Still al suave‏

We did a fair bit of running around, but not so much finding people this week, and no nonmembers coming to Church. :(

On the bright side, A. has been a much happier person with his baptism. Healthier, too, which is very good given his age. I don't particularly remember him smiling before, but he was very smiley during Church, and Saturday asked us about how he could help in the Church. He has a much more mature faith in the Plan of Salvation. The Spirit is helping him a ton.

Plus at least one older couple that we visit is now effectively activated. If only their kids would come to Church and go on missions!

Though we found 2 young couples, both of them the wife being pregnant, which brings the sum of pregnancies in our investigator pool to 3. The good thing about it is that it awakens people to a more spiritual sentiment, given the powers of Creation being so near. The pillar of hope is the Temple Trip Thursday, since we have 21 people confirmed, and about 20 more invited, and the Ward has at least 8 confirmed. Then, General Conference!

In health, I sunburned my legs last Pday and Saturday I scraped up my knees bad playing soccer (the DL fell on me), but it wasn't too bad. Although there is pus now in my knees. I try to use the antibiotic cream, but since I'm always walking, anything I put on to cover the wound just gets taken off by my pants. We keep moving forward.

The new Liahona has some very good truths. I had always wondered how to have faith in miracles if I didn't know if they were going to happen or not, due to God's will, but the article of Power of Faith cleared that up, plus I like the model of distinguishing weakness from sin. I feel that most positive investigators are weak, not sinful, and should be treated as such. Sometimes they were sinful, but are at the point of being humbled, and are so converting sin to weakness to purity. Truly sinful people don't really listen to us :(

Bien, disfruten la semana, y echen fuego! Edifiquen Sión dondequiera que estén, y estarán listos para la Sión Celestial, la presencia de Dios. (Well , enjoy the week , and let fire! Build up Zion wherever you are, and be ready for the heavenly Zion, the presence of God. [Thank you, google translate.])

Salú, que les vaya bien en todo! Les quiero! (Good wishes,  and that all goes well! I love you all!)

Elder Newman Salvadoreño

al suave‏

BAPTISM OF HERMANO ABELINO R.

NEW SCRIPTURE CASE FOR MY BIBLE (TRIPLE STILL IN THE WORKS)

PICTURE FROM OUR CHAPEL, LOOKING OUT OVER ILOPANGO? MAYBE?

This week was chill. Saturday was full of the district, since we all worked in my area before lunch and then we all went to the baptism (well, 3/4 companionships did for each activity, but that's good enough for me).

Yesterday was completely dead because everyone was watching el Clásico (Real Madrid v Barcelona). Elder P. is Madrista con todo, so he was pretty disappointed when they lost. Football is a drug here.

Easter, General Conference, and a temple trip for investigators is coming up within the next 2 weeks. It's gonna be good!

Keep moving forward! Remember that even reading a little bit of the scriptures during the small moments of the day is a great spiritual strength and will help you be ready for whatever comes (remember the parable of the 10 Virgens).

I hope you have a great week!


Elder Newman Salvadoreño

70 is the low all week

What even happened last week‏

I feel like time scarcely exists. It just blurs and blurs and I don't even know at this point. We just keep moving forward. I feel like I'm in April but still in February.

Still entering at 6. We do our best to keep teaching, so we leave letters for families that we can't visit and we work from 10-1 and 2-6.

D. got baptized! His little brother should be baptized soon too. Just need to talk with his father so that he can come to Church (divorces and all that).

Pictures: Working with the whiteboard. Baptism of D., if you wanted to know what a pila looks like.

We hope to have baptisms every week from here on! Except for the first weekend in April cus it's Conference but ni modo!

Echen fuego!

3 Ne 1:13

Briefing‏

Still entering at 6.

No changes. Still with Elder P., not acting as district leader for this change.

Stake Conference, Elder Maravilla of the Seventy spoke. 4 investigators and 5 less actives present.

Improving. Working on daily contact with investigators. Will start to distribute letters to investigators whom we can't visit during the week. Investigators progressing more.

Teaching an elderly man to read, helping a less active sister with English.

D., son of a family in the process of reactivation, should be baptized this week.

Picture I drew for some less actives to encourage them to go to the Temple.

April is a visit to the temple for investigators and less actives. Elder Paiz and I are assigned to teach the Plan of Salvation.

OH from the article from the 1st Presidency in this month's Liahona, the Agony in Garden is my favorite painting. I think Pres. Uchtdorf and I had the exact same experience on going to the Sacred Gifts Exhibit!

Thanks for all your support, letters, and prayers! Be strong in the doctrine of truth, and enjoy your Christian liberty! Tire not of doing good works!

Cordially yours,

Elder Newman

Brief presented the 9th day of March, in the year of our Lord 2015.

