Back to Ilopongo

Hi everyone!

Yeah, the new way of doing transfer schedules kind of stinks. Monday night I got the phone call telling me that I had to be at the Stake Center in San Salvador at 10.00 the next morning. (Normally it's Wednesday morning).  Normally Tuesday is the day to take pictures and say goodbye to everyone and pack. This time I had to stay up late to pack. And I had to leave early the next morning. I wasn't able to visit anyone. We did call the family Garcia, they took Josue out of school to say goodbye right before I left.

Something different this time is that the Mission wasn't going to provide transportation. That means I had to take a bus (the really crowded morning ones) with all my bags. I really didn't want to do that. So out of desperation I called the one member in our area who has a car. He couldn't do it (he has a pretty demanding job with the government). So he sent his bodyguard to come pick us up. That was pretty cool!

My new area is Alta Vista 2.  Back in San Bartolo of Ilopango. Back to the world of garbage and gangsters and guns.  Same district. Same church building. It's like leaving the 6th ward and coming back to the 3rd ward.  I don't know if you remember when I wrote about Elder Vallecillos, but he's my new companion! I am pretty stoked. This area we have 2 different cocineras. 1 for breakfast. 1 for lunch. They both cook really good food! And this ward has a dinner calender! That is unheard of here!

This Sunday I was able to see everyone from Las Cañas during church. That was super cool!
In the time that I've been gone Benjamin was baptized. And Nusly is getting baptized this Saturday. We did her interview last week. That was super cool being able to visit them! Benjamin also wiped all the viruses off my camera! Super cool day!

A cool experience:
My companion is really intune with the Spirit.  Last night we were walking along the street looking for new investigators when he stopped by a house. The house of members. I didn't know them. But I recognized them from church a couple hours earlier. They are a really strong family. Or so we thought. The mom told us that the husband was in back, sick. We went back there, and he was packing some bags, crying. He was about to leave. We found out that their marriage wasn't doing so good.  Obviously as missionaries we can't give counsel or anything, but we did share some scriptures and sing some hymns and left the home a lot better than we found it.

I bought a recorder today. (The elementary school music class kind) I've already learned Come Come ye Saints!

Changes I've noticed in myself on the mission.:

I think I'm developing ADHD. At church I get really really bored. I have a hard time just sitting. (In my last area I fell asleep in Elders quorum. On two different sundays. No one noticed though ;)  I remember at home I could just sit on the couch for hours and read- I wouldn't be able to do that anymore. I'm so used to just go go go. When I started the mission the mindset was to 'fill the lessons with time'. But now its 'fill the time with lessons'. We never have enough time. When I write home I feel like my mind is already on the next thing that I want to write about. I have a hard time keeping track of my ideas.

It also takes me a lot more time to write my letters.

I never thought I would have so much confidence talking to complete strangers.

I think in Spanish. (Right now I'm the only American in my district- I don't even get to speak English on P-days anymore. Only when I write home.)

I dream about teaching lessons.

I never thought I would be able to have so much love for people I don't even know.

I am a lot more blunt. When I write in my journal too. I used to write a ton, lots of detail. I don't really do that anymore. Just the basics.

Fasting is a lot easier.

Prayers are a lot longer.

Testimony is a lot stronger.

Alright, times up. Thanks for everything! Love you!

-Elder Goodman

10:00 last night

Hi everyone!

This week was a pretty great week! Up until about 10.00 last night. That's when we got the phone call that I'll be leaving Panchimalco. I was pretty bummed. That's an understatement. I couldn't sleep last night, it took me forever to fall asleep. I woke up at 4.30, and couldn't go back to sleep. I got up at 5 and cleaned the whole house.

I don't know if you remember, but two weeks ago I bought a 10 pound bag of pancake mix. Well, I still have a lot.  So this morning I invited the whole district to my house and we had a big pancake party to start the day. That was actually pretty fun! I made some good progress on that bag.

