Elder DeVictoria

Week 102

2012-01-23T17:09:00.001-08:00

Dear Family,
Guess what? we got to go to the beach today with president, and he let us play in the water on the shore haha. We didnt get to go swimming though. It was cool we just got back from playing soccer on the sand.
This week was a little frustrating for me, because we had to make a long trip all the way to san salvador from La Union, and we lost and important day of work, but the lord made it up to us, because we were able to bring 16 people to church on sunday including 4 families!! It was amazing. This area doesnt cease to amaze me. God is really helping us out here to be able to serve and work with maximum effects. He is softening the hearts of the people to recieve the commitments that we give them.
I just kinda hit me though that I only have 3 weeks left till I get home. Wow.
You guys might want to get my bed ready haha.
Well I dont have a whole lot to say, so I guess I'll verbally introduce you guys to some of our investigators:
Familia Palomeque - They have gone to church 3 times now as a family, and have accepted to be baptised, so this week is show time tog et them to commit to marriage, find a lawyer and hopefully get the baptism lined up for this saturday. The Zoneleaders are like tripping out to get us to baptise this family lol. But they are really great. They have changed a lot, and I know that they will get baptised. We are going to have a family home evening tonight with them and some members so that should really be good.
Familia Hernandez - They almost got baptised a few years ago, but it turned out that they could never get her birth certificates taken out, so they never got married, and therefor never got baptised. They all went to church on sunday, even the rebelious youngster. We will see where it goes with them, because they have a lot of financial diffuculties ( they basically live off clams and churria (I'm not sure how to say that in English, but they are like little long clam things as well) and dont really have any stable employment.)
Familia Avrigo (Isidrio) - He has now gone to church 2 weeks with his wife, and he really likes it. He knows a lot of members in the church, and his wife and granddaughter are allready members. We are planning his baptism for the 4th of February, and I think everything will come out well, because graciously they are allready married.
Agustine - He is the grandfather of a less-active member in the branch, and he came to church this sunday. He is elderly and has some health issues, but he allready expressed to his granddaughter that he wanted to be baptised. We will work with him for the 11th of February.

So yes the work is strong here, and president let me come here to that I would finish the mission happy and satisfied.

Love you all, and see you soon.
Elder DeVictoria

Week 101

2012-01-16T12:32:00.001-08:00

Dear Family,

This week passed by really fast, we have been working really hard. This area is pure gold. Its a shame that I only get to come here the last change of my mission, but hey thats the way it goes sometimes. There are a lot of prepared people that they had found before I got here, but who werent progressing, but now they are. We had another great week, because we had baptisms. We baptised three youth named Oswaldo, Jasmin and Hisel, who are children of one of the sisters in the ward. They were way prepared. Good stuff. We also were able to bring 9 people to church, even though 2 or 3 that we brought last week didnt want to go. I'm really happy. We are planing to baptise a family the 27th of January, and complete another one that we found this week the 4th of February. God is going to help us meet these goals, because we are working hard, and trying ot be really obedient. It is a lot easier to be obedient and diligent when you arent a zone leader. A lot less pressure. I have found that I work a lot better when nobody is out pressuring me, and I am out on my own.

Thats the good news.
The bad news is that every time I get done reading the letters that were sent to me I have like no ideas about things to write nor desire to think of them lol.

I got my flight plans; I will be coming home the 16th of february. My plane will leave at 2:35 pm on the 16th, go to florida, and leave from florida to SFO at 6:45 so I should get home somewhere around 10pm I think. I'll forward them to you to make sure you get them.

Love Elder DeVictoria,

Week 100

2012-01-09T19:22:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

Wow, I only have 5 weeks left!!!!!!!! what?? That is crazy. It has been a good time here in El Salvador....I have seen some pretty crazy stuff in two years.

I have a great new companion. His name is Elder Cerrud and he is from Panama. He only has 6 weeks in the mission, so he is pretty new. It is really fun to be with a new missionary, because they are still unspotted for the world, and undamaged by the apostasy. He is really powerful, his dad is a bishop in panama. We should have a great change together.

I think my new area was prepared just for me. In three days we were able to round up 14 people commited to go to church...and then the miracle, they came!!!!! wow. It was crazy. Thats the most that I have ever been able to bring to church in one sunday. I am happy. Now we have to hard task of getting them to go next week, teaching them the gospel during the week, and getting them baptised before the 16 of February :P

We brought 2 full investigator families, and 1 part member family. It is exciting. God is really helping us out.

The area I'm at is a lot like Gotera, but it is right next to the beach, and it has a port and everything. There are a lot of great members here. Almost all of them tell me ¨Elder this is going to be your favorite area¨ it is so exciting.

Anyways I don't really know who you were talking to on the phone, it might have been one of my friends or converts that thinks I'm home already haha. If she calls again ask her ¨¿Cómo se llama usted? and then write down her name (If you don't understand say ¨¿Puede repetirlo otra vez por favor? ) Then tell her, ¨Se le voy a comunicar, pero a Elder DeVictoria todavía le queda cinco semanas para terminar la misión, pero siempre le puede mandar un correo electronico o dejar un mensaje un su facebook y el le contestará pronto.¨

These pictures are a couple from Usulutan, me with a bunch of boeing stuff that Elder Antonios dad sent us, and the snake that almost bit my companion last night....haha

Love Elder DeVictoria

Week 99

2012-01-02T14:07:00.001-08:00

Dear Family,

This was an entertaining week. We are working hard and we had a great occurance this week are church. The whole family of Ronaldo (The kid we baptised last week) came to church after over a month of working witht them. It made me so happy to see them there. Also I am getting changed out of this area. I know where I am going too seeing as my companion has like all information haha. I'm going to the hottest area of the mission. The beach front. Its called La Union. I'm super excited to go. It is one of the most powerful branches in the mission, and It always baptises. And I get to be a stepdad again. even though I'm not going to be training, I feel that this is a great opportunity. Happy new years, I second what Sister Wei said at the end of her letter.

Love Elder DeVictoria

1-A visitor in our house (yeah it really hurts when they sting you)
2-What happens after you burn like 1000000 fireworks in the street?

Week 98: Merry Christmas

2011-12-26T21:02:00.000-08:00

Merry christmas,
Well I'm really happy because we finally baptised.
I feel kinda bummed though because I just manually saved all of my mission
letters in word documents, and then this computer has so many viruses that I may
have lost the files :/ oh well.
We are here working hard. It was fun to chat on skype. The time really is
closing in. I only have one trasnfer left, and I really hope that president
glazier lets me train, I have asked him like 3 or 4 times if he would let me,
but he only says we will see....lol
But yes the things are a little less stressfull when you baptise. It was a
fun christmas.
I hope everything is going well out there in California, Utah, Texan,
taiwan ect.
Thanks for the letters.
Love elder DeVictoria

Week 97

2011-12-19T12:12:00.000-08:00

Dear Family, Still Laboring Strong here in Usulutan. It has been a long time here... I've been pretty sick this week with a chest cold. Umm we brought some people to church, and we have people half progressing...and maybe if God lets us a baptism coming up soon. Uhhhhhh I have no Idea what to write. I´m gonna call sunday in the afterneen like 4 or 5 or 6 oclock by skype. I think that my email is banknsales@gmail.com or banzertank is the username. I've got 8 weeks left... yikes. Love elder devictoria ps im not sure if that christmas tree thing you sent me is supposed to be used like that?

Week 96

2011-12-12T14:17:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

Well we had another great week here in Usulutan. The time is passing by really quick and we are working with a lot of people. Sadly we only have a couple who are progressing, but we are truly able to see their testimonies grow.
We have been teaching a family of Brother Noe and Kenia who are living together and arent married yet (She needs to go through a divorce) but they have attended church about 4 times now. This week Kenia called us and said that her baby was sick. She was really really worried. She was crying, and the baby had a fever and a bloated stomach. We explained to her was a priesthood blessing was and we blessed the girl. The next day she called us and said that her baby was healed, so we are happy that god let that happen to strengthen her testimony of the gospel. Noe was in work this week (He is a soldier) and so he couldnt come to church, but Kenia, her three daughters and her mom came to the District conference, which was really really good.

We have a lot of people that we are teaching now who have never heard missionaries before, because they live in a canton called el ojuste. Which actually isnt that far from the church, but it kinda seems like it is. We make it in about 15 minutes walking. But there are a lot of people out there who have only been exposed to catholicism and Jehovahs witnesses, and they dont go to either of them. The majority of the people out there dont go to church which is a minority here in El Salvador. We are struggling with some investigators who are a part member family. The son is the only active member, but the husband and youngest son arent members yet. The boy has gone to church once, but the dad is just a really shy and timid man who is afraid of going to church, even though he has expressed many times to us that he wants to go. Hopefully we can do something to get him to go.

Today we are going to visit a place called el Transito which is about 15 minutes in bus from here. There are 2 families who live there that dont get a lot of attention from the church. One of them is a political candidate for the FMLN (Aka left wing) of El Savador....We have some problems with them sometimes, because members from this party sometimes devote more of their effort to the political party than the church. We had a lot of problems with that in Gotera..... But they are faithful saints for the most part. They have a reference for us :).

So president says that we can use Skype to write home this year for Christmas, so I think we are going to head on over to a cyber on Christmas eve in the afternoon maybe? how does that sound to you guys? just get your skype up and working, and I´ll find a way to get it all up a running here. If I can find a member with a computer I will call sunday....we shall see.

We found an investigator with a Mapacho.

But yeah the end is coming up quickly.
Love Elder DeVictoria

Week 95

2011-12-05T09:52:00.001-08:00

Dear Family,

Well I guess the results are in dad...we all knew it would come some day...
Its okay though. If you get healthy enough Diabetes can go away. Hang in there.

Well this was a bit of a disapointing week, because a couple of people that we had high hopes of coming to church didn´t go, but I feel that they are chosen people, so we are going to try a little bit more witht hem this week.
I have only baptised 1 person in this area in 4 months,
and I have been working really really hard. I´m not lying. This has been one of my hardest areas, because all the success that was right at our fingertips was taken away at the last second. All of our investigators have really really serious problems. We have recieved very few references from members (Even though we honestly try to get them, just ask my companion) I don´t really think that it is the members fault...sometimes I think they might have some distrust in us because we are both gringos.......and it is wierd for people to see 2 gringos....but I don´t know. I believe that they people are just going through a really proud phase... who knows. All I know is that I have been brought to sadness by all of my investigators due to un'believable problems in their lives. We have been keeping a running total of the Debts that our ivestigators have and we are up to over $50 grand between all of them. Everyone in Usulutan seems to be in debt...
But nevertheless I am happy. I still smile, I just feel like my mission is going out with a cough and sputter intead of a bang. The reason I am happy is because I feel that it is not my fault. We work all week to get people to church. We invite members to the lessons. We leave at 7 am every sunday to bring people to church, and have to get there to only bring 1 or 2 people. I feel like I´m just wahing my hands of the blood and sins of this city every sunday. But WE are doing our part the best we can. We arent perfect, and we waste some time, but we are trying really hard.

The week are really flying past...I went on the BYU site to check my status and stuff, and I´m still unclear if I have a mission deferral. It still has me listed as a former student. I would like you guys to call them and ask them if I am going to be able to start in spring term 2012 (april) because my companion told me that he got a letter back telling him he was accepted tot he mission deferrment with the dates for which he was approved, and I never did, and you ahve to realize that the last time I was in school was spring term of 2009 that means that have passed: Sum2009, Fall2009, Win2010, Spr2010, Sum2010, Fall2010, Win2011, Spr 2011, Sum2011, Fall2011, and will be starting Win2012 in January which I will also miss. It may be that they force me to come home in January to continue my schooling, So I could really use some help getting that all settled, I don´t want to get home only for BYU to tell me that I am no longer a student, and then have to try and re-apply for college with a 2.7 GPA.....I wouldnt get back into BYU. I have sent them an email about it, but they never responded. And seeing as I can´t check my personal email in the mission I have no Idea if they have sent me anything. I looked back into the Majors and took a look at the Chemical Engineering (101 - 103 credits...), Electrical Engineering (91-92), Civil Engineering (94-97), Computer engineering (92-93), Computer Science (73-77), And yes Mechanical Engineering (97-99), But I think after reviewing them a bit that I am going to stick with Electrical Engineering. I knocked CS off my list because it is too easy, it doesnt go nearly in depth enough, I knocked ME off my list, because its a little too competitive (You have to be accepted to the program, and the average entrance GPA is a 3.0 which I dont have right now....), and personally I see the market in decline, ChEn would be good, but I´m not that interested in it, I´m not really interested in Civil Engineering because I think it would be a job I would get bored of, so that leaves me with Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering, but I feel that Computer Engineering locks me a bit more into computer science, which I decided I don´t really want to have being my main job. EE still has the open 300-400 level electives that let you specialize into what you want. I also like that EE and CpE majors are some of the most scouted and recruited workers after college. But yeah I have about a 700% more desire to study hard when I get home...

An Grandma I hope that you progress continues in recovery. Health problems are the worst.

Anyways with love,
Elder DeVictoria.

Week 94

2011-11-28T11:44:00.001-08:00

Dear family,

Well it was a considerably better week than last week, even though we are semi-far from baptism. We actually found some pretty amazing investigators yesterday. And I talked with the Elders from my last area, and saw the baptismal report and found out that 2 future priesthood holders that I had found and taught were baptised since I left the area. That makes me feel very good. The seeds I planted there are allready harvested. I feel like all I have been doing here in this area is planting and cultivating... Carolina is still active though, My one convert here :) that makes me happy to see her learning and participating, even if she is kinda bored when she goes haha. We are finding many good people. We were able to bring a very depressed woman named Ana cecilia to church yesterday with her daughter. She is really stressed, and I don´t know if she enjoyed it complately...but seeing as I will be here another change, we have time to work with our invertigators. We also found a great family this week, and we got everyone but the day to go to church, but nexty week he should...

We had a good games night planned by the Elders, seeing as now in our branch there are 4 missionaries. We played several games like the human knot, tug-o-war, a collection game, a baloon popping game, a game called skin-the-snake and more. It was fun, we didnt achieve the main purpose of bringing investigators to an activity, but at least we were able to have fun with the branch.

Happy Thanksgiving

Congradulations on the baptisms Teresa, keep up the hard work.

Love you lots,

Elder DeVictoria

Week 93:

2011-11-27T22:47:00.001-08:00

(I forgot to post this! oops!)

Dear Everyone at home,

Well first off, I didn't fake the picture I sent you, thats why I sent the cell phone one so that you would know it is real :P

Anyways, Week had a qucik 4 days lol because I wrote on wednesday last time, but this sunday was a little bit better. We are working with a family who is going to church. It is just a little hard to teach them, because he does 11 day shifts in the military base, and can only come to church once every two weeks, but he has allready gone 2 times. The only problem is that she is married, and has still not divorced nor separated from her last husband, so that is a long process we are going to start. I might end upgetting hosed like I did in my first area where htey took me out right as we had gone over all those humps (two months of problem solving....) to get a family to baptism, and I got taken out of the area two weeks before their baptism. So whatever. I am staying here for another change. I just feel bad, because now I have 3 months here and have only baptised 1 person. That wouldnt be touogh to say if I wasnt working hard, but we have been working real hard, and would have baptised several people if it werent for all the meddling of the adversary...

But thats it, we will keep working...We should have success somewhere down the line. We have one investigator who accepted a baptismal date for the 3rd of december, but she didnt go to church yesterday......so lame she said she couldnt go because her baby was sleeping.....what a rediculous excuse...we even had her best friend member go to bring her while we were out trying to bring people to church since 7 am.

We need to work really hard this change.

Also I got a pretty cool picture, because My companion knows a bit about photography.

Have fun out there in CA.

Love,

Elder Devictoria

Week 92

2011-11-17T09:54:00.001-08:00

Dear Family, Well the most obvious probably is that our pday was changed this week so that we could go do a special thing on our pday (Today) and go to a temple session. It was a really good experience. I actually understood absolutely everything and remembered everything even in spanish...which was cool, I think I shocked the veil worker haha. Anyways we just got back from San Salvador in a suuuper slow bus...what a waste of 3 dollars. But yeah. This week wasn't a super good week, but that good thing is that we are getting little seeds planted here and there. I'm kinda bummed out that I'm probably not going to get a chance to baptise with Elder Antonio. Which is a bummer because the Lord has let me baptise with all of my companions up to now. I guess thats how it is meant to be though. I'm pretty tired, but hopefully everything will turn out well if we just keep working. The people are really hardening their hearts here in Usulutan. Now I understand how they only baptised 3 people one month before I came here. But yeah hopefully we will still finish a bit better than that. Our number one problem here is just the amazingly high level of apostasy that we see here. Just a crazy amount of negative apostate evangelical churches. The other giant giant giant challenge that we have here is economic. three of our investigators who had gone to church several weeks in a row quit going because their "loving family" told them that if they kept going to the church they would cut off their "support". Another family is 12,000 dollars in debt for a gambling addiction that he used to have, and they are kinda in a pit, another family never went to church, because they just couldnt accept that they needed to put the Lord in higher priority that their mill. I could go on and on about the financial tests that these people go through. Its one test that they almost universally fail at. I wish the people had a bit more faith, but I know that we ask a lot from them. Oh yeah my pictures are self explainatory as well. I remembered this year the image you guys sent me on the 10th of october last year hahaha. You cant pull a bag over my eyes! Sam I went to tell you something that I learned from experience. It isn't real smart to stay up all night playing video games. I remember a sad term at colllege where I just would spent all my time playing video games, and I would stay up way to late, and wake up at 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and it just drove all traces of the spirit out of my life. We need spiritual protection, if we dont control our appetites, they will control us. I love video games, and I will keep playing them, but I realize that they have their place. God first, family second, school third, and then the hobbies can come afterward. If any of those are out of wack we cant really be happy. We can only find temporary pleasure. I invite you to read your scriptures and really put in an effort to understand what the book of mormon says. Make sure you say your prayers every morning and every night, thats one of the things that saved me. And make sure you have a close relation with bishop. They are set apart to help guide us in a way that mom and dad can't really. Don't let things get in the way of church. because if you do, some day you wil get to the point where you will regret it. Mom and Dad are old people now, they dont have a whole lot of cotrol over you, and they cant make you do anything, but you can chose anything you want to do. Just remember that God has very important things planned for you. It would be inteligent to get your patriarchal blessing. It has been a great guide for me, and a lot of the things written there have become fullfilled. I love all of you guys a lot, and I hope that you are all happy. Love Elder DeVictoria

Week 91:

2011-11-07T11:01:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

This week was kinda dumb. We workled hard, and Satan is working even harder. We did everything we could, and nobody came to church. They are really really hardening their hearts. From 100% to nothing real quick.

