Week 70 Border hopping and ticket dodging

This week was so great!! We had almost the entire week to work in our area, and the Lord blessed us so much for the efforts we gave!! We found some great people, droppeed some not so great people, and taught some really spiritual lessons. 

We also put a challange out to the zone for putting baptismal dates in November. If they completed it, they got to soak us (my comp and I and the district leaders) with water balloons while we sat in chairs unable to move. With that motivation we broke the zone record for baptisimal dates placed in a week and I got pegged by about 50 water balloons this morning.  hahaha Definitely worth it. 

Oh yeah, I also took a trip to Honduras.... accidently. We had to take a trip to La Union with the assistants to drop one of them off there. On the way back Elder Castro (who got his license a week ago) was driving... I was scared for my life because he does not know how to drive (they give a license to anyone here), but he refused to let me or my comp drive because he "needed to practice". Then he took another road that he thought was a shortcut... about 30 minutes down the road there was a permanent road block with soldiers stopping the cars, checking them and then letting them through. We got passed through and thought it was super wierd, but drove down the road for another 10 minutes before the elder would ask someone for directions. We asked someone if we were on the road for San Miguel and he busted up laughing saying we had just crossed the border into Honduras! hahaha On our way back we saw the big Honduras flag as we passed back into El Salvador and felt like idiots. But it was hilarious and super fun!! 

Overall a great week, super happy and pushing forward. 

Love Elder Davis

Week 69

Another great week has past. We had tons of time to work, and found some awesome people. My favorite part of the week was finding Robert. He is a 35ish year old guy who has been drinking and smoking for 15 years. We've visited him everyday since we found him on Tuesday and he now has 4 days without drinking and 3 without smoking. He came to church Sunday and is so animated to give up his vices and be baptized!! Such an awesome guy! 

Other than that, the most eventful thing that happened was Friday night we got a call from an area in the zone. They had gotten home, planned, and ate dinner, but when they went into there room to change there was graffiti all over the walls. Someone had jumped the wall and gotten into their house while they were out and tagged it up with gang stuff. They had already been threatened by a recent converts gang banger brother earlier in the week so they were freaking out. We got a member to pick them up that night and take them to another elders house. Then Saturday morning we went back to the house, had to take pics for evidence, and then spent all day (until 6:30 in the afternoon) searching for a new house for them to rent. We finally found one, spent another 30 minutes bargaining down the price into the mission budget and moved them in the same day. It was probably one of the most exhausting days of my mission, but after we finally got home late Saturday night, we just crashed on the hammocks and felt really good knowing the elders were safe and we were able to help them out a little. 

I think that's the best part of the mission, just having countless opportunities and sufficient time every day to serve others. Normal life is just too busy to dedicate everyday to serve others, but I'm loving and taking advantage of all the opportunities I can here. 

Overall we had a great week.  Hope everyone is doing well!

Elder Davis

Pics:  Cleaning the smell of death out of our ceiling and my water lucky charms (I chose to buy a jump rope instead of milk this week... not sure if I regret my decision or not haha)

Week 68

So on Tuesday I was sitting at my desk studying when I smelled this terrible stench. I asked my companion but he couldn't smell anything. We left to work and then that night I smelled it again. My comp said I was going crazy, but then everyday it got worse! Finally on Sunday after church, my comp admitted that it smelled horrible and we decided it was coming from the ceiling. 

After taking the mattresses off our bunk bed to use it as a ladder, I began to take apart our ceiling tiles (we have those white tiles like you would see in an office or school). After getting covered in ash and other unidentified powders, I got a flashlight up into the ceiling and found the poop of all the cats that had been living up there and a dead bird that somehow got caught in our ceiling. 

Right then we got a call to go to the hospital and give a blessing to a sister missionary before she went into surgery so we couldn't clean it until that night. When we finally got home our house smelled terrible. We spent all Sunday night cleaning out above our ceiling tiles and airing out out house... but that terrible smell of dead bird slowly getting cooked in ridiculous San Miguel heat, just won't go away. Today we bought a ton of sprays that will hopefully help. haha

Other than that it was a great week. We got time to get a little bit back into the missionary routine and got our area going decent again. Sunday we saw miracles in sacrament meeting. It was overall an awesome week.

Thanks for the emails and have a great week!

Elder Davis

Week 67 Another crazy week!

This week was once again crazy but fun and super inspirational. Tuesday my comp went around telling people goodbye, and as usual on such days, we got loaded up with food! 

Wednesday we headed out to San Salvador again for changes. It was an awesome change meeting. I got Elder Perdomo from Honduras as my companion. He is pretty old in the mission (goes home in February) but is still super animated for the work. So I'm really excited to work with him. 

Thursday we worked with all and were able to find a couple really good people.

Friday we had a multi-zone conference. It was super cool! I learned various things that I want to put in practice here in San Miguel. Our mission president really is inspired its so cool to see how he always knows what we need next! Then we met with the stake president and started planning a Day of the Dead activity to spread family history in the cemeteries. I'll have to write you to say how it goes. 

Saturday conference was amazing! A family of investigators showed up and loved it. I felt the answers to various questions I had be answered. 

Sunday once again was an amazing conference. I loved hearing from our prophet, a man who has truly given everything for the work. Then we had to emergency move some sisters in the zone because of some problems with gangsters. We got the assistants to bring the truck and my comp and another elder started loading it up while Elder Binkerhoff and I tried to convince this guy and his wife to let us move into the house that same day without any contract, money, guarantee or anything. After about 30 minutes of convincing him, he finally came through and we were able to get the sisters moved. 

Before we left we gave a blessing on the house. It was a super spiritual moment that I'll never forget. The power of the priesthood is so strong! 

These last weeks have been so insane but so full of spiritual experiences. Its amazing to see the Lords hand in this work. There are always trials, but I'm doing great and am happier than ever. 

Hope you all are doing well

Elder Davis