 This morning we played softball with the familia Garcia. It was pretty fun. Josue cried when he found out that I was leaving. I'm definitely going to miss that family.  Speaking of the Familia Garcia, this Saturday we baptized Jesus (the dad) Maria (the mom) and Josue (the son)  Josue really wanted me to baptize him, that was pretty cool!  We had the service outside, it was really cool. I couldn't stop thinking of the story of the waters of mormon! We had a piñata afterward which was really fun! On the church property there is a tree with lots of vines (think Tarzan). While we were filling up the pila we goofed around swinging on the vines. I sent my favorite of the pictures.

Josue has a really hard time understanding the Book of Mormon, I bought him one of those Book of Mormon stories books, that we have at home. He was really excited! This Sunday a member of the Temple Presidency came to our ward, he talked a lot about the Sealing, and did a great job of getting the family Garcia excited about the temple! I also played that piano piece, They had me do it for the closing hymn, which was a little interesting, but it worked out!

I honestly can't really think of anything more that happened this week, I don't have much more to say. Except for this:  Choosing to serve a mission was the best decision I have ever made in my life. I was thinking a lot last night (while I couldn't sleep) and I realized that I have passed my 6 month mark. I only have 18 months left. And it kind of scared me a little bit, because I still am not the missionary, or the person that I want to be. I still have a long ways to go. It's kind of crazy how absorbed I get in my little bubble of Panchimalco, and all that matters is if we were able to visit this family, or that family. Or contact that guy, or share my testimony with that other guy. And do it all before 9.00 at night.

Sorry, I usually plan out beforehand what I want to write about. But I didn't do it this week.  I just have a lot of rambling thoughts that I tried to string together.

Have a great week! I love you! I pray for you!
-Elder Goodman

ps. A quote that has really been guiding my life these past couple days:

"Anyone can live heroically for one day, but those who find success are those who live heroically every day."

Jalapeño Pepper Spray

This was a pretty good week. Quentin L. Cook and Craig C. Christensen came and spoke to us at the temple. That was really powerful! Definitely the highlight of my week! All three missions from El Salvador were there, so I got to see a lot of people I knew from the MTC, that was pretty cool!

Last Monday I found a 10 pound bag of Krusteaz! So of course I had to buy it! This week we did three interchanges, and each night I had a pancake party! I'm kind of becoming famous for my pancake parties! I bought some apples and cinnamon, and we have been using that! Also I tried pancakes with brownie mix, It didn't turn out too well.

This Saturday we had a cooking activity with the Elder's Quorum of our ward. Elder Garcia, a missionary from the other area in our ward is from Mexico, so we made tacos! They were really good, but I almost died. I was in charge of cutting the jalapeños. And I got squirted in the eye. I think it was actually only water because it didn't really sting much. So I went to the bathroom to wash them out. And I washed my hands two times, because I had been handling the peppers. But it wasn't enough. I started to wash my face, and all heck broke loose. My hands still had the oil on them. And it got all over my face, in both eyes, my nose a little bit. It was awful. I don't think I need to go into much more detail, but it sufficeth me to say that I now know why pepper spray works so well.

A ward member has a portable keyboard (piano). He lent it to me this past week so I could practice for my musical number I'm going to do in Sacrament meeting. It's been really fun to have that around the house, I practiced the hymns too. (don't worry, only on pdays and at nights).

On Sunday my companion got really sick, he was half asleep in his bed moaning all day and night. I feel really bad. Needless to day we didn't go out to work yesterday. And I almost died of boredom. I've never needed to stay in because someone else is sick. And it's almost worse. Yesterday I was really glad to have that piano, I spent a lot of time practicing hymns!

Have a great week!
-Elder Goodman

The Garcia Family

10 lb bag of Krusteaz

Pancake party #1

Pancake party #2

Pancake party #3

New boots

Package from Knudsens

Street chocolate

portablebaptistry.com

Hi!

We finally got a baptismal font for our building! It came in a giant package from -no joke- portablebaptistry.com. We are super excited to try it out this Saturday!