But we are just gonna keep on working. I don't feel bad, just dissapointed. Maybe God will give us a miracle.

I hope all is well in Taiwan and CA.

Love Elder DeVictoria

Week 90:

2011-10-31T12:03:00.001-07:00

Dear Family,

Well we had another pretty lame week. The sun came out again which is good, but basically the whole area is desolute. The good news is that we have a few little investigators. The Zosa Melara family still are in-between on thier legal problem... but we will see what we can do. Karen is still in-descisive about getting baptised or not, and she decided to go work instead of going to church yesterday....But she will get baptised, I can feel it. We finished kinda poorly in the zone this month, but the whole mission finished poorly as well. We really took a hit with the rain this month. It was a national emergency afterall. Hopefully November will be better.

Hahaha I really liked Danny's costume hahaha. He even had the dunder miflin nametag thing haha. I forgot it was haloween until I saw your email lol. So many things that you just forget about when you are out of the country.

Anyways I am making a true effort to be 100% obedient and diligent this week, to see if the Lord will truly bless us.

Hope alls well in paradise,

Love Elder DeVictoria

So Yes I owe you all a lot of pictures, this is like the last three weeks worth of pictures. luckily even though I don't take them, my companion does, so you guys can enjoy a little bit of what Usulutan looks like when it is raining and green.

1) The first one is a city called Jiquilisco in the central park.

2) A street in Usulutan during the start of our monsoon.

3) A picture my companion took of me meditating when I couldn't focus on anything.

4) Milpa = Corn field in spanish.

5) A cool Ranch that hasn't sold its property even though its like right in town.

6) Me in a chair at some investigators' house.

Week 89

2011-10-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

I only have 16 weeks left.... that's rediculous.
This week was not very good. We had a LOT of challenges. The rain last week hurt us a lot. The lack of progress in some of our investigators hurt us even more. The worst thing that happened was that the Zosa Melara family didn't pass their interview for a serious legal problem, and won't be able to get baptised for at least a month or two. It could be up to a year and a half that we would have to wait. That just about ruined my life. But I don´t have control over that. The good thing is that they have a testimony, are fixing the things they need to fix, and they are going to church still. We had to drop another family, because they accept every principle of the gospel except the sabbath day. He runs a stupid little mill, and he absolutly negates the possibility of shutting it sunday, or changing jobs. Maybe someday they will repent and change, but they are really just in the trash bin for their in-belief in that one principle. We dropped other investigators who had gone to church several times because the woman wants to be a female pastor. So basically we are stuck with a somewhat good woman who has an innactive husband that doesnt support her. And a catholic bred woman who is not living the law of chastity and has 100% negative pressure from her family. What joy right? the other 3 good investigaotrs that we have will pass to be part of a new area next week. So we are going to be left out dry. We probably wont baptise this month.

So yeah.
I'm really tired. I understand why the mission is only 2 years now, because I am really worn out.
It could be partly because I am trying really hard, and another part could be that They have had me as zone leader for 6 months now which is a lot of pressure as well.

But we will see what happens.
I really liked the photos that you sent me, send more. Mission pictures if you can, they are inspiring for me.

And don't worry too much about Sam, just love him and support him. I do. Remember that it will be worth a lot more to him if he does it for his own will. I know he would do just fine on the mission. I have known many Elders just like him, and they have baptised a lot of people, and leave the mission with much more self-confidence and patience. I have learned more patience here. At the start of my mission when I would take the christlike attributes test in Preach my Gospel I would always score lowest in patience, now I think I score lowest in diligence maybe? I dont know it has been a while since I took it. Thanks for helping the missionaries, it helps a lot.

Love Elder DeVictoria.

Week 88

2011-10-17T12:09:00.000-07:00

Dear family,
Well thank goodness I didn’t get changed. I’m still here in Usulután, and yes the Sosa Melara family has accepted their baptismal date for this 23rd J. My new companion is (Drumroll….) a Gringo! Haha. Yes I have a North American companion! His name is Elder Antonio. They gave him his middle name instead of his last name, because his last name is Vergaray, which has a Spanish dirty word in it. But yeah. Talk about weird, it’s a lot different than being with a Latin companion, because we end up talking like all day every day. And yes in English. Also he likes computers, and understands what I’m talking about when I tell him about technology and software and stuff.
The area is still pretty good. We have some investigators that are only progressing a little bit, but we have found more of them who actually have already accepted to be baptized, we just have to help them solve their commandment problems. The zone got way changed, they re-opened 2 areas, and changed out 6 of our missionaries, so half of our zone had changes.
It has been raining all…..week….long….. That has really made our time difficult. Not because we don’t get anything done, but it slows us down, and makes all of the Salvadorians really really really lazy. This Sunday only 65 people came to church because you guessed it, it was raining…..they like freak out here when it rains, and don’t think they can do anything. They even close all the businesses and schools, just for a little bit of rain. Its ridiculous. But the good news is that everyone is in their houses, so we can teach a lot of lessons. And we ended up still bringing people to church which is cool. I literally only have 4 months left till I come home….that’s really weird. It even weirder to think that Teresa will be coming home about the same time. And that Sam should be leaving soon after J. We have a lot of support from the branch here. This week we did 8 times more lessons with member than without. So it is helping the people a lot to progress, because they get to know a lot of members.
On the day of changes we had gone all the way to San Vicente, to get the people from the other bus to come back, and we got all the way to Usulutan, and the assistants called us and asked us if we had an Elder Johnson on the bus with us, it turns out we did, so we got to Usulutan and had to get on a bus and take him all the way back to San Salvador….So we ended up losing the whole day of work and getting to sleep at 1:30 am. It was really sad being in the assistants house and seeing all the missionaries that were going home, there is just a weird feeling you get when you are around them…. Really weird.
Mom your letter was disgusting.

But that is the way things are going down here. I hope all is good up there. With much love,
Elder DeVictoria.

Week 87

2011-10-10T08:47:00.000-07:00

Dear family,

Well I have to say that I am fairly stressed right now, just because of the transfers that are coming up. Yesterday we brought the Sosa Melara family to church for the 3rd time, which makes them eligible for baptism this weekend. and the worst part is that I think president wants to change me out of this area. Changes are this Wednesday. I would be exceedingly sad if I get changed. Ohhhhh yea, that is stress.

I don´t have much more to write today, because I´m too stressed to write more. And this keyboard doesn´t work right.

Love Elder DeVictoria.

Week 86

2011-10-03T14:29:00.001-07:00

Dear Family,

Well this week was a pretty average week. Busy, but also always with that regret of wasting time...
The biggest accomplishment that we had this week was that we were able to bring 8 investigators to general conference.
The Sosa Melara family came, which makes me way happy. The greatest thing is that they come alone. We don´t have to go bring them. Now our goal is to just focus a lot on them, and get the members more involved in their progression. They have about 5 or 6 friends in the church, but we literally want to get all the families in the branch to be their friends.

We are still working with our investigators, we have a fair few right now. Even though we are dropping a couple for their pride.

I hope your surgery goes well Mom, make sure you follow all their advice so that nothing goes wrong.

I was happy because I got a very elaborated letter from a convert in Santa Tecla this week.

I don´t know my mind goes blank sometimes and I don´t have much to write, I´ll see if I can send you a picture to describe my week better.

I love you all.
Saluuuu

Week 85

2011-09-26T13:44:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

I´m basically gonna send you guys a modified letter of what I sent to my president,

I have to say that this has been one of the most gratifying weeks of my mission. It was a week of pure success. We were able to baptise Carolina, who has been an investigator since the first day of the transfer. Jucuapa were able to baptise 3 people, bringing the zone to a total of 10 baptisms, with every area baptising in the month of september. The Lord has really blessed me in my mission. There have been hard time, discouraging time, and times where I just worked because thats what God wants me to do, even though I didn´t have success, but also I feel I have made a difference in the lives of many people. I was brought to rememberance this week how much the lord has helped me meet the personal goals that I have set for myself. In the MTC I remember putting a couple goals for myself, like baptising my first month in the mission, and baptising every month of my mission, and being 100% obedient. I havent been 100% obedient my whole mission, and I have gone several months without baptising, but I remember the feeling that I had when we had a baptism my 4th week in the mission. When I was with Elder Membreño I shared that story with him, and he told me about when he set himself a lot of goals while he was in La union, almost all of which were fullfiled. That inspired me to set goals for the last 6 months of my mission. I put pretty high goals for six months, but now I can see that what has been happening this week is God trying to help me reach my goals.

At the present time we have about 4 families that I feel will get baptised here. It all has happened basically like a miracle. After our meeting with Elder Martino we had a district leader council and we put some goals for how we are going to achieve the visions that we set in the zone leader council. We developed a new Chart to work with the 5 less active families in our branch, and we made copies for every area in the zone, and trained them how to use it. We are going to have district mission corelation soon to share it with the district president, and every area is going to present it in branch council to find the focus 5 families that they will teach. We decided that we are going to have a new indicator in the zone called LPEF or lecciones para encontrar familias, which basically is just if we see a couple in the streets we are obligated to talk to them.

From the LPEF in the street we found an amazingly humble family this week, who are starting to progress rapidly. We did a very intensive investigation of the area books that we have and picked out several old investigators who we want to contact ( people that had gone to church several times but never got baptised ), from that list we are currently teaching 1 family, with appointments to visit 2 more famlies this week who we have contacted. I also asked elder Sien who was in the area of Poniente if he remembered any investigators from Poniente that he believes would have gotten baptised but didnt, and from that we have found a mother with 3 children of baptismal age and above. We have an appointment with her for tomorrow. We recieved a member reference of an inactive who got recently married who we have been teaching for 3 weeks, and finally for the revelation and wisdom of an active mother-in-law the couple went to church yesterday. Elder Oliva also remembered a family that he had found with Elder Del Mercado last change but never went to teach, they all went to church yesterday as a family, and they liked it a lot. Something that is helping us is that Elder Martino inspired us to be more dynamic, and try out new teaching styles, with hands-on-examples, and more interaction. We plan out our lessons every day to get the maximum teaching effect, and it is helping a lot. Also the members have taken a new interest in helping us, and they are almost all offering to go out to visit with us, and because we are now keeping a fairly full agenda we have been able to actually set up appointments to bring members, some of which have been extremely effective. (like yesterday when the sister we brought turned out to be a direct cousin of our head of family investigator.)

I feel like this is the first time in my mission when we are truly setting an area up for a lot of success. I strongly believe that in this area where will be between 10 and 20 baptisms in the next two changes. The Lord is helping us a lot.

I hope all is going weel out in California and Taiwan. We getting into the heat a little bit here, but thats cool.
I only have 3 transfers left :(

Anyways, I feel that the Lord wants me to finish my mission strong, and I pray to got that I will be able to stay in this area to see these families be baptised.

Week 84

2011-09-19T14:11:00.001-07:00

Dear Family,

Well I guess I have to say that Dad looks like a happy little kid in the picture of him in front of the olympic stadium. I don´t know how I feel about the 45% tax thing...maybe you guys should think about getting a chinese tax laywer? For a buisiness plan it might be worth it... I also liked the photo of Bert rolling up his noodles in his chop sticks haha.

I´m also pretty pumped to see how Aaron is going on a mission. It just shows that God doesn´t send his spiritual children by mistake, and even though we control our own destiny, God has a vision, plans and goals for our lives. So I´m sure its not chance that Aaron is going out on a mission, it is because he was pre-ordained to that calling just as we were, and he is fulfilling the commitment that he made to God thousands of years ago. It is a very good example to his family, and he will be an influence for much good due to the experiences that he wil gain on the mission. BTW, Tacoma Washington is the highest baptising mission in the United States now.... :)

We ( Like Teresa ) Also had a couple meetings with Elder Martino from the area presidency this week. They were pretty good, I got a lot out of it, and it helped me identify the things that we are not doing good in our zone. Basically I feel like the majority of missionaries (including me) are not dynamic enough. We also are not using members as we should. So I am trying to improve that in my own area, and my companion and I have put some goals to do more activities, examples, visual aids ect. Because we have seen a lot of success from that. Also I know what I´m not doing right in this moment; We are not looking for new people like we should. We are looking through the bins of old investigators, and we have pulled out some investigators that look positive, but we havent been able to contact them yet, and we also have really not been looking for news. I went through my history here in the mission of people that I found and put a baptismal date for (some of them got baptised the transfer after I left) and came to the conclusion that about 65% of my baptisms have come from street contacts, door knocking and service, about 30% from references, and about 5% from investigators that were allready in the area from the past missionaries.

We have one sister named Carolina who is our only possible baptism for this month. She is ready, and fullfills all the requirements, but she has a lttle of family fued about the churc which is damaging her progression. So this will have to be a week of prayer and focus so that we don´t set a bad example for the zone. Almost everyone is the zone has baptised this month (which is a lot better than last month...they only finished with 3 baptisms in the zone :/ ) but the only two areas that are missing are us and Jucuapa, but we both have possibles. But yeah its a week where the focus will be teaching Caro, and finding a real family to teach and bring to church.

We had a leaders council with Elder Martino, and we came up with a few goals that are to help the mission get back in shape,

1) 2 Complete families progressing each week.

2) 1 Complete Family in chuch each week.

3) 5 Inactive families with priesthood being taught by the missionaries each week.

I´m really tired, because it has been a long week, and I have inadecuate sleep. so I´m going to focus on getting correct rest and exercise as well.

Hope all goes well in the normal life out there in antioch. Every once in a while I meet someone that has been there haha.

With Mucho amorrrrr,

Elder Devictoria

One picture is of my companion,

The other is when we went crusising with the assistants in their Toyota Hilux.

Week 83

2011-09-12T10:58:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,
So this was a good week, but a very dissapointing Sunday. Some idiot in the politics decided to change the day of the little girl parades to sunday, and suddenly the whole city decides that watching 9 year old girls march is more important that going to church. We had 12 people committed to go to church during the week, and even up to sunday in the morning, but when they got wind that there was a little girl parade oh that has to take presidence....oh that kinda makes me mad....nobody went to church, even though we passed by 6 houses in the morning on sunday... Yeah pretty disgusting, it throws off some of our baptismal dates.

Anyways... Thats pretty cool that dad is having a good time in China. Its still kinda wierd to think that my family is gonna live in china... You guys have some cool stories of the stuff in China.

Mom I hope your sugery goes well...Its kinda wierd that you have to have it.

The work is going good here, other than the lame parade fracaso we have a lot of investigadores, and possible baptisms next week.
I feel kinda wierd in the mission now days, like all the missionaries are new, and I don´t know them haha. Its like you kinda get swept back into a corner when you are winding down you mission haha. The zone is a little hairy because when I got here it was like a repeat of San Miguel, because we didnt have anything! but we had baptisms this week, so they broke the ice at least, and wee have 6 possibles for this next weekend in the zone, so keep your fingers crossed, and the Usulutan Zone in your prayers.

Anyways I went to california this week :P
there is a city called California here haha.

Love Elder DeVictoria.

Week 82:

2011-09-05T10:55:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

This week was interesting, because I was so sure that I was going to stay in Merliot, because I have only had one change here, but now I am in another Area... yeas so suprise Transfers. I have mixed feelings about thise changes, because I really liked that area... and I was gonna be able to attend church at the temple, but now I am in Usulutan 2 Branch. This is an area with some crazy history of a couple things that happened at the start of this year with the branch president. Now it doesn´t have a branch president, It only has the first councilor in the district presidency presiding the meetings. Its really unorganized. The sacrament meeting was pretty normal, and the gospel principles too, but the priesthood class was pretty rediculous. This is a pretty country place, and the people dont all really understand what is going on. They didnt have anyone assigned to teach the class, and the person assigned to preside the quorom was like trying to find someone who would teach the class, but everyone was saying no. So I volunteered that we could talk a little bit about the Missionary work ( ;P ), And we tried to help them get a little organized. I allready went through a lot of this in Gotera, so I drew a calendar on the board and asked the quorom presider?.. to assign the following weeks so that we would have the classes assigned, and after that we somehow got on the never-ending topic of home teaching (Which basically doesn´t exist here in El Salvador) and set some goals to get the attendance back up to where it was before the branch president incidents (It was at 190....now its at about 140) But yeah its a little crazy haha.

We have allready seen a couple miracles here in this area as well. My new companion is named Elder Oliva, and he was one of the poeple that came in the same group as me to El Salvador. He has a month less for the MTC, but this is his second change as leader, so hes still learning some of the basic stuff, but he is a good Elder. We get along well. The first day we had some references, and instantly we found 3 future converts for this month or the start of next month. One of them really kinda left an impression. A woman who had been living in the United states, got deported because she couldn´t renew her passport, and she told us that she wanted us to come visit her brother, because she had known the church in the USA. When we got there her brother had left to work.....but we found her Aunt and her niece. This woman is very well educated in the bible, but she is obviously wasting that knowledge in the Pentacostal church that shes going too ( and she knows it) And we had a really good lesson with her teaching about true prophets and dispensations, and the nature of God. the interesting thing is that she understands EVERYTHING, and makes the prefect questions for us to teach the next principle. We started talking to her about how there arent any cooincidences in the missionary work, and that we were here for a reason, and she told us that she knew that was true. She said that the very morning of the day we came to visit her she had had a dream that someone had come to her house to teach her a message about God, and she didn´t want to listen. She had been trying to get her niece (The member) to go with her to the pentacostal church, but she wouldnt go, and when her niece invited her to church she left to avoid having to go. But then the very day that she recieved a dream about us, we showed up. And the grand-daughter named Diana said that she felt something strange while we were talking about that. It was really cool, and they asked us if we could come the next day to teach them. The next appointment was pretty intense too. I think I have heard gospel doctrine classes less in-depth that what we taught her about the priesthood, priesthood keys, the prophetic line, apostles and apostleship, etc. And she volunteered herself to go to church on sunday, and went with her grand-daughter. So she is all set up to learn about the apostasy in-depth. but yeah we had two other girls go to church who are ready to get baptised too.

