Week 53 1 year!!

Holy cow I can't believe I've been on the mission for a year now!! That seems insane! I'm on the downward slope and I feel like I'm still just starting! My companion just completed a year as well and we are kinda freaking out over the lack of time... and kinda just running around like a chicken with his head chopped off trying to do everything at once. haha

Sorry about last week, I just had a huge migraine and couldn't really read anything the computer screen said because everything was blurry, then I started vomiting and just decided it was time to stop trying to write. I walked outside and kinda fell on the curb unable to walk anymore and so my comp chased down a taxi that took us to the hospital. I'm not really sure what all went down in the hospital, but out of nowhere the doctor pulls out this huge Shot of who knows what and starts injecting me. He told me to take a pill that helped me fall asleep and then I woke up about 2 hours later in the hospital bed feeling a lot better!! I don't know what magical stuff he injected me with, but it did the trick! Then they gave me a bunch of pills to take over this last week, and since then I have felt fine! The miracle of modern medicine is real!!

The doctor told me I wasn't allowed to take the bus back to Jiquilisco that night so we had to sleep in the house of some other missionaries in Usulutan. It was about midnight and I was sleeping on the hammock when the bolt fell from the wall and I ate crap on the cement floor. haha

Tuesday I got to rest most the day because our house had a ton of leaks in the roof and after 3 weeks of threatening to move out, our owner finally sent someone to patch the leaks and we had to sit around the house while he worked all day.

Wednesday I got my shoes sewn back together so hopefully they can last another year and then had a fun district meeting.

Thursday I completed one year in the mission! My comp had just completed a year 2 weeks ago so he waited for me to do the little ritual of burning a shirt. We both took White shirts and wrote our áreas and companions on them and then burned them to represent one year down and one more to go! It was lots of fun.

Friday we woke up early and finished building a less actives tin house. We have been helping him since I came to the área and we just got it finished up this week. Its not much, but it was super fun and humbling being able to help him. Then we ran home to shower, taught a few lessons and changed back into other clothes to prest service with an investigator! This guy has been investigating the church for 2 years. We were weeding and doing general yard maitenance with him, and as we worked we just talked to him and got to know him a little better.  Turns out in all this time he had never told the missionaries, but he had a daughter die about 5 years ago in a car accident. He never truly believed in life after death, and was convinced that she was gone forever. As we pulled weeds we explained to him and testified about the plan of salvation and how families can be together forever through obedience to God's plan. It was so powerful and awesome. The truth is no matter how hard someone looks on the outside they always have something that makes them need God in their life and being able to help them make that connection is always such an amazing experience!

Saturday we took some recent converts out on divisions and they loved it. It was awesome to see them bear testimony to others about there experiences. Then we spent a large portion of the day attacking an ex-missionary inactive apostate member with the scriptures for not letting her son get baptized. In the end she agreed under a few conditions, and even agreed to come to the baptisimal service in a few weeks!

So yeah, overall it was an eventful and great week! Everything is going good, our district right now is one of the strongest in the mission so we are really excited and working hard.

Love you all, thanks for everything.

Elder Davis

PS I'm 98% sure i found Holly Frazier in the Liahona magazine conference edition that they gave us this week... can someone confirm that??

Week 52

Weeks are so short. I write home p-day then it feels like 1 day has passed and it is Saturday night. I never feel like there is enough time to get done what I want to.

We visited tons of people this week, but had to drop a ton of our investigators for not following there commitments. A problem here in El Salvador is so many people think it is a sin to reject people who talk about God, which is great for getting into houses, but also a huge waste of time because they already go to church and "if we are all looking for the same God it doesn't matter what church we go to".

We dropped someone this week who had a super spiritual experience when praying about the restoration, but can't understand that that means God wants him to change churches... haha but its the work. 

Today our half of the mission met up to play paintball. That was super fun! 

We are doing good. My comp and I get along really well. I'm practicing patience with my branch president. I don't have the greatest track record for getting along with bishops/branch presidents, but hopefully one day I'll get better. 

All is well here in El Salvador but I have been a little sick so prayers would be greatly appreciated.    

Thanks for everything Elder Davis

P.S.  Thanks so much for all your emails, but I'm not going to able to respond to them this week:( but they mean a lot. Thanks so much and have a great week!

Week 51 There is no Time

Another great week has come and gone. I think the only valid comparison I can do to the mission work right now would be that of Coach Travis. At the end of hell week we always had to do timed sprints and and the last one he would be screaming-yelling "4th quarter" and "who wants it more" and stuff like that... That's kinda how I feel right now. We have absolutley no time for anything and are just sprinting from place to place trying to get stuff done!

I don't know if I told you, but last Monday we tried to wake up early and clean the house, but while mowing the lawn (with our machete) my comp broke a pipe and flooded the house. haha So Tuesday we hired a little Latino off the street to come fix it:)  So that took up most of our Tuesday. 

