ELDER COLTON WEST: Week 13: Jaywalking the Pan-American Highway!

Buenas días!

As you all know, last week was change meeting. This week I am emailing you from beautiful Ilobasco, Cabañas, El Salvador. Yep, same place as last week. I stayed here! My companion for this change is............ still Elder Hood! He gets to finish my training but, we all are pretty sure that, after that he will be transferred.

Now for some less good news. The Sister Missionaries have been transferred out of Ilobasco, and replaced with two more elders. They were such hard workers, and were doing such good work here, but now they're needed somewhere else. The two new elders are Elder Beecher from Logan, Utah, and Elder Rojas from Perú. For two elders who know nothing about this city, let alone their area, they are doing an amazing job, and we're glad to have them.

I've been getting questions about investigators, so I'll talk about a few of them. First up is Mariela. She is absolutely amazing! She was taught by other missionaries about 6 months ago, but disappeared before they could set a baptism date with her. We found here again because one of the elders who taught her last time happened to see her on the bus to Ilobasco, and he talked to her and got a reference for us. We started teaching her last month, and she has progressed so much, so rapidly that I can hardly believe it! The only thing holding her back was that she wasn't sure if she had received an answer to her prayers about whether she needs to be baptized. That changed last week, after she repented of some things she had done. I went to teach her with one of the new elders (we were on interchanges that day) and she said that she had received her answer and set her own baptism date! She is getting baptized on the 14th of February!

Now for the story behind the title. This happened a month ago. I was on interchanges with the district leaders so that they could do a baptism interview here. Elder Golden and I took a bus out to a small town 20 minutes from Cojutepeque. Thing is, the bus stopped on the opposite side of the freeway from the town. So after we picked up the member who we were taking with us, we had to jaywalk across the Pan-American Highway. Now, before anyone gets worried, let me explain something. There is no such thing as a crosswalk outside of San Salvador. There are pedestrian bridges, but they are few and far between. So if you need to get to the other side of the road, you jaywalk!

That's all for this week. Enjoy the pictures.

Love,

Elder Colton West

El Salvador, San Salvador East Mission

Me with Hermano Hidalgo, Kevin, and Ramon
(Editor's note: Hermana Hidalgo cooks one meal per day for Elder West
and his companion and does their white laundry each week.
At Christmas our son told us she is like the "mission momma".
I am SO grateful for her and her sweet family!)