Anyways its a new experience, because its like a bigger, half-city, hotter version of Gotera.
One cool thing is that this place is full of tarantulas. I have seen about 5 in the last few days. AND we found on in our house and had to figure out how to kill it (they are big....) We settled on burning it...

Anyways I hope you all are doing good. Danny study hard, Sam keep going to church, stay out of trouble, and I was thinking maybe you should take an aptitude test to see what kind of prefessions you would be good at? Teresa your companion looks like a boy. Anyways,
Till next time,
Love,
Elder DeVictoria.

Week 81

2011-08-29T13:47:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,
Well we had another excelent week because we were able to have more baptisms. We are really seeing a lot of miracles here in this area. I don´t know why...this is the first area where I have really seen people change on their own...All we had to do is invite them and they changed themselves. We also had to have our focus on their need to be baptised. We baptised Ines Reyes and Rosario Reyes. It has been 3 months since the first contact with them, and I guess because we have ben constantly visiting them and teaching them since that time they have progressed. But yes they will be the last baptisms in the Merliot building, because starting in September we will be meeting in the chapel that is right next to the temple! How cool is that.

I feel very strange, I´m right in the middle of the most important things that have happened in the history of El Salvador, and I don´t really know why. But it is a great blessing.

I was sick all week this week...but I´m starting to get better. The only hard thing is that I am taking some really strong medicine to get rid of the bugs in my stomach and I feel like I´m on chemotherapy. It makes the skin on my hands and feet really sensitive and painful, and my skin on my whole body just hurts a bit, but I´m allready done with my treatment, so the symptoms should go away.

Thats pretty crazy that Elder Walker knows us lol. I guess China China is pretty small in the church world haha. But El Salvador is pretty small too. And I have bet a whole lot of people..... The only lame part is that I only know a half of the country... Are you sure you arent on divisions with an Elder Teresa......those photos are kinda suspicious.

Anyways Teresa I kinda feel like you guys have been afraid to baptise, because at the start of your mission you guys baptised a lot, but since then I havent really heard much about the baptisms. My advice is just go for it, the scriptures say thrust in thy sickle with all thy might, maybe a lot of them will go inactive, but thats life. I met a man here to baptised over 250 people in his mission in El Salvador, and a lot of them are inactive, but he lives here, and now he can see who stayed active, and there are a lot. And the reason is because the choice is of the person. They say only 10 persent of the people you baptise here will stay active their whole life, but would you prefer 10 percent of 20 or 10 percent of 250? He told me that if you want to see fruits you have to help as many people as you can. I´m not some great baptiser, but I do know that there was a time when I was frustrated that my converts were innactive, but then all of a sudden I saw some at the temple open house, and I can see a lot of farther reaching effects that I have had in my areas, I did the totals of people that I had found/taught/and brought to church in my areas who later were baptised, and excluding the people I was actually there for the ordinances I have helped around 18 people what got baptised the change ater I left the area. So we shouldnt feel bad about what happens to our converts after we finish teaching them. We should do all we can to help them stay active, but we lose a lot of this control as they change our areas, and mix us up and send us home. You just have to work hard and stay centered on baptisms, because if you do, even if you dont baptise them, somoene will. Dont be afraid to put dates with them, their buddihsts, they dont know anything. What we have is obviously better than what they have. Ye have heard it been said that quality is better than quantity, but verily verily I say unto thee that quality is a byproduct of quantity. (Thats advice, not Machete. We only have 6 months left...)

Send my cares to Andrea.
Tell Danny he looks really cool :P

Anyways here are the pictures of last week and this week.

Week 80:

2011-08-22T20:23:00.001-07:00

Dear Family,

Well this week was pretty awesome. It was like a week of miracles.

The temple dedication made a whole lot of excitement here, One of the coolest things that happened was that We got permission from the 12 apostols to baptise and confirm the same day so that all the recent converts would be able to attend the temple dedication. At the start of the week we didn´t really think much of it, but when we got to thrusday we had a thought come to our heads, because we had a progressing investigator who is really positive. We came to the conclusion that she was ready to get baptised, and that she should go to the temple dedication. So we planned with the other two elders here that we were going to do a special meeting with them to challenge them. Elder Beckett brought his violin and we basically had a music/testimony meeting where we challenged her to be baptised. It was really spiritual, and they both said yes (Iris and Katherine). So what we did is we interviewed them on the spot (because elder Beckett is a District Leader) and we put the date for saturday. It was really kinda hectic, because friday we had a really great meeting with president Eyring and Elder Christofferson. It is very different to hear someone from the first presidency speak. He has a lot of power, and a strong testimony. But anyways on Saturday it was CRAZY the amount of stuff that went wrong. But we baptised and confirmed Iris and Katherine, and on sunday they went to the temple dedication, and I was unbelievably happy for that. Fabiola also went :).

We went to all three sessions, and the third session was amazing. I can not believe the things that President Eyring said in that deidcatory session. He stood up unanounced and started to prophesy about the future of the nation of El Salvador. He shared an experience that he had when Spencer W. Kimball was first called as the prophet in which he was going to give a discourse about the missionary work, and he had an image of the world and a bunch of arrows leaving the western part of the united states and going to all of the world, but president Kimball suddenly recieved a revelation and told them to change it, the new image had all of the arrows coming out of central and south america to all the world. President Eyring said that this will come to pass, that this nation will not only bless its citizens, not only Central America, but eventually will bless the entire world. He was really prophesying in that moment, and I felt like I got like hit in the face by the power of his words. I almost got like dizzy. He would have said more, but he said that he shouldn´t and stopped to prophesy, but it was really a once in a lifetime experience to hear a true prophet give a modern day revelation. He basically said that the prophesies of Isaiah and the Book of Mormon prophets were going to start to be fullfilled with this nation. The prophesies that say that the gentiles will feed the gospel to the lamanites, and that the lamanites will feed the gospel to the rest of the world.

Anywyas pretty cool experience. Today I am kinda sick, I have to pretty good temperature, but I´m sure it will go away.

Hope all is going good in Antioch, I hope that Danny and Sam and behaving, and that everything is going good in church.

Pictures will have to be until next week, because I left my camara in my luggage, because we are going to change houses today.

Love elder DeVictoria.

Week 79

2011-08-15T15:25:00.001-07:00

Dear Family,

I have to say that I am fairly excited to hear that Christian, and Matt got their eagle scouts, and that Christian is getting ready to go on the mission. That is really awesome. ITs great to hear all of the people that have gone out since Ive been here, let me think: Noel, Jason, Jonas....are there more.. anyways it way cool. I hope that they keep sending them out. Bishop Garrison told me that the thing that keeps President Monson up at night is that the Aaronic Priesthood quoroms are weakening, and there are a lot of boys who aren´t worthy, don´t understand the doctrine, and that are too enticed by the world. So as long as we keep sending out missionaries, I am happy for our ward, they are doing good work. After being out here for a while I really notice how much better the Antioch 2 ward is than 95% of the wards in El Salvador. They lack mainly: Organization, Youth Activities, Ward Activities, and drum rol...........Home teaching (It basically doesn´t exist) Tell Sam and Danny to hang in there, and don´t let themselves go after the bad stuff that is out there. They need to become missionaries. Maybe Sam should start thinking about getting his patriarchal blessing.

One of the most exciting things that has happened this week is that my companion and I found a real Korean Restaurant! It wasn´t amazing, but it was allright, definitely worth the effort, because you get tired really fast of eating just the same old thing all day. I´ll send you a picture (for some reason they seem really dark.)

We have a pretty good teaching pool going right now. We are teaching Ines and Rosario who are some upper aged women. They have gone to church 1 and 2 times, and they are progressing...just a little slowly. We also have some wonderful and faithful investigators named Iris and her daughter Katarin who are pretty solid for this month. We are teaching a family named the Merino Family. They are all super smart, all 10 of them....(not all of them are interested though), and the good news is that the mom has like this profound silent interest in what we teach her, and even though they havent come to church, they like us to come over, and I can see that if we start with them they will go somewhere. We also have a woman named Maria Eliza who we have been teaching since the start of this Transfer. She is very inteligent, and understand absolutely everything that we teach her. The hard thing is that she has been raised Catholic and is actively participation in her catholic community, but I believe that she has doubts with her church, because otherwise she wouldnt have come to church this sunday. It was kinda a shock to see her there early...but the problem is that the talks were horrible. Hardly prepared, and really odd, and we had to teach temples in gospel principles and it sounded really wierd too i think. Thankfully we had allready taught her in depth about the temple because she liked the open house. We also have this husband of a family who might progress....he goes to church, but im sure that he woont get baptised until he has a spiritual experience.

Speaking of the temple the dedication is this saturday. My area is literally 5 minutes from the temple, and very soon, it will include the temple. Thes pretty cool. We are going to have a conference with elder eyering on friday! It should be really cool. We are trying to change houses, because the one we have right now is awesome, but it is outside of our area, and we have to share it with 2 other missionaries, so it is really distracting and hard to focus. and the worst part is that it is 45 mintues from our area so it is impeding our success. We found a house and hopefully we wil be able to move this wednesday.

All the zone baptised allready which is pretty cool. Now we just have to work to try and meet the goal that we have of 24 baptisms (We only have 9 right now). The assistants keep on macheteing me about my street contacting, because they are upset that I´m not talking to everyone that I see....but whatever. I need to improve...but its kinda hard because my companion is a little wierd. He is really organized and a good teacher and everything...but he has a lot of intelectual pride, and doesnt like to do anything other than his way. And Ive had some frustration momemnts with him, because Im not one to get angry with my companion, but we have had lessons where he didnt let me say a single word. yeah wierd...but anyways he is going home at the end of this change, so que le vaya bien....

Cant think much more to say, but yeah pretty normal week.

Love Elder DeVictoria.

Week 78

2011-08-08T14:11:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

Well I guess I got a little bit more to write this week than last week,
I will start answering Teresa´s question. That sign is from a little housing development for low income families. I guess it was sponsored by Taiwan. haha. I´ll send you a picture of what the houses look like there. The houses are really humble. The majority are made of bamboo with mud stuffed in-between. And yes they do have electricity, water, and satelite :)
We had a baptism this weekend of a girl named Fabiola. It was a little hectic, but thats houw all the baptisms are sometimes lol.
She seems happy, and her grandma too.

We are working pretty hard. The field is way ripe here, we just gotta find out how to thrust the sickle in. We are working witha couple incomplete families, and with some that are new. We have a woman and her daughter who are going to get baptised in a few weeks I feel. they are called Iris and Katarin.

Wow I cant believe that danny is going to start high school. Thats just wierd. good luck. I guess Sam is going to start college too, but you really need to stay active in the church Sam and read the scriptures. I have met a lot of different Elders on the mission Sam, and I know you can do it too.

Anyways stop gossiping mom.....haha
Hope all is well in paradise.

Love Elder DeVictoria.

Week 77

2011-08-01T10:56:00.000-07:00

Dear family,

I don´t have a lot to write this week, but it was a good normal interesting week.
We put a new program into effect in the ward this week called operation John the Baptist, where the members are charged to find a family that after two weeks of work by part of the members would be ready to recieve the missionaries and go to church.

We should have baptisms coming up as well.
All is going good here.

Love Elder DeVictoria

Week 76:

2011-07-25T16:33:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

Well I got switched areas.
Now I am in an area called Merliot in the ¨La Libertad¨ Stake. My
area is now the area right next door to the temple! We had to go help
out in the open house this week. The other Elders in the zone
allready have 3 weeks of open house duty, so we lost a lot of
proselyting time, but it was worth it because over 166 thousand people
came to the open house. I held the door to the temple open for like 5
hours on thursday. The new ward is a lot different. I guess thats
how it goes though. I think this area might have the potential to be
my most successful in the mission, because the members have allready
given us in one week more references than I have reacieved in my whole
mission practically. We even had a baptism my first sunday. A sister
named Diana de Alas got baptised with her son. The cool part was that
the father/husband was able to do the ordinances. I actually really
like my new area because there are a ton of people and lots of area to
work in. My new companion is named Elder Membreño. He is from
honduras...thats a first lol. Anyways we are working hard. I´m
really tired because the house where we live is like 30 minutes away
from my area in bus, and we end up getting to sleep late almost every
night because of all the stuff we have to do. Its also really wierd
because now we have sister missionaries in the zone. My last two
areas didnt have any, so that will put a spin on things. Usually the
sister missionaries are recognized by having a ton of street contacts
and hardly any lessons lol. But at least all of them are buena honda
(which is like ¨nice¨). This is my first area where we have two pairs
of missionaries living in the same house. There is this Elder from
The Dominican Republic who just got here like 5 days ago. It is
halarious, because nobody can understand him haha. Not even Latins, or
Members. Only other Dominicans haha. I like messing with him because
he is skinny and funny looking, and he is allways falling down and
tripping and stuff. He is allways laughing too haha.

I really do feel tired though. The mission wears you out.

Anyways until next time,
Elder DeVictoria

Week 75:

2011-07-22T18:04:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

We had a pretty rough week. I think lack of sleep from the temple trips and responsabilities took a little toll on us, because we both got sick this week. My companion got food poisoning and I have an infection in my throat that I´ve had for like a week. the only reason I havent bought a dose of Amoxicilin is because it costs like 8 bucks and I don´t want to spend that much haha. Yeah the drugs are all free-for-all here. I could go and buy some psych medicine if I wanted too. haha

Also mom I didnt get any pictures that you sent me two weeks ago, the files were too big.

I really don´t have any idea what to write today. I didnt even take any pictures this week. Thats how lame it was.

The zone is allright. We have some lame lazy missionaries, but the rest are working pretty good.

Love elder DeVictoria.

Week 74

2011-07-11T16:53:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

I have no idea how, but we did so much this week that I almost can´t remember all of it...

The new big thing is that we have a new president, and he definitely has a really different way to run things than president perez.

We had interviews with him and stuff. And we had a really cool experience with the stake president here in San Miguel. Maybe I´ll tell you guys someday, I dont feel like writing it.

We had baptisms! Martha Alicia got baptised! And I have no idea how but the elderes in roosevelt pulled out 3 solid converts out of like thin air. It was great. Pacifica also baptised which We were happy about. We had a mini Noche Blanca.

She might be one of my most powerful converts in the mission. We just have to start teaching her more doctrine and loading her up with tasks and get her a calling. She is awesome.

We went on divisions with some priests (and a primary) from our ward. Its was pretty fun even though we were only out for a little while. Its been raining like every day here, and all the kids got wet and soaked haha. It was fun though.

One of the coolest things is that is happenening right now is that we have the open house for the temple, and we got to go today. We basically had to waste our whole Pday, but it was really cool. It is a LOT smaller than theoakland temple. The baptristry was like the biggest room, and they had the 3 room layout instead of the one room one that we have in oakland and in provo. but the rooms were TINY. like maybe 40 people could go through a session. But it was still pretty cool. One of the interesting htings was that they had a video about the history of the temple in El Salvador that was really cool. The first date of missionaries here was 1949 I think, and during the war there were only missionaries serving who were from El Salvador. during hte war El Salvador was the cheapest mission in the world. The monthly budget for each missionary was 100 colones, which was like 30 dollars at the time. Basically they depended on members for eveything...well that doesnt have to do much with the temple, but yeah it was fun. I felt kinda wierd thoguh, because all of the other elders were either new, and I didnt know them, or they all had a bunch of friends from all the areas they have been in, and I didnt really have many, because I have only had 4 areas lol... I feel like im a sister. I think teresa allready caught up with me.

anyways enjoy the photos. and send me some. Its boring just reading.

Love elder DeVictoria.

(I looked closely and I don't think that casted arm is his :S)

Week 73: I'm Smiling

2011-07-05T22:16:00.000-07:00

Hello family,

I just got like blindsighted when I saw the pictures. When you said kofi in the letter I thought you were talking about a Kofi that I knew in Antioch who was one of Josh Gervacios best friends. I cant believe that all of my cousins are getting married too... and at such a young age. They are younger than me.... How wierd. Something that has occured to me lately is that Teresa and I are gonna get back from the mission around the same time...so that means that we are gonna get married around the same time, have kids around the same time ect. Pretty wierd though right.

This week went by fast. We got to know the new mission president. He is really calm and humble. He is from Orem.

But yeah we basically have a free baptism. Her name is Marta Alicia and she is the oher daughter of one of the bishops councilors. She basically just decided one day that she wanted to be a member of the church, and a missionary. She came to church. We taught her, gave her a pamphlet and told her to do the extra study, and she did it, explaining the whole lesson to us when we taught her the enxt time, so we gave her another pamplet and so on. She even put her own baptismal date for next weekend. Shes way cool.

Hey mom find me some pictures on facebook of people I know and exciting stuff that has happened in their lives if you can. Also take a picture of danny with his army gear on, with his gun a beret a mustache and a fake cigar for me. Then get one of Dad with his canteen collection and straps on with a gun on his motorcycle. That would be really cool. Also take a picture of Eddy with a little beret on with a gun too.

Allight thats about all for now. I´m not much for writing these days, everything is always the same. Heres a picture of my out in the boonies in Chapeltique.

Love Elder DeVictoria

Week 72

2011-06-27T10:57:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

We had a good week this week.
We brought a family to church. They are a little pround and extremely defensive, so we hope that slowly they will soften their hearts and let down their barriers. Maybe you could pray for them, they are the Gamez family. We also have some sure baptisms coming up in July from member references :)
We baptised a girl named Rina on saturday, who was also a member reference from her brother who is a member. Now we just have to get her mom baptised (she really wants to, just needs to start keeping hte commandments...) We also got 2 free baptisms from an area that is closed that we have been helping the ward a little bit to get their people baptised lol. They are a reactivated family who didnt have their records, so they baptised the mom again, and the son had just turned 8 so they baptised him too.
The zone finished pretty good, better than last month. This is president perez´s last week, and the mission kinda finished with a bust. They didnt even send the indicators of the mission... how baggy...