We had a really good zone conference. We did an activity where we all had to get over a tall stack of chairs without touching. It turned into two elders tossing everyone else over into the waiting arms of the people on the other side who had already crossed.  It was a pretty good metaphor for our work. We help our investigators take a leap of faith (baptism) and the ward members are those who catch them. The Garcia family came and were practice investigators for the missionaries. At the end they bore their testimonies about their conversion. They talked about the Book of Mormon and their testimony of that. The mom at the end thanked everyone for ''leaving your families for two years so that people like us can be with ours forever''.  I told her that the first time I met them!

I'm not sure if I've told you about the Garcia family before, but they are my golden family. We are baptizing them in two weeks. Yesterday, the 10 year old son told us about the first time he prayed about the Book of Mormon. The night after the missionaries first came to his house. He kneeled and prayed. And then he waited on his knees. And then he fell asleep. And then in a dream an Angel appeared and told him 'I am a messenger from God, he sent me to tell you that the Book of Mormon is true.''   Whoa! I thought it was really cool that you wrote about angels declaring glad tidings in your letter!

We played softball with this family last p-day. We had a blast. I got 2 home runs! My companion also got a home run. They play with the third pitch drop rule ( It doesn't really make sense considering that we were playing slow pitch softball). He ran for first after his third strike, and the catcher overthrew first base. Overthrew so bad in fact that my companion made it all the way home. Probably the highlight was when I broke the ball. (pretty much exactly like Benny in Sandlot.) I felt pretty cool after that! We also played frisbee.

This week on Sunday we did interchanges with the priests. That was really cool, I wish I could have done that. But I am really glad I did home teaching.

I've discovered the secret to being happy on the mission. Two things. 1. Obedience.  2. Work. The harder you work during the day the better you feel night. And the more excited you are to start the next day.

I want you to know that I am being obedient, and that I am working really hard.

Have a great week!

Elder Goodman

Ward Mission Activity

This was a pretty average week. Probably the coolest thing that happened actually happened last week, but I didn't have time to write about it. We had our ward mission activity. (The day I was trying to submit my poop). We thought the ward was planning something, but we found out about two hours before that they wanted us (the missionaries) to plan it.

I don't want to brag, but we came up with a really cool idea! We had a treasure hunt in the church. We hid sticky notes with numbers on them all over the church. But in carefully planned spots. To find the sticky notes the people playing read a scripture, and judging from what the scripture talked about they had to go find the notes. For example, A scripture about Helaman's army of stripling warriors. The investigators/members made the connection that it's talking about young men, so they go to the young men's room. Where the next sticky note is hidden that gives them a scripture that talks about tithing. So they run to the bishop's office where the tithing envelopes are. We had 3 teams going at the same time, in different order. Racing. And the last clue talks about the tree of life. Outside there is a tree with Christmas lights on it. The first one there wins. My team won!  Outside under the tree we had a mini devotional, and then lined everyone up in two lines facing each other. And they took turns bearing their testimonies to each other. It was a roaring success! Everyone loved it. I also came up with some benefits that came because of the activity.

1. The investigators are more familiar with the church building.
2. They got to bear their testimonies.
3. They heard other's testimonies.
4. They know have several friends in the ward (their teammates and their testimony partner.)
5. An investigator actually told me this one: She learned that if she studies the scriptures with a question in mind it will be more effective!

I also have really good news! I got the letters from the ward! And from Uncle Ike's family! Thank you! I also witnessed a miracle. I got the package from the Knudsen's! I don't know what happened to that thing, but it finally arrived. and it looked like they had to move it through a battle zone to get it to me. One of the bags of pizza flour broke inside, so when we opened it that stuff got everywhere. Everything inside was coated with it as well. And the Salt Water Taffy had melted over everything. But don't worry! I was able to clean it up pretty well. The only thing that couldn't be saved was the taffy.

