Week 14 Temple & Death

So yeah this week we had the chance to go to the temple!! (See pics below) The temple here is super awesome! I just love the temple.  You can just go there and for an hour or so just forget about everything and feel peaceful with the spirit.
What else... my Spanish is getting a lot better, I think. I mean we only had time for language study once this week, but having a Latino companion has increased my confidence level a ton!
The last 3 days I have been super sick! Like huge fever and the biggest non stop migraine for 3 days. When our ward mission leader saw me, apparently I looked pretty bad because he sent us home and told me I’m not allowed to leave for at least 2 days (SAT, SUN) We had investigators coming to church though so I went anyways and wanted to chop off my head. I have downed so many Advils it is not even funny, but they did nothing... so I moved up to the 750mg Tilux things... They did nothing as well... Basically all Sunday I laid in bed in the worst pain of my life. So that was fun! But I feel better now- just a normal headache.
But yeah that’s what is going down with me...

With all my missionary wisdom, my advice this week is to: 1) read your patriarchal blessings before conference... Mine has helped me a ton
2) think of questions you need answers to, pray, and go into conference looking for the answers!
Love you all and thanks for the support.
Elder Davis

Week 13 Cambios!!

Hey guys as always thanks for all the emails and support! Really helps a ton!

So this week has been freaking insane! We got the call Tuesday night just after 10pm that my companion- Trainer was changing areas and we needed to be at the changes meeting 2 hours away at 9 in the morning. So we were both kinda scrambling all over the house until 4 am packing his stuff, updating the area book, making sure I knew all the investigators, where they lived and what lessons they needed next. It was crazy but kinda fun and nerve racking.

I didn’t think I was ready to take over the area! I barley speak Spanish! But yeah I got my new comp.. .Elder Gomez... He is a Latino from Costa Rica (does not speak english). He is super awesome and sees things a lot how I see them. I thought the language barrier would be harder with a Latino comp, but we are still getting stuff done and having tons of fun. We find ourselves busting up laughing all the time and it is just awesome! I am able to make all the plans and think I’m doing a pretty good job with my area, but only time will tell if I can actually manage understanding these ridiculous directions people tell us, plan every night, remember all the investigators, their needs and when we can visit them and where they live, all the less actives all the members and Spanish!

Overall super exciting!

A super cool quote I heard this week is "you always have to pass through the wilderness to get to the promised land" so true. I can honestly say that some days are just hard, but they normally turn out to be the ones I learn most from.

Other random stories-- We were walking home the other night when all the power went off. We couldn’t see 3 feet in front of us, and were just kinda inching our way trying to find our way home. All of a sudden there is a flash of lightening and we can see a whole group of people up the street about 10 yards ahead of us. Then we hear a freaking machete being drawn and sparks start fling from near where the group of people was. Another flash of lightning and we see everyone running and some people are screaming along with some wacked out looking guy swinging a machete wildly in our direction!! Super crazy and I have never run so fast in my life! When we finally were safe behind our locked door, we just started busting up at the fact that only in El Salvador would some guy with a machete be chasing down 2 missionaries during a power outage... super freaky during, but hilarious after.  hahaha

But yeah all is well here, learning and teaching pretty much describes my life. Hope you all are doing great!

Love
Elder Davis

Week 12- I Hate INDEPENDENCE

not really, but kinda.

This month there have been 10 million festivals and such all culminating to one big independence day yesterday (that’s why p day was changed this week... I guess they didn’t want us partying or something), but yeah it has been impossible to get investigators to church because anyone with a kid is involved in parades and such every Sunday this month.  On top of that, everyone who doesn’t have a kid has this "chicken-gura" sickness that comes from mosquitos so pretty much finding people to teach and such this week was pretty dang hard.
Oh yeah- I saw a little piece of the parade while passing by on the bus the other day... super hilarious the Beauty Pageant girls were doing the traditional waving thing in fancy dresses with flowers and such (just like homecoming half time show) but they were all on the oldest most beat up Toyota camrys I have ever seen... wish I had my camera because it was just hilarious seeing such fancy dresses on cars with peeling of paint and super ghetto! hahaha
We started giving free English classes... We need to find new investigators and are using this as a way to look for new people because tons of people want to learn English to get better jobs. First class went well, had a pretty good number of students and just made it fun... It was nice to take an hour break and teach people a language rather than the other way around.
Gave my first talk this last Sunday. Everyone was pretty surprised when I told them I only have 5 weeks in El Salvador, I guess my Spanish isn’t that bad!
Also super quick cool experience. We have a coralation meeting with the bishop and our ward mission leader every Friday. We asked him at the end of this last one if there is any members he wants us to visit this week... He thought about it and then gave us a name of this member named Billy.  He just felt like he could use a visit, but didn’t know why. We were planning on scheduling him in later in the week but an appointment and back up plan both fell through that night, so we decided to just head over to his house. When we got there he was just walking in the door, he had left for work, but for some reason felt like he should go back home and rest for 30 minutes... it didn’t make sense, but he did it anyways. He was so happy to see us, was going through a tough time with work and family and just asked us for a blessing.
It was just awesome to see how God worked through us to get this member what he needed. He got the bishop to tell us the name, both our appointments to fall through, and Billy to feel like he needs to come back from work for a little bit... Super awesome experience.
Everything is going good here, as always thanks for all your emails and support.
Love, Elder Davis