We had to walk like four miles yesterday to get all the paperwork done :/

Hope all is good in the homeland. I´m getting fat these days. I´m about to start 6 months to sexy..... (For those who don't know, this is a slang term for missionaries who want to lose weight before going home from their mission. :)

Love elder DeVictoria

Week 71

2011-06-21T21:38:00.000-07:00

Dear family,
Well another boring week haha.
The good news is that we have a fair amount of investigators now. Id say a good 18 investigators, only 5 went to church, but we have a lot that are positive, and the Zone has a lot of investigators, so if they don´t get baptised this month, well have a lot for next month, but We are ging to have a good weekends the 25th I think. Just with a concerned effort and hard work, good interviews and smart planning we can pull it off. We have 2 noobie disctrict leaders so its kinda iffy sometimes.

I have more time to write today, so Ill tell you a list of all I ate this week!!!!!!!
Eggs, beans, rice, Chicken, Beef, my first piece of fish in the mission, cereal.
WOOOOWWWWWW how exotic. The same food I have eaten my whole mission lol.
But speaking of food, I dont know if I allready told you guys or not, but we got this rich guy in the stake who always invites us to eat lunch in his house and he gives us like a bunch of food and has a ton of sodas for us to drink. he has a beauty salon school, and hes got plata.

Haha Danny got Busted. Just dont run around in the streets with your airsoft gun or youll get busted like Josh did.

I took a couple pictures, because I realized that I dont have a whole lot of pictures of my areas, and thats what I really want to have, so I´m gonna try and take more pictures from now on, just of what the word looks like here in el salvador. I have one that I took in Chinameca which is like 45 minutes from san miguel. Also its been raining this week, and I have a picture of a street in my area after the rain.

President Perez only has like 15 days left in his mission, and then President Glazier will come. I feel like I´ve already met sister glazier somewhere. But there is a picture of president Perez´s family and I, and of the zone with his family. Also since El Salvador is the land of the drunks, I took a picture ot describe what the streets are like here. Also I have a picture with my new comp.

anyways thats about it for now. Ps the Asistant got in a crash and messed up one of the mission cars :( The good news is that nothing happened to them. ( and Im the only one with the pictures muahahahaa.)

Love Elder DeVictoria

Week 70

2011-06-13T16:30:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,
Well I don´t really have all that much to right today either. The big news this week is that we had changes, and now I have a new companion. His name is Elder Galván and he is from costa rica. He is way cool. Our area is a little dry right now, so we need to just keep working and stuff. the ideal wouold be if someone would give us a reference of a family... But yeah. We helped out with a blood drive on saturday, but we couldnt donate which is lame. I was on the news 2 times :)
Congradulations Sam for graduating. What do you want for a graduation present from El salvador (There isnt that much cool stuff....Maybe I could bring some beans or something...)

Anyways keep me updated.
Love elder DeVictoria.

WEEK 69

2011-06-06T10:29:00.001-07:00

Dear Family,

Not much to say again, we are still working. Nothing interesting really happens, we are just really tired all the time and the weeks pass really fast, we basically are allways doing something, and running from one end of the city to the other. It doesnt leave a whole lot of time for us to work well in our area.

Hey dont make a big copy of that panda graffiti, because Im gonna take a picture in the day time one of these days that will be way better.

I hope all is going weel out there, Bishop Farnswroth told me that he is going to make a plaque for me :=)

Love Elder DeVictoria

Week 68

2011-05-30T13:28:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

Well this week was a really busy week, we were basically running around trying to get stuff done all week.

We really saw a miracle in our area, because the family we have been working with didnt want to get married, but then God kinda softened their hearts and they got married and baptised. But it really was the right thing to do, they allready had 13 years living together and like 4 kids, so they had to get married. The good news is that they wanted to get baptised. It was a crazy saturday.

I´m pretty tired, I hope all is going well in California. I was thinking a lot about how different it is back there, You kinda get used to the life down here after a while and you cant really remember exactly how your house is.

Oh also I got stung by a scorpion on sunday, that was pretty wierd. It hurt pretty bad and made my finger fall asleep for like 5 hours, but It went away.

We are really trying hard out here. It makes the time go by pretty fast though. Thanks for your prayers, the Vasquez family recieved the blessings.

Love Elder DeVictoria

Week 67

2011-05-23T13:02:00.000-07:00

Another lame week,

One small victory this week. We brought a family to church and they want to get baptised this next week.
Other than that I feel like I´m working hard. I guess I can´t complain.
We have a lot of work to do.
Keep the Vasquez family in your prayers.
We went out to an expensive steakhouse with a member too which was fun.
Danny enjoy your airsoft gun,

Love elder DeVictoria

Week 66: Familia

2011-05-16T11:07:00.001-07:00

Dear Family,

Well this week was super busy. we have been working really really hard.. I don´t think I have gotten enough sleep in like 2 or 3 weeks bleah, but I guess thats what it takes.

we have 4 families that we are teaching. The bad part is that only 1 of them has gone to church. It wil be tough to baptise this month, because we have had 3 horrible sundays in a row where almost nobody came to church.

We`ll see how everything turns out.

I hope everything is good at home, keep up the good work in your callings and work and stuff.

Send me cool pictures when you have them too.

con amor,

Elder DeVictoria

(Is it possible to write a shorter letter than this???)

(I don't know if I dare ask how he did this)

Week 65: Week number ?

2011-05-09T13:15:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

Well I just talked to you guys, so there isnt much more I can say.

We had a fun Pday today, it was like slip and slide, and we played soccer.

I´ll send some pictures, hope all is good over there.

Love Elder DeVictoria.

P.s.

Haha Jared and Brian have beards and Sam doesn´t.

Week 64: Another Week

2011-05-02T12:34:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

Well ther big news of the week is that they changed me out of Gotera.
My new area is called Chaparrastique, its a pretty sweet area they say, They have baptised like 3 or 4 families in the last 6 months. So I´m gonna hope and pray that we can do the same.
My new companion is named Elder Echeverria. He is from Malacatán Guatemala. Hes pretty cool.
We are working really hard so that we can baptise this month. The good news is that we brought a family to church yesterday!

Well I dont have a whole lot to say, only that teresa is probably secretly eating cocaine, or one of its cousin plants, because they say when you chew cocaine leafs it makes your mouth go numb.

Also dad thats pretty cool all your china stuff. Just keep working hard. I´m trying to teach the book of mormon to the people down here, but they dont usually understand it that well.

Take care, and mom dont kill yourself, RS president isn´t that bad...

Week 63: Weekly Mail

2011-04-25T19:57:00.000-07:00

Dear Family.

I think I´m gonna get changed this week. I´ve had 3 changes here, and I haven´t lasted longer than that in any area.
It allways stinks at the end of the changes, because its always in the last 5 days of the change that we find sweet investigators. We found a family of like 9 elect people last night... Oh well the next elder qho gets here will baptise them.

President Perez´s time is almost up. At the end of June the new mission president will come in and start getting trained. His name is David Glazier. It should be cool, but man that would be stressful. I think a mission president is harder than being a stake president...There is basically the same amount of people under your authority, plus all of the thousands that still arent members of the church. You would definitely meet a lot of people. I feel like I know a lot of people here in El Salvador now... I know a lot of areas too. I could navigate my way more or less around the country.

They dont really celebrate he whole bunnies and eggs thing for easter here, but the catholics have a huge bunch of traditiones and parades and stuff that they do. I took a couple photos of it all, the huge procession of Jesus carrying the cross, with roman soldiers whipping him, and the idols of Maria and Jesus and stuff. There was a lot of people in the street, I got some good shots from the roof of Hno. Juans house.

We did a lot of stuff this week. YOu guys can kinda figure out from the pictures.. but I´m kinda tired right now, so i think Im gonna finish up. But No danny you cant have my airsoft gun, youre gonna get arrested. If you really want one that bad, buy one yourself. go on www.ebay.com , or www.airsplat.com , or this other airsoft site... I cant remember what its called. Also if you want a sweet airsoft gun you cant get them at big 5, you gotta go online or to gamepod which is near costco. Yes I did play with a monkey... it was soooooooooooooooo cute. He gets his little fingers all over your stuff and tries to steal it lol. Yes we did make that Chorizo.

Love Elder DeVictoria.

Week 62: Weekly email

2011-04-18T09:36:00.001-07:00

Dear Family,

This week was pretty lame, because our last Pday we had to just clean our house and werent allowed to do anything. The main thing that we need to do in the area is find new people now. We have a couple investigators...but I feel like we are loosing them. Its hard because they live so far away from the church...well actually 2 of them live pretty close, but one went out of town for Semana santa and another just didn`t show up....and we had no time to go bring him to church, because we had a bunch of important stuff going on with the members. President Valladares who is the second councilor of the mission presidency came all the way from San salvador...and we had to do like 4 important interviews and a disciplinary council. It was pretty tiring. we were in the church till 5:00 PM with all that stuff and the tithing reports on top.

So as for your question Teresa:

We are supposed to do 140 LPE (Leciones para encontrar) per week per companionship. LPE are lessons to find, and we basically just have to talk to 140 people every week inviting them to go to church and trying to put an appointment to teach them or teaching them in the moment if they are in their houses. I suck at it, I`ve never gotten to 140 with any of my companions in my whole mission. The closest I got was like 120. But its kinda an empty indicator, because the most important indicators are Investigators with Baptismal date, Investigators in Sacrament meeting/progressing, and New Investigators. But yeah its hard to find new people. I`ve found the best way here to find people is knocking doors, because the members never give references. I`ve recieved maybe 3 refferences from members my whole mission. Maybe we can like put a branch goal that everyone will talk with one friend or neighbor each month...which is cool, because we can do that ;P

I like this area... I woulds spend the rest of my mission here if they asked me. But I think they are gonna change me next week. Its hard, because I feel really attached to this branch...We focus so much on trying to find way to help the branch...but they dont have a lot of results. The members here are kinda immature spiritually, we only have 3 active Melchezedic priesthood holders, and 1 less active, and one of the 3 active is all mixed up in the socialist party of El Salvador and hes wierd and kinda ashamed of the gospel. he doesnt even put on his tie until he gets to church, and he takes it off before he leaves... I don`t like to take part in the politics here, but whatever party you are from you shouldnt be ashamed of the gospel. ( and yes that is the reason why hes ashamed) and the rest of the members are like children in the gospel. They just don`t get it that well, and those that do are all pround and innactive. I know it will get better in the future...but man its gonna be a long road. I just wish the people could have a stronger testimony of the gospel, because if we can get a strong branch here, they can open a branch in Osicala.

We had a branch activity on Saturday. It was probably the best branch activity I have been to in my mission. It was a talents night. Basically only the youth and primary participated, but it was fun. We did a play from a popular latin sit com from the 80s. I also sang a song dressed up as a clown. lol. This other guy in our branch sang a bunch of wierd cuban rebel movement songs, some of which he had composed, haha. pretty fun,

Love Elder Devictoria

Week 61

2011-04-11T09:40:00.000-07:00

vDear Family, Well I spent so much time reading your letters and doing some other stuff that I don´t have any more time really to write you guys, I turned 21, and the Medrano Echeverría family threw me a party, and got me a gift! It was really cool. They are the ones that own the hardware store and are friends with the guy that called you guys. Also Kevin got baptised this week! He is a really smart kid, I know he has a future in the church. I hope he goes on a mission some day. It was really cool to hear taht we have so many missionaries serving from our ward, Its because bishop hawkins in a great bishop. Dear Teresa, I bought you a llama bag, I even wear them once in a while to bring extra stuff, you can see it in the picture where we went to dedicate a grave. Okay thats about it. Love elder DeVictoria

Week 60: Hee hee

2011-04-04T10:07:00.000-07:00

(Jeff P., and any others interested in reading Sis. DeVictoria's blog: Please send me your email so I can send you an invite! :)

Dear Family,

Well my favorite parts of your letters were the following:

When you tried to describe the whole swearing scene with capital letters. It took me a while to figure out what you were trying to say.

"We have another investigator who is retarded."
-Can you even baptise retarded people? I don´t think you can.... I guess it wont do any harm though... All I know is that we probably could have baptised several "mentally ill" people in my mission, but I don´t know if we can so we dropped them... when they are living in another reality I don´t think that they are really fit to make that kind of a decision. And thats in addition to the fact that they would have been instant inactives as well.

This week was pretty good. Its kinda hard to devote time to all the things I wish I could here. We spend a lot of time doing other stuff than missionary work. We had the conference this weekend, so we basically missed all of the weekend working on that.

I have a couple good pictures to send this week. I don´t really want to have to explain them all, but One is from when we took out the trash from our house (We had like more than 10 months of trash in there all full of Rats and ants and stuff from all the lazy missionaries that have been in our area haha) There is another form our sweet general conference setup. One of them is when some missionaries told everyone in Pizzahut that it was my birthday and they all came and sang for me. Luckily it was only like 15 days away from my actual birthday :P. One is from persoanl study ;), One is of Kevin, who I will explain soon, And a picture of the progress of the temple, which is gonna be dedicated in August :D My comp has all the new pictures...When I got here it was like a grey block.

So Kevin is preparing for a baptism this following wekend. He is really smart. He is almost 12 year old. We have been teaching him for like 2-3 weeks. We were worried that his parents werent going to give him permission to get baptised, because like 10 months ago they said he couldnt get baptised, but now he has gone to church like 7 times, and he is ready. We were praying and fasting for him, and last night we called him in the united states and he just told me "Yeah I really want kevin to get baptised, Ive been talking with the missionaries here in Riverside and I want to get baptised too!" Sweet, it is an answer to prayers. Also Hector has gone to church 3 times now, and could get baptised, he jut has to quit drinking coffe, and gain a good testimony of the church. I know he will. I don´t really worry about the baptisms as much anymore. Ive come to the conclusion that If I can help someone gain a true testimony, then they will get baptised. I might not be there, but in the end it doesn´t matter, because its not about me.

I´ll expect my birthday present sometime in July. :P

By the way, I actually did like Mrs. Weihe, maybe you can talk to her and ask her if she remembers me, and to give you some good grades because of me :=). She wrote one of my reccomendation letters for my eagle scout board of review. But I won´t argue that she is a big woman. It was that fat blonde computer teacher that bugged me most of all. And poor Ms. McClain.
Also tell sam to try out a "diminishing clear frech" haircut when he gets his hair cut the next time (I think thats what its called...I dont know if the english translation makes sense but its "francesa clara con diminución" in spanish), His hair grows the same way mine does, and I got my hair cut that way and its sweet.
Also, You are 18 now, you should start preparing for the mission, work really hard and stay worthy. Also review your spanish so that you can serve in Central America :). I know for a fact that you could talk spanish way better than a lot of the missionaries who get sent here without any knowledge of Spanish.

thats about it for today.
Love Elder DeVictoria,

Week 59: Weekly email

2011-03-28T22:50:00.000-07:00

Dear family,
Wow I am impressed with all the crazy stuff that has been happening lately. You guys went to China like it was nothing haha. Thats pretty cool all the stuff you guys got to do. I just hope you realize that now as all of your kids are basically Grown up we can do cool adventures like that as a family. I just have to learn Chinese now so you guys won´t one up me. My district leader elder Sien, elder sacalxot and I have this running joke thing where we always try to one up eachother. If someone says they have a 30 thousand dollar car the other says they have a cooler 31 thousand dollar car haha. Its pretty funny. But we also try to one up eachother in real life. And so I figure that I have to one up you guys, I can´t let you guys speak the same number of languages as I do. So for my birthday IF you send a package, which I don´t expect because its a waste of money and I can basically buy all the same stuff down here, send me a Mandarin for dummies book.

This week was pretty lame in church. We only had 43 people in attendance, and 7 were investigadores. That means that only 35 members came to church. And we have to remember that there are 8 endowed families, and several endowed individuals in the branch. So if only 35 come to church, and only 4-5 of them are endowed, that means that 15+ people are bringing upon themselves a condenation for their infidelity... But hopefully tey we come next week. The active...or less active ones at least.

There is a family here named the Garay Family, and They have so many tests of faith that they are going through right now. They live in a colony called Las flores. We call it sodom, we also have one we call gomorah (La vista hermosa) We arent allowed to knock doors in that colony because of all the bad stuff that has happened there in the past, but we can teach there if we have a refferal. But anyways it is a truly horrrible place. I can give you guys a little Salvadoreño history of Gotera. Basically San Francisco Gotera is far from the capital and has border with Honduras, during the war this was a conflict point between the Rebels (FMLN also known as fidel castro communists. And yes they are the dominant political party in E.S) and the government. Gotera was government territory, and all the cities that are above Gotera were fromt he rebellion. During this time there was an abslute embargo? of food and supplies going up to the upper cities. As part fo the whole deal, to save the people above from dying, the governement invited them to come to Gotera, they gave them free food, supplies and land here in gotera. And the people took advantage of this, so now these free-loaders all live here in gotera in these colonies of free land (Las flores, vista hermosa, San José etc.) and they still live the free-loader life. These colonies are full of what they call "Huevónes" or "Araganes" who don´t work, are full of drunks, and nobody, nobody, nobody has any money. So as such the place is basically a pig sty of sin and filth, and keeps degrading.. sot he garay family wants to move, but don´t have the money,a nd they are trying to raise a family in this horrible place. They arent the only ones either. On top of that there are a ton of other trials that they are going through in their family. Oh but I could spend all day talking about ther trials that we have here in Gotera..

On the good side we have a couple people who are working towards baptism this coming month, but we are not rushing to force them into the water. I agree with Teresa, it does no good the anyone to baptise instant inactives. So now when I pray I dont pray that we can baptise, I just pray that we can help people gain a testimony, because when they have a testimony, they will get baptised. It wont be an issue, it will just be part o the process of trying to become like Christ.

Love elder DeVictoria

Week 58: Weekly email

2011-03-24T19:35:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

This week was kindalame in some ways, but in the end it got a bit more crazy.

This was the last week of the change, and on Wednesday my companion elder Sacalxot got changed. So now I am with a new companion named Elder Boj. He only has like 3 months in the mission, so I am his second companion. But its pretty cool. The good thing about elder Sacalxot was that he and I never ever fighted, the bad thing was that he was a little lazy. So thats like the cool thing about my new companion. These last 3 days we have worked so hard haha. I don´t think we stopped to rest for more than like 15 minutes. I guess I´m taking advantage of the fact that he is new and still has a strong desire to work hard, which a lot of missionaries lose after a couple months. Also he was born in the church, which makes it a lot easier because he doesn´t have inicuo in his blood, and he is willing to be obedient. We are working with a new family named the Familia Salgado Guevara, and we have challenged them for the 9th of April, so we need your help with your prayers so that they can get baptised.

