October 25, 2010

One month in review (Basically)(Like 4 days)

Lets see, I have been in El Salvador for almost a month. And its been fast. Overall. Some days are really slow, but others are really fast.

First thing on my list, my comp. I know I told mom I wanted a big Tongan, and I know she said I'd get a big Guatemalan. Both wrong. I got a tiny Hondurian (Sp?). Elder Almendarez, from the capital of Honduras. Hes the type of person I don't normally get along with as he was a skater before his mission, and I just don't get along with them. But its working. We get along fine. Some days are frustrating (more cause I don't understand him than anything) but we do get a lot done.

2nd. Vigilantes. Sweet name. And any neighborhood with money has them. Usually. They are kind of like guards for the neighborhoods. Machetes or guns. Take your pick. They are kind of like the armed guards for every store here. Except those guys have shot guns. Kinda fun.

3rd. Real small note here. Like my 2nd day here, we had an earthquake. It was like at 9:20 or so at night, and really small. I didn't notice it until Elder Almendarez started yelling at me and I realized the floor was moving. That was kind of cool.

4th. The buses. Some are tricked out. Some aren't. Some remind me of Jenna´s car the other day as they leave a huge smoke trail behind them. Some have neon. Some even have nice rims and spoilers. Basically all of them have a religious thing on them. They remind me of the game crazy taxi ( I know Devin has the Simpson's version of it). They like weave in and out of traffic. Sometimes we have to jump off them as they are moving. You have to lean opposite of the direction of where the bus is going cause it pulls you back the other way. And a lot have speakers. With American music. Which I hear a lot here. They are just as obsessed with Justin Bieber as America is. And it makes me think of Lainey. I've heard a lot of American music (like Journey) (DON'T STOP BELIEVIN!)

5th. Attacked by dogs. That sucked. 3 big dogs. Dad says I´m officially a missionary. I don't know how they didn't rip my pants. Freakin scary when it happened. Thought I was going to die.

Our investigators:

Familia Rivas. Oh familias Rivas. They aren't married. And the dad has some problems I won't go into. But they love having us over. They have 3 kids. Two girls and a boy. The kids are awesome. and the oldest girl (only the dads girl) is actually inactive. I don't know how it works. But she's a member. Unfortunately, they are kind of not progressing. We´ll keep working with them (mostly for the inactive girl) but they might have hit the wall so to speak.

Familia Varela: 1 mom. 4 kids. Two girls and two boys. 17,14,10,4. Oldest two are the girls. I love the kids in this family. They are really fun to talk to. The mom doesn't see why she needs the church. But there has been some good out of this family. Most are kind of stalled.

Familia Martir. This family isn't really progressing. Except for one daughter. And its a weird family set up. They are married. Half the kids live with the dad somewhere else. Basically all of them don't keep commitments like we ask. The only positive is Jasmine. We are working with her real hard.

Familia Seas: Great family. Only the mom and two kids. Salvador and Melissa. Salvador is like 18 almost 19 and jacked. Hes a big kid. Melissa is actually the cousin of the 2nd counselor in the Bishopric. The kids have different dads. But they are pretty positive. I think they might be coming up for baptism soon.

Jorge Duran: Not much to say here. The dude has been going to church on and off for 11 months, isn't married but his companion hates the Church and us. Weird one all the way around.

Biden: I think that's his name. 12 years old. Wants to be baptized real bad. Starting coming to church with his Aunt, and loves it. We are going to talk to his mom tomorrow. Hope all goes well with it.

Prisilla: Cant hear or speak. I think shes deaf. Not sure. But she can't hear and talk. We write everything out. She is hard to get up with. And she doesn't understand everything we write. I remember we asked her some question and she wrote back I don't have a boyfriend, I´m single. How she got that, I will never know. We asked about like prophets or something.

The ward mission leader. Fernando. Only 18 years old. And I thought I had bad callings growing up. Not much to say other than hes a cool dude.

