Panchimalco

This week was a pretty crazy week.

I had changes! I am now in Zona San Salvador. The name of my area is Los Planes, but we are in a pueblo called Panchimalco. Panchimalco is exactly how I imagined El Salvador to be. I love it!  To get there we have to take a 40 minute bus ride up into the mountains above the capital. I haven't seen a map, but It feels like we are in the middle of nowhere.

I also really like our house, even though it's pretty small, and it also gets pretty hot. It's on the top of a hill overlooking the pueblo. We have an amazing view. I sent a picture. The only downside is that we have to climb the hill to get home every night.

The view from my house in my new area.

My new companion is Elder Torres. And he's awesome. He's probably my favorite companion so far. He's also my first Latino companion, which is nice because now I have to speak Spanish all day. He's got a lot of time on the mission, about 20 months I think. He goes home in March. He's the district leader too. Our district is huge, 6 companionships. He spends about an hour on the phone each night.

I got the packages! Thanks! Next week I'll send pictures of all the decorations I set up in the house. I really like the fireplace and the lights! That was a nice touch! Today I opened the first day of Christmas. That nativity is awesome! Thanks! I'm really excited for the 12 days of Christmas, that was a really cool idea. We have already eaten the pumpkin spice kisses in the first package, I think they got left in the sun or something, because they were pretty melty, but we put them in the fridge for a day and didn't have too much trouble eating them.

We have an investigator named Guillermo, and we have an adventure teaching him, because he's deaf. His family is teaching us some signs we can use, which helps. I thought I knew a little little bit, from ´Signing time with Alex and Lea¨ but I've learned that not all of the signs are the same. The letters are the same, but certain other signs,( for example mom and dad) are completely different.

The family learned sign language from a class put on by the Jehovah's Wittnesses. The JW actually have missionaries here who know sign language and taught the family. The family still attends classes to learn sign language from the JW, but they stopped taking the religious lessons from their missionaries.  Kind of an interesting situation

Have a great week! Thanks for the packages and prayers! I love you!

-Elder Goodman

We found this spider.  That is a quarter next to it.

Elder Beecher and me.

The best 24 hours of my mission ... so far

Hi all!

This week was a pretty average week.

We did interchanges this week. I went to the area Alta Vista 2, with Elder Vallecillos, and I think it was probably the best individual 24 hours of my mission. Elder Vallecillos has about 20 months, he's very experienced. He has a really deep voice, and I love listening to him talk, he just draws you in. He's also a flechon, which means that he follows all of the rules. His companion doesn't like that, but I really did! That whole day we had the Spirit with us so strongly and I know that was in part because of how we were living. The other reason why we had the Spirit was because we where both working really really hard. Con todo!

There was one family that we found, and I don't know why exactly, but I was really really determined to get into their house. The first time I asked to enter the man said no. But I kept talking to him, we started joking around and I ended up talking to him for around 5 minutes. When I could tell he was comfortable with me I asked again. And he said no again. We started to leave, but I turned around and asked him if there was anything we could do to serve him before we left. He looked at me for a second, then said "va entren" which means "alright come in".  It worked!  We got in the house and had a really spiritual lesson. It also turns out that they live in a haunted house of sorts. Supposedly their neighbor is a bruja: a witch. (apparently those exist down here) and had cursed their house. They were really scared.

A couple months ago we had a multi zone conference, and our president had told us that as priesthood holders we could call down blessings from heaven. he gave us examples of the types of blessings we wanted us to promise to the people we teach; and one of those is to bless the houses of our investigators.

So we knelt down in a circle, and me and Elder Vallecillos gave a prayer asking for spiritual protection for the house. It was interesting, I have never done anything like that before. But after the prayers the Spirit was so so strong. None of us moved, we just stayed there for a minute or so just feeling the Spirit. It was awesome! It was a really really cool experience.

Have a great week! Tell Josh good luck for me tomorrow!

I love you!
-Elder Goodman

Earthquake!

Hiya! This week was a pretty good week. Pretty average week actually. There was an earthquake at around 5am on Wednesday (I think, I don't remember the exact day.) I was woken up by my bed shaking back and forth. That was pretty cool!

This Saturday was the national day of service. Our stake went to a Special Education center in San Martin. It is basically just a big compound for adults with mental disabilities. We painted the houses. And we played with the people that lived there. I had a ball! There are a couple of them that love soccer, and we had a pretty wild game of soccer going with them! It was really fun! We also had a couple piñatas. That was crazy! I had a really, really, great time!

