hay un feliz pulpo que se halle en la tierra?‏ (Is there a happy octopus in the earth?)

This week went pretty well. Working with Elder V and Elder E was fantastic, but they both had changes. I'm staying in Los Alpes while Elder V went to Santo Tomas (which is still in our District so ni modo) and Elder E to somewhere in Apopa (probably. we didn't go to the transfers meeting and Elder F isn't 100% sure if he went to Apopa. Elder F is training right now :>).

Other news, Elder E taught me to light matches with one hand, peanut butter syrup is a thing, Scheherezade is still the best name ever and if one were to name a child that they could just go by Sche (pronounced Shay) if they wanted but it's still probably a bad idea to name a child that.

Bro. M made me feel really good. I didn't feel like I'd contributed to his baptism because Familia M is super awesome and all but he said that something I said in the second lesson I had with them (he didn't specify what) was what inspired him to make the decision to be baptized in the end. I mean, patently that's just the Spirit working but it's cool anyway.

Elder R is my new companion. He has 2 weeks more than me in the mission, is from Honduras, and the most active member of his family. We're getting along super well and he wants to learn English so we've been singing a lot in English.

Tuesday before changes we also contacted an inactive Sister based on some member localization sheets the Elders Quorum gave us and it was awesome. She was sick from a miscarriage (though they managed to save the child), and expressed a desire to return to Church. She went inactive when her first child was born, but now that he's a teenager, she wants him in the church so that he doesn't go off doing crazy stuff. Her husband isn't a member, but they're legally married (like 10% of El Salvador is actually married) and he left his old church because they didn't accept their marriage (he's a fair bit younger than her). But yeah. Lots of potential. Second visit fell through but that's par for the course. Gonna keep working there.

That's it for this week, minus that today was my first time showering with a pila. We didn't have water this morning so I had to use water from the pila. Pilas are a thing here where it's basically a large basin of stagnant water reserves that's always super cold and you just use a bowl kind of thing to scoop water to wash your hands, throw water on yourself, pour it in the toilet to make it flush, etc. It's pretty ghetto but it's better that we're using the pila cus if you don't mosquitoes just start breeding in them (we also have a thing that prevents them from breeding in the pila but it only like half works).

Adios,

Elder Jacob Thomas Newman

Los Tres Amigos

Having fun during Day of the Dead

New Companions