The Bishop. Hes like 29. Been married for a year. has 2 kids. I don't know how everything works. Really nice.

Francisco. Only been baptized for like 8 weeks. Cant speak or hear well. Like Priscilla. But I love miming to him. He is so cool. And he can actually read lips so he understands a lot better than like Priscilla would.

Familia Campos. Our cooks family. We have pupusas like everyday cause she makes and sells them. She has 3 kids, two girls and one boy. The boy is super chill and fun to talk to. I love that family. All are really nice. No dad. Hermana Sandra is really nice and always wants to know how we are doing. She's like our mom.

Haha, on to fun stuff. Running across the highway and sitting on the median wall thing then running more. Cars and buses like a foot away. Fun times. Don't worry mom, it was to get to a colonia. It had a purpose.

The train. So our area has a train that runs through it. And it only costs 10 cents to ride. Its cheaper than the buses, and a whole heck of a lot more fun. We used it to go to Multi-zones the other day. And it actually dropped us off at an investigator's door step because like the buses, it stops to pick up people. Super cool.

And we actually have at least 6 new investigators that we found yesterday. At least because they were parts of families or only one person of the family. Feeling good about a few. Hopefully something comes from it cause most of our investigators have stalled.

And the best news of the week. We had a baptism last Saturday the 23rd. Alejandra Beatriz Varela Vazquez. That's the one good thing from the Varela family. Shes the 17 year old, almost 18. And her boy friend is Fernando the Ward Mission Leader. He totally owes us. Or me. Because I got to baptize her. My first ever baptism, and in Spanish. I was so nervous. But was really confident with the prayer and dunking her under the water. Maybe that was the Holy Ghost cause I was so nervous until I started the ordinance. So nervous. But all is well.

So that's basically my month in El Salvador. Fun stuff. Our house is small and in like a gated thing with no vigilante. Probably like from the beginning of the hallway down to Devins old room. Not too big. Kitchen. Bathroom. Bedroom. Main room. and the clothes room. Idk. Its where we keep everything basically.

It's pretty here, but I don't have a lot of pictures because I don't make it a habit of carrying my camera with me. But i got some.

Got to run. Love you all and miss you.

Love Elder Gilreath

BTW mom, i got a good idea for presents. I´ll probably just write you later.

Happy Birthday MOM and Jamie. One time I´ll just send pics the whole time.

Pictures

Here are some pictures that Darin sent--I'm not sure who the people are or where the pictures were taken or what's happening in the pictures, but maybe someday we'll find out....(His companion, maybe???)

(I think this is the soccer ball that he said they blew out...)

October 18, 2010

I'm working on sending pictures.

The weeks go by really fast here. And I love it.

I heard Late Nite was fun. And they took all the Priests and Teachers...weird. Haha. But thats cool that all the Hemmings went. How´d they like it?

And I miss UNO. I want to play it.

The San Salvador temple is coming along I think and I really hope I have the opportunity to visit it.

The weather is really hot. You can send the singles things if you want as a test run. I sent a letter the other day I think Wednesday that has more stuff in it. And we haven't found plastic pages.

The food overall is really good. I have enjoyed just about everything I eat and definitely the pupusas. I dont like platanos fritoes ( like fried bananas) but we get them a lot. Oh well. And they serve some really weird drinks down here.

We have some new investigators. Overall I think we have 18 that can be baptized with most just parts of families. Some are progressing, some aren't. I guess that's how it goes. The other day we ran across the freeway, sat on the barrier and then ran the rest of the way. It was fun. Kind of stupid as the cars were like a foot and half from hitting us. But fun. We ran across the highway laughing. Its only 4 lanes total, two both ways.

The Spanish is coming. Things are slowing down. My comp has like 8 months in the field. Hopefully it continues to come at the rate it is. We haven't gotten an Ensign yet, but I think we get one. I'm not sure.

Well, I got to work on these pictures. It's being dumb. Hopefully you get some. Love you all and miss you.

