Week 73 I am exhausted

I am soooooo tired right now. The latest we woke up this week was 5:00 am and the earliest was 

3:00 am... I just want to find my hammock and pass out!!! 

But actually this week was super awesome (but exhausting)!!

Tuesday we spent all day looking for a house for a new area they were opening zona San Miguel!! We walked from lunchtime until 7:00 pm, and finally found one!!! 

Wednesday we went to the changes meeting and they sent a ton of sisters to our zone!!! We are now almost half sisters and half elders.... sisters are way more loving and can do so many things that us as elders are just incapable of doing... but having a zone full of sisters can sometimes be such a headache. I may have grey hair in a couple more months but then maybe mom wouldn't feel so bad when she finds grey hair so maybe its not all bad! haha

Thursday we tried to move the sisters into the new house we found for them, but the owner practically turned into a big jerk and changed a ton of terms and they couldn't move in and I had to waste $10 dollars of minutes to call the United States because that's where the owner is illegally living right now. Finally we just paid a guy to come take all their stuff and throw it in the other sisters house. 

Friday we went to San Salvador for leadership council. It was such a good meeting!! Inspiration and revelation are so real! 

Saturday we tried to cram a week of work into 1 day. It was a super great day. 

Sunday- we woke up super early and moved the sisters into the house a terrible investigator, but great friend found for them. Went to church, and then did a baptismal interview... another great day. 

Today we rented a bus and all headed out to Alegria Laguna... a sweet little lagoon about an hour from San Miguel where we played soccer and welcomed all the new people to the zone. Super great p-day.

I'm happy, healthy,etc. 

Have a great week! and thanks for everything

Love Elder Davis

Week 72 Another change in chapa

We just got the changes call and it looks like my comp and I are sticking together here in Chaparrastique, San Miguel! We are excited because things are all good here. 

Sunday was a great day full of great experiences. It all started when we went to get investigators in the morning and take them to church. We left earlier, but found nothing but 4 closed doors. We got to the chapel about 5 mins before the meeting started and not a single investigator was there. The bishop asked us to bless the sacrament and so we went to sit on the stand. As we began singing the first hymn I began to pray. I was pretty upset with myself for not having any investigators there... and more than anything was asking for forgiveness (a few months ago a 70 came to our mission and one of the things he said is that if we don't have investigators in sacrament meeting we need to be on our knees begging forgiveness). I felt pretty bad and was trying to come up with ideas of things I could have done differently to have had people there. As the opening prayer finished I felt peace come over me, like God was telling me he was content with my work and everything would be ok. Before we knelt down to bless the sacrament more investigators than I have ever had in this area showed up to church. It was an awesome and humbling experience that helped remind me no matter what I do, without the help of God I will never succeed. 

Other than that we found a few super great investigators and I went an entire week without eating chips to prove to my comp that I'm not addicted. A new investigator has a new BMW 7 series and he asked if I had a license and then offered to let me take it to San Salvador for changes Wednesday (probably the biggest temptation I've had on my mission haha) because he lived in California and said California drivers are the best. Wasted 2 hours fighting with a Jehovah witness because he offended my comp when my comp couldn't find a scripture and then we just let lose and attacked him with scriptures, ate some of the corn that we planted last change, and played a ton of soccer!

Overall another great week filled with blessings!

Super excited to see who comes into the zone this change!! Hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Davis

Week 71 Day of the Dead

This week was awesome. We got an email Wednesday giving the details of what our mission president wanted for the Day of the Dead activity Sunday and yesterday. It was crazy getting everything together! For Day of the Dead everyone in this country goes to the cemeteries and visits the graves of their ancestors or family members that has died. Last year nearly all of us missionaries had nothing to do because nobody was in their houses to teach, so this year we decided to go where the people were.. the cemeteries.

We got permission from the government (most cemeteries here are owned by the gov.) but some bureaucratic dweeb told us we could only do it Sunday because Monday the cemetery gets to full... So my companion and I spent nearly an entire day in the town hall complaining to anyone who would listen... finally the mayor got to work and we told him if he loved Jesus and wanted any christian (the entire world here is christian) to vote for him ever again, he would let us do our activity. hahaha Maybe he didn't know all other churches pretty much hate us but he bought it and gave us permission to do the activity both days:) 

In the end we had stands all over all the cemeteries in San Miguel with tons of information about the plan of salvation and family history. It was a huge success and we had hundreds of references!! The spirit of Elijah touched the hearts of so many and we are so excited to start contacting a lot of these positive people! 

Great week that ended even better! 

Hope everyone is doing well

Elder Davis

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