The weather here is starting to get colder. This morning it was 67 degrees when we woke up. Cold! We don't have any other clothes than shirts and t-shirts, and we only have sheets for our beds. But during the day it is 70s, which is perfect! We can work all day! When it's hotter we have to take breaks every once in a while. But right now we just go, go, go, all day! I love it!

We have an eternal investigator named Sandra. The missionaries have been visiting her for over a year, she knows everything. She even pays tithing! Her whole family are members, she has a grandson named José Smith! She never got baptized because she wasn't married to her husband (or boyfriend I guess). They have been together for 16 years, but the whole time he has been married to a woman in Nicaragua. She really wanted him to get the divorce so they could get married, but he never did.

Last Sunday she came up to us and told us she wants to get baptized! We visited her later in the week, and it turns out that her husband left her, for another woman. She was understandably pretty upset. He was the one in the family who worked too, so now she has to find a job.

It's interesting. This is a really big trial that she has to go through, but there is also a blessing that came along with it. (she can get baptized now!)

If you could pray for her that would be really nice. She needs it.

Have a great week!
-E. Goodman

Shocking

Elder Beecher is a pretty good teacher. And now that he knows our investigators he helps with the planning and stuff too. That's nice. His strength is getting people to like him. Right now we are finding tons of new people to teach. Something that we always struggled with, with E. Wallace. And it's because we like to talk to people. We both do. And we walk slower, and we are actually looking for people to talk to.

This week we had ward council for the first time in 10 weeks. I set it up! In the meeting we talked a lot about missionary work. And what the members can do to help. We set goals together. It was awesome! Our ward is great, they really want to help, they just don't know how. I remember my old companion would always complain about the ward, the bishop, the fact that we never have ward council...etc. But, I realized that actually doing something always works better than complaining. 

I had an interesting experience this week. We have what's called a pila. A big tank of water. We don't get water  every day so we have to store it there. We also have a pila heater. It's a big twirly piece of metal with a cord. You plug it in and it gets really hot. You can use it to heat up the pila if you want to take warm showers. I use it to heat up 5 gallon buckets of water. One day I was heating up water, and I stuck my finger in to test how hot it was. I felt pain and pulled my finger out real quick. I just thought the water was really hot. But then I saw a cut on my finger and I thought that maybe that cut made my finger more sensitive or something. I then stuck my whole hand in, to see if it was really that hot. (looking back that seems like kind of a dumb thing to do.) And I just felt pain. And then the muscles in my arm started clenching. And hurting. And I realized that I was getting electrocuted. It hurt! 

We are out of time, sorry I didn't write more. Have a great week!

-Elder Goodman

Questions from Kanani:

1.  What is the colonia?  You mentioned you can go there now if you want.

It's not a specific Colonia. But before we would plan to work in specific colonias. And we couldn't deviate from the plan. But now if I get the idea (or prompting I guess) to go somewhere else we do. The idea I guess is that I'm in charge now!

5.  Do they have fast food places like Carl's Jr. or McDonalds?  is it expensive?

Yup, we have a pizza hut, burger king, and subway. They are the same price as in the U.S. But that's really expensive for a meal. We eat at those places only on p.day, for lunch. 

6.  What color is the outside of your apartment, or is it a house?  

Green. Dark Green. It's a house, but it's the size of an apartment.

Stake Conference

Hi everyone!

This was a pretty good week!

We had changes. Elder Wallace is now a zone leader in San Vicente. My new companion´s name is Elder Beecher. He´s got about 18 months on the mission. He´s from Logan. I really like him! He´s pretty laid back, which is nice. I feel like I have a lot more freedom now. If I want to contact someone, or go into a colonia. I can now! He´s really easy to get along with as well. I feel like we´re already good friends.

This week was really good. I feel like I am really progressing as a missionary. I have to lead the area now so a lot more depends on me. And I feel like that´s really helping me grow! Spiritually, mentally, emotionally. Not physically unfortunately.

We had Stake Conference this week. President Vasquez and his wife spoke, and the temple president and his wife spoke. Nusly came to church! Stake conference! This week has been hard inviting people to church, because they have to go to Santa Lucia. But we told Nusly we´d pass by to take her and her kids to church. And she was ready! We had to take two buses, and with 2 children under 4 years old that was kind of hard, but we made it! And the ward was really really nice and supportive! The bishop gave her a ride home! (well, his wife. He doesn´t drive.) He actually stayed behind so there would be enough room for her to go first. I was really impressed by that!  Nusly is Benjamin´s wife, and she has never come to church. Benjamin had to work that day, so he couldn´t go. But his wife just moved up to progressing!