Love,
Elder Gilreath

October 11, 2010

It's been a fast week. Things are going good. Things are slowing down a little, but they can definitely still slow down more. When I focus I pick up most things. But I have to focus and there in lies the problem.

Church was good yesterday. We didn't really have to do anything except bless the sacrament. I did alright with the prayer, definitely wasn't terrible. We went to Gospel Principles with some investigators we had there, and then Elders Quorum. There was only like 8 of us in there I think. Oh yeah the Bishop is 29 I think. Fun stuff for him. And the Ward Mission Leader is 18. Fun stuff for him.

Hmm... Paleca is either in Delgado or near it. Maybe Soyapongo. Our Zone is Soyapongo. Im not really sure. I hope that helps. Its the Paleca Ward...so who knows...

I actually got your letter last Thursday when we had a Zone meeting. Just keep using that address you have. The ZLs pick up letters like every Monday, and distribute them when we get together on Thursdays. I know the letter had a stamp that said El Salvador received it Sept 30...so like 6 days after you sent it. I guess 5 cause Sunday is in there. So it doesn't take too long to get here. Its just that they don't pick up til Monday and I don't receive until Thursday. At least you don't have to worry about transfers or anything like that.

Its been pretty hot lately. There haven't been very many clouds so its been hot. Maybe because I think we might have gone into dry season. It kind of sucks. I have to watch myself and drink a lot of water or gatorade. Which reminds me of Christmas. Because for Christmas I want more drink flavoring things. And Skittles. Tropical Skittles. And maybe cookies. and contacts. That's a sad christmas list. Oh well. Food is good. Always.

Right now, we are teaching a couple families. One has like 7 that can be baptized. One has 4. and the other has 2. They all have some younger kids that can't be baptized. And we ran into this one girl who can't talk but understands the things we write. She only likes our church (her mom told us that): When she saw that we were from the Church her face lit up and she got really excited. And there are a few random others. So we got a few that we teach. They are all kind of progressing slowly. And to find new investigators we can knock doors. That's basically the only way we find them.

Talking is interesting. I think I can express myself pretty well but I still don't understand everything obviously. I´ll get lost in conversations and not know what to say. I can basically understand my comp 100% of the time. Only sometimes I can't.

Sounds like it was a fun birthday for Erik, and that overall everything is good.

You can always tell when there is a drunk person because they try to talk to us in English.
"Guys! GUYS! Hey guys! Where are you going?" Its pretty funny.

We go to an internet cafe to write too. We played some basketball today because we killed the soccer ball :) So far, its been a good P-day. I got to go. Later

Love, Elder Gilreath

First week in El Salvador

The flight down to El Salvador seemed to take forever. President Perez is really nice but talks with a lisp. He can be hard to understand. My first comp is Elder Almendarez from Honduras, and he's a funny guy. Goofs around a lot. Not a lot of English which is good and bad, but I can basically understand everything he says now. Our area is Paleca near San Salvador. Our apartment is really small. I think our living room where the fireplace is i about as big as the entire apartment. We don´t cook for ourselves; we go to a members house near us usually or other member's houses. I was able to watch conference, and in English. The church buildings are definitely probably the nicest places in all of El Salvador. We have done a lot of knocking doors, and I apparently have pretty good Spanish. I just can´t understand a whole lot. haha. The buses are nuts. I think they race each other. and the yellow middle line means nothing. and one day we crammed into a little bus with like 50 people probably. People were like hanging out the doors. It was crazy. No room to yourself.

I thought conference was good and like I said, I got it in English. The 2nd counselor of the Paleca Ward actually speaks really good english. He works for at&t. So its nice to talk to him a lot. But yeah, I enjoyed conference. Our Zone got together for the saturday sessions and went to Pizza Hut in between sessions. (Pizza Hut and KFC are huge down here.) It was a fun trip.

I don´t really know what to ask for for Christmas besides ties. I´ll let you know if I think of something.

Got to run. Hopefully Kota shapes up. This keyboard is weird.

Love,
Elder Gilreath