Unity, Duty, Destiny Hombre‏

so it's worth noting that the titles of these emails will be sensible to maybe 3 people at any given time if I put anything there at all

But Tuesday started off the week with a bang. We were on exchanges, so I was with Elder Morales, and we were bringing an investigator family to a family home evening in the ZOne Leader's Area when it starts raining. This is a thing, but not a big deal usually. And it was a heavy storm, but a normal heavy storm. Except for 5 minutes of this horrible wind. We were passing in front of the chapel and climbing a short hill when wind and hail come out of nowhere, to the point that I can't really walk against it. Then, something like 30 feet behind us, a huge tree falls down and covers the road. Once we started moving again, after the wind passed, streets were covered with trees and branches. Plus, trees had fallen on pretty much all the power lines, so we were lacking in that respect too. We still went to the FHE, but it was a thing right there. And since nobody had power, we were walking the streets to lightning flashes in the distance, because even after the storm passed, the entire sky remained covered, with extremely bright lightning in all directions around us. Minus the tree, it wasn't really dangerous, but it was crazy. My stuff got wrecked too, cus I gave my umbrella to one of the investigators. My agenda is extremely sad, minus the octagonal sun that is extremely happy on its cover. The wind bent it too, and I think it remains at the house of the FHE, cus we lost track of it in the darkness and locura general.

In other news, it was a pretty chill week. We helped an investigator prepare the foundations for his house. That's new. More machete proficiency, since we helped (mostly my companion) trim a huge tree by a lot. It was 1 tree and we spent like 2 hours cutting the thing. A bit of drawing here and there. I came into possession of audio CDs of the April 2007 General Conference. It's crazy how long ago that was, but the talk by Elder Holland in the first session,The Tongue of Angels, is well worth it. We're a week off from my first Changes. Apparently people do get changed during training, so I guess I do have to watch out for that. And we had District Conference too, so that was great. Pres. Vasquez spoke a lot, and he's really good at that in general. An investigator came for the first time in a month, which is fantastic, since he's a good person and it feels like he could progress super well, just a bit on the fence at the moment. We're also expanding our cooperation with members quite nicely.

Did a lot of study about gifts of the Spirit and differences between the ministry of different prophets. DIdn't know that Elisha brought a man to life when the man's body fell on Elisha's bones in his tomb. And the note that John the Baptist did no miracles, despite being one of the greatest prophets of all time, is worthwhile.

As for pics, it's mostly just drawings, and doodles, plus me in the Cyber Cafe that I'm currently chilling in. wheeeeeeeeee One thing I didn't expect is the nostalgia. You have a lot of time without stuff to think about, so sometimes, I just think of really old stuff that I haven't thought about in ages, like Bionicle, Spore, Gibs, and all that. As long as I'm not working, it's pretty nifty running through old memories.

Alright, ADIOS and have a superlative week!

Elder Newman

I can't remember the tune of God Save the Queen (or is it Long Live the Queen)‏

So, if you want to have Salvadoreño food, the first thing is pupusas. Everyone knows about those. Then, there's Kolachampan. It's a soda you only find here and it's really good. I kind of hope someone imports it to the states. They use Zapote a bit here too. Then, Arroz con Leche is a general Latin American dish, which I haven't had since the CCM, but it's super good. Then there's the stuff that they eat here that every other country throws away or doesn't like. There's this eeeeeeeeeeeeehhhh drink here that's a pastel red and made of corn. Not recommended. And Elder Gibson keeps finding deals on American chocolate and buying a ridiculous amount but I keep missing them :<

But yeah, the big deal this week is that we had two baptisms! One is a young woman, the first of her family to be ready (her younger brother needs to quit coffee [which is really rough, cus it was his 12th birthday and he really wanted to be baptized. But he's good though, and not upset. He set his own baptismal date for the 2nd of August and seems to really be working to be ready now], the mother needs to be married, and the father needs to take us seriously :/ ). She's worked hard to be ready and get her father's approval, and her testimony at the baptism was a straightforward promise to God. Especially when her father came late, just before the ordenance, since he's never entered the chapel before. The other was an older man who has been working with the missionaries for something like 2 years, but nobody figured out what his challenge was. IN the end, he had attended baptisms and saw that a lot of people came and was too scared to do the same. So we held a really quiet service for him, of 5 people. But on Sunday, he was fine being in front of the congregation for the confirmation, so he's already doing better :> My companion also baptized our cellphone, but it hadn't honestly repented of its sins, so it's been pretty sharply rebuked and no longer exists among the living. We're borrowing a member's phone right now :y

If you want a strooooooong sequence of Mormon Messages to watch, do The Voice of the Spirit, A Mother's Hope, and then Earthly Father, Heavenly Father. Do it.

Oh, a drunk asked me to bless him in English. We're just passing and he tells me "BLESS ME" and "I NEED IT" repeatedly. I offered to give a prayer but we ended up just going our different ways. It is how it is. Another guy on drugs asked the other missionaries during mutual for a Bible so he could preach. It's just a really weeeeeeeeeird adventure in this aspect. Also, they seem to have the best English. :/ I mean, grammatically. They don't make much sense, but they're saying everything right.

