niñas of 8 years of age. We helped one be baptized since her mother was inactive and we taught her a few things before the Bishop realized she was 8 (she is a very small child). So that was wonderful :>

We also went to the Temple on Tuesday. It was a lovely experience in the which I was impressed by how different one feels with the Temple Spirit and how incomplete the Endowment is without the Sealing ordinance.

So ...

We had a few good days, are working with some good families, and I'll leave the area with a lot of baptisms pendientes.

And District Meeting was fun and we mostly talked about the Good Samaritan parable and then I opened up to Q&A, gave some advice and testimony, etc.

So, we'll be seeing you Thursday-Sunday por allí.

Don't be baggy, be happy.

Focus on being Temple worthy and attending! Wonderful things to all of you!

Take care :>

Elder Newman

How are you‏

I hope you guys are feeling absolutely fantastic

(I have bronchitis which takes me a few notches down on the fantastic scale but otherwise things are pretty nifty)

C should be baptized this Saturday! He already passed his interview.

There are 3 more people who should get baptized in the month after, so I feel pretty good about that (I don't have to be in the flesh). One is the daughter of a single sister who was been inactive some 20 years but since we contacted them have been embracing the Church with pleasure. Her name's P. The other two are the men of a part-member family, D Sr. and D Jr. The daughter is a convert of 2 months and the mom was less active for like 20 years also. They're gonna get married finally!

So, that's the week. Hopefully I don't die, the coughing goes away. I've gotten kind of bored of random medical advice and just coughing all the time and I don't fancy spending a day of flights everywhere with bronchitis.

I'm giving my last District Meeting Wednesday and there are a lot of things of which there are only one more right now. But as a math major I'm well qualified to say that numbers are lame and don't matter. :>

And Tuesday is a Temple Trip so that'll be super sweet!

So, cuìdense y nos vemos prontito pues!

Elder Newman

ABRIL‏

I'll be brief since I don't have much time.

April has begun, General Conference has blessed and taught us.

We have 3 people progressing well towards baptism, 1 of whom should be baptized while I'm still here.

We had unpleasant experiences with a drunk family member of a partial family that's otherwise composed of really good people. Said experience augmented greatly our testimony of hymn singing! Hymns chase away evil spirit. We had talking about hymns in the District Meeting just that morning, too.

Good exchanges with Elder B and Elder H. We got baptismal dates set, new investigators, etc.

And I've got a bad cough but we're going to try this viro grip stuff (an expectorant produced in latin america or something like that) and see if it helps.

But we'll call that a wrap since I don't remember much else!

¡Cuídense! Love and be loved,

Elder Newman

Holy of Holies‏

And so has passed Holy Week! Holy Week in El Salvador mostly means that 80% of people aren't working and 70% of people are in family reunions or at the beach. So it was kind of weird but now we're back to normal.

Notable things this week:

Lunes: Interviews with President! All is well allí.

Miércoles: In District Meeting I basically just taught everything that the Seventies and Apostles have told us to do in our Mission since I came here.

Jueves Santo: Temple Trip, highlight being seeing la familia M, whom I taught almost a year ago in Soyapango! They are fantastic cool people.

Viernes Santo: Easter Devotional with impromptu talk by yours truly.

Saturday: cancelling appointments and two dinner appointments because they were mostly with women and we wanted them to go to the Women's General Session.

And last night, we had a long conversation with a drunk who tried to accompany us to our next visit. He knew Hebrew or Arabic and is a Jew. He introduced me to his children since he was beyond excited about me being a white guy of pure white descent. He was also impressed that I knew that the Book of Lamentations was written by Jeremiah. It was a pretty weird experience but weird can be good. Maybe we'll be able to teach him one of these days. Don't touch alcoholic anything.

In contacts, we have one young man who should get baptized before I go home. He's named C. He just moved in with his older sister who is a convert of some 7 months or so. He prayed last night that everyone we invited would feel a need to come to Church, so I'd say he's very close to ready.

In my District, there's a couple that should also get baptized soon. It's cool because Elder S found them with me 10 months ago on divisions and now I'm in a position to interview them for baptism. They've had legal problems getting married but everything's getting resolved.

So yeah. We keep moving forward. I'm going to finish the Book of Mormon one time more before going home.

"H" "R" FUEGO!

Elder Newman

Jau ar yu

This week was not too terribly eventful.

The weirdest thing is that for the first time ever President invited the entire Mission to the movies. We watched a film called the Resurrection. So that was odd, plus I saw a bunch of other missionaries whom I may or may not see ever again.

We also had a nice missionary conference with the stake for future and return missionaries. Not a lot of people came, except from Villa Mariona (I got to see Hno. A, F Z (a half-convert of mine since he got baptized after I left, and I who is a cool guy).

Holy Week has started! A lot of people were walking around with fronds yesterday. I'm holding out for some cool alfombras on Friday.

Today is Temple Cleansing! Go to the Temples Restored!

The work is going along and we´ll see how things go.

Take care!

Elder Newman

John 15:7-12

:>

Straaaaaange things are happening‏

Changes happened, I'm no longer in the Office and...

I'm in Apopa again (third time's the charm)

the fun thing is that I'm District Leader of Naranjos (my new area), Refineria, and Villa Mariona (my old areas in Apopa). So I'll be running around all my old areas for un rato

I am with Elder H! He came with me to the Mission, leaves a change after me (he did short MTC), we both lived in Heritage Halls before the Mission, and yeah.

My last week in the Office I made a lesson 0 trifold pamphlet. If you have Microsoft Publisher I can send you the thing. I also made a new Ward Mission Leader Manual, met the new missionaries and yeah.

2 weeks ago there was also a Stake Conference transmission for the entire Cental American Area, which was cool. Elder Andersen spoke, plus other leaders.

There's not too much exciting stuff, though. I hope we can work hard, see some baptisms, etc. We're trying to find some good, humble families to work with. We've found a few, but they have some difficult schedules.

OH and back in Alpes we found a super good investigator family, familia C. Super humble and one of the daughters went to Stake Conference the day right after we contacted them.

Pictures below:

K and family, familia C, familia G

Chivo, ¡cuídense!

Elder Newman

Lecture Six: The Law of Sacrifice‏

This week was not too terribly exciting. We've had a lot of stuff happen in the Office. I have 3 projects I want to complete before leaving the Office (which I assume I will do next week): pass-along Sabbath day cards (that one is 95% done), a manual for Ward Missionary Leaders (begun), and a brief document detailing how to baptize based on the teachings of the Apostles and Seventies that have come to our Mission (I have most of the notes done, but I don't know where my notes on President Nelson and the Worldwide Missionary Broadcast are).

We're preparing a youn man for baptism in about 2 weeks (assumedly I won't be here at that point).

My last transfer cycle starts next week. Since I've already trained Elder P to replace me, I will assumedly be in a new area next week. If I have changes, I can 85% guarantee that I won't write next Wednesday and if I write at all it will be on Monday. If weird things happen and I don't have changes, then I will write Wednesday. It should be good. I've been in this Ward longer than anywhere else in El Salvador (8 months or so).

Work hard! Love God!

¡Cuídense!

Elder Newman

Photos were taken this morning as we drove out of the house to the Office.