I think I have elder Boj a shaky introduction to the church here. Between the two we had to: Give a talk, Pass the Sacrament, Teach gospel doctrine, Teach Gospel Principles, Teach the young men, Do interviews, Do the tithings, bring The sacrament to a dying man, in addition to the missionary work we also have to do. So yeah he kinda just got dropped right into it. he came from a ward of 160 people to a branch where only 40 members came on sunday haha. At least I´m used to it.

I thought you guys were in China this last week because I didn´t get an email. Maybe you are there right now? who knows lol. I want to know if you guys got affected by the Tsunami at all? I´m guessing not, because Tokyo didn´t even get washed.

There are a lot of prideful people here. I realized yesterday the reason why this place is cursed, We went to bring investigators to church in the morning and passed throught the market in Gotera, and it was 3-4 times more full than a normal day. Talk about not keeping the sabbath day holy.

Obama is coming to El Salvador...I wonder how that goes down haha.

Week 57

2011-03-14T16:04:00.000-07:00

Dear Family, Well this week kinda flew past. I hope you guys weren´t affected by the Tsunami in Japan... You guys kinda chose a really crummy time to go on your asian vacation. They actually moved the missionaries out of the coast here for the day of the Tsunami and they worked in our area with us. Nothing actually happened here though. Let me know how it went over there in China and Taiwan. As for the Work here it is still pretty average. we have investigators...but its kinda slow. All of them have a lot of things keeping them from baptism. But we are working with some new investigators too. Teresa why do the missionaries have little counter things on their belts.....please tell me thats not to count how many contacts they have.. Much Love, Elder DeVictoria

Week 56: Next Week

2011-03-07T11:22:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

This week we did a lot of looking for new people, but the people here are a little hard to teach... There is a lot of apostasy here...and there are a lot of schurches that just teach outright lies about us. Some dumb anti-mormon people have hijacked the family we baptised. They told them so many lies about the church, and now the lazy dad doesn`t want to go anymore. They told him that we have naked women that dance in our meetings? I don`t know who is dumber they or our converts for believing all the trash they have stuffed in their heads. But I feel content, because we did absolutely everything we could to get them to church and get them baptised, and I won`t be judged if they chose with their own agency not to go to church. Our other baptism here is pretty cool though, she goes to all the activities and is still going to church, we are working on baptising her mom. The problem that we have right now is that we had 7 investigators in sacrament meeting which is way cool, but all of them have challenges to get baptised. One lives 2 hours away in bus, another is convinced his old baptism is valid, one just doesn`t want to and says shes too young, another has to get married, and her compañero is in the process of divorce which takes for ever here, And we have a couple positive people, but they have to go to church some more, and we have to get them to understand and accept the truth of the restoration still.

Well have fun in China, you guys can stop by and visit Teresa on the way there. and yes I do want to put a bet, If i win you guys have to get me a car :P
You might get a laugh out of the picture, I keep forgetting my tie when I go out to work, and my companion doesn`t notice for some reason, and then like 2 hours later he takes a picture when we notice hahaa. oops.

Love,
Elder DeVictoria

Week 55: Same subject

2011-02-28T10:12:00.000-08:00

Dear family,

Well this week was pretty un-eventful. We had interviews with president which is always fun. I think this week might have been our worst week numbers-wise...lol But the good news is that we have a steady stream of investigators in the sacrament meeting, which is the hardest thing to do here. We brought a guy named Ivan to church yesterday. He is really cool, he is from Nicaragua, and he really sucks up what we teach him like a sponge. He, like everyone else in el Salvador, goes to another church, but I heard he is new there, so there is time to change him before they wash his brain. Speaking of brain washing, remember how the Johovah`s witnesses are like really wierd in the united states, and nobody listens to them? Well here they are actually pretty big. I have studies a ton about other religions in the mission, and I`ve come to the conclusion that they are the ones who wash people`s brains more than any other. I have a mission goal to baptise one. We came cloase in Layco, but the day after we first visited him, his "brothers" from the testigos came to visit him and yelled at him for listening to us. We kept visiting him, and he recieved an answer that Joseph Smith was a prophet, but those darn JW`s passed by every single day to keep him from listening to us. And it finally got to the point that he was really stressed out from all the pressure, and we found him drinking one day, which is against the rules of both of our churches. Oh well some day he will get baptised. Sometimes when the people are really difficult we tell them: " look sister the thing is that you will be baptised, whether in this life or the next" or we tell them " Did you know that no matter what religion you die in, you are gonna ressurect Mormon?" lol. (Just for the record for those non-members reading this, neither of these statements is true. lol) but yeah the majority of people are just stuck in their religion. Our job is to find them when they are disgruntled with their church. lol.

We had a primary activity this week. It was cool. we ate cake. And we had a bunch of races and stuff with the little kids.

I dont have much more to write lol sorry.

Love Elder DeVictoria

Week 54: Weekly Email

2011-02-21T18:14:00.001-08:00

Buenos Días,

Well family, another boring week lol. The good news is that we baptised this week. We baptised a girl named Erika Vanessa. I´m not a big fan of strengthening the primary, but at least she likes church, and her family is decided in going. I´m happy for that.

I think this is the first area that I have gotten almost to the 2 changes mark, and I am not broed of the area. It is a really cool area. The only thing that holds the work up here is the personal dignity of the people, and the small branch. This branch has had a lot of problems in the past, and recently (7 months ago) there was a big problem with the offerings, and yesterday we had the church audit...what fun. haha.

One thing that I have really noticed here is that almost all of the stake presidents I have met are realy good people. The cream of the crop as far as humble diligent people goes. On the bishops and branch presidents side the quality is a little more variable....but that is because of the lack of lifelong members here. Many of the bishops and branch presidents are converts of less than 5 years. In Las Cañas our bishop only had 3 years as a member in the church, but he was a really amazing bishop. He did his work well, I wish I had that kind of support from a ward nowadays. If we had a strong ward here I could see us baptizing a lot of people. I´m not sure how our mission came out last year for baptisms...but my friend wrote me, and told me that his mission in salt lake city south baptised like 2300 people last year. President Perez only has like another 4, or 5 months until he finishes his service as president.

Haha teresa, your letter made me laugh when you wrote about the elder that broke his ankle! haha muy bien pancho. I think at least once a week a drunk guy follows me with a machete. This could have to do with the fact that like everyone has a machete here, and that there are a ton of drunk people in the streets. This one guy wanted to stone us the other night haha. Its like a throwback to soddom and gomorrah (literally...maybe I´ll tell you that storyt some other day. haha) But really the area that I´m in now is soooo relaxed. There are hardly any gangsters, and they arent even like the horrible gangsters that are in soyapango.

Well thats about all I got for today. Elder Sacalxot forgot to bring the bills for our expense report, so now they are going to send us 80 dollars less next month :(

Hey mom maybe if we are lucky Sally will die. Just for the record I am 100% against buying thyroid pills for a dog when they don´t even do anything for a person.

Sam the senior project is worth like 40% of your grade.....you HAVE to do it. you will fail guaranteed if you dont do it.
Teresa says that I cried every day when I was 13 haha. Danny resist the urge to be lazy. just remember responsible people are the winners in life. You miht not win the short term prize, but your long term reward is allways much better.

Also I just want you to notice the difference in skin tone between my feet and my arms in the picture I´m sending.

Week 53: Dia de San Valentin?

2011-02-14T11:41:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

Yes I did get your valentines card, thanks for the pictures too. Also I forgot to tell you guys, I got the cristmas package you guys sent too. Thank for the stuff. I wear the shoes a lot. A lady in the street tried to buy them off me when I was walking back to the bus stop from the church....she really wanted them...and I was really hesitant, but I was like maybe she would feel really good if she had them, so I told her okay I´ll sell them to you for 5 bucks, and shes like ooohh thats way too expensive! What a weenie, I bet it cost us like 25 bucks at least just to get them here, needless to say I didnt let them go. I feel pretty tired right now, we just got back from the church from playing soccer.

This week we had a pretty fun activity with the youth. We had a big valentines day activity with secret friends and a bunch of games and food and stuff. We had like 15 kids there. We had a picture with all of our gifts.

We are working with a girl named Vanessa for this next saturday. Keep her in your prayers. I think she will do it, she allready told us she wanted to get baptised, and her parents want her to get baptised, and shes been going to church. basically its a mercy baptism from God. But as I say in my journal often, you win some, you lose some. I had a great dilema this week, because the 10th of February, my journal count got to day 365, the following day I had to make a decision between keeping the count going up, or starting the count down :P I decided that the counting up is less baggy.

Another of the kittens died. But it wasn´t my fault. It just kinda got sick and died. I should probably take more pictures of the mission life. Its just that everything is basically the same...so I never feel the urge to whip out the camara to take a picture of something I´ve seen several times before...haha but I´ll try to remember to take more pictures.

Congradulations on the play sam. Keep working hard and keep the long term picture in view, You only have 4 months left till you are out of high school.

Teresa good luck in china.

Grandma Joanne have fun on your camping trips.

Aaron, keep it up, you have my support.

Week 52: Weekly email

2011-02-07T08:36:00.000-08:00

OOOHHHHHHHHH EDDIEIIIIIIIIIII,
I have to make a confession. I accidentally killed a kitten last night. Oh I was so sad, I was crying. It was in the dark, and i stepped on it. I think someone had allready stepped on it or run it over...but i finished it off.. It was so sad, it was like the time the chinchillas died.

Eddie is so fat though.. He has a mane! he is a man cat now.

This week went by fast. We basically just looked for new people every day...I wish we could find them. I think I contact about 10% of the contacts that Teresa does. I hardly talk to anyone in the streets lol. I don´t know it just doesn´t come into my mind that I should talk to people.

Its so horible but I don´t really have anything to say today lol. Just a boring week.

I guess one interesting thing that we had been doing is that there is a park near our house where a bunch of men play soccer every morning, and we have been going every morning to do our exercises playing soccer. I´m getting a lot better at it lol.
Btw that is a really good picture of my companion and I.

Anyways much love from San Francisco (Gotera)
Elder Devictoria

Week 51: Weekly email

2011-01-31T10:31:00.000-08:00

Dear Family, WellI guess I´ll start off with my comments to Teresa, The grafiti of taiwan is weak. I wish I had more pictures of the Grafiti here, but its kinda dangerous to take pictures of the cool stuff. Question, do you actually understand all those chinese characters? Something tells me no... but I´m curious . I´m so glad I don´t have to deal with chinese culture, Latin culture is so much more relaxed. Mom when you sent me those pictures from home this week, it is just so wierd to see how things are there. Our house looks so much different... Its like a castle, and it looks really big. When I show people down here a picture of our house, they literally drow their jaws. Its pretty huge, also there arent any wooden houses out here like they are up there. Its also really wierd to see that cloudy winter look. I havent seen that kinda setting in basically 9 months. One thing I´ve really noticed living down here is how much money we waste on gas. A lot of places that we could easily walk, we drive our car lol. Here if you have a car, you are someone with a very stable job, and you only use it for work basically. I feel like the gas prices have spiked too. I saw gas prices at $3.80 a gallon this week. Yikes how horrible. Also Eddie is HUGE, he is just SO BIG, wow it startled meto see how large he is, He is like a lion! But maybe I´m just used to the skinny, bony ones that are down here. Just an update on the kittens; They all have their eyes open, and they are WALKING!!!! but they are like 1/30 the size of Eddie. Just to re-iterate, Sally is ugly, and eddie is cute. Dad has a laptop? Btw, I´m in on the tie underground too. Anyways the week was pretty sucky here. Sometimes we just get bogged down with a lot of activities, and we don´t really get a whole lot of time to do misionary work. We really need to find some new investigators, we don´t really have any right now. And its the start of a new month, and the start of a new change. If we find someone in the next 2 weeks that goes to church we can baptise in February. Thats the goal. The good news is that our entire zone baptised, and only 16 out of the 80-something area of the mission didn´t baptised. President will be happy. As for the branch mom, We usually have between 45 and 60 people at sacrament meeting. There are a lot of members here, but the problem is that a lot of them are kinda unreliable to go to church meetings. But this week we had a Branch training meeting with president Pérez and his counsilors, and This sunday we had a branch council, and we are working on getting all the organization down. We don´t have an elders quorom, and only like 1 active teacher, But we have a couple Relief Society, and young womens. But yeah we should be getting all of that up and going, and we have a couple perspective elders who were baptised in this last year. We also have changes next week, so we will see what happens. Just pray for us either way that we will get some investigators. Love elder DeVictoria. Fotos: A carwash we did in the DL/ZL area, My companionand I picking mangos, and the martinez family when we had a birthday party for israel.

Week 50: Semana Loca

2011-01-24T07:34:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

Yeah this week was nuts. Basically I only worked in my area like 2 days of the 7.
Monday: Pday
Tuesday: Divisions with the ZL´s
Wednesday: Only worked 3 hours then had to return to San Miguel
Thursday: We had a mission conference with Jay E. Jenson from the Presidency of the Seventy. Thats like the 6th General Authority/Area Seventy that I have met personally on the mission. It was pretty cool. He didnt really plan anything, he just kinda started teaching for like 3 hours. It was funny how freaked out Presidente Perez was though haha.
Friday: We had to do another interview so I was on divisions again.
Saturday: Baptism!!! (1)
Sunday: Baptism!!! (2)

But yeah it was pretty hard to pull it all off. The Martinez Family got baptized!!! Oh but Saturday was just the most stressful day of my mission. It seems like when you are trying your hardest to help someone make covenants with God, especially a family, Satan just goes all out on the opposition to try and get you to fail. This week it was just a bombardment of apostasy. I´m going to tell you guys how horrible the last 3 days were before the baptism. Tuesday the whole family said that they wanted to get baptised, and were all positive. On Friday the daughter decided that she didnt want to get baptised. I think it was that time of the month because she was just agravating. Anyways on Saturday we brought them to the baptism, and like the whole branch was there. Then both the children decided that they didnt want to get baptised. Cipriano and Reina got changed, and then Both the children decided that they didnt want to get baptised. After like an hour of trying to convince them to get changed, Cipriano went in a room and changed back into his clothes. Oh that was just the most horrible thing in the world. It just killed the whole spirit of the thing. But the mom Reina still held strong so even though we came with 4 baptisms planned we were gonna leave with 1....It was soooooo horrrible. Oh just disgustingly horrible. But then after Reina got baptised, Isrrael the son decided to do it too. Anyways after the service we challenged Cipriano and Wendy for Sunday in the morning. And thanks to the prayers of all of you, We were able to baptised all 4 an confirm all 4 in the sacrament meeting. It just takes a toll on you though...

So basically our goal is to find another family for February. Keep us in your prayers.

But now all is relaxed. So thats good. They can´t un-baptise themselves...or maybe they can. but they wont, because they know that the church is true.

Thats all I really have to write today. You are right mom, those pictures are pretty boring. Maybe its just because Antioch is so dead this time of year. Mom you arent halle berry. Haha Teresa, my advice is that if you want to work harder you can just turn up your companion´s pacemaker while she is asleep, and then the working pace will increase!

Till next time,
Elder DeVictoria.

Week 49: Week number...oh bleah I already forgot

2011-01-17T08:55:00.000-08:00

Hola familia Todavía estamos trabajando con la familia Martinez. Ellos tienen una fecha por este 22 de Enero, y han ido a la iglesia 2 veces. Están listos. Solo necesitamos seguir visitandoles, y nececitamos la ayuda del señor. Realmente, ellos necesitan todas las oraciones que pueden tener, les pido que oren por ellos especificamente, porque hay mucha apostasía que Satanas tira a los investigadores. El hermano Sipriano está en el proceso de dejar su iglesia apostata, y ellos lo saben. Entonces yo adivino que esta semana va a ser una batalla entre nosotros y las fuerzas de las otras iglesias, y por esto necesitamos todas las oraciones possibles. Más que esto la rama está bien. Todavia puede ser mucho mejor, pero hay muchas miembros fieles. Elder Sacalxot es un buen compañero. El es uno de los más obedientes que he tenido.

translation from babelfish:

Still we are working with the family Martinez. They have a date by this 22 of January, and have gone to the church 2 times. They are ready. We only needed to continue visiting to them, and nececitamos the aid of the gentleman. Really, they need all the orations that can have, I ask to them that they pray specifically by them, because apostasía is much that Satan throws the investigators. The Sipriano brother is in the process to leave to his church apostate, and know they it. Then I guess that this week is going to be a battle between us and the forces of the other churches, and by this we needed all the possibles orations. More than this the branch is well. Still it can be far better, but there are many faithful members. Elder Sacalxot is a good companion. He is one of most obedient than I have had. By the way that includes you guys, we really need all the prayers we can get this week for the Martinez famila (Sipriano, Reina, Wendy, Israel, and Ezequiel). I figure that if you guys can´t understand that, you can always put it in a translator lol. Thats what I wrote to president this week, it basically includes all of the major points of the missionary work. Oh and Grandma I sent your refferal, but I don´t know exactly when it will get there, it will probably take a while, because we can´t call people, and the picture with the address has to wind its way throught he mission mail system, and then has to wait till the office either visits the other office in the west mission or they come to us...but I´m trying lol. And if you were wondering, yes I do have more cat pictures!!!!! The kittens are growing!!!! some of them opened their eyes!!!! aaaaaahhhhhhh they are so cute. I got all 5 of them together and took some pictures, but they didnt come out that well, because the room was kinda dark. Oh I miss Edward. We had a youth activity up in the northern-most cty of Morazan, its called Perquín. Its pretty high up. Its actually a lot like the sierras in California. It was pretty cool. Theres this rich family that is making a house up there, and we took pictures in the terrain behind their house, it reminds me of home haha. We had a lot of fun activities and we brought like 6 investigators, but we spent like a whole day up there lol. It just makes me so happy to think about how much more I like this area than I did Layco. Ugh, I think maybe president sent me to Layco to prepare me to come here. Because yeah this branch has a lot of problems, and its really far away from the rest of the zone, but on the bright side it is so much easier to work here than it was in Layco. I feel sorry for the missionaries whoa re there right now (Elder Bac, and Elder Nelson) hahaha....thats mean. Haha oh Rix industries....my former employer lol. The funniest thing about that picture you sent me was the commentary, why? because the picture looks exactly like you guys!!! haha Your perceptions aren´t far off from the truth. Oh Teresa....how great is it gonna be when you finally get a wierd companion...lol. Well I wish you the best of luck with all your Asians......or actually pacific islanders. My DL right now is a Samoan guy. His whole family is fromt he islands, even though hes from L.A. I asked him what its like being Samoan. He told me " Its cool man, I really like it." I asked him if they eat a lot and he told me "yes". Haha. Yeah its pretty cool being a missionary too. Definitely worth the trip. You learn a lot on your mission. For example: I´ve learned how to make pupusas, how to work with a horrible companion, how to speak spanish, how to recognize a crazy person from the first visit (we found one a couple weeks ago, and only this week did we find out the extent of her craziness. BUT I called it from the first visit :P ), How to run a branch, How to get down, and cut open a fresh coconut, how to talk to strangers, how to machete people with the scriptures, The reasons why our church is the true church, The value of not being inicuo.... And a lot of other things.. You learn a lot of stuff. I guess Teresa learned all about Buddhism. Sam guess what, when I get home, you can put your papers in!!!! Just get ready so that you can go on the mission fast! And good luck on the play. Okay thats about it. I´m still waiting for you guys to send me all those pictures of our family. and to send me pictures of the daily life. For example: I really want a picture of the Russian Sam with his shirt off. If you don´t take one, I´m gonna cry. Love Elder DeVictoria

January Letter From the Mission President

2011-01-14T19:22:00.000-08:00

December 3, 2011 (I think this is when he first writes the letter, but we didn't get it until the first week of January.)

