Week 74: Holy Temple Batman!

Well folks, this week has been different.  Semana Santa (holy week...I'm not sure what it's called in English) is super different down here.

Ummmm, I hate to do this to you all, but I kinda ran out of writing time.  But I promise that I'll tell you all about the temple trip that we had with the investigators last week, and how our interviews with president Vasquez go, and about our missionary temple trip!

Love,

Elder Colton West

El Salvador, San Salvador East Mission

Editor's note: Elder West had a lot of personal emails to attend to again this week. I was able to email back and forth with him a few times this morning. They had a great temple event for investigators last week. This week the missionaries get to go do a session at the temple which he is very happy about. He also has interviews with Presidente Vasquez tomorrow. His tie challenge continues and he got a new beautiful tie for Easter. As he mentioned, he promises to tell us all about his temple experience in his letter next week. Thank you to all who sent birthday greetings last week.

Elder West with his beautiful new Easter tie

Man of a million ties! (7 more to add since last week).

Easter tie

"Alfombras" (carpets)
beautiful pictures on the streets during Holy Week
(the week leading up to Easter).
These are usually made from pigment-colored
salt and sawdust.

check out more at:
https://gringainelsalvador.wordpress.com/2011/04/24/holy-week-carpets-el-salvador-alfombras-semana-santa-el-salvador/

BONUS PICS: The Tie-A-Day Challenge!

As Elder West explained in his birthday email today:

So, I mentioned last week the Tie-a-day challenge.  Now I'll explain.  I have picked up a lot of ties here in the mission.  Some were gifts from companions or members.  Others were obtained through trades with other missionaries.  And many were bought for a quarter each from a guy in Ilopango who sell clothes in the market.  Right now I have around 50 ties.  So I decided to challenge myself to not repeat a single tie until I have worn all of them.  I'm not quite halfway there.

21 down so far!
The many faces and ties of Elder West

Mom's favorite pics of the bunch!

Week 73: Happy Birthday to Me!

Happy P-Day to me, Happy P-day to me, Happy P-Day dear Elder, Happy P-day to me!

My birthday is on a P-Day this year!  That make it super awesome, because we get to do something fun on my birthday.  The Zone Leaders got the okay from Presidente to watch a movie in the stake center, so we're going to be heading out soon for that.

So, I mentioned last week the Tie-a-day challenge.  Now I'll explain.  I have picked up a lot of ties here in the mission.  Some were gifts from companions or members.  Others were obtained through trades with other missionaries.  And many were bought for a quarter each from a guy in Ilopango who sell clothes in the market.  Right now I have around 50 ties.  So I decided to challenge myself to not repeat a single tie until I have worn all of them.  I'm not quite halfway there.  Emails with pictures incoming!

And I'm out of time because I was writing to everyone who wrote me.  Have an awesome week!

Love,

Elder Colton West

El Salvador, San Salvador East Mission

Elder West is a BIG Star Wars fan so we sent some bday
goodies in this R2D2 tin.

awesome birthday shirt!

More paisley ties! White paisley for the Temple!

Week 72: Moncagua, Part 2

Yep, I stayed here!  And I'm with the same companion!  This is the first time since my training that I've had the same companion for more than one transfer.  It feels a bit weird not saying goodbye to my companion, but I suppose that it's just the Lord's way of recompensing us for the emergency changes.

This week we worked like crazy!  We had a total of 34 lessons taught, 29 of them with investigators and 5 with less active members.  We finished the week with 17 new investigators, just one short of our goal of 18.  This week we're going to get that goal!

We're also going to open up another part of our awesomely huge area.  This new part is called Cantón El Platanar.  We went out visiting with a group of members yesterday so that we can know a few of the members out there.  Well, there are a ton!  We were out there for a good three and a half hours, and still only visited a tiny portion of the people who live there.  There's also a chance that we'll be going to Ciudad Barrios, another city that is about an hour away from Chapeltique.  We've got some references out there.  We're looking into going there soon because we have references there.

So we have had something really interesting going on here.  We have an awesome golden investigator who we have been teaching.  He is super open with us, keeps his committments, and everything!  The only problem is that he is here on vacation visiting his family.  He lives in Florida, and will be going back in a couple of weeks.  In the meantime, we are teaching him as much as humanly possible, and when he goes we'll be giving an awesome reference to the good elders (or sisters) of the Orlando Florida mission.

Well, that's all for this week.  I don't have photos right now, but I'll have a bunch next week.  Remind me to tell you about my Tie Challenge!

Have an awesome week!

Elder Colton West

El Salvador, San Salvador East Mission

Week 71: Repent ye! Repent ye!

Well, this week has been interesting.  Yeah, another interesting week.  They're much better than boring weeks, that's for sure.

Last Tuesday we did a little service project for a member in Chinameca, the other city in our district.  We helped a recent convert make adobe bricks so that he can build a bigger house for his family.  Fun stuff.  To make adobe you take dirt, mix it with water until it's somewhat gelatinous in texture, put the mud in a mold, pack it down with your hands, and remove the mold.  It's fun stuff.  What made it better is that to get the water, we had to go down to the bottom of the hill where the member lives, fill up cántaros, and carry them back up the hill.  It was very hard work.  but we made a bunch of adobe!

While we were in Chinameca, we saw something kinda scary.  We saw a locust.  It was on the front door of the house of the elders in Chinameca.  I killed it, but all this week we've been seeing more.  We're thinking about soapbox preaching in the park to try to stop the plague, but we don't know how it's going to go over.  So if you hear news about a plague of locusts, don't be surprised, and just know that we did everything we could to stop it.

(Note: I'm only mostly joking about the plague.)

Work-wise, things have been going great.  We are finding new investigators with all the powers in every part of our area except for Moncagua.  Moncagua is super tough right now, but we're still looking for new investigators there.  But we've been having more success in the cantones and in another city called Chapeltique.  Chapeltique has been really interesting.  When we work there, we see two outcomes to contacts.  The people are either really accepting, or they reject us straight up.  It may seem tough, but for me it's nice not getting lied to!

Well, that's all for this week.  Keep on being awesome!

Love,

Elder Colton West

El Salvador, San Salvador East Mission

Adobe brick master!

making bricks

LOTS of bricks

We've been seeing a lot of locusts.
We may start soapbox preaching to stop the plague!

Week 70: Casting Fire

What's up everyone!

I'll tell you all what's up.  Moncagua is awesome!  We are echar-ing fuego here!  Echar fuego (cast fire) is a phrase we use here, and it means that we are working our butts off.  Our area is HUGE!  I think I mentioned that last week.  But oh my goodness, it's huge!  We have been working all over the place this week.  Members have taken us to a couple of the cantones where there are less-active members, and also to Chapeltique, which is half an hour away in a car, driving super fast.  It's going to be interesting going in bus later this week.

We ended the week with 13 new investigators, and a bunch of lessons with less active members.  We're planning to superar that this week.  We're shooting for 20 new investigators and a total of 35 lessons with investigators.  It's going to take a lot of work to do that, but we're going to do it!

So, my time is up.  It goes way too fast.  I hope that everyone is doing well, and that you all have an awesome week!

Love,

Elder Colton West

El Salvador, San Salvador East Mission

the motivation wall

my desk and the Arizona wall

We had a birthday party for one of the zone leaders
And according to Misión San Salvador Este tradition,
we shoved his face into the cake!