HIGH ADVENTURE‏

The craziest week of my mission just passed but also this week is changes. Everything's moving super fast. Elder Paiz went home to Guatemala for 4 days due to a family emergency (everything's fine now), and I ended up working with the Zone Leaders in the meanwhile. Super crazy, being in trio like that. We went to the Temple on Thursday because our areas had baptized 2 people (the monthly goal in the mission), met a returned missionary who gave me a referral. We had to take buses normally to get there, which was a bit of an adventure, if for nothing more than traffic. We only got back at 3 in the afternoon, without having lunched or anything. But I was able to buy a bunch of materials for our investigators.

Saturday we did a service at a school, macheteing tall grass. We were on a cliff and we started casting the waste material below, which was fine until the workers at the school started burning it to get rid of it. Smoke rises and all, and us being on a cliff right above the fire made it a bit hard to keep working :y but I got some cool pictures. Elder Paiz came back right before we had to enter at 6 on Saturday (so I missed the baptism of the Zone Leaders), but even though we hadn't been able to visit anyone all week, Familia Monterosa still came to church, we did divisions Sunday in the afternoon, and we had a very good Sunday. This week was super fast and super hefty. And I don't know who won the elections.

Remember that all those who serve God sincerely begin to resemble Him!

Elder Jacob Newman Salvadoreño

Temple! (4 companionships in the Zone went to the Temple) 

 People that I interviewed for baptism like a month ago!

 The District!

 The Zone!

Life is Liffy‏

 This week was a new experience. We have some temporary rules that limit our ability to proselyte normally, so we haven't been doing near as much work as boots on the ground. We have high hopes for this week, and we're going to work hard.

A ver. We helped cut some trees, companion exchanges with the area of Limón, and I got sick to the stomach yesterday. I think it's indigestion? First time taking Pepto Bismol. Really, nothing much has happened. It continues hot and sunny in El Salvador. OH duh we had interviews with Pte Vásquez, and watched Meet the Mormons (or rather, half of it because my interviews fell such that I didn't watch more than 2.5 families). But that was cool. Our new Mission Leader got home from his mission in Honduras a month ago, and he's helping us a lot, especially to open a part of our area that we don't work much (and getting us the movies of the Church and discs with Mormon Messages and stuff to MODERNIZE TEACHING YEAH - we have technology). 

I suppose that's the week. ECHEN FUEGO Y FORMEN PARTE DE SIÓN

ELDER NEWMAN SALVADOREÑO

(lo siento Joseph :> )

  Because we haven't been able to visit some of our investigators dure to extraneous circumstance, we've been writing them letters with little lessons and words of ánimo. 

Shenanigans.

Selfies of selfies.

Geckos‏

Shenanigans of the week. Since I bought a new camera with Christmas money, I've been putting it to use. The first photo is with our Zone Leader Elder Martinez from la Republica Dominicana during exchanges (I gave him my old camera since he hasn't had one since he lost his the 8th day of his mission). Then I helped Elder Paiz take better selfies, tested my camera on a page from the Book of Mormon, and took a picture of a gecko in our house and gave it red eye :> I like the geckos that I keep finding. I'll need to have the luck of taking a photo of a Torogoz one day (the national bird of El Salvador. It's tiny and fat and has weird things at the end of its tail and I love them). Oh, and Elder Paiz with his MTC Group.

In other news, this week was crazy. Wednesday was a meeting with Pte Vasquez and the Assistents to verify training, and begin the second phase. We all have the goal to make sure our new missionary is ready to train at the end of his training. We set a goal to talk with a ton ton ton of people. At the end, Pte invited us to Taco Bell (we don't eat Mexican food here. Almost nothing is spicy either).

Thursday in Zone Conference we learned how we're going to change the method of weekly planning to be more efficient. It's cool.

Also, we contacted a man named David Hernandez in the street. He said that he was going to work (but when we came to church yesterday, he told us that he had just left the house because he was feeling really bad. He doesn't have a job right now). We contacted him Friday, he shared about his life right off the bat, accepted a baptismal date and went to Church after one visit. He was really touched by the story of Alma, when the Lord lightened their burdens and promised them liberty when they were under the oppression of Amulon. (It's Mosiah 24 or 25 or somewhere about there)

Saturday a man named Alejandro contacted us while we were looking for an old investigator because he wants to restore his relationship with God, knows some members of the Church and felt that he needed to make a personal effort.

We also contacted one of our neighbors yesterday. They're good Catholics, and while we doing nightly planning, they passed our house and gave us cheesecake. INCREDIBLE

Also a certain Familia Rivera, the husband has been inactive since he had 18 years, and didn't except the missionaries until now. The wife and 2 daughters are also pretty positive. We taught about the Book of Mormon.

it's been extra hot here. Winter is the second best, after fall. :<

But yeah, we keep moving forward.

This week might be a little bit crazy, but we hope for the BEST!

ELDER NEWMAN EL SALVADOREÑO

 With Zone Leader Elder Martinez

geckos are wonderful don't insult them they make me happy and also make weird noises

 Catholic Church

Picture of the Zone