Dear DeVictoria Family,

I am pleased to inform you that your son, Elder DeVictoria, has received a calling to be President of the Gotera 1 Branch.

As Branch President he will develop and improve his leadership skills as well as his ability to serve as the Lord's shepherd.

Elder DeVictoria has demonstrated a great desire to serve his brothers and sisters here, and it is evident that they love him very much. I can see that he has prepared very well for his mission.

May God bless you and may you rejoice along with your son as he helps bring souls to Christ.

Sincerely,

A. Moroni Perez

President

Week 48: Better late than never

2011-01-14T10:51:00.000-08:00

We received this letter through family members. Evidently, the file size was too big for our internet provider. :S

Dear family, Well another week in paradise. They say its hot here, but Ive still felt so much hotter in California. Its funny when all the Utah people and Guatemalans are dying of heat though. I like shrimp too. But only the expensive kind. And only if they are cooked really well. The cheap kind are nasty. I still don´t like fish though. Luckily they only feed us chicken and meat. Oh wait thats not lucky.... I wish I was eating with a fat family. Usually the fat people here actually eat good food. Well kinda good food. The food here can be described by a talk by I think Russel M. Nelson "Good, better and best" but we have to add a couple levels. "Bad, Normal, Good, Better, and Best" Bad is eating crummy dirty food. Normal is eating chicken every day. Good is when a family gives us something out of the ordinary. Better is when we eat in a restaurant on Pday, and Best is anything in the United States. I´ve actually planned out what I want to eat when I get home. It involves various restaurants of food that you can´t get here at all. haha. Speaking of home, I have had like 3 dreams this week that I had just finished my mission and was back home again. Its really wierd. Here they call anything that has to do with home "Baggy" sueños baggy, missionero baggy, super baggy, él es un gran Baggy. I´m not baggy. But I have had a lot of wierd dreams. We are still teaching this Martinez Family. They are really cool. They didn´t go to church yesterday, but we are going to get them in a car this next week. The main problem is that nobody has money here. Everyone is universally poor, and they never want to take the bus because it costs 80 cents a person to get to the chapel and back from their house. And they are a family of 5. Thats definitely the main streuggle to get people to church. It seems like a lot of people in Teresa´s area are at least stable, and have some method of transportation. Here everyone walks, and nobody has money. Thats why they eat so much Tortilla. Because its like 7 bucks for 25 pounds or grain, and they just make a ton of tortillas to supplement their lack of calories. The thing that is amazing here is that you really realize that they church cares for these people. Because the tithings that they send are almost nothing compared to the tithings that they send in the states. There are people up there whose tithing checks are bigger than the entire branches for the year i think. but the faith is the same, and they enjoy the same blessings as the wards in the states. Keep sending me cool pictures from home. I have some pictures this week. basically its just my companion Elder Sacalxot (sac-al-shot) and I in our department. Also theres one of a cat who recently gave birth to 5 KITTENSSSSS. Theres one of me making pupusas in my samoan shorts that elder peña gave me. Hasta La Vista Bebe.. Elder DeVictoria

Week 48: No Letter

2011-01-12T10:34:00.000-08:00

We did not receive a letter from Elder Stinker...erm..I mean Elder DeVictoria this week. Oh wait, maybe I meant to say Elder MUD.

Week 47: Another Week

2011-01-03T14:39:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,
I´m sorry my letters arent as interesting as those of teresa. But all is well here. My companion Elder Sacalxot and I get along really well, hes a hard worker, and I enjoy working with him. We found a family and brought them to church thise week! They are really really positive, and they liked the doctrine and how calm it is at church. We are working to get them baptised this 22nd of January. Please keep the Martinez Family (Cipriano, Reina, Wendy, Israel, and Ezequiel) in your prayers during these next coming weeks, and I know that we will have success here.

We are in a branch here. Normally like 50 people come to church every week. There are a lot of problems with iniquity with some of the members, but there are some members here who are super faithful and help us a ton. I´ve never in my whole mission had support like this from the members. They will come with us to like any lesson. This one rich guy gives us rides a lot, and everyone feeds us! Its really cool. We don´t have a meal calendar or anything, they just invite us over or invite us to eat when we visit them haha. The people who live out here in the country are a lot more polite, and a lot more loving. One thing that isn´t that great about here is that they almost never eat pupusas, and they don´t make any from rice flour, only corn... But thats okay, we are far from starving.

I can´t believe they sent you a letter saying that lol. Just so you know mom there is a lot of stuff I don´t tell you guys haha.

I just barely got a letter from teresa. I hope there wasn´t money in there, because there is tape on the back where the mail service here "inspected" my mail. I think the brightly colored cat people scared them into thinking it was a terrorist threat from the Chinos. Let there be happiness in all of your days!

Not that this is anything out of the normal, but on the 50 minute bus ride to San Miguel today we had the privilege of listening to a crazy pastor the whole ride. Oh its just so repulsive to listen to people like them preach. They just stand up and yell non stop. This one had the bible plastered to the side of his head the whole time he talked like the scriptures were flowwing into his mind or something. They just preach so crappily. They base their doctrine on "accepting Christ" and on el libro de apocalipsis (Revelations in our bible) Oh its just so repetitive and boring. This guy did the whole crazy shaking convulsions thing like 10 times, oh its just so annoying. Luckily nobody really likes listening to people on the bus. I know I don´t. I think people would listen to me if I got up and preached calmly the true doctrine.....but maybe I´m just too wussy to try it. I´ll do it some day. People actually like hearing our doctrine, they just don´t like changing their traditions.

Why is everybody in the united states dying? I swear everyone is getting cancer, or infections, or brain tumors. What is going on up there! By the way are you sending my letters to Grandma and Grandpa Allred? I actually used the story that grandma sent me in a couple lessons, but I feel bad that she doesn´t have email, and therefor doesn´t get my letters.

Tell danny and sam to stop complaining about boy scouts and young mens. They will miss it some day. Sam you have to go to high adventure. Its not even boy scout related. Also stop being lazy and go to your activities. If you only play video games all day and don´t have any other interests, the time passes very quickly in your life, and you end up old, but without very much experience in life. Remember balance is the key to a happy life. I think my scale is a little off zero, but I do see the value of a balanced life. Spitirually, Mentally, Emotionally, and physically. If any one is out of wack you will have unhappiness.

Anyways love to alls up there,
Zai Jen
Elder DeVictoria.

Letter From the Mission President

2011-01-01T10:55:00.000-08:00

November 18, 2010 (I think this was a typo, and should have been December)

Dear De Victoria Family,

I am writing to inform you that your son, Elder DeVictoria, has been called to be a District Leader.

As a District Leader, Elder DeVictoria will preside over two or three areas and will be responsible for assisting the missionaries in his district in planning their work and in setting appropriate goals. He will go on weekly exchanges with Elders in his District where he will teach better techniques and encourage the missionaries in their work. Another responsibility will be to interview investigators within his District who are ready for baptism. I'm sure he will lead his District by setting an example of what an effective missionary does, says and is.

This experience will help Elder DeVictoria to develop and improve his leadership qualities and to be a good example to his companions. I know that he will be blessed for his service in this important work of the Lord.

May God bless you and may you rejoice with your son as he helps bring people unto Christ.

Sincerely,

A. Moroni Perez

President

Week 46: Num45

2010-12-27T11:53:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas,

Well this week was a bit more interesting, I finally got changed from the death hole Layco. Now I´m in San Francisco Gotera. The took out the other pair of missionaries that were here, and just my companion and I are her for the next change at least. So the whole department is ours now. It is super different. We have to take a 45 minute bus ride to get to the nearest big city for Pdays and stuff. We also have a lot of Cantónes which are like little villages that are ourside of the big city, and like off the highways. Kinda like if you could imagine Hatch how theres a lot of turn offs on the road that go out to a bunch of little cononies of houses. Its kinda different. Its harder to bring people from those places to church, because they have to take a bus to get there and nobody likes to pay for buses.

The imagery is basically just dry dusty and barren. Kinda like Lodi/east stockton in the summer, the only difference is that mangos, bannanas, papayas, and coconuts still grow here. I guess the main industry is farming and cattle production....even though its pretty dry here.

I think I´m gonna get fat here. basically every house you go to give you food. And its really bad manners not to eat what people offer you here. We don´t een have to buy food anymore, if we are hungry we just go visit a family, or even go knocking doors lol. But it makes up for the $5-10 of transportation that we have to use every week. I´m allready pretty fat from my last area, but here I´m gonna get even chubbier I think. Thats okay, maybe I´ll get parasites and lose some weight from that...

The work seems pretty good here, people let you in their houses, and a lot wil listen to you. The main stuggle is the same as always, just getting people to church. Nobody commits to going to church, because basically if soeone from El Salvador goes to church with the missionaries they get baptised.

Grandma I´m not able to visit that family that you sent me, because they live about 4 hours away form me, and they might be in the other mission, but I can write down the refferal and send it to the office I guess.

I´m jealous that you got a sweet computer chair. Its about time, I hated that disgusting smelly, broken down one that you had before that squeaked every ime you sit down. I´m not that jealous of the rugs...but I´m happy that danny got a bike, because that means he will stop using mine. (not like it works anymore, I´m about 95% sure that my bike has at least one flat tire.)

By the way guatemalans aren´t bad missionaries. A lot of them work really hard, but the majority have some wierd things about them. Like how my last companion used to get really mad and walk out of the room if I mentioned the United States....thats one in like 50 things that were just wierd about him. He was a really frustrated person on the inside I think.

Teresa you are so Inicua (wicked). In my mission we aren´t alowed to go anywhere near the beach. In most areas that have beachfront we arent even allowed to knock doors near there. One missionary climbed the volcano of San Salvador, and president left him as junior companion his whole mission lol. It was a Tongan guy haha.

But yeah alls well in paradise.
Love Elder DeVictoria.

Week 45: Weekly Email #44?

2010-12-20T09:41:00.001-08:00

Dear Family,

Merry Christmas! Looks like you guys are all excited for your 4 man christmas party!
We had our Christmas multi-zone meeting this week. But it wasn't all that much fun, president perez and his wife talked for a couple minutes, and then we just played some games in the church. We ate a turkey dinner and then they gave us a couple little snacks for a president, and then we went out to work lol. Not the greatest christmas party lol, but I had fun.

We are hoping for a white christmas this week too, but that means that we have to do a lot of work to get these baptisms/marriages lined up. One is named Jocelyn and the other is named Nelson.

We had a very cool experience this week. This last week the sisters in our district had a 84 year old sister who just looked like a dying old woman who could hardly walk. She really wanted to get baptised, and she can't really leave her house, but we brought her to the chapel in a car, and my companion and I both got in the font to baptise her. My companion carried her in his arms while I did the ordinance. It was really cool to see. She really had true intentions to be baptised, and has allready read up to Ether in the book of mormon. It was really cool to hear her testimony, she was just so happy to get baptised, even though we had to push the date to get it done, she has gained a good portion of her personal exaltation. And one of the sisters finished her mission today, so that was her last baptism in the mission.

BTW: I had all of my clothes that I wanted to keep packed up in a large rubbermaid thing, so obviously I got jacked! All I really want is my Red fallen sweater, my blue fallen sweater, my billabong fur lined jacked, and my blue/black DC sweater. Also I want my Wrestling shirts SAM, and my BYU physical education shirt. The rest doesnt really matter that much. Oh and my shoe collection.

I still haven't gotten your gift yet, with parcel post I would estimate that it will take about 3 months to get here, so I will expect it in january/february. But thats okay. I'll just buy myself a smoothie or something. But I do have a funny story to tell: One rich sister from utah got 5 of the $55 dollar us mail boxes! lol Freak thats $275 dollars just on postage, Its easier just to buy all that stuff down here for a lot cheaper. sigh....utah mormons..lol (no offence meant to the 75% of my extended family to are mormon and live in utah :P)

I'll probably call Christmas Eve, because they celebrate Christmas on the 24th here. But I don't really know, just don't leave those days....lol

¡Estas nuevas todos den, nacio Cristo en Belén!
Feliz Navidad,
Elder Devictoria

Week 44: I think my emails are getting more boring. lol

2010-12-14T14:20:00.000-08:00

Oops, forgot to post this one!

Okay to start off,
Tell Danny to quit wearing my clothes, and that I want all of my sweaters back after the mission (clean).

Two:
That story about finding a picture of Dad on the mision is nuts. The thing I like most about it is.....maybe the perfectly written chinese characters...but oop no, its the white shirt that has a pocket on both sides :)
Muahahaha. That is really cool though. I'm planning on learning Chinese so that you guys can't tell secrets about me in chinese. And so that when I visit asia someday I won't look like a fool.

Three:
We are still struggling for investigators. We had one investigator in church this week. It will be a long battle to get he baptised, but she is our only hope to baptise this month. We will see what happens. It seems like here the people close their doors in the christmas season.

Four:
I have heard a crazy rumor. They say that they are going to move up the dedication of the San Salvador Temple to May, and that the missionaries are going to be able to help a little bit with the dedication services. But that is far from the coolest thing. They say that president Monson is going to come and have a double mission conference with us and the west mission, and that he is going to give a priesthood blessing to one elder in a vicarious blessing for all of the elders in service here! That will be pretty awesome. Can't wait.

Five:
Yes I am getting closer to a year mark....my companion is going to hit a year at the end of this month. Its crazy to read my journal. I have a little day counter in the top right corner of every day, and I'm at 304 or something like that. I don't know if you guys are still marking off the thingie on the wall or not, but its kinda crazy how fast it is going. the months don't pass that fast, but the weeks definitely do. I feel like I lie down to sleep, and when I wake up it seems like in one day a whole week has passed.

Six:
I don't know why I'm writing this in a numbered list...

Seven:
I'm running out of things to say, so to answer grandma's question:
A pupusa is basically a lump of dough (of corn or rice flour) and inside they put chese, beans, and a variety of other things like herbs, chicharrón (which is like pig meat that is ground up with onions and spices and stuff. We arent alowwed to eat pork here, but luckily we found a place that makes their's from beef.) and squash. They flatten it out and fry it like a tortilla. They are really good. I don't really like the majority of curtido though.

Thanks for the support, I wish I had more pictures to send.
Love Elder Joseph DeVictoria

ps. hahaha I just realise that Teresa has a suit jacket!

Week 43 on Mission: They are playing Christmas music in the mall where the cyber cafe is

2010-12-06T14:30:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

Well I hope all is well in the greatest country on earth, and the land of the chinos.
Teresa that is pretty crazy that you guys baptised 5 people! woohoo. When that happens here the people are shocked lol. I'm still praying that I get a chance to baptise a family in my mission. I'm getting close to my half way mark and still no signs of it... It sounds like Taiwan is a pretty cool place to work! I wish the people here were strait forward with me. The usual door approach goes like this:

Elder: Hello good morning, How are you?
Person: Good, and you?
Elder: Good, we are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints. We are here sharing a message about Jesus Christ and the restoration of the church in these latter days. We would like to share this message with you and your family.
Person: I allready congragate in the biblical baptist tabernacle: Friends of Israel, Gracias.
Elder: Well sister we share this message from people of all faiths, and we know this message will help you in your life.
Person: I allready accepted Christ as my savior, Gracias (they start to close the door)
Elder: Is there another day we can come by?
Person: I wouldnt be able to tell you, sometimes I leave ( or more of about 1000 other excuses other than saying "No")
Elder: Thanks a lot....we will try passing by another day....

That is honestly about 80% of the doors we knock. and the other 19% usually just say I'm busy through the door and walk away.
Maybe for every 200 doors we knock/people we talk to we get a baptism lol.

I have to admit, I'm not too happy right now. This area is the absolute pit of dispair. This is the house where the president sends missionaries right before they get sent home from the mission. Its also the area that we have baptised the first melchezedic priesthood convert in over a year. I really want out of here. Its like if you had to work only in castro street in San Francisco, and the branch only has like 5 priesthood holders, and they all live in oakland, walnut creek and concord. All the members are depressed, and the majority are offended lol.

It doesn't help that my companion hates working with north americans, hates me, loves to argue, and thinks I'm just the proudest missionary there is. He's probably got a point that I'm a little pridefull, and that I am north american, but it is really boring working with him, and sometimes its just hard. The wierdest thing is that he doesn't really have any latino firends in the mission either. He told me that before the mission he never had any firends, He just worked, came home from work, watched TV and went to sleep. He didn't even talk with his family.
I know that I have a lot of faults too, but I have gotten along well with all my companions up to him, and he hasn't gotten along with any of his.

