Elder Oaks!

This was a pretty good week. The highlight of the week was definitely going to see Elder Oaks. Our branch rented three buses- and the two other branches from the zone, Ilobasco and Sensuntepeque also rented buses. We all met up outside of Cojutepeque and went down in a big caravan.  Our bus driver must have just finished watching Lightning Mcqueen or something- because he put the pedal to the metal. We flew. completely left the caravan behind. We beat everyone to the Gimnasio Nacional by at least 30 minutes. It was awesome! The only problem was that all of our investigators were on the other buses. We ended up waiting for them outside so we could sit together. While we were waiting the bus from my old ward in San Miguel showed up! I got to see a lot of people I knew! Keven and Ludwin where there too! And their sister(that I was never able to baptize) had gotten baptized that same morning! It was way cool! I got a mini taste of what it will be like when we get to the spirit world... (or what it will be like when I get home in 10 months!)

We didn't even sit in the main stadium, we went to a fieldhouse nearby where they had projectors set up. It was a lot cooler (temperature) where we were though.  There was 16,000 people there! The whole country! Elder Oaks said it was the 3rd biggest audience he had ever spoken too. After the Conference Center and the Marriot Center.

Couple other highlights from the week:

On Sunday we just had sacrament meeting so we could get to Elder Oaks on time. During one of the hymns something kind of funny happened. I was playing the piano- and we had just finished the 3rd verse- going on to the 4th and last verse. I looked up at the chorister, just in time to see the Branch President close his hymn book really loudly, like he was glad to finish singing. It made me laugh a little bit- and I completely forgot that I was supposed to be playing the piano- I kind of muffed up the first line of the song pretty bad. I got a couple of nice comments about that.

We had a zone conference this week. Our job as missionaries is actually really simple. We just need to talk to as many people as we can. And make as many of these people that we can feel the Spirit. When they feel the Spirit we need to help them recognize the Spirit. And help them understand that if they get baptized, and read, and pray, and keep the commandments, they can feel the Spirit whenever they want. It was pretty interesting. We did a cool practice, where we had 6 minutes to teach whatever we wanted, but we needed to invite the Spirit. And when we could feel it, we needed to stop everything to help the investigator recognize it. It was pretty cool!

Elder Palmer got sick on Saturday. We didn't work that day. Pretty boring. Around 6:00 we had the other missionaries bring us dinner- and we gave him a blessing. It was interesting. Immediately after the blessing his fever started to go down, and he started to improve. He woke up completely fine. Which was a huge blessing because we were able to go see Elder Oaks.  Around 6.00 I knocked him out with some Benadryl. He got a solid 12 hours of sleep that night :) (Shout out to Dad for teaching me that little trick ;)

We got a new fridge!  10 weeks ago when I got here we had a fridge, but that same change they split our area and put Hermana missionaries in Cojute too. After giving them all of our investigators, and members from our area, we also gave them our fridge. So I haven't had a fridge for the whole time I've been here. But on Saturday we got a new on! Brand new! We pulled it out of a box! It even came with an ice tray!

Last night we were visiting a family of menos activos. We wanted to share a video with them, but their DVD player didn't work. The little tray got jammed so it didn't come out. Luckily I had my trusty Leatherman. We pulled of the top cover of the machine, and using the screwdriver apparatus on my LM we took apart the drive. We put the disc in. Screwed it back up, and put the cover on. And it worked! Incredible! That's how we do things here in El Salvador!

I love you all! Have a great week!


-Elder Goodman