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

Week 66 Buses and Boots

This week has maybe been the busiest, but one of the coolest in my mission. It started out Monday when I finally bought some fat, ugly waterproof boots because I'm sick of walking around with soaking wet socks and shoes. haha

Tuesday we had leadership council in San Salvador, headed out at 4:00 am and spent pretty much all day traveling/in the meeting. The meeting was actually really cool though. President showed us a bunch of statistics and trends and then showed us a few new plans to keep having the work increase. Turns out up to this point in the year, out of the 18 missions in Central America, we have progressed the most from last year... We are doing things more the way the Lord wants them to be done and seeing the blessings come. 

Wednesday we attempted to do a weeks worth of work in one day. We verified with our new family and they are doing awesome! The Lord just kinda threw everything we needed in our path and we were able to get a lot done.

Thursday, we once again woke up at 3:00 am to head to San Salvador, but this time for a temple trip. The temple was amazing and just what I needed! The spirit was so strong there and it was just an awesome day. 

Friday, we once again woke up at 3 because my companion is training and we once again made the trip up to San Salvador and spent the entire day there. 

Saturday we spent all morning and well into the afternoon painting this members house. It was super fun and I may or may not be a professional painter now. haha

Overall it was a great week. Hopefully we will actually get to visit our investigators next week, but who knows. Wednesday my comp will be changed and I'll get a new comp. so I'm a little sad to lose Elder Kauvaka, but also excited to see who my new comp will be. Also I am super pumped for General Conference!!! Its going to be great! 

Love you guys, have a great week! 

Elder Davis

Week 65

This week so many things went wrong, but we are still happy and working hard. Baptismal dates fell, out of the 10 people who committed to go to church nobody came, our 3 most positive investigators all broke the word of wisdom and won't be able to be baptized for at least another month, a couple elders had to get sent home, and a million other things. 

Sunday afternoon I got back into my area (we were on divisions) and my comp and I were just down, but we said a prayer and said Satan was working hard but we were going to work harder. We went out and gave it our all Sunday, and at the end of the day went over our week. We made some goals of things we could do better, but realized that we had given it our all, and for whatever reason some things hadn't worked out. We said a prayer to finish our little weekly review and we both just felt peace and animated, knowing that we had given our all. It was an awesome manifestation of the spirit that I'll never forget. 

Other than that, this week was pretty normal. I got to work with the assistants one day, it was really awesome and I learned a lot. Ate a lot of spaghetti... that's pretty much all I can think of. 

Super happy to be here, hope everyone is doing great!

Elder Davis

Week 64 Not Quite Sure

Not quite sure what all happened this week, it seemed pretty normal. 

We went to give a blessing to a little girl in the hospital and after the blessing her uncle showed up at the moms request. The dad is a member (he is who called us) but the mom isn't. He brother (the uncle) is a "brujo" (wizard) and had shown up with chicken blood and a bag that I'm sure was full of other weird stuff to heal her. 

The dad told her we had blessed her by the power of God and he didn't want anything else done to her, but then the uncle began trying to argue with us on how he had healed (I don't know how many people) and all this nonsense. After explaining to him how he has no authority to do what he is doing and in a very kind way telling him to stop doing what he is doing and repent, he got mad and stormed out... Every once in a while you see witches of wizards here, but I've never actually talked to one so that was interesting. 

What else?? We found a family of 7! Only 2 of them are positive, but the assistants beat us in baptisms by a decent amount this month (we have a little competition going) and we are pretty sure this family can put us over the top in October if we focus on them having spiritual experiences every day, so we are really focusing on them right now. 

Actually we have a lot of good investigators, they just all have something that are keeping them from being baptized (smoking, drinking, work every Sunday, etc.) but we are hoping to do lots of divisions with members this week and have time to visit them all and help them get over their obstacles. 

Today for p-day we had a zone lunch. Everyone brought food from their countries and we had a big pot-luck. My comp and I did mashed potatoes with grilled cheese sandwiches. It was delicious!! Super fun activity. 

Overall things are going good, we ended up fasting yesterday and we saw some big blessings come from it. Fasting is such a powerful tool! 

We are happy, having fun and working hard.