This week we visited a family that lives in Apulo. The familia Galan. Her husband died recently ( turns out he was the body I almost had to help dress). They have a big field, that has just been left unkept. The weeds were 6 feet tall. They gave me a machete. And I cut it down. I wish I had pictures, I´m sure I looked really cool! It was pretty hard, but it was also my first time using a machete!

I feel like this has been a really long week, but I can´t think of anything more to write about. I really like being a missionary! Every day I wake up excited to go to work! I am contacting a lot more now. And my Spanish is getting good enough that I can start conversations with people. I used to just walk up and start talking about the church. But now I walk up and start talking about their dog, their family, that picture on the wall. I feel that it is helping my Spanish. But I am also having a harder time directing the conversation to the church. Maybe I need to go back to what I did before!

Have a great week! I forgot to take a picture with my new comp. Next week

-Elder Goodman

Survivor El Salvador

This week was a pretty standard week.  Every morning for breakfast I make myself a huge bowl of oatmeal. (cheap and filling) and then I add sugar and powdered milk and cinnamon. I´ve found that the more sugar and milk and cinnamon I add the better it tastes! This week I decided to spice it up a bit and I bought some nutmeg. It tastes kind of Christmasy now.

Yesterday I locked the keys in the house.  Benjamin Zipeda helped us break back in. Using 2 brooms, 2 shoelaces, and a piece of telephone line he cut from the house. (it was from an extra coil just hanging outside). He took out the window from the outside and was able to open the door. It was pretty cool actually! He said it was Survivor El Salvador. Fun fact, every door here locks automatically. The people here are really worried about security, (justly so). We live in a gated community. And we have a gate in front of our house, and then the front door that locks automatically. Our roof has razor wire AND barbed wire. Our side walls have broken bottles cemented on top to keep people from climbing over. And every window has a cage over it. And our front yard is all thorny plants. But even all that wasn´t enough to keep us out!

The picture is of Benjamin.  We ate dinner at his house on Saturday. It has been really cool seeing his family change. And being a part of it. Probably the coolest part of my mission so far has been his family. They were telling us how grateful they are for what we´ve done for them. I have such a strong testimony of the Atonement, and what it can do for us.

Have a great week!
-Elder Goodman

El Dia de los Muertos

This week was awesome!

The Day of the Dead activity was really really fun. Cemeteries here are nothing like those at home. Here all the tombstones are big crosses- some of them are actually pretty ornate- but they are all painted crazy colors. Blue, Green, Pink, etc. And they are all on top of each other. There is no grass, to get around you have to walk on other people´s graves. Every year the people come to clean up the graves, re-paint, etc... And it's a huge deal. A huge party! There are vendors everywhere selling food, flowers, headstones, paint, toys. The people come in work clothes with big jugs of water and shovels and paint and stuff. I was pretty surprised when I saw whole families walking into a cemetery armed with shovels and buckets!

Our shift was from 1.30 - 4.30. We had a table set up with Plan of Salvation pamphlets and Family Search stuff. It was a straight 3 hours of just talking to people! I had a blast!

Halloween here is not very big at all. I saw two kids dressed up and 1 house decorated. But on Fast Sunday, the day after, an old lady got up and spoke for 10 minutes about how evil Halloween was. And how it made her feel sick seeing all the little kids worshiping the devil. That was pretty entertaining!

That Sunday the Gospel Essentials teacher didn't show up-  so Elder Wallace gave the lesson. He wasn't paying attention last week, and he thought that this week´s lesson was the Chastity lesson. I didn't realize  until too late, so he ended up teaching without any preparation. He had a hard time getting the class to participate.

I have a cool story from last week.
We have an investigator named Guadalupe who was introduced to the church by her friend Alex. It started with her wondering what Mormons think about God. Alex has a son named Axel (don´t get them mixed up) who is around 4 or 5 years old. Axel memorized the First Article of Faith for the primary program a couple weeks ago. When Guadalupe asked what Mormons believe Alex had Axel recite the first Article of Faith to her. Guadalupe was pretty impressed! Now she´s investigating the church!

Thanks for the dream team answers! Have a great week!

-Élder Goodman

I have all the pictures that you wanted, but I forgot to bring my cord to connect it to the computer. I can usually get around it by borrowing someone else´s or putting my card in their camera to connect it. But no one has their cameras with them today. I guess I'll have to wait until next week.  Sorry.

Questions from Kanani
1. Do you go on exchanges very often?  It sounds like Eliza goes on them all the time.
Every once in a while. Maybe twice a transfer
2. Do you have a day where you volunteer or give service?  If so, what types of things do you do?
No. On Saturday we helped a lady clean out her house, that was a first for me though.
3. How do transfers work...is it every 6 weeks or different?
every 6 weeks