That being said, I know I just have to keep working, and try to be humble. Its hard though, the baptisms we have here were basically mercy baptisms. (When I told him that he got mad at me too. He thinks that we baptised because we worked really hard...) The people were 100% prepared. Its just a frustrating area, and it doesn't help that my companion hates working with me.

This week just kinda dissapeared. I don't really know how, but its allready Pday again and I don't feel like we accomplished anything this week.

Btw why does Jared have a beard. Thats just wierd...maybe sam should grow one too....oh wait...

Well as for the Christmas Traditions here, The richer people put up plastic Christmas Trees, and a lot of people put up lights on their houses. Its definitely not that exciting so far. The Christmas devotional was cool though. The big thing that they do here on Christmas is that they just blow up firecrackers all night. You can buy them way cheap, and they have some really huge ones. Also the traditions here are not very creative, for almost any special occasion (birthdays, new years, independence day, christmas) they allways eat the same food, chicken sandwiches. But they aren't what you would expect, because they have more cabbage in them than chicken. If you guys remember in the El Salvadorean resaurants, they have like some vinegarry cabbage stuff that they eat with pupusas called curtido or repollo. Basically they put that in everything here (Pupusas, Hot dogs, Sandwiches, Tortas, dumplings, anything fried....)

Anyways I still have to write my letter to president, so take is easy, don't worry about me. I'm okay, I feel fine, I'm just very bored and tired.

Much love,
Elder DeVictoria.

Week 34 in El Salvador: Frogger level 42 Complete, BU HAO

2010-11-29T09:54:00.001-08:00

Haha,

Well president changed Elder Peña this week. I don't know why I didn't ask him to. But anyways thats not a problem anymore...
We baptised again this week! His name is Francisco Osorio, and he is a super powerful melchezedic priesthood candidate! It was pretty awesome to see him get baptised so quickly. It only took us a month with him. Nowadays we usually try to find a member to do the baptisms for us so that we can deal with the baptismal service. Mainly because we don't have a ward mission leader, and our branch president, 2 counsilor, relief society president, youth class teacher, Elderes quorom president, and all of our elders live outisde of the area boundries for our branch. That is the absolute worst thing about Layco, there almost absolutely no support from the members, and also there are only like 2 member families in our area...But we keep fighting. I'm jealous of Teresa, it sounds like she actually has a fun mission. Basically our president works for pure numbers, and he has about 2 times more rules than the white handbook. Our Pdays are really boring usually.

It stinks though, because we have baptised or dropped all of our investigators, and we don't have any new ones now.... and trying to find news here is horrible. The main difference here is that EVERYONE has a church that they actively attend. Our whole job is to steal sheep here.

I'm trying to figure out how to get some pictures sent, because they are all stuck on my card and I have no way to get them off at our new cyber cafe....stupid computers without card readers....I'll try and borrow someone's

Mom your festive shirt really makes the difference in that photo :P

Oh I love Eddie, I played with so many cats this week, Kittens too!!!!!!1 ooohhhhhhhhh
Hey I would really like more pictures, photos of anything, forward me the photos of our anscestors, or of your missions in taiwan, just send me pictures!!!

Love Elder DeVictoria.

Week 33 in El Salvador: Congrats Teresa

2010-11-22T08:23:00.000-08:00

(His description of the baptism had me laughing til I cried! lol I should mention too that the Church has certain policies for how they decide on whether to send a missionary home. The Mission presidents know that if a missionary is sent home dishonorably, it can have a long term negative effect on the rest of their life. Of course, if a missionary insisted on going home, they wouldn't keep them from it, but if the decision is up to the mission president, he tries to keep them if at all possible. If they have done something that affects their church membership, then they get sent home. In the case of Joseph's companion, I think the mission president is hoping that he will learn from the other missionaries, and that he will change.)

Hello Everyone.

I'm gonna try and write my letter in parts.

El Área:
Well the area is allright for now...We baptised again this week. His name is Orlando Moralez, and he is 84 years old. He was one of the funnest investigators that I have had. We found him 2 weeks ago and challenged him to baptism the first lesson, and he accepted. He went to church twice, and got baptised. He had no rebellion in his heart, he openly accepted everything we taught him. He is pretty halarious though. He has no teeth really...but he loves to tell jokes and stuff haha. When we teach him, he has to act out every scene of what we teach him, we used an example of the great apostasy as a room with a burnt out lightbulb, and so that the world could be in the light again, God had to restore the truth like putting in a new lightbulb. But he was just acting it out, he said "If there is no light I would have to move around like a bat and I would trip all over stuff" Haha. He is pretty halarious. And in the baptism, He kept asking me how much time he would have to stay under water, and I told him only a second! only a second!, but he kept asking lol, and when I went to baptism him, when I put him under his foot came up, so I lifted him out....but I didnt just "lift him out" I really did lift him completely out of the water, because he stayed curled up like a ball hahahah. I had him in my arms like a child until he put his feet down and I told him we had to do it again lol. In the ned I had to put his feet together and stand on them so that he didnt put them up! but he is a great guy, the only challenege is getting him to church, because if someone doesn't help him, he can't get there. On the bad side, we only have one more investigator with a chance to get baptised, and its will be a fight to get him there. The area is pretty much burnt now, so I'm not sure what to do. I really hope they change me, but I know presidente Perez isn't that merciful.

Mis compañeros:
Well I would say that is is very hard being companions with the most rebelious misionary in the entire mission, Elder Peña. I try to love him, and I try to help him, but he just drains you, mentally, physiscally, emotionally, and spiritually. He is a convert of 2 years, and he has more time as a missionary than he had as a member before the mission. He is a soldier from chile and was in the army since he was 15. Basically he acts, talks and thinks like a rude soldier. But we are still working, barely. My other companion, Elder Bac, is a lot easier to work with, but ever since Peña has got here, he doesn't care as much. Nothing I do or say changes or will change either of them, but we still try to work through all of it.

Mom:
I hope you are feeling better, and that your blood isn't that black. (from iron) they are going to hunt you down for kraken's blood if you don't watch out. thanks for the emails. Those quotes apply directly to my companion, but it would just be a train wreck to tell him that. I don't dislike my mission, but the stress-level that I'm at right now definitely takes a toll on me and my mood. My only consolation is that God knows I'm working my hardest. Btw: all these things Brother Fowler tells you that you think are so amazing are in the manuals of the church. If you really want to teach cool stuff you should try to get your hands on the older institute manuals; the thick ones with tons of quotes and stuff. The stakes of Zion example with the tent is in the Gospel Doctrine Manual for Isaiah.

Teresa:
Congrats on getting to ching chong land safely. When I tell people here that my sister is in taiwan they all freak out. Its pretty funny. I wish I had the desire to do as many street contacts as you guys do there haha. We are supposed to talk to 10 people every day for each companion, but in my whole mission I've never been able to get the 140 a week that we are supposed to do. At least you have a bike, we have to walk everywhere, or talk a bus if we feel rich. But we only get 235 dollars a month for food, clothes washing, a little for pday and 15 for transport. Some months I run short, some months I'm good...Its sounds pretty crazy over there. The people here are a lot different, because absolutely everyone has a church allready, and get upset when you invite them to change. At least all those Chinos only believe in budah lol.

Oh and one of my converts got the melchezedic priesthood yesterday! woohoo, one of my reactivated families' sons too :)

Thats about it, keep sending pictures, a picture is worth a thousand words.
all the pictures are stuck on my comps camara, so I'll send you an older one of me trying to fly a kite.
Love elder D.

Week 32 in El Salvador: Still Here

2010-11-15T19:11:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,
Turns out I'm still here in Layco, which is actually cool, because we have a bunch of baptisms coming up :)
I'll try to make my letter more interesting. Well the most interesting thing that happened this week was that we had changes, and now I'm in a trio with Elder Pena who is a crazy missionary from chile. Basically he doesnt care about any rule....and nothing I say will change him, he asked the president like 3 times if he could go home, but the area seventy says he can't leave because he hasn't done anything bad enough to get sent home. But yeah its a little stressful. Whats worse is that my other companion is pretty much nuetral, and he just kinda is influenced by whichever person...so now, I think my slight obedience is being overpowered by the badness of my other companion....but hey It happens. It should be an interesting transfer.

Also this change they shut down our Zone, and split us between two other zones, and our district got all mixed up. But I'm happy because all the work that we do, I'm finally going to be able to see the fruits of it.

No Danny I'm not going to buy an Xbox. I know you want to play Black Ops so bad, but the truth is that when I get home from the mission, Xbox is going to be outdated. I am planning on building a new computer though. Also a better phrase would be "Me explotó mis nalgas y salió un gato feo se llama Sam."

I hope Dad has fun in Thailand.
Our new zone leaders are more machetero...we are going to see if their iron fist helps up to baptise.

But yeah its cool.
Hasta Luego,
Elder DeVictoria

Week 31 in El Salvador: Things are looking up, I have a feeling that means Teresa is right and I´m headed for another transfer

2010-11-08T08:36:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,
I would have to agree with teresa, I will probably get transfered soon, because we are starting to line up a lot of baptismal dates. We have 2 firm dates for this month, and like 4 possibles. I feel like the areas go in cycles of baptism. Elders come in to a dead area and start looking for new people, after a transfer they have a few investigators with baptismal dates, but almost all of them fall through, and then the third change you baptise them all. Thats the cycle if you have two good Elders together lol. Sometimes you get lucky and find some golden investigators or get a really good referral and they get baptised, but most of the time its just challenge after challenge to get someone baptised. For example, we found this brother named René, and the first two lessons he was all super positive, (he still is) but after a while he has just had all these trials placed in his way. For one thing he is a Jehovah´s Witness, and the members of his church come and visit him every single day, he told us that he thinks they have spies that find out who we are visiting haha. But thats a huge roadblock with him, and we are trying to work around it. Also his uncle is dying, his daughter just gave birth, and he got ripped off on a car sale. So its pretty rough for him. But we are going to have to work for him for another month at least, because he drank alcohol. But we do have an 83 year old investigator who is super positive, and has a baptismal date for this 20th :) but changes are the 10th :( I´ll probably get owned again like I did in my last area. When I left we had put 4 baptismal dates, and the transfer after I left all four got baptised, as well as 3 others who we had been teaching. I just figure the presidenthad some kind of inspiration for the change, and I trust him.

Hey guess what: I FOUND EDDIE´S LITTLE SISTER IN EL SALVADOR!!!!!!!
I have a picture with her.ooohhh meowmeowmeow
Also I have a couple other pictures and stuff some of them came out crappy.

Btw, I am fine, I weigh like 165 pounds, I´m not skinny, I still have muscle, and I eat more here than I did at home.
I have lunch cooked for me every day by a sister in the branch, and we lined up Dinner at a restaurant for the month, so I have people cook real food for me two times a day. The only time I eat ramen is at breakfast once in a while. Other times I eat beans, or eggs, or candy....oh yeah candy is good. But really I´m not skinny, I´m like fatter than ever.

Teresa don´t get mad at your companions or you will have a crappy time with them. For example I didn´t get mad at my companion when he decided to equalize his Chi at 6 AM....lol huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuHUH!

I asked about the piano in the distriution center and it costs 91 dollars (ouch). I´m not even sure if we are allowed to have them.

By the Way, You CAN send me digital photos.

Allright well I´m allready out of stuff to say.
Stay Sweet,
Elder DeVictoria

Notice the name of the Elder in the one picture: Elder Santa :)

Week 30 in El Salvador: I'm Gonna Try and be as Creative as Teresa Today

2010-11-01T10:23:00.000-07:00

We baptized :))
I have to admit it was a very very stressful sunday, I don´t know maybe its just me, but baptisms just stress me out sometimes haha. I find it very stressful because 90% of the time something happens at the very very very last minute that makes it so we "can´t do the baptism". But I guess thats part of being a missionary, just the horribleness of the tripping stones that satan puts in the way of your baptism. But in the end everything went well, with a lot of praying and a lot of faith we were able to do the baptism as planned. It was really complicated because the older brother Wilber who was going to do the baptism needed to be ordained to a priest, and he decided to go to a class instead of come to church. Guillermo came to church and was super depressed because his brother wasn´t going to be able to baptise him. My companion pretended not to be stressed out and just was saying that I was going to do the baptism, but we worked really hard to get Wilber there and in the end all came out well. Thanks for your prayers.

Now we are working on a couple of other investigators, the best of which are Cristian Eduardo who has a date for this coming weekend, and a hermano named René deJesus. If you could keep them in your preyers I would appreciate it. We finally got book of Mormons in the zone now, so we should start to have more success with that.

Teresa congrats on calling Elder Nelson, Elder Oaks. haha.
I have to tell you a couple funny stories to lighten the mood, My companion elder Bac is completely tone deaf. And yes you guessed it he never stops singing haha. It doesn´t bother me at all, but its just halarious because he is Always singing lol. Imagine just every note of a song completely off tune, like random sounds for each word. But he is a good Elder, and he has had a lot of success in the mission. I´m guessing we are going to have another change together at least.

A week ago we had a Multizone meeting, and President Pérez basically just layed down the hatchet the whole time for being wicked in the mission. The following week he sent 2 missionaries home. The average is like 1 missionary a month gets sent home...its pretty harsh, but there are a lot of stupid missionaries. One thing he pointed out was that we have to wear our ties really long....so that they cover out belt buckle...yeah I don´t know what hes thinking, I just do it haha. but that will help you to understand one of my photos.

I bought some shoes at a place called don chilos for 6 bucks and I´ve been using them like every day to take away the wear of my other shoes...I don´t even wear my big boots, because size 13 and a half is just huge on me and it looks awkward. Maye if they send me out in the boonies I´ll start using them again.

I´ve been trying to learn to play piano. I´m pretty good at the top hand now considering I don´t have any way to practice. usually I just play on pdays every once and a while, or when we are waiting for a meeting to start. I really want to buy a small basic electric piano so that I can practice in the house....but I have no idea where to buy one or how much it would cost...But I´m hoping by the time I get home from my mission I´ll be able to play on a basic level.

'JÏ\±}4îÄ32┌9æc♠♣421-•8N-♀.╚§╚███àAA{♀ -A-bNL.♪♪▼ dang I was trying to find some chinese characters, but they didnt show up..

Allright I know I´m not as creative as teresa, but its kinda hard to write something exciting when every day is the same. lol
I believe I can see the future....because I repeat the same routine....(nine inch nails)
hope alls well in paradise!
Love Elder DeVictoria

Week 29 in El Salvador: An Exciting and Tiring Week

2010-10-25T12:51:00.000-07:00

Querida Familia,
Well this week was good because we have a solid baptismal date for this next weekend. Our prayers, and your prayers were answered, because we saw a miracle with Guillermo. WE have been teaching him a lot, but his dad has been resisting almost every step of the way saying that its too early for a baptism, and that we need to wait and that we should stop pressuring him and everything. We put a shaky baptiasmal date for the 23d, but it fell through to the 30th, still with his dad all angry. But we have been praying for him a lot, and this sunday he showed up at church, and the meetings were way good, but when we got to priesthood the lesson as on baptism. The lesson was really good and near the end he told us that now he knew why he felt inspired to go to church that day, because in the morning he said that he had no desire to go, but something told him that he should, he said taht now he understands why his son needs to get baptised, and he said that he has had a change of heart. He said that before he was calling us idiots behind our backs and that he didnt want us to come visit, but he asked for our forgiveness in front of everyone. Now guillermo is going to get baptised for sure, and his older brother wilbur is going to do it. I`m really happy for that.

Other than that the work still goes on, Elder Bac and I and working hard, still in Layco.
Hope all is going good Good luck with everything, and keep me updated!

Love Elder DeVictoria.

Week 28 in El Salvador: I realized that I started like 10 out of the lat 12 journal entries I have done with "well"..

2010-10-18T12:59:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,
While my mind is still on it, I would like to tell you all of one of my accomplishments on the mission. I have managed to keep a journal entry for every day of my mission so far. Thats about it lol.
Well the most interesting thing that happened this week is that we had emergency changes because some missionaries in another zone were fighting. My companion got sent to their area, and I recieved a new companion who was working out in San Miguel. He seems really cool, and we have been working real hard all this week. His name is Elder Bac, and he is from Guatemala. My second chapin companion. I`m really lucky as far as I can tell, because I have had all good companions. I feel a little humbled now though, I was sad because I left 4 baptisms in my last area, but he had to leave 10, and the change wasn´t even his fault...
We are still working with Guillermo. The main problem is that his dad thinks that we are pressuring him too much to be baptised, when he should be encouraging it like a faithful member of the church...I dont know his dad is kinda wierd. But he is definitely eligible, and he can get baptised this 23 of october. keep him in your prayers.
Mom your soooo faking it that you have anemia.....maybe the computer screen is sucking out your blood daily. muahahaha. Basically I have more cats here in the mission than I did when I was at home, because there is no such thing as nuetering or spading your animals here. I am such a cat charmer, I can make any kitten purr. Muahahaha
Teresa I know you love the MTC, just stop being a chambón.
Dad I was very pleased to get your picture, I was thinking about doing the same thing, but I think I forgot. Also you could have taken two pictures, one at night and one in the morning.
Sam you need to go to mission prep. Its only like 2 times a month anyways.
Danny dont touch my stuff (especially NOT the gamecube!)
Con amor y Cariño,
Elder DeVictoria.

Week 27 in El Salvador: Bueno, pues.....

2010-10-11T10:59:00.000-07:00

Well thanks for all the letters they are really boo how.
I`ve come to the conclusion that I have to learn mandarin at some point, because I don`t want to be left out of all the secrets when I get home. Something funny I saw the other day, The TV was on in a member`s house and I saw a Taiwanese woman speaking SPANISH hahah. Its pretty funny to hear someone speak spanish with an asian accent haha. She actually spoke it really well, it was just wierd to hear a slight ting tong accent in the background haha. I still am yet to see an asian in person here (and I just hit my 8 month point). Thats one of the things that definitely is different down here, there is just absolutely no diversity. Everyone is El Salvadorean. With the excetion of a few guatemalans, honduraneans, and nicaraguenses. And you very rarely hear any other language than spanish, and its almost always English. But the immersion really helps in learning a language.