Also my camera just died as I was taking pictures of my drawings so that's that. My companion took the baptism photos and his email isn't showing up, so that'll have to wait a week it seems :(

Beyond this, things haven't been too eventful. Baptisms and drunks being drunks. Got some more machete proficiency, did some heavy lifting last night. The main street is getting torn up by the locals because they want to improve the water system. We took some of the slabs to build a ramp for someone we were passing and did the macheteando for the first time. Haven't had a lesson with the family yet, but it'll come.

Also, Gemini is such a great constellation. Best friend.

Have a glorious week!

Elder Jacob Thomas Newman

[He also had issues with an infected toenail, but we'll spare you that photo!]

More Interesting Stories

So, this week was pretty eventful. We had two days where we had very few lessons and the whole week hasn't been great insofar as getting successful contacts, but otherwise, a lot happened.

Did exchanges with the Zone Leaders on Tuesday. Their area is just across the bridge, but it's totally different as far as financial prosperity and all that. People have cars and paved roads. :0 But yeah, I learned a lot, and I did splits with Elder Gibson, who's been out for 22 months. A lot more English than usual, and I slept in a hammock that they have at their house.

Friday, we had interviews with President Vásquez, and I'm pretty fond of him. I'm probably going to do training or something on my 3rd-5th change, because everyone has told me as much and they kind of expect me to do leadership stuff. Zone Conference on Saturday that was pretty normal insofar as I know.

Saturday, I got ¿robbed? for the first time. All the drunks start appearing on your 3rd week, just so you know. So, we were waiting at the door of an investigator's house, and this guy just comes up to us, clearly drunk, and talking to us. I don't understand drunken Spanish, but we opened our backpacks and showed him we were only carrying books. So we gave him a Law of Chastity and Restoration pamphlet, hugged?, talked with a family member of the investigator while he was waiting, and then parted ways. :y It was really weird.

Yesterday, we helped clean up a house that got burned through. The work wasn't especially hard, but it was unpleasant to see. THe only things that survived (minus the house, being concrete), where the Church materials and the surfaces they immediately rested upon. The copies of the Book of Mormon had the outside blackened a bit, even when the shelf they were on was black and breaking to the touch. Where the copies had been set, the wood was good as new. In other places I found warped metal, and literally everything was burnt, so it was interesting to see.

Oh, and I'm learning a lot about architecture possibilities. SInce they build their homes directly here, they do what they want. Wish I could use a building sim or something to just tinker with stuff :>

Only pictures for this week are from an art book I'm doing to help teach lessons. Can't think of anything to draw for the Atonement because my drawing isn't really suitable for the sacred nature of it, but c'est la vie.

Adios,

Elder Newman

We gotta get right back to where we staaaaaaarted from‏

How's it going? Things have been going pretty normally I guess. We contacted 3 new families yesterday and I am know mildly proficient with a machete. I mean, my hand got a really bad blister after like 20 minutes of cutting, but the handle was broken and kept shifting so no mea culpa. I also cut my hand on a rock because the rocks were in the way of the machetes, so that was an adventure. Then, some investigators poured some red stuff on my hand to help the blister heal (I was fasting and a bit out of it, so I didn't resist), so my hand is now stained pink. It's starting to come off a little. SO service is an adventure.

OH, funny story. A few days ago, the lights in the street went out, and it's just really bad when it's like that, so we were headed home and we had to pass the gangsters' home, and while we were passing, one yelled at us, "Mormones! Don't worry, we watch out for you!" We said thanks and continued to walk briskly. That is really reassuring though. The police were hanging around there a few days later. They all have military grade assault rifles here and are dressed in fatigues, so it's a bit disconcerting and sometimes at night they point their lasers and their flashlights at us and it's just like "We're the least dangerous people in the area-- just passing-- hi." But they're police so it should be fine.

Oh, and I really kind of miss the non-LDS stuff that was just really uplifting. Like, the other night I was just pondering Ira Glass' speech about how taste precedes talent and how that causes an obscene amount of stress, Ira Glass is pretty great, and I kinda wish I didn't have to go 2 years without checking my Vimeo playlist of favorite videos. Courtney knows where to find them. Probably. And that's just how it is. I have a good enough memory that I can remember the gist and generally what Ira Glass sounds like, so it's good.

Oh, and our laundry lady has the most obnoxious dog that refuses to leave you alone and jumps on you and gets all your clothes dirty when you just gave up every shirt but the one you're wearing to be cleaned and please don't bite my pants that really makes no sense why bite pants

Hope that the week to come is pretty much fantastic from a generally trustworthy viewpoint that tends to have a higher standard of fantastic things

Elder Newman

[Pics of a cement relief of Guatemala]

P.S. These are all my pics that I've got right now. The last one is a fire in our backyard that I assume my companion set to burn trash. We've also got my home, some bad pictures of the Guatemala and San Salvador temples, and one of the volcanoes. And my selfie game is so mad that I can set it on something and make sure I'm in front of it and I'll be in the picture. INCREDIBLE. As opposed to getting my pants or a wall, as is usual.