Sing Hymns‏

So this week was quite spiffy.

Monday- Interviews with President! Felt a bit more confident going out, but we ending up not having PDay. C'est la vie.
Tuesday- Bishop introduced us to more less active members! Surprise, one of them never got baptized! I think they'll come back to Church. We just need to give them un empujoncito.
Wednesday- We went to the Temple! It was my 2nd favorite session of all time. I just feel an incredible love for Adam and Eve. They're magnificent. We spent the afternoon in more baptismal interviews for Quezaltepeque. All came out well.
Thursday- Met some new people! Final choir practice!
Friday- President Russell M. Nelson of the 12, Elder Ochoa and Elder Alonso of the 70 gave a marvelous conference. Moreso, we sang Que Firmes Cimientos (How Firm a Foundation) after the opening prayer and it was so incredible. It came out magnificently (after the conference, we sung Cual rocío que destila (As Heaven´s Dew Distilling) to the tune of Guard Him, Joseph). It was very well received. Everyone got to shake his hand, and it was amazing to meet someone who has such an intimate and close relationship with Christ. One of the key instructions we received is that, en sí, half of our daily plans should be lessons to less active members, because they are beyond important.
Saturday- A few 2nd lessons
Sunday- We gave a part of the 3rd hour to encourage members to invite everyone. We talked about why and how it's best just to be quick and direct in the invitations, with a brief testimony.
Monday- today

We still don't live in our area but tomorrow sí.

God is the best. For those who truly love Him, He will send a 2nd Comforter, that is, occasional visits and care from the Lord Himself.

Elder Newman

Fotos:
  1- La Familia V, from my last area in Refinería. I forgot to send the photo.

  2- A photo of the photo that the Ward sent me :>

  3- The Mission Choir of San Salvador Este más poderoso

  4- Housemates: Elder M, Elder R (my companion), myself, and Elder R

Villa Mariona‏

Changes were this week! But surprise, I'm still in the same Zone! Also surprise, I'm opening an area again! That means I've opened 1/4 of the Zone (2 out of 8 areas)!

I'm now in an area called Villa Mariona. It was closed for a few months, but we've been able to communicate well with the Bishop and Ward Missionaries. We think we have a house but we haven't moved in yet.

But this last week was crazy as will the current.

Elder Pérez was sick up until changes, but we got to do some good lessons on the way. I left some letters to some people and left a last lesson for as many as I could.

Day of changes Bishop just took us to different houses of members to get to know them. The area is kind of ridiculously organized (almost no useful bus routes, various rivers with a small number of bridges, lots of hills, etc). And we crossed a really dangerous bridge for no reason because there is an alternate route that takes like 2 minutes more. :<

Thursday! Finding people! We went with an elderly member who pretty much just wants to go with the missionaries all the time and likes to walk. But we found a great investigator named E de G, who is this brothers granddaughter (Hno. A) and is married to an active member. They have a 6 year old son. It's pretty great.

Friday! Choir practice! We're learning also As Heaven's Dew Distilling or whatever it's called in English to the tune "Guard Him, Joseph." One lesson with Emma, then we spent 3 hours doing baptismal interviews in Quezaltepeque. A member in Quezaltepeque was going to drive us home, since Quezalte is 40 minutes from home, but he took a pill and when he told us that he couldn't, the last bus had already left. So we slept with the Elders in Quezalte. ... and we had the keys to the house so the Elders in whose house we live slept with the other Elders in their District.

And yeah, Saturday and Sunday was finding more people.

This week: Today- Interviews with President. Tuesday- Final Choir

Practice Wednesday or Thursday- Temple Trip Friday- Elder Nelson comes to give a Multi Mission Conference, and somewhere during all this are 3 more baptismal interviews in Quezalte and moving to our new house in our area. Buena vida. :>

And I've completed approximately 2/3 of my mission :< math has betrayed me

but yeah that's how it's goind down here. Enjoy everything up there! or wherever you are relative to me! Echen fuego!

Elder Newman

que lástima pero adiós‏ (What a Shame, But Goodbye)

Fotos: Elder P wins over the camera, I can´t flip pancakes, pictures of El Salvador.

