Week 18 Great Week

Ok so this week started out hard core pro.  We went to probably the worlds biggest thrift store (2 stories about Walmart size) and I found Settlers of Catan brand new for 1 dollar!!! So we played that a few times this week for family nights with people! Super fun and awesome.... This week was incredibly crazy.  We had plans for 3 baptisms but every one of them had their own trials in preparation! In the end they all were baptized and it was awesome.  A little about each one...

Juan- he is 50 something and we found him in the house of this inactive family. He told us he wasn’t going to accept our invitation to return and share more with him, but he felt something that made him agree. When he watched general conference he felt the spirit super strong and knew he wanted to be baptized! Since we started visiting him, he changed from a really hard ex-military man to a spiritual giant... Super Awesome

Michelle- Michelle is 11 years old and is part of an  inactive family. We are the 4th set of missionaries to visit her and her family. Instead of starting out by teaching her, we chose to buy these candies with jokes and just eat candy and share stupid laffy taffy type jokes for an hour with the family. Then we spent 2 or 3 lessons just getting to know her and trying to get her to open up.  In the end she opened up 100%, told us all her doubts and we were able to baptize her and re-activate all of her family!

Glenda- Glenda is the GF of a member and was pretty much the ideal investigator... She read the BOM every night for about 1 week and a half and knew it was true and agreed to get baptized. Her problem was that her family are hard core evangelicos and hate those Joseph Smith worshipers.  Hahaha Holy cow it was impossible to get that signature to get her baptized. (She is only 17) but finally worked it out and came in clutch 3 hours before the baptismal service. hahaha

Gabriel- Not actually our baptism (the other elders in our ward) but a really good friend of mine. He showed up with a friend to general conference and felt the spirit. He turned his life 100% around from drugs and parties to going to mission prep classes every Sunday and eagerly awaiting to finish school and submit his papers!

On top of baptisms we saw a cat fall off a 2 story building and die- that was kinda amusing (the cats here are uglier than the dogs) and the owner of our house and 3 of his drunk friends tried to break in last night for about 2 hours to get the sex movies they knew we were hiding under our beds.  hahaha Super funny as we moved desks and chairs to barricade the doors. hahahaha Overall amazing week!!

(check out Harrison's shoes..... hahaha)

The pinata one is from the ward activity we put on this week... the bishop hates activities because "People need to come to church because they have faith not because we have fun activities",  but we finally convinced him to let us plan one. (he even gave us  $20 dollars from the ward to do it.  hahaha)... Super fun- it was a movie night with popcorn and soda and a pinata for the kids... everyone had a blast!

Week 17 Life is Good

To start off yeah I am alive... That earthquake was awesome. I was singing "Don’t Take the Girl" at the top of my lungs as it started and afterwards my companion told me the earth is begging me to stop singing. hahaha

I can’t believe Emily is pregnant again! How exciting.

I can’t believe the Giants are in the world series... I’m a little upset.  If they win don’t tell me.

Everything is great here.  We are working hard and finding success! I crossed my first river up to my belt to get to an appointment! It has been raining a ton and this street turned into a river... we had 3 appointments on the other side though so we went for it... haha

I’m trying to learn soccer. That’s what they should teach in the MTC if you are going to a country like this because soccer is life! All the kids only play soccer, only watch soccer, only talk about soccer... and I am horrible, but getting better.

I really am having good time here. I do not want changes next Wednesday! Me and my comp just think the same and are able to work really well together and are doing better every day. On top of that there are investigators here who I want to see baptized who are super awesome and I want to keep working with!

So just so you guys know, I am no different. I still procrastinate and come in clutch... last night we were counting our numbers and realized we had practically no new references for next week. So with numbers due at 9:30 starting at 9:10, we called all the ward leaders, our best investigators, and half explained half guilted them into giving us references and ended up with more this week then we have ever had.  hahaha

What else, I am the go to guy if you need help with homework here for math or English... that’s always fun! Yeah that’s pretty much it.. Thanks for all the emails this week!

Love, Elder Davis

Pics:  I got a little sunburned playing soccer on p-day... and we use top of the line computers here!

 I have a collection of pics I call "All the things mom never thought I would do on my own"  - pay bills, wash clothes, iron, wash dishes, clean the house, sew, make my bed, write in a journal, write letters home, etc. hahaha

Week 16 Life's Good

Yeah life is really good here... I'm feeling 100% again and all is good.
This week was pretty dang busy, started out with us going to immigration's to get my comps visa updated... We met a lawyer in the mission office and holy cow, I always thought I would be bored out of my mind being an office missionary, but they have the life! A fridge full of food and drinks, air conditioning, cold drinkable water.... I wont be to disappointed if I get called to work there at some point in my mission. And in the office I got a package from Nicole! and various letters! (does anyone have Morgans email address?? she sent me a letter and I want to say thanks but don’t know her info--thanks)

But yeah... then we rode with the Lawyer in his TOYOTA YARIS!!! I felt so at home.  Hahaha Is Addison still driving it around?? hahaha

But yeah while in San Salvador we stopped at Salvador del Mundo... A big statue thing (see pics) and that was cool because I guess it’s a pretty famous site here.

A few days ago, a drunk, completely naked man raced us to our house trying to get in! Super hilarious.  We barley got the door open in time to jump in the house and slam the door before he got in.  hahaha

Hey random side note-- Can someone send me the lyrics to the song pippin sings in LOTR3 when Denethor sends farimire back to try and re-claim the river??? That song has been on the tip of my tongue all week but I cant remember the lyrics and it is driving me insane! Thanks

Another day we had interviews with President Vasquez... He is super awesome and that was way cool.  He actually is going to have p-day with our zone today... I’m pretty excited.

Oh yeah the most exciting part of the week was yesterday. So we were in a lesson with this super awesome family we found. Just chilling in this ghetto gated community with the door open when 5 trucks with military and police (the military was brought into our town like 3 weeks ago to help the police with the gang problems) pull up with a ton of men all jumping out of the trucks with these intense masks on and their weapons all drawn! A few of them climbed pillars at the front of the community and started scoping out the area with there snipers, others broke off in groups of 4 or 5 into every small street... Then a few more trucks came up and the military created a barrier so nobody could leave the community without going through this super small passage passing by like 20 of them! We closed the door and hid out for about 45 minutes, but finally when we still didn’t hear gunfire we decided it was ok to leave because we had another appointment that was important, and God would protect us hahaha.  The military let us leave after we convinced them we really were just missionaries... super exciting!  Hahaha

But yeah life is really good!  My comp and I are doing good together! Teaching a ton and being successful!

Love you guys,
Elder Davis

Week 15

(kind of a short one this week.... but short is better than nothing!!)

So I got a ton of emails this week and letters! Thanks so much for all of that.  I love hearing about what is happening back home!

I loved conference obviously! I went into it in a pretty bad mood (just a little mad at an investigator who was supposed to meet us before the conference at 9 but didn’t show up until 10:15 so we missed the first part Sunday) but then conference totally turned me around and it was awesome clearly!

I was able to watch in English until the priesthood session when a lightning storm got in the way of the satellite broadcast so we streamed it via internet but only had one computer so it had to be in Spanish. The talks in other languages were so cool (well the Spanish ones). I personally hate the voices of translators, but the Spanish ones were really cool for the people here who felt a lot more connected to the apostles in their native language!

Yeah not much new... hiked to the waterfall again last p'day. That was fun.

Me and my comp are getting pretty good at teaching together and lessons and investigators are improving.

Love,
Elder Davis

Trip to the falls 

and Nicole who is the only family member I have a picture hanging up of because I found it while reading an old Ensign. hahaha