Week 54: I Am Legend

This week was awesome!  Seriously, it was awesome.  We worked well, had a bunch of success, and got up to some rather legendary hijinks while we were at it.

We'll start with the work.  We had some difficulties this week with finding new investigators.  Appointments fell, we couldn't find our references, nada.  We had received a huge blessing from our bishop though: knowledge of a neighborhood where missionaries have never worked before.  It's right on the edge of the ward, and everyone before thought it was part of the other ward.  Turns out that it is part of Barrio Valle Nuevo.  We had wanted to go there all week, but between sicknesses (my comp got sick again!) and phone problems (we didn't want to go to an unknown and possibly dangerous area without a working phone) we didn't have the chance to go until yesterday.  Oh my goodness, I wish that we had gone sooner.  We only had the chance to work there for two hours or so yesterday, but we found 6 new investigators just in that neighborhood.  And it's a super cool colonia.  It makes me feel like I'm back in Ilobasco.

Unfortunately, I won't get to be here to see just how awesome the nueva colonia ends up being.  Yeah, I have transfers.  So this time next week I'll be in another part of the country.  I'm actually sad about it.  I don't want to leave Valle Nuevo.  I absolutely love this area.  The members are awesome, I have great investigators, and there's always food.  But the Lord needs me somewhere else.  So, as the hymn says, "I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord."

Now, I mentioned some hijinks.  We accidentally stole Hermana Vasquez's phone number.  (for the gentiles, Hermana Vasquez is the wife of President Vasquez, the mission president).  Here's how it all went down.  We had some problems with our cell phone, and the secretaries told us that we needed to get a new SIM card from Claro (the phone company).  So we got the okay from our leaders and went to the Claro store in Plaza Mundo.  The woman who helped us there is a member, and fasttracked our service so that we could get back to work faster.  They gave us the new SIM and we started heading to the bus stop to go back to the area.  I decided to call the other elders to tell them that our phone was working.  I was very surprised when Elder Le May answered with "Hola Hermana Vasquez, ¿que tal?"  I replied with "Elder, I'm me, not Hermana Vasquez."  He proceeded to tell me that I had Hermana Vasquez's phone number.  I thought he was joking, but he told me to hang up and call again to make sure that it wasn't a problem with his phone.  It wasn't just a problem with their phone.  We actually had the phone number of Hermana Vasquez.  We went back and got our real number back, but not without getting some humor in first.  I sent a text to elder Le May to show to his companion saying that we can no longer eat pupusas.  He almost believed it too!

My week in a nutshell: more sicknesses, I'm now going to be a legend in the mission, we echar-ed fuego in my area and I'm leaving.  And to top it off, the girl working in the cyber cafe is playing a bunch of really awesome music.  Tender mercies of the Lord, I suppose.

Photos: I don't have any this week.  But I'll send some from my new area!  Promise!  Love you all!  Make this week awesome!

P.S. The secret of the colors in my signature is that they are the colors of my tie that I'm wearing when I write.  This week I decided to put the pattern too.

Love,

Elder Colton West

El Salvador, San Salvador East Mission

Editor's Note: "echar" means "throw" and "fuego" means "fire"....so I will have to inquire next week about his fire throwing in his area! Not sure what he meant!?  We don't know his new area yet, so next week's letter will be exciting to get and find out where his new mission adventures will be!  This is only the 2nd or 3rd time his WHOLE mission that we have not received pictures. I LIVE for those pictures so these weeks are hard. I'm including a few of my fave pics of his mission thus far. He's left us all hanging for a year about what the colors of his signature mean. I didn't ask him to spill the beans so I'll have to find out what made him decide to tell us all now!

Summer 2015 in Ilopango

Temple Day in May 2015. We teased him that the spirit
is so strong in him that it's coming right out of his head!

His first baptism in Feb 2015 in Ilobasco with Elder Hood from Utah

He is SO happy on his mission!

Week 53: Día de los Muertos

Yes, this feels just as weird for me as it does for you all.  Writing on a day that is not Monday really throws me off.  Good thing is that it probably won't happen again while I'm here in the mission.  It's worth it though.

Yesterday we had a rather fantastic activity in the cemetery in my area.  President Vasquez has felt inspiration guiding him to have us help people here feel the Spirit of Elijah.  So the theme of our activity was Family History.  Overall, the activity was very successful.  Just in the one cemetery in one day, we received dozens of references.  Many of the people we had talked to had never heard of or thought of family history, and they were very interested in their descendants and remembering their loved ones.

Mission-wide, missionaries received over 2,400 references yesterday.  That's a rather incredible number for one day.  Everyone here is very happy to see such success.  I'm disappointed that I won't be here for next year's Day of the Dead activity.

On the home front, our two sick elders in Valle Nuevo are doing much better.  Elder Maldonado has made a full recovery.  Elder Le May is around 80%, but improving every day.  Recovering from Dengue, especially when it gets serious, takes a while.  But he's able to work again, so we're all very happy with that.

Well, email time is up!  It always goes by so fast...  Until next week!

Love

Elder Colton West

El Salvador, San Salvador East Mission

Elder West, Elder LeMay and Elder ? at Family History Day yesterday
(Sister LeMay sent this to Sister West)

Our table at the cemetery for Family History Day

The cemetery is called Las Colinas ("The Hills")...this is
the view from the top of the hill.

The baptism of Danny R. He was an investigator of the other elders,
but we taught him while Elder LeMay was in the hospital with dengue.

Bishop Castro took us to Pizza Hut last night. He called President
Vasquez and got permission for us to be out late so that we could go.
It was awesome!