This week was starting to pick up, though we're still not at 100%. The Choir practices are progessing, Elder P is going to train, and that means I have changes. These are the last 2 days in the area- I've never lasted more than 4 months in an area (and it's the 2nd time in a row that I've had changes because my companion was going to train). I was seriously expecting to actually stick with my companion for once jaja.

We visited some parts of our area that we're not very familiar with. There's a town called Nejapa (where they have the Fireball Festival), but it´s pretty far from town and en sí, during these expeditions, we were unsuccessful in finding investigators to teach. The area just past the Río Tomayate is a bit more promising though since there are so many members, less actives, and it's fairly safe. We're also getting more cooperation from the Ward. It's a bit of a shame that I won't be hear to see everything develop, but I feel like the nuevito will inherit fairly decent work.

Elder P got pretty sick yesterday. He had a 104 degree fever yesterday, but by the afternoon it got down to 100, and we left a little bit in the night and found a family of 7. We hope that they progress!

Also, sad news: Hno. Jesús died 2 weeks ago. After his confirmation, he couldn't even attend Church due to failure in the knees and his family kind of just ignored him all the time, so he just layed in a hammock all the time. I hope that he can progress much more now.

Elder Newman

Pictures Posted on Facebook

Sisters Vazquez, wife and daughter of the Mission President, President Vazquez, posted these pictures on Facebook, along with many others pictures of other missionaries. Some were taken during an event they arranged at the San Salvador LDS Temple. Missionaries were asked to bring anyone interested to see the temple and to learn about the plan of salvation while there. Lots of people came, some from far away. Elder Newman was able to participate in the event this time. Other photos were taken during zone conferences. (This is the main reason I put up with Facebook! :D )

vaya pues‏ (go for it)

The curfew was just because the gangs had declared a stop on public transport and some buses got burned. We weren't really ever at risk, but it was just a precaution. 

So last week was the slowest week I've had in the mission :>

Well, the curfew ended, but as a consequence, we lost contact with all the new investigators we had found, and given we had dropped nearly all of our old investigators... and it was the week of las fiestas de San Salvador, which means everyone is on vacation except for our positive investigators. It was weirdly difficult. But we have high hopes for this week and by the weekend it stopped being quite so ridiculous. My fever was gone by Monday or Tuesday and it was replaced by a full body rash for a while but that`s gone too so I am now fully healthy :>

Oh, and Elder W went home Tuesday after choir practice, so it's just Elder P and I in a duo. It's weird going from a trio to a duo (more than going from a duo to a trio).

I'm also practicing in a choir. A General Authority is coming to the mission in a few weeks and we're prepping How Firm a Foundation. I'm doing the tenor part, and this experience has actually taught me quite a bit about singing. It's a bit chafa since we have to go to Ilopango for the practices (an hour or more in bus, one way), which made us lose a good bit of time last week too, but así que se vaya. I like singing anyway.

There isn't too much more that's happened. Hope to follow the Spirit and feel a bit more of the fire this week :> So, echen fuego, hagan lo mejor que puedan, y vayan con todo! (Throw fire, do the best you can, and go with everything!

Elder Newman

And remember to hear the music of the Gospel! If you don't enjoy what you have to do in the journey, you won't enjoy the end product very much either!


OH AND THE BAPTISM PHOTO FROM LAST WEEK

it is preparation day today‏

This week was a week.

More than anything, we´re under a curfew again. We had to enter at 7 all week, which is a bit of a shame because most of the investigators we had found the week before as well as la familia V were only available in that time period. And I´ve had a low fever since Thursday but that´s not that big a deal. Just means I´m a bit more tired than I´d be anyway, since I´m always tired.

But R S had a wonderful baptism. He has a teacher age son who has been baptized for 5 years and he finally decided to do it as well. The whole family came, as the mother and an older daughter who are still very Catholic. He thanked us at the end for helping him make the right decision. It was the first time I saw him in a white shirt :>

We also saw a weird pigeon. It had an extremely long and bloated neck which made it nearly incapable of flight. It tried to fly onto a roof and after a very slow ascent tried to land but fell too quickly and hit the wall. :< poor pigeon. It was a really weird looking thing. There´s also a chicken that looks like it has white fur and blue skin. Elder W calls it the abominable snowchicken.

It was a good week.

Elder Newman