First Baptism Scheduled :)

Dear family,

This has been a pretty interesting week...I learned a new word, and that is borracho. There are many borrachos here, a lot of people that drink. They come up to us missionary's a lot, and sometimes it is scary, and sometimes just plain old funny. one day last week we were walking on the calle and found this drunk man passed out on the sidewalk. I told hermana chiquin we should give him a word of wisdom pamphlet. she laughed and continued to walk. i kept my feet planted right where i was standing. she turned around and said, en serio?? ha (seriously?) yes, yes i was serious. we woke the poor guy up, and told him we were missionary's. we gave him the pamphlet with our number on it. a few days later, we found him again, passed out on the sidewalk from drinking to much. he never called us, but at least we made an effort. i am so glad to live in a place where a lot of people hold the same standards as we do. the word of wisdom down here is very hard to teach. we have a new investigator, Hermano porfideo. we were just walking yesterday to meet him for an appointment, and he walked right by us, completely drunk. it was very upsetting to see him like that. But a lot of our investigators are strong in their testimony's and in learning more about the iglesia. thankfully most of our investigators don't drink. well nothing has really changed this week. Lots of tracting lots of lessons. we are definitely busy with doing the Lords work. I still struggle with the Spanish, and have become pretty timid to the point that I don't really talk a whole lot at all anymore. it is a difficult phase i am going through, but I think it is all part of the experience right? ;) Oh, and we have a baptism this week on Friday. her name is Hermana de los Angeles, and she is amazing!! her son joined the church a couple years ago, but she never was interested until now. The faith of this woman is amazing! I cannot wait to tell you more about her baptism next week, especially since it is my first! Well I hope everyone is doing well back at home! Please continue to write me, I love hearing from you! Have a great rest of the week and make sure to count your blessings!

Week 3 in Metapan, El Salvador

El Salvador is pretty neat. it is nice and hot all the time, and I love eating beans and rice...for every meal....every day. ,) hehe but I have a little stomach infection, so pretty much I cant have any queso, or cream, or milk, or yogurt .( when the nurse told me I couldn't have yogurt, I thought I was going to just die right then and there, because, you know, yogurt is so good! All is well here in Metapan. me and my companera have 3 baptismal dates set for this month, and we work so hard every day. Like I say lot, I wouldn't trade serving a mission for the world. It is absolutely so wonderful. Oh hey, I have to tell you that this week was the first week I saw a drunk person. We were walking back home at 9 at night from our lesson, and it was pouring rain and pitch black. We were walking in water up to our ankles. Then there was this drunk guy across the street saying, "mi amor...mi amor" ha which means, "my love, my love." He started coming towards us pretty fast. Well we ran for our little lives. And then I looked back to see if he was following us. It kinda dawned on me that drunks cannot really run. So we died laughing because he looked really, really funny. Oh and I had a dog chase me down the calle (street) this week too...I really thought I was going to die that time. But its all good, it is all part of the experience. I love you tons!

 

PICTURES:

the rain... and oh you know, just all the geckos that live in our house. I was in the kitchen making lunch, and I found the tiny lizard, so I held it. don't worry grandma, I washed my hands after. haha funny story, when we were teaching a lesson, we were teaching a couple out on their patio. it was 8 at night, and so all the geckos come out. they are all over the ceiling's and walls. anywho, one dropped right into my lap when I was teaching. it freaked me out and I jumped like a mile and screamed. I'm sure Hermano Pablo thought I was weird because I flipped out, but he is getting baptized, so I guess I cant be that weird. ha

kylies pic she drew me is on my wall in my house...my sweet tan line in two weeks, and the crazy killer spiders that just chill in my house. this is El Salvador haha hope you get these!!

