ELDER COLTON WEST: Week 79: Winter is Coming!

Yep, it's that time of the year again. Wintertime. Almost. It probably sounds pretty silly to you folks up in north America that winter comes in May. Thing is, down here there is no summer and winter like we know in the States. In Central America the dry season is called summer, and the wet season is called winter. And in El Salvador, winter starts in May. See the attached video for a short sample of Salvadorean winter weather.

Did you see it? Yeah, it's pretty crazy. And that's a relatively light storm for here. It only lasted 15 minutes. Normal winter storms are stronger than that and last hours at a time. I still haven't seen a real central american rainstorm yet.

As far as the work, things are going excellent! We've been contacting as many of the investigators of the other missionaries as we can. So far, they're all positive. However, our most positive investigator is a reference from a member. Her name is D, and she is what we call a golden investigator. The member who gave us the reference, O, is a returned missionary who has been preparing this sister for some time now.

Here's how it goes: D and O are nurses at the local clinic, and got to be friends there. O is one of those people who is always sharing little things about the church, and D got interested for that. O gave her a Book of Mormon and some reading assignments, and has answered every question that D has. Recently, O invited D to meet with us, and D agreed.

We contacted D a week ago, and had one of the best lessons that I've ever participated in, and it was only a Lesson Zero (get to know the person and find out their gospel necessities). At the end of that lesson Elder Hernandez and I felt that we absolutely had to teach Lesson 3, The Gospel of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, we had to wait until Saturday to do so. D has one teeny tiny super huge problem in her life right now: she has some serious health problems. She spent the whole week in San Salvador for exams and treatments, and didn't get back to Berlin until Saturday night.

So, Saturday night we went and taught her. Oh my goodness, it was absolutely the best Lesson Three I have ever seen. The things that we said were completely and totally inspired by the Holy Spirit. It was amazing. The Lord fulfilled His promise given in D&C 100:5-6. We did not teach that lesson. The Spirit taught the lesson, He just used our mouths to speak it.

D has a baptism date for the 28th of this month. Be ready for baptism photos.

Well, time's up. I hope that everyone has an awesome week! Stay safe, say your prayers, and remember to write to the missionaries!

Love,

Elder Colton West

El Salvador, San Salvador East Mission

We washed a dog! We always semi-jokingly offer to wash the dog
when we offer to do service projects. The sister who cooks our
lunch took us up on the offer!

Awesome shoes that I found in a used store in Berlin.
Special Edition Marvel Vans

Crazy rain!
(Editor's note: Elder West also sent a short video clip of this but I can't get it to load.
Please check Facebook for a separate post...hopefully I can get it to work!)