Hello to All The People‏

Well, this week went along quite nicely.

Christmas has come and gone, Pres. and Hna. Vásquez invited us over for dinner (and also to help get some stuff ready for the Ward Christmas Activity). It was a very good dinner. I ate a fair bit of potatoes.

We had the Ward Christmas Activity, skyped home, had to handle a ton of work for people who had problems calling home. It is really stressful arranging international calls between people who hadn't planned anything like that. :/ But everyone called home by the end of it.

I'm doing some end of year reports and taking advantage that I now have 2 years of data to work with, I'm doing some statistical analysis! I've found that quite entertaining.

We're working and finding a few positive families so we'll see how that comes along!

OH. I almost forgot: last Wednesday, at night, we went to visit some less active members and when we got there, they were tearing their house apart. (Here, moving as a poor person means tearing your old house down, recycling what you can, and building the same thing somewhere else). They didn't really want to ask us for help but we knew they needed it so we managed to wait outside there door long enough for them to tell us what to do. I tore out bamboo braces that sustained the dirt walls, which Elder F proceeded to knock down with a 15 pound shaft with an iron head. He also managed to kick a few walls in which was quite entertaining. As shown in the photo, his part was a fair bit dirtier than mine. As a blessing, the cough I had didn't seem at all affected by all the dirt clouds. That was a very nice way to spend the 23rd. And I have now torn down a house. Oh, and their backyard had the best view of San Salvador at night that I've ever seen.

The other photo is a thing I did for a quick Christmas present for one of the families we visit. Office advantages: being able to edit in your drawings to a temple photo.

Another innovation is that I've decided to ponderize (o algo parecido) Conference talks. Every day in the morning, I get up and listen to The Tongue of Angels (Jeffrey R Holland, April 2007) to start everything up. I figure I'll listen to that for a week and then choose another Monday. I've also changed my alarms to the audio ripped from some Mormon Messages. It's pretty tranquilo. And if you're familiar with Earthly Father, Heavenly Father (https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2013-01-002-earthly-father-heavenly-father?lang=eng), it's a pretty appropriate thing to wake up to.

Well, have a great week!

Elder NEWMAN

Charity:Christmas:Christ:Jesus:Noel:Love‏

This is Elder F's friend. He was chilling by our study tables yesterday.

Temple detail! This is from the Temple Activity from a while back. La flor de izote makes a lovely motif.

This week was quite nice, fairly relaxed. We found a family of 6+ (well, we taught 6) on Sunday and the mom explained for us the reason why authority is necessary in baptism :> The only shame is that we can only visit them on Sundays! We're finding some good new families :>, especially since some others we were visiting chilled a bit on us :<.

L moved away... we're trying to figure out where so as to send missionaries.

I'm working on pass-along cards for the Sabbath Day, Internet resources from the Church, and a Plan of Salvation fold-open brochure for teaching. Also, consolidating reports.

Last night was the Ward Christmas activity! It was a lovely devotional and 3 investigators, 2 less actives came! 2 of them have almost come to Church twice but la joven of the family was super friendshipped by the young women and was ecstatic by the end.

But yeah, it has been a good week and further Christmas joy awaits :>

The light of Christ burns bright in Christmas. John 16:33.

Elder Newman

Also, something I've found useful, you judge- from time to time, I have an idea about stuff I want to do as a parent and I keep a list of said things.

Buenas taaaaaaaaaaaaaardes‏

Hola, ¿cómo les va?

This last bit went bien rápidito. There's not really much too report though. We did a service activity cleaning up a neighborhood on Saturday. Improved our numbers reports.

Probably the coolest thing is that one of Pres. Vásquez's counselors, Presidente López, invited us to a Christmas dinner Sunday night. It was extremely good. I didn't know the family before but they have very light, lovely souls. We watched a movie that apparently everyone except me has heard, the Little Drummer Boy.

We have a lot of good families we're working with. It's just hard helping them to get to Church, which is frustrating since they can't progress spiritually and less towards baptism unless they come. In the eternal words of the District 2, "Just come to Church!"

I took a few scene photos from our house. The country is lovely and the architecture, even if it's not sophisticated, is wonderful.

I found to my pleasure that there is a bus route we take normally that is sufficiently calm to read the Scriptures on the ride.

Talk of the week: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/10/be-not-afraid-only-believe?lang=eng

Pues, work hard, live by the Spirit! Keep organized, have a daily plan, remember that you are really cool people! Give people things just because! We don't need a lot of the stuff we have and a lot of what we have would make someone much happier than it's making us!

Love all y'all!

Elder Newman

Previous messageNext messageBack to messages A long list of things went wrong but it all worked fine, ya know?‏

BUENAS TARDES.

Today was a week in which many things happened without them needing to happen, but we've gotten along well. I haven't exactly had much the luxury of waking up at 6:30, but the world is quite lovely in the early diurnal hours.

The Temple Activity went along smoothly, despite being planned kind of last minute. We had an attendance of over 1000 and at least the missionaries really liked my ordinances sheet (we almost didn't get it on time, but the printing company brought it to the Temple). I didn't see a ton of converts, but I saw some friends from Villa Mariona and Usulután, including E G, plus a super good family we found in Apopa while I was in companion exchanges. They've had some difficulties getting married, but they've almost got it. It was a bit different running the whole show as a secretary.

L's baptism was con todo! She's really great and the familia G (the children of a recent convert) and some less actives and L's daughter all came.

Changes prep went pretty normal until we were driving to President's house to receive the new missionaries and we get a phone call telling us that the news weren't coming due to protests on the Guatemalan border. Hmm.

So we had to receive the news on Wednesday as well as send off the missionaries who are going home, then have changes a day late (and change everything to make that work). The new missionaries ended up staying in our house, which has never housed more than 5 missionaries (suddenly, 16). Attached is a photo of Elder N, who actually does live with us and appears to have found my camera without me knowing. And at 12 AM, Elder F got a call saying that 2 Elders who are going home had lost their suitcases on the Temple grounds. Well, at that point, there's nothing you can really do but Elder F tried for like an hour and a half.

Yesterday we finally got to changes. That was nice but since Leadership Council was today, I had to stay late in the Office getting stuff ready and when we left there was some very very beautiful traffic.

Today was Leadership Council. Last month I kind of invited myself by giving a presentation in the Council, but when President went to the Mission Pres. Conference, the Area said that Secretaries should attend Leadership Council so we now get to go. Also, since Pres. and Hna. Vasquez´s grandchildren are here for the month, A had his 6th birthday party right after with all of us singing to him and Hermana Vasquez slamming his face into the cake. Pretty great stuff.

Now I finished some reports, did some birth certificate stuff, and I guess we'll go to the area as soon as we finish up here

Also Elder B left us and is now in Ilopango! It feels very different without him. And Elder B is being trained as the new financial secretary. He was my Zone Leader for two changes in Apopa. He's super chill :>