Wednesday we had interviews with President Vasquez and a zone conference.  The interview was just awesome! I learned a lot, but we didnt get back into our area until 8ish and had no time to work. 

Thursday we headed out to San Salvador for my companions migrations (he just completed 1 year on the mission) we are about 3 hours from the migration office and had to wake up at 4 to be there at 7:30. We jumped in a cramped ghetto bus and were miserable the entire way there.  haha Then we got some super delicious Taco Bell after he was done getting his visa updated! It was so delicious!! I spent more money there than I normally do in a week. haha

On our way home we found a "special" bus that was super nice and had air conditioning and a seat for everyone... it was so awesome and they didn't let preachers on... just a nice lady who sold us pupusas... it was glorious and I will never go to El Salvador again in anything but that bus. haha

We got home really late and had almost no time to work. 

Friday I headed out to another area in my district to do divisions. I had an awesome baptismal interview. The lady was so ready and had such great faith. When the elders explained she would have to marry or separate from her boyfriend to get baptized she was 100% willing, but her boyfriend wasn't. So she took a leap of faith and moved in with her mom, with no job, no money, and a little 2 year old girl. The next day her leap of faith paid off when an old friend found her and offered her a bunch of products to get started as a saleswoman in the market. Then someone was super desperate to sell their spot in the market and sold it to her ridiculously cheap. Now 2 weeks later she is the owner of a thriving business and is 1 million times happier than she ever has been. She got baptized Saturday:)  The Lord completes his promises (Mosiah 2:22)

Saturday we had a ward activity that took pretty much all of our day... so we had almost no time to work in the area. But we worked smart and hard with the time that we did have and the Lord came through with some big blessings. 

I am doing great. Thanks for all your support. 

Love Elder Davis

house cleaning and my first love (taco bell) :)

Week 50 Pupusas

I had a dream the other night that I went home (like I finished my mission) and there were no pupusas in the USA so I called the prophet and told him I wanted to serve another mission to El Salvador and he wouldn't let me and then I apostated from the church all because I wanted pupusas. hahaha

Moral of the dream is Brandon needs to look up a pupusasaria for me in the US so I don't apostate from the church when I get back haha

This week was good. It's been tough trying to manage 3 areas with only 1 companionship, but we are figuring it out. 

The biggest thing this week was probably the branch counsel meeting we had. The branch has never had one before! So we ran it and taught them how to do it. What I'm learning most is if you don't give an incredibly specific assignment people don't do anything. So we gave out super specific assignments to each organization--3 names of people they had to visit, find out why they weren't coming to church and work to bring them back to the fold, and in 2 weeks time they have to come back and report what they did for the salvation of that person. We finished off by reading the parable of the talents. We explained that the Lord had taken out all the other missionaries from the branch because the ward members didn't use them or help them in their work, and that if they didn't get there stuff together, the sins of those they could have saved if they had completed there callings would be on there heads. 

It was a little harsh, but necessary... we are making good steps forward, but afraid that when we get transferred they are just going to fall back into the old bad habits. So your prayers for our branch would be greatly appreciated!!

Other than that we are working hard, sprinting all over the place and seeing some good results. It really breaks your heart when some of these people don't progress. You just know how much they need this and when they choose not to act it drives you insane, but in the end I guess you just have to confide in the Lord. 

I love you guys, thanks for everything. Hope you have an amazing week!!

Elder Davis

Week 49 Changes

This week I recieved a new comp.. .Elder Barrios from Guatemala. Supposedly he has had a couple problems in the past but so far everything is awesome. We get along really well and are working great together. 

Changes are every 6 weeks... So here is a quick flashback of my last change and just how awesome it was: 

-companion was Elder Fraizer a hillarious guy from Salem Utah

- when I came into the branch our 1st counselor had his rights revoked, and there was no leadership (except for soc soc president)... As of 2 weeks ago we have an elders quorumn president, primary president, Young mens and young womans Presidents and a Ward mission leader!!! We are low on counselors, but working on it... We also have 4 options for ward missionaries of which the president should be calling us at least 1 ward missionary next week!!

- We got the mutual program started and now it is completely running without us every saturday

- We started a membership missionary activity where every thursday the members that dont work meet us at the church and we go out in groups to visit less actives and investigators

- Various baptisms of awesome people and less actives activated

- We are also getting home and visiting teaching started up (it is tough to organize because people can only visit in certain parts of the city for gang lines, but we almost have it figured out) 

- We will be having our first ever branch counsel meeting next week!! 

Needless to say I am really excited about how much progress this little branch is making. We have some really good members and are trying to raise the testimonies of the rest. 

President closed the other area in our branch (2 changes ago there were 6 missionaries here, then only 4 now only us 2) So we have a HUGE area to cover and are seeing how to get it all done. We are trying to organize a way to go on divisions frequently to cover double the ground and I think that will help us out. 

Over all I am happy and working hard. Thanks to every one of you for your support!

Love Elder Davis