Elder Goodman's Mission Blog: Semana Santa

Hola Familia!

Feliz Lunes de Pascua!

This week was the Semana Santa here in El Salvador. (that translates to Holy Week)

There was an earthquake on Monday. It was fairly big. 5.1. Not big enough to knock down a house- but still... My companion and I were about to leave the house when everything started shaking back and forth. It was pretty scary. Right after that ended there was a big thunderclap and it started raining really, really hard. Our house has a metal roof- so it was pretty loud. Then the power went out. It was pretty scary! We thought it was the end! That was pretty exciting!
Thursday was Jueves Santo. We had a mission activity - we brought people to the temple. From our ward no one went- it was pretty disappointing. But it worked out- they had me working as a photographer. So we just ran around the entire time taking pictures. That would have hard to do if I was trying to keep track of investigators at the same time. I saw some people that I knew from Cojutepeque and from San Miguel too! It was sweet!

Friday is the biggest day of the Semana Santa. They do these things called Alfombras. Giant colored salt drawings in the middle of the street. It's pretty cool! But, they close the streets off- so it's kind of hard to get around. We were in another city, Santiago Texacuango, and no buses were passing, we weren't sure how we were going to get home, but finally a bus passed. He took the Autopista Comalapa, the freeway, which runs parallel to the city. The freeway is divided into two parts, for the two directions of traffic. And every couple of miles there was a little road that connects them. Our bus made a u turn on one of those little roads, and then went in reverse for about a kilometer before we could get back into the city. It was pretty crazy- I hope I explained it well enough!

We live in front of one of the big Catholic cathedrals. And on Friday and Saturday night (Viernes Santo y Sábado de Gloria) they have this big, loud, all night vigilias. We didn't sleep.

Funny, but Sunday here isn't really big. Everyone goes back to work- and it's not really anything special. Sad, because Sunday is the most important part- The resurrection! I played a special musical number. On Wednesday night we went to the meetings, and I practiced the piano a little bit to prepare for the musical number. I left the music up by the piano on the stand. Sunday morning the sheet music wasn't there. Someone from the ward before us had taken it. We planned on not having the musical number. But I talked to one of the bishopric from the other ward, and while our Sacrament meeting was going he ran around trying to find it. He found it and gave it to me right before I was supposed to play. It was really lucky!

Sunday we went around contacting- and we came up with a new way to contact! We introduced ourselves as missionaries- and said that we had a special Easter message. Most let us in! We introduced the Book of Mormon and explained that it was the story of the people on this continent that also believed in Christ! We explained that after Jesus resurected he appeared to the people here. Then we read together a couple of verses from 3nefi 11. We explained that just like to the people back then, Jesus invites us to come to him, and be healed and forgiven of our sins. It was really powerful!

This is my favorite part of the mission- having permission to go out and talk to everyone I can- and share with them this beautiful message! I love this!

Have a great week!
I love you!

-Elder Goodman