A couple weeks ago some ward members gave us a bag of rice and lentils. I think it's designed for food storage. It's made by NuSkin. This week we tried it, and to be honest it was pretty gross. But... I was looking through the pantry and I found some curry. I added that and had some curried rice and lentils. It wasn't as good as your's mom, but it was alright!

This week I bought a kilogram of chocolate from a street vendor for a dollar. They just open up the cocoa pod and mix in some sugar. It's pretty rich stuff. I can't eat very much of it at a time. That's what the picture is. Street chocolate. There's also a different kind of street chocolate here that is even more common. It's made by the street dogs.... They just do their business anywhere they want. We always have to be on guard.

This computer won't let me send pictures, so I'll send more next week. Sorry!
-Elder Goodman

Questions from Kanani:

1. Is there anything you want/need?

I've been thinking that I want to try yoga.. Could you send me a really simple yoga book? I have a really hard time exercising in the mornings, so I'm looking for different things to change it up. 2. An elastic exercise band. 3. My leatherman- I'm not sure if you'll be able to send that, but several times I have been in situations where I wish I had it.

2. Do you have a parasite?  Or did you find out what your illness was?

Nope. I'm clean! We still have no idea what it was.

I baptized Guillermo!

Feliz año nuevo!

This week was actually a pretty good week, but I also got to see the worst of El Salvador when I went to the hospital.

1. I had to do a poop test- I'll let you imagine the details for yourself- Here they have private clinics that will do it for 2 bucks, really fast really easy. But my companion thought it would be faster to do it at the Hospital. It was not faster at the Hospital. It was a Government hospital- I had to prove I was legal, but I didn't have to prove insurance or anything. I'm not exactly sure what the situation is down here with healthcare, but I got the test done for free! It was also very poorly managed, and staffed. We had to run all over getting signatures, we needed one from the triage doctor in the emergency room. But when we got there he wasn't there. We didn't have much time, so we left for a meeting at the church across the street. When we returned he still wasn't there. And the nurse at the front desk was very unhelpful. We were very pressed for time all day, and it took all day to get it done. We were running in and out of the hospital so much that the guards started to question us telling us how suspicious we looked. It was a really frustrating day. Made worse by the fact that I had to carry around the  ... ahem ... sample the whole time.

2. New Years, the whole city was hung over the next day, so we didn't get a whole lot of work done. I did see two drunks fighting in the street though! That was a little frightening to be honest. Not as funny as you think it would be.

3. We had the Christmas gift exchange this week as a zone. It was pretty fun, we all treated it like a white elephant party, the most common gift was ties. The Hermana missionaries thought that the rule was to spend a minimum of 5 dollars (the real rule was 5 dollar max.) So they bought some really nice gifts, cologne, nice shirts, stuff like that. It was kind of awkward for everyone.

4. We did a lot of baptizing this week! This entire half of the mission baptized 14 people this week. And our area baptized 4. That was awesome! I baptized Guillermo!  And Alicia's mom came to the baptism! (I found out she's 61 by the way)

5. A funny experience that happened this week: We were visiting Guillermo's family, and when we came in they were watching music videos on their tv, music videos that were at least 30 years old. (I recognized one of the bands: Hall and Oats). My companion made the comment that I understood what they were saying in the songs, because I speak English. They got really excited and made me translate the songs for them. (Fun fact, the songs didn't really make much sense in English either.) They loved it though!

6. We locked ourselves out of the house this week. We found out that our house is not very secure, I climbed the porton (big metal sliding door) to get into the yard and then I was able to unlock the door through  the window.

A cat has also been visiting our house lately, I'm not sure exactly how it does it, but it is kind of interesting when we see a cat walking around our house while we are studying.

I just realized I didn't give you an update on my health, I'm doing fine! Although starting last Saturday I've started to feel really achy. who knows?

Love you! Elder Goodman

Baptism of Guillermo. He's the taller one in white

Baptism of Alicia. (Her mom is in yellow)

The Cat

Christmas Conference