Hope everyone there is doing great!

Elder Davis

P.S. I lifted up my bowl to make spaghetti a couple nights ago and these little buggers were below it

Week 63 So Tired

I am exhausted. This week was super awesome, but exhausting. 

First off we got to do a ton of service again. I think the best was planting a corn field!! I could totally be a farmer now haha. The bad is the latest we woke up this week was 5:00 am :( I just want to sleep. haha

Wednesday we had interchanges to do the interview of Noe... our awesome investigator. At the age of 13 he was living on his own, and got into a gang because he had nothing else going for him and practically no other options. For the next few years of his life he fell down into pretty much any bad thing you can think of with little sign of hope. Then about 6 months ago he started living with a super inactive family. Although they themselves weren't super great about living the commandments, they helped him get out of all the serious gang stuff. 

My second week in this area we heard about this super inactive family and went to visit them. A few super spiritual lessons later they came to church, and the girlfriend made him go. He said the entire time he felt terrible in the church and just wanted to leave. Everyday the next week he spent a couple hours reading the Book of Mormon and praying. 

He told us he had never believed in God, and never had any desire to know anything else about religion,but when he started reading the Book of Mormon everything changed and he didn't want to stop reading. Since then he hasn't missed a Sunday in church, stopped smoking, drinking coffee, doing drugs, and this Saturday got married to the inactive lady who totally got activated with her entire family (of 7). He has gone through such an amazing repentance process and it has been super awesome to see and help guide him to the straight and narrow path. 

He may not be able to be baptized for a while for stuff in his past, and will have an interview with our mission president Friday to see, but it has been super cool seeing the atonement open up this guys life. 

We spent a good amount of our week preparing their wedding stuff, going off and getting birth certificates, a lawyer and all the other stuff. But it all turned out good (I think I could be a pretty boss wedding planner if I want some day. haha)

Other than that, we had a leadership conference Friday. Had to wake up at 2:30 to get there on time:( but it was super awesome. 

The weeks just keep flying by. It scares me how fast the time is going. 

The rain still hasn't stopped since Elder Ochoas blessing. Every single night we get soaked, but it is better than the heat. 

Love you guys, 

Elder Davis

check out my cool new scripture case

Week 62 Shaking hands with the big man

So this week was the best! We got to do a ton of service: cleaning up planters in a local school, cutting down a huge mango tree with machetes, sweeping up 10 million leaves into plastic bags, etc. It always feels so good to go out and work a little bit and help people out. 

But the best day of the week was by far Friday. We woke up at 3 am to be in the temple chapel at 7 for the multi mission meeting with President (Russel M.) Nelson. It was crazy. Our bus driver ended up getting lost and we didn't get there until 9:15 and missed the first 15 minutes of the meeting but it wasn't that big of a deal because we still heard Pres. Nelson speak. He taught us a ton of things, but it was just awesome seeing him. He was so happy and lively and just looked like he was happy to be part of this great work. He took the time to shake the hands of over 500 of us missionaries and it was just super awesome. I learned a ton. 

Saturday we went to a couple of quick appointments and then had to go to the stake center all afternoon which would have been boring, but Elder Ochoa of the 70 was leading the meeting which made it cool. Afterwards he totally walked up and told me and my comp hi and talked to us for a minute. We tried to play it cool, like no big deal, but I'm pretty sure we were more excited than little kids Christmas morning. haha

Sunday we had stake conference and it was huge!! The chapel and gym were full and they had to put up canopies outside and project a video of it because so many people were crammed into the stake center. They re-organized our stake and changed the "district" Usulutan into a stake. It was super exciting to see just how big the church is growing here. Our new stake president is actually the mission doctor, which is awesome because we are already good friends from my time in the hospital. haha So we are super excited to start working more with him. 

To finish off the conference Elder Ochoa gave a blessing to everyone. At the end of the blessing he blesseed San Miguel with rain. We have been without rain for a long time. Everyone lost there crops because there hasn't been any rain, and the forecast showed no signs of rain... but last night out of nowhere a huge storm rolled in and it began to rain. Super awesome to see the power of the priesthood at work. 

Everything is going well, hope for you guys too!

Love Elder Davis