Week Two... this place continues to humble me

This first week has been a little challenging. I have had stomach pains and massive diarrhea. the nurse told me to get an exam, and we found out that I have had a bad stomach infection since i was in the MTC. I have been taking an antibiotic to get rid of it. hermana chiquin and I have a lot of investigators we are teaching right now. i cannot believe how many people have just been waiting to hear this message of the gospel. we are so blessed to have the gospel so prevalent in Utah, we have the truth right at our fingertips, and so many friends that share in our same beliefs. earlier this week we were knocking doors, and we saw mother and her two kids playing outside just down the street. we both felt so prompted to go and talk to her. her name is Sister Flores, and she goes to a Christian church, but has never been baptized in any specific church. we told her that we had an important message for her and her family, and that we were representatives of Jesus Christ. We taught her right then and there in the pouring rain, the message of this gospel. we sang the hymn families can be together forever. she sat there in astonishment, and she had tears in her eyes. we continued to teach her how the gospel can bless families, and how Heavenly loves her, and each and every one of us. Grandma, the Spirit was so strong. That is the first time in the mission that I have felt the spirit so strong. we were all tearing up. We have taught her two times now, and she is continuing to progress. I feel such a love for these people. And when I see them, I see them as Children of God. I can picture them a year from now, in the temple, dressed in white. I tear up just talking about it with you. These people need this message, and oh my gosh I am just so humbled that I was called to be a representative. I have had a lot of fun, I have had spiritual experiences, I have had my challenging times. It is hard, so so hard. I know it is not supposed to be easy, because you know how Christ yearned for our Salvation  so much that He died on the cross for us? Well, I think I know a small part of how He felt now. It is my eternal duty to fight for these peoples salvation. And all this hard work, is extremely worth it. I am glad I came here on this mission. I still struggle with the language, I can hardly speak it, and sometimes I have gotten discouraged. So, I fully rely on my faith in Heavenly Father, and my simple testimony, that I can change peoples lives. This is one of a kind experience. :) I love you....and I know for the past 6 , 7 weeks I have been away, I have never told you that I missed you. Well this week, I really do miss you and the family. I am a little homesick for your cooking. ha-ha ,) I continue to pray for each and every one of you every day. I hope you are all doing well, and I hope the move to the new house is going ok. I actually wrote you guys a letter....I hope you got it. Please be safe, have fun with the family. Tell them that I love them. I LOVE YOU TONS!!!!!! ;)

Sorry everyone, I just forward because lack of time that I have to email. I want you to all know that I love you so much. I want to all impress upon your minds the importance of families. Families are central to Heavenly Fathers plan, and it is where we grow the most in the Gospel. This week, please stay close to your families. Serve them, be patient with them...find activities to do with them. We had a teacher in the MTC who told us about how after he got back from his mission, his dad was killed by a gang member. It was unexpected, and was traumatic for his family. He told us to always remain close to our family, because you never know what might happen. I am not trying to say that something traumatic would happen, but just cherish the time you have with each other, our time here on this earth is so short and should not be wasted. I cannot tell you how much I love you all. Please email me or dear elder me sometime, I want to hear from you!! :)

..

so these are pictures from this week. the pics of my legs are the massive mosquito bites I have gotten here, don't worry I haven't gotten dengue yet. haha I have used my whole can of bug spray already. there is another pic of me and my comp. I also took a picture of a typical rainy day in el salvador...it will look like this until October. then in the rainy pic, there is a red car thing. that is what the taxis look like here. I ride them everyday. hmmm que mas...I think there are a couple pics of me and my companion from the mtc. I also took a picture of a spider. it was just chillin in my bathroom the other day. I about freaked out and died!! ha so big and scary and gross. oh and the pic of the gecko..we get tons of those in our house at night. they are soooo cool!!

 

(Ummm I only got 3 of the pics in the email she sent so this is all we get )

 

 

 

Email from her first area: Metapan

Hey What is up familia!! Well i am here in El Salvador now, and it is my second day here. It has been so much fun!! Yesterday I got assigned a new companion. Her name is Hermana Chiquin, and she is from Guatemala. She is one of the sweetest girls I have ever met. Yesterday was my first day doing contacting on the street. We invited lots of people to go to church, and we ended up getting a new investigator and having someone commit to baptism. It was a great way to start off my first day! me and my companera went grocery shopping yesterday so that I would have something to eat for the week. And there was a man in the store that kept asking me for money. I kinda got scared, I just said lo siento, which means I am sorry, because I didnt know what else to say. Well he kept coming up to me, and I thought that on my first day in the mision field, I was going to get robbed. But it is ok, he eventually went away.