our trip to the "red Mountain" 

 me and my district.

Week 11- Yet another week passes

The days feel like years here, but the weeks go by pretty dang fast especially when we have meetings spread throughout.

We got a text at like 9:45 one night this week saying we needed to be in Ilopango (city like 3 hours away by bus) at 7 the next day for a meeting with the general young mens president from Salt Lake. It was a super long day, but super awesome... That just gives you a little idea of how last minute everything is here... nobody seems to have a sense of time.  hahaha

Question- What age is appropriate to still be walking around the house naked in??? In 2 separate lessons this week a 9 and 10 year old were just chilling naked, normally I would assume it was because the family is super poor, but these families were actually doing ok... Super funny though because one was like dancing around and trying to teach a spiritual lesson with a naked 10 year old singing some Spanish song and twirling in front of you and the investigator is kinda hard. hahaha

I tried my first bag of jell-O this week... that was exciting. We never by bottled water or bottled anything because it is a lot cheaper in bags.. so, so far I have tried bags of water, juice, soda, jello, and ice cream. Kinda fun but also difficult because you can’t set them down until you are completely done.

We had 3 investigators this week have awesome experiences with the Book of Mormon. They all prayed asking God to answer their questions and then read and kept reading until they got their answers and then prayed again thanking God and for confirmations that this is true. They all felt the spirit when they truly poured their hearts out to God and it was an awesome testimony strengthener for me. This gospel really can change lives if people fully devote themselves to it.

All is well here in El Salvador.

Thanks for all your emails they are all awesome!
Love, Elder Davis

my beautiful church... You can almost make out the visitors welcome sign behind the barbed wire!! hahaha

 Me and my district leader with matching ties (Elder Callegos)

Week 10

You know you are serving in El Salvador when...
- the last 2 bishops are inactive
- Women randomly remove half their shirt to breast feed in like every other lesson
- at any moment when walking in the street you can see a minimum of 3 pairs of dogs making babies
- Every store has armed guards out front
- You are pumped for p day so you can go to Burger King for a super nice meal and a super nice bathroom
- Gunshots during lessons
- While eating lunch at a members house 2 days in a row, girls try to have a full on conversation with you in nothing but a towel after getting out of the shower
- The busses you take a couple times each week are more packed then family dinners when grandma and grandpa lived in the mobile-home
- Power goes out twice during the course of sacrament meeting and nobody seems to notice except the speaker who just talks a little louder
- Likewise you come home almost every day and reset the clocks because power always is going out.
- The church has one of those water dispensers and just one community Styrofoam cup for everyone in the ward to share when they want water
- you get robbed within your first Month of being in the country... Yeah we got robbed this week. Well some guy tried to rob us, he tried to take our phone but then realized it was a piece of junk. Patted me down to see what else I had, then didn’t want to steal any of our pamphlets or BOMs so he just quickly rode off on his bike. My comp was a little spooked, but I just was excited and thought it was kinda funny to see him get mad when all we had was church materials.
All in all a good week, just trying to spread this good word to people. Its pretty hard to find people who are actually interested rather than just say yes and then either give you a fake address or about halfway through the second lesson finally tell you that they don’t care.
We are working on it through and my Spanish is getting a little better every day.

pic of me and my comp and 2 other elders on our adventure to some waterfalls and one of the beautiful hotels that is missing a roof you can stay at if you come and pick me up hahaha