It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood‏

Now we have some baptismal photos! I tried to retouch them a bit since everyone had red eye and was yellowed.

We also had a Multi-Mission Conference with Elder Quentin L Cook. The Apostles are just wonderful people. Pres. Craig C Christensen also came (and came to our Stake Conference as well). Super wonderful. Let's be Zion!

We're getting changes ready, though I think we'll adjust the logistic. There's no real reason to distribute materials during changes now, since it's so busy. So it'll probably be a week after changes.

Katherine will hopefully be confirmed this Sunday.

Oh, and the mission car is now assigned to us now! (Previously, the Assistents had it 90% of the time.) That makes me feel better. It's a lot better than passing 2 hours every day in dirty buses.

With that, take care! I hope the week goes well.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1979/10/give-me-this-mountain?lang=eng
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/k-newell-dayley_centering-arts-christ/
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/tyler-j-jarvis_thats-light-gets/

Do good and saintly things!

Elder Newman

Things past, things present, and things to come

SO the biggest event of the week is K's baptism! She got baptized Monday night. Due to a series of unfortunate shenanigans, we did not have a camera and almost did not show up to our own baptism, but it is alright (for reasons unbeknownst to me, the days we baptize are the only days when something weird pops up that forces us to stay in the Office almost until 6 PM making us almost late to the 7 PM baptism we should have been comfortably on time for). Fortunately, the other Elders in the Ward provided a camera and pretty much everything we weren't able to provide. The service was wonderful, 8 investigators came. K gave a poignant testimony as did one of her member friends from school. The only inconvenience is that she won't be confirmed for another week and a half because:

Special Stake Conferences all over the country! Our Stake and at least also Apopa and Ilopango do as well. An Apostle is doing a Multi-Mission Conference on Saturday, Sunday we have an authority visiting (from what I've heard, it'll be Elder Christensen of the Presidency of the Seventy). Changes are expected in Stake and maybe Mission boundaries.

So yeah, K will be confirmed the Sunday after the coming one.

The Worldwide Mission Conference today was powerful. It was especially interesting because in the last Multi-Zones President Vasquez had begun to teach a lot of what was taught today. We also saw his daughter a few times in the crowd, since she's serving in the Temple Square Mission.

REPENT
BAPTIZE
GO TO THE TEMPLE

Fantastic!

So, take care everyone!

Elder Newman

Guide Us O Thou Great Jehovah

Things that happened since Thursday morning last:

I got a birth certificate from Santa Tecla. We closed a house in Apopa and so received el Libro de Mormón in braille. I didn't even know those kinds of things existed in the Mission. I hope to know braille within a while :>

We had Stake Conference this weekend. Familia E attended and had good experiences, even though they got there a bit late and we freaked a bit out cus we didn't see them even though we were helping the ushers (they went through the other entrance). S G, one of the converts in our area, received the Melchizedek Priesthood and is serving as 2nd Counselor of the Stake Sunday School Presidency. His cousin, V H, dreamed about us guiding him through a large field. We hope that a lot of his family gets converted. K (her last name isn't E since the dad isn't her dad and we're still working on some divorce and marriage stuff) has her baptismal interview today! If all goes well (and it did in the pre-interview) she'll be baptized Monday. She's had some strong spiritual experiences and is super serious about it. On Monday we had a crazy FHE with S and almost all of his non-member family which involved 1 Nephi 11, a lot of technological problems, the Liahona child's section, baptism dates and yeah.

Elder Craig C Christensen of the Presidency of the Seventy is coming not this Sunday but Sunday next for a special Stake Conference (there are rumors that the 3 Church units in Zacatecoluca will be split into their own District) and the Apostle is almost here as well.

My current project is creating an individual efficacy report for every missionary to help them reach higher levels of power and authority by consecration. I'm focusing on better studies and planning and am meditizing 2 Nephi 4:34-35 (it's Elder C's favorite scripture). As an area, we want to find old investigators and President invited us to search for the people who have had a baptismal date that's fallen since October because many of them will be baptized.

Fun stuff: the volcano Chaparrastique (otherwise the volcano of San Miguel) had a minor eruption yesterday. It mostly just vomited an opulent amount of smoke. No lava flows as far as I know. This was right after Elder F and Elder H, a new assistant, were super angry because he failed a driving exam and has to wait a month to try it again (because here, you have to know the minutia of traffic bureaucracy to get a license. More fun when in a foreign language.).

One of my favorite words to say is alabaster. My favorite word to write (at the moment) is Sofia.

Well, that's the news.

Have a good week! Build Zion!

Elder Newman

1/07/16

Today is Thursday! Yesterday was Wednesday!

Yesterday was not our P-Day since we had a Multi-Zone Conference with President Vásquez. Well, today's not our P-Day either (P-Days sometimes just disappear in the Office) but we at least have permission to write home :>. We learned a lot about consecration and my personal favorite was teachings about testifying of blessings with more applied and specific and potent blessings. I also presented my statistical analyses. Not sure how much everyone else got out of them, but ni modo pues. I feel like it was useful. Applying that in the lessons last night produced some lovely feelings of repentance.

We also got a birth certificate from la alcaldía de San Salvador, Elder Frazier has taken 2 of 3 driving tests he needs to get out his licencia de conducir salvadoreña.

Going backwards, Tuesday we had a great Family Home Evening with familia Esquivel (investigators) and la familia Rodríguez (1st Stake Counselor's family). Katerin, the young woman of the family, (I'm never confident in writing the Spanish version of Catherine since I've seen more than enough forms of it) is pretty likely to be baptized soon and the parents are coming a long. We've been focusing on finding new and old investigators. We're trying to boost progression and help people be baptized and converted.

Well, ¡feliz semana! We'll have an Apostle visit this month, a worldwide Missionary Conference, and then next month, Elder Duncan, Area President, visits. Busy days.

Oh, and the least fun news of the week is that Change/Transfer Meetings are no longer a thing. That's mostly relevant to me since said meetings were the entire material distribution system. So I'm working on figuring out how to get materials from here to the 90+ areas in El Salvador. I've got a plan to get it to each Zone, but I still don't have it figured out after that, given that various Zones are well spread out (2+ hours of travel time in sketchy buses with several heavy boxes is not something I plan to encourage). Any insights appreciated.

Fotos: 1. Where I was today from 6 to 6:45 AM waiting to send some suitcases with someone who's going to Honduras.

2. Light noodles from taking longer exposure photos on New Year's Eve.

Oh, and clearly we have gone around the sun once since 2014. Remember, the significance of your age is the number of times you've traveled around the sun.

Welp, we'll see each other! John 12:44-50, Moses 6:59-61

Elder Newman