All the houses here have gates around them, and bars on the windows. It is extremely diferente here than it is in the united states. Me and my companion live in a red house. It is pretty nice. The plumbing system is not to good here, so we dont flush our toilet paper, we just put it in a grocery bag next to the toilet. And we dont have a washer or dryer, so we get to wash our clothes my hand, and then we hang them up outside to dry. :) Oh...and the shower in the casa, well...it doesnt have running water, so there is a room with a huge basin of water in it, and then a hard concrete floor with a drain in it. I scoop out the water with a small plastic container and pour it over myself standing over the drain. I am so grateful for my shower shoes because there are bugs that are all over the floor when I shower. These last few days have humbled me. I continue to be humble every time I walk outside of our house. People here have absolutley nothing, but they still find reason to be grateful, and to be happy. This is my challenge for you this week...as you go about your day, keep a piece of paper and a pen with you. Every day when you want to complain about something, write down something you are grateful for instead, or a blessing you have recieved. Make a list during the week, and then at the end of the week...put it up on your fridge or mirror, or wherever you can see it. You are truly truly blessed. I never realized how blessed and spoiled I was until I came here. This experience has truly changed me. Love you all so very much. Have a good week, I will email you next week!! Love Hermana Thomas :)

So a lot of the group photos are with my district at the CCM. The other pictures of the bathroom ect are of the house I am staying in now. There is a picture of me and my amiga, hermana estevez on the bus, on our way to El Salvador. She is the sister that got super sick in the CCM. Hmm que mas...oh I forgot to tell you, I am serving in an area called Metapan. It is about an hour and a half from the mission home. I absolutley love it. And did I tell you that a local was telling me he wanted to marry me? yeah it actually happened on my second day, thank goodness for a companion that speaks spanish, because I had no idea what he was saying. jaja

Arrival in El Salvador at the Mission Home!

Today is the big day.  I don't have an email to share, just some pics from the Mission Presidents cute wife!  Ali has been friends with her on facebook a few months before she left on the mission and they messaged back and forth a bit.  The missionaries took a bus ride from the Guatemala CCM to the Mission home in El Salvador.  Here are the pics!  She looks great!  Can't wait to hear about her first area.

Meeting Sister Cordon

Meeting President Cordon

Subway for lunch!

 LOVE IT!

 

 

Last week in the CCM :)

hey familia!!! so one more week until I go out into the real world!! a lot has happened in this past week that I want to share with you! so we had pday last week, and we all got to go to Wal-Mart and then the mall. they had a Wendy's there, and I was so excited!! I got a baconater and a frosty and fries! it was a little piece of heaven that I have been missing for the past month. ha-ha but I have a way funny story to tell you, so there is this elder in my district, elder dickerman..and when we were at the mall, he went to get lunch from taco bell, or pizza hut, or something like that. when he went up to the counter, he was trying to ask for a drink, so he said "yo quiero bebe." the lady looked at him and was like..."COMO"???? ha he found out later on that bebida means drink, and bebe means baby. So pretty much he told the cashier that he wanted a baby. I'm surprised he didn't get slapped. he will never live that one down! now for my spiritual experience for the week. We have a latina sister here, Hermana Estrevez who just got here about a week ago. The poor girl had to get her wisdom teeth pulled out this past Saturday, and her mouth hurt so bad! I gave her some ibuprofen that night, and sent her to bed. Us sister leaders got a knock on our door at 12:30 am from hermana estrevezs room mates saying that there was an emergency and that we needed to come right away. Hermana Peterson and I ran to the room, and hermana estrevez had gotten a really bad fever, and was cold and shaking. I've seen people with a fever, and I have seen people be sick before, but never as sick as she was. it was pretty scary, and she said that she wanted a blessing. so Sister Peterson and I ran up the stairs to get presidente. we told him she needed a blessing, and he said to just put her back to bed and if it got any worse by 3 am, to come get him again. pretty frustrated at that answer, and that he wouldn't see her right away...we ran back downstairs to her room and said a fervent prayer. after the prayer, an idea popped in my head. You know how when I got my wisdom teeth pulled out, Taylor Hammer brought over tube socks so I would fill them with ice and tie the ends together to hold them on my cheeks? so I thought about that..the only issue was, was that no one had tube socks, and the kitchen doesn't have ice. we remembered though, that they have two freezers in the comedor that they keep popsicles in for our meal times. I ran in to find some Popsicles to put on her face. (keep in mind this was Saturday night, and also, we get the Popsicles restocked only once a week.) i knew that there might not be any left. I went to the first freezer and there were none. keeping a prayer in my heart, I ran to the second freezer, to only find 2 Popsicles left. it was such a huge blessing in that moment, that i just wanted to cry. I got some of the gallon bags that were packed in my suitcase, and the bandannas that grandma Kathy had gotten me. I wrapped up the popsicles and gave them to hermana estrevez. with the popsicles, and extra ibuprofen I gave her..it held her over for the night, i want to emphasize the importance of prayer, and with following promptings. no matter if you are in a time of distress, or if things are easy going, don't ever forget to pray to your Father in Heaven. He is always there for you. He cares, He hears your prayers, and He always wants what is best for you. And you already know what I feel about following promptings. If you receive a prompting, act on it, never delay. I love you all, I pray for you all several times a day. I want to leave you with a couple of scriptures that portrays how I feel. 2 Nephi 33:3, and Moroni 8:3. In Moroni it reads: "I am mindful of you always in my prayers, continually praying unto God the Father in the name of His Holy Child, Jesus, that He, through His infinite goodness and grace, will keep you through the endurance of faith on his name to the end." Have a great rest of the week! Stay safe, have fun and just be true to yourself. When I email you next week, I will be emailing from El Salvador, and will have received a new companion, So I will make sure to update you all on everything. Te amo familia!!

Another e-mail from our Missionary :)

Before her letter starts... just a reminder she has asked us to send her letters via Dear Elder or through the mail, she only has 1 hr. a week to send emails out and she ends up spending most of her time reading the emails she is receiving.  Here Address is listed on the blog.  Thanks!  :)

Hey Familia!! How is it all going in the states?? I am so happy for Mitch Williams! I knew he was getting married in May but I forgot when. Maybe message him for me and tell him congrats!  So this week has been a lot of fun!! The days here seem to pass by so fast and I cannot believe that I am already starting my fifth week here! I want you all to know that I survived an earthquake last week. It wasnt too big, but all of us Norte Americanos were all excited that we could actually survive through something like that. jaja So rainy season has finally hit..and like I have said before, when it rains..it pours! It is the coolest thing! I have never seen it rain so hard in my life. As soon as it starts raining, all of us Americans jump out of our seats and crowd around the window to watch while the latinos just sit there and laugh at us. Seriously the smallest things entertain us here. I have a funny but kind of bad story to tell. There are some districts who are actually leaving tomorrow. so all the sisters have been going around asking us to sign their journals so that we can keep in contact during the mission, or just write them a good luck note. There is this sister, her name is sister pocock...and we dont get along too well. she kinda has the holier than thou attitude. anywho, she left her journal on my bed yesterday so i could write her a message. I wrote for her to literally go and baptize the hell out of everyone. i thought it was funny, but i guess she didnt. she came in at around 10:20 last night and was like, hey so i whited out your message because i didnt like what you wrote..can you please write something else? ha all the girls here with their girl drama, its pretty much crazy.

 I want to stress this week the importance of temples. I cannot get enough of going to the temple here. there have been a couple of weeks here where i have really struggled with the language. and to be able to go to the temple and just pray to heavenly father for peace, is the most wonderful feeling in the world. it is the closest thing to heaven on this earth, and i love it so much. i dont know what i would do without this peace and privelege i have of doing a session every week. i also think about my future investigators, and i have been thinking a lot this week about how it is important to baptize, but how more important it is to get my investigators to the temple. my ultimate goal on this mission is to see familys get sealed for all time and eternity in the house of the lord. also a nice thought..for any of you that wear a CTR ring, you know how we all learn in primary that CTR means choose the right? Now that you are more matured in the gospel now, and are adults, I have a new meaning for CTR. It is, Current Temple Recommend. Please every time you look at that ring, remind yourself to always try to stay worthy to attend the temple. Do not deny yourselves the rich blessings you could recieve, remain worthy and do your best to obey the commandments and serve the Lord. He has put temples on this earth for your benefit, as well as for the benefit of others. I have a scripture I would like to share, because this is what I have become, and hope to continue to be. Not only does it pertain to me, but also to all of you as well. It is found in 3 Nefi 5:13: Behold, I am a Disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of Him to declare His Word among His people, that they might have everlasting life. 

Please wish clint and kamille the best of luck, and let them know that they are in my prayers. love you all!!!! :) - hermana thomas