Mom thats the reason they don`t teach that much language in the MTC, because when you get to the field its completely different anyways. The more foundation you have the easier it is to learn, but they send the majority of missionaries down here without a lick of spanish and they just have to pick it up. I`d say the first 2 weeks in the field it was mainly just picking up on what the people were saying, because they talk like 10 times faster in real life than in the MTC, and they all have funky accents, then at like 3 weeks I could understand a lot of what they were saying, and by the end of my first change I could get around alright. Now I understand like 97% of what I hear, and I can communicate about 85% of what I want to say, mainly its just vocabulary that holds me back. There are a lot of gringos out here with a year in the mission and still struggle with the language though. I remember the first 2 weeks were really intense, because I was just concentrating soo hard to try and understand a word out of every 20 that they said haha.

On the work front, we have a baptismal date for the 23 of October, his name is Guillermo, and he is 12 years old. We are reactivating his family, and he is the only that isn`t a member. He has a few doubts, but I believe he will do it. Just keep him in your prayers that he will have a desire, and the courage to get baptised. Also we are going to start teaching a refferal that the mission president gave us for a sister that works janitorial for the institute building, and has worked there 10 years. She basically lives like a Mormon, and shes familiar with all the cannonial books of the church. We think she is well prepared, and I`ll let you know more when we actually find her. her name is Norma.

So interesting story from one of my pictures, in the area we are in right now we have to wash our garments, So I was really lazy and decided to leave them to soak a which before I washed them. But I kinda forgot they were there, and I left them soaking for like 4 days. When I went to wash them they smelled horrible, like rotten eggs. I think that much time in the sun got them really cooking, but it was pretty disgusting, I had to put on a mask to was them lol. But my companion just thought it was so funny, so he was taking pictures of me while I was washing lol. The other one you cant really see me, because we took the picture at night with zoom, but its still pretty cool.

Conference was cool. They dropped the machete pretty hard in priesthood session. But a took a lot of notes, and its also kinda funny that I was in the MTC for general conference, and so is Teresa.

Well for Christmas the best gift you could give me is just to make sure that none of my precious things in the house get touched by any of my siblings. Also I`m thinking you can just save up the gifts and get me a car when I get home :)

Happy birthday Dad, hope you and Jared had a fun twin-birthday party haha. Btw you still havent told me if they actually annouced that china is going to open, I was thinking that would be the best birthday present that anyone could give you. haha.
Yo voy a escribir algo en español para que ustedes sepan que yo sí lo apprendí lol. hehehehe solo mi abuelo sabe lo que estoy diciendo. Tambien abuelo espero que todo está bien con usted. Yo siempre estoy pensando en si. Espero que su salud está bien, y que está feliz.
Con todo amor,
Élder DeVictoria.

Week 26 in El Salvador: Transfers Come And Gone

2010-10-04T11:15:00.000-07:00

Buenos Dias,
Well I`m still in Layco. We are still really struggling to get progressing investigators. The majority of people we teach are very negative from the start, and those that welcome us back usually don`t want to go to church, just want to hear what we say. But non-the-less we have some victories on occasions. Working here in the very center of San Salvador is very different that the country. One of our main problems is that we cant find any "pez gordos" which is a family with a father that is interested. Just last night we found the first complete family (mother, father, brother, sister) since we have been here in this area. Thats like 7 1/2 weeks of nothing but single moms and uninterested wives.
I am still hoping that we can baptise a family someday. The only people that I have baptised have been single people and children, so its a lot harder for them to remain active. I`m trying to work pretty hard, we set a lot of goals this week in our planning session, including ending P-day at 5 pm, trying to find 20 new people before friday, and doing 2 family home evening appointments with investigators per week.
One of the new goals that we set for our companionship, and also for the Zone here is just to do crazy stuff. I think that might be a big part of what has been missing in my mission service so far, I just don`t do enough crazy stuff, I`m not dramatic enough, I`m just kinda like the person that works hard but just so boring. So we set a goal to do one crazy thing per week as a companionship, and 1 per month as a zone. We are still trying to think of what we will do this week. I was thinking that we should go preaching on busses, or some other funny way to find new people. If you have any Ideas let me know.
The package you sent got here, Thanks for the pictures, and the SD ard, and the Thumb Drive. The candy only lasted about 10 minutes, but thanks for that too. I`ll look forward to that envelope too. But most of all thanks for the Chinese Cat bell that made all the difference lol.
Sounds like China is gonna be pretty nutty. I heard someone tell me that during the break between general conferenc of saturday they announced that they are working to open china in the next 2 years or something. I didn`t hear it first person, another elder told me. Let me know whats up with that. Wo shur la dudza.
Sam congradulations on getting into night school, that is a very good decision. Work as hard as you can and you will be very very blessed in the end. Have faith that you will pass all your classes, and don`t let anything distract you. Finish the homework before the Xbox. I learned the hard way.
Mom make sure those boxes under my bed are safe, because I have a lot of notes from school, and things that I really want to keep in there, don`t let danny send them scattering to the four winds. And I want ALL of my shoes when I get back too.
Grandma thanks for the advice on the vegetables and stuff. I am very much in agreement, I think just in one month of eating ramen my body has become so shriveled and sick that I`m definitely gonna start eating healthier. no ramen.
Oh and the president invited us to his house for lunch because the whole zone baptised! :P
Well thanks for the letters and stuff, keep them coming.
Love,
Elder DeVictoria
(ps the young womens group from our ward sent me letters this week wink wink)

Week 25 in El Salvador: Well, not a whole lot to say

2010-09-27T09:07:00.000-07:00

Still working here in Layco. Mom if people ask where I am in El Salvador, tell them that I am in San Salvador in Mejicanos (Mehicanos). Ching chong bing bong wo shur taliban that was for yo chinese speakers, I`ve been brushing up. Kinda a stressful week. Not much happened, but I`m still trying hard to find people to baptise. We are going to watch conference next week. I`ll keep you updated if anything good happens... To make up for my lack of things to say, I`ll try and send a lot of pictures.
Also if you didnt put crosses, or pictures of jesus on the box it might have gotten jacked...I dont know when you guys mailed it.
Please send me some of Eddie!!!!! with his cute little toothbrush!!!!!
Well sadly I really don`t have anything more to say, other than the fact that once again I am living on Ramen noodles. muahahahaa.
Much love elder DeVictoria.

Week 24 in El Salvador: The Mormon Tabernacle Choir is Coming to Antioch?

2010-09-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

Haha,
Well how are you all? The days are still flying past here, I`m pulling up on 8 months soon woot woot.
We are still working hard here in Layco, the sundays here are like the most stressful thing in the world. Its really hard to get people to go to church...But the good news is that we were able to do divisions with the members for the first time in this branch. We are up to 83 people in sacrament meeting, and we have a couple progressing investigators now, we might even have a baptism for next saturday, depending on how much of a testimony he can gain this week. His name is Javier Rodriguez, so keep him in your prayers. We are hoping that we can put a good amount of baptismal dates here for the next transfer.
One time in my first area, my district leader told me about the "Missionary Escalator" Which is the way that good missionaries work. Basically the concept is that every investigator that you find, you help to put them on the escalator, and as you continue teaching them, they are moving up the elevator until the get to the top at baptism. The way that good missionaries work, is that they put people on the elevator, and keep teaching them, but before the people get to the top, they keep putting new people on the elevator. Soe people are gonna fall off, and some people will take longer to get to the top than others, but if you keep putting people on the elevator consistantly, you will have baptisms consistantly. We are working that way i think, but people are just falling off like crazy, thats why they say that we have one of the hardest areas in the mission...lol. But well just keep up the faith, and I think we will see success here. I just got sooooo stressed in Sacrament meeting yesterday, because a whole bun of kis that we have been helping to come to church are just sooo irreverent....And it really is a rough area, but I was reading in Alma 26: 26-31, and I think that will be the story of layco. There have only been 3-4 baptisms here this year including ours....but we are not lazy workers, so I believe there will be many fruits to our labors.
Thanks Aunt Marlene, and Grandma and Grandpa Allred for the support you are giving my sister and I on our missions, you will all be blessed for your help!
Hope alls well in paradise, Tell danny to stop falling off the bed, Tell dad he might lose a lot of weight unexpectedly... so he needs to watch out...Teresa good luck with the MTC, talk to your companion a lot and you will have a good time. Dont worry about the Chinese, just memorize a lot of vocabulary, because the grammar (or lack thereof) comes easily, but the vocab is whats kicking my butt still. Tell danny to leave my fridge alone, I want it when I get back. I want my TV too. Mom watch out, I heard there is an epidemic of hyperchondria going through the relief society in california right now. Please each one of you give Eddie 1000 kisses for me, and buy a little tiny tooth brush for his little tiny kitten teeth, and send me a picture of him brushing up!
BTW I have included a "Precher pic", because I know how much you love them mom.
And theres one of my companion in an area called "Porvenir, Cuscatancingo" which is like way up on a big hill.
And another of me.
Much love,
Elder DeVictoria

Week 23 in El Salvador: Buenos Dias America

2010-09-13T10:07:00.001-07:00

Hello Everyone,
Well just writing to you all again on a sunny monday in El Salvador. A bit of good news, we had a baptism on saturday. It was another Child, but hey we are in a pretty rough area. We were pretty depressed yesterday, because our possible baptisms for the next weekend decided that they had better thangs to do on sunday than go to church... I think they are still going to be able to do it, but probably for this 25th of september.
I hope you guys are having fun out there in California and Utah.
Teresa I hope the MTC is treating you well, I liked it a lot. Just stay away from the greasy food....I think I`m still recovering from it. All I know is that 2 months goes by Really fast, and after that you have to actually work :P
This week was kinda interesting, because politically there has been some pretty crazy stuff heppening. They are pushing a law that will make it so that anyone involved in gang activities will get harsher punishments. I`m not exactly sure what it says, but it is the kidna stuff that is allready laws in the united states. But anyways the gangsters decided to put on a "protest" this last week. Starting on tuesday of last week The gangsters said that there were going to just kill random people to protest the law. So we stayed in all tuesday, and wednesday and thursday we had to erter that house at 7 PM. It was pretty crazy, I guess they killed a lot of people. But its just a natural occurance in El Salvador. Oh btw remember that bus bombing that happened about 2-3 months ago? That was in my area! About half of my area is in San Salvador, and Half is in Mejicanos. But we havent really had any problems. Only the usual drunks begging money, or whatever they can think of from you.
oh yeah and we painted a school on saturday.
Well I don`t really have much more to say, its been a kinda boring week. Hope all goes well,
Love,
Elder DeVictoria.

Here is an article my husband found about the bus bombing:

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (by DIEGO MENDEZ) — Gang members opened fire on a bus on the outskirts of El Salvador's capital, then doused it with gasoline and set it on fire, killing at least 14 passengers in what the president on Monday called an act of terror. Police managed to break windows and help 13 people escape the flames but others died inside. Sixteen people suffered injuries in the late Sunday attack, officials said.

"This is an act that seeks to generate terror among the population," President Mauricio Funes said, adding that his security Cabinet was to meet to increase security in the country.

Violent youth gangs have besieged the public transit system in this small Central American nation to extort bus workers and largely impoverished commuters and travelers. The armed assault was the deadliest attack this year on a passenger bus.

The attack took place in a gang-plagued part of the municipality of Mejicanos, just outside San Salvador, National Police Commissioner Carlos Ascencio said. At least 14 people were killed, he said. Moments later, gang members opened fire on another bus in the same neighborhood, killing two people. Ascencio said Monday night that eight suspects had been arrested in the bus burning, including one who was detained minutes after the attack and smelled of gasoline. Among the detained were a woman and two minors.

Earlier, Funes said seven suspects had been detained, most accused of being members of the Mara 18 street gang. Justice Minister Manuel Melgar called the attack "a typical terrorist act," but said the motive was under investigation. At least 217 drivers and other employees of El Salvador's public transport industry have been killed over the last year and a half in suspected gang attacks, said Catalino Miranda, president of the national federation of transport workers and businessmen. Most victims were shot to death. He said more than 50 buses had been set on fire. Three of the burnings, including Sunday's attack, caused deaths. Two people were killed in a bus burning earlier this year, and one was killed last year. Miranda estimated extortion demands had cost the industry some $18 million in 2009.

El Salvador has an estimated 13,500 gang members, some 5,700 of whom are in prison. It is one of Latin America's most violent countries.

He also found this article about the recent troubles:

The army has been using trucks to help people get to work

Public transport in El Salvador has been severely disrupted for a third day by a strike enforced by street gangs, angry at a new law making gang membership a criminal offence.The Mara 18 and Mara Salvatrucha gangs told transport operators to observe the shutdown, or face the consequences.Thousands of troops have been deployed to protect bus drivers and commuters.The anti-gang law was introduced in July after gang members set fire to a bus, killing 17 people.The BBC's Eric Lemus in the capital San Salvador says most bus companies there and across the country appear to have given in to the gangs' threats.He said about 80% of public transport was suspended, although some private drivers in pick-up trucks had been carrying passengers for much higher fares. Many businesses also shut down for fear of reprisals after the gangs circulated leaflets telling them to close or "face the consequences". Police and soldiers have been escorting the vehicles that have been carrying passengers, and the army has also been using trucks to help people get to work. 'State of rebellion' The street gangs - known as Maras - ordered the shutdown to put pressure on president Mauricio Funes not to sign a new law which would make membership of a gang a criminal offence.

The law, which has been approved by El Salvador's parliament, makes the Mara 18 and Salvatrucha proscribed organisations, and describes them as "social extermination groups". But Mr Funes said his government would not be moved by intimidation and threats. "I affirm that I will sign the law," he said on Wednesday. "We saw this coming. As we close in on them, they are reacting." Mr Funes says the law is aimed at gang leaders and those who finance them. Unlike previous anti-crime laws, it includes measures to stop young people joining the gangs and to help them escape from a life of crime. The protest has extended to El Salvador's prisons, where hundreds of jailed gang members have declared themselves in a "state of rebellion". Masked gang members interviewed on Salvadorean television said they had called the strike because they felt the government was excluding them from a national debate on how to reduce violent crime. "We want to start a transparent process of dialogue aimed at finding a solution to the violence," the Mara 18 gang member said. The gangs also want improved conditions for prisoners.

El Salvador's gangs have their roots in immigrant street gangs of the US. Over the years they have grown to become powerful trans-national criminal organisations with thousands of members. They are heavily involved in drug trafficking and extortion, and have a reputation for ruthless violence. El Salvador has one of the highest murder rates in the world, with around 10 killings a day in a country with a population of just over seven million.

Week 22 in El Salvador: Still Climbing

2010-09-06T20:10:00.000-07:00

Estimados Familia,
Well still climbing means taht we are still working on the branch here. We are up to 80 people in the sacrament meeting, and we are hoping for 100 by the end of the month. We are starting to reap some fruits from our efforts, because we had 7 people at church, and we have a few investigators with baptismal dates. I just hope that they stick to it and go thropugh with it. We are hoping to have 2 baptisms the 18th and 1 or 2 on the 25th. I have to admit I feel a Lot better about my last area now. Because I was really depressed when I left. We had just worked for almost 2 months with one family, and we didnt get a chance to do their baptism, even though they went to church over 10 times by now. But in my last week there, I worked so hard, and I think it payed off, because in my last week we put 2 solid baptismal dates for the next change, and we had the other 2 from the family. And the other day i was at the stake center in Layco, and there was a brother from Las Cañas, and I asked him how things went, and ther 2 baptismal dates that I left there went through on got baptised right after I left. And the other family is still going strong. It is really hard to go a whole change without baptising here, Especially when you got he whole time working hard, But I am really happy that our work payed off.

Anyways here in layco I´m still pretty optomistic. The main probelm is that the missionaries who were here before (including my companion) didnt even leave one investigator for us this change. I feel like they didnt do anything last change, because At least Elder Suarez and I left baptismal dates and progressing investigators. Here we had to start absolutely from nothing, and that means that the first few weeks of the transfer are kinda rough, because its all searching, and working hard to find people. But now we have a few progressing investigators, so a lot of the strees is taken off. But still we are praying, and I would invite you guys to pray also for sister Marisol, and Maria Aparicio to get baptised this 18th of september. Because president said that if we dont baptise here this change, he is going to close this area, and we really need to bring this branch back to life.

Also dont be suprised this next week if you get a suprise call from a member I met down here who lives in Oregon, I gave him our number so he could call you and let you know how everything is going down here, we worked with him to baptise his family this last week. Btw I havent been emailing grandpa Joe, because I don´t have his email. I don´t want him to feel bad, I´m not trying to exclude him, I simply dont have his email. If you could forward him all of my old emails, and send me his email so that I can start putting him in the address too I would appreciate it a lot.

I don´t have any pictures for this week, but I´ll see what I can do about next week.

Much love,
Elder DeVictoria.

200 Days in the Mission

2010-08-30T11:02:00.001-07:00

Dear peoples of the united states,

Well this week has been really good, I`m a little tired though, because we woke up at 5 A.M. two times this week to work early (with permission of course). We are in a "rama" or branch in english, which is waaay small. When my companion got here 7 weeks ago the attendance was about 35 members on sunday. When I got here it was about 50, but we have been working like crazy to re-activate the ward here. We got 71 people to church yesterday, and our goal is to have 100 active members by the end of next month. Its really hard here, because there isnt much priesthood, we have barely enough to run the branch. At one point the Layco branch was about to become a Ward, and the people were way positive, with an attendance of like 130+ people, but they changed the president because he got called to be an area seventy, and a whole ton of members went inactive. The branch has like 472 members in its records, 400+ of which are inactive or less active, so this week we have planned to visit 2 inactive families every day if possible.

Part of the reason that the branch is so lame is because for months there have only been lazy inicuo missionaries here, I`m the first gringo here in 7 months. Its hard because there are a lot of latinos who don`t want to be here (especially guatemaltecos), and if you pair two of them up they will hardly do any work for the entire change. I don`t think its a racial thing, but rather a lame tradition in this mission that when a new latino comes here, all the bad latinos corrupt them and say stuff like "dont be so fletchone like the gringos" its really lame. Thankfully there are a lot of missionaries who do want to be here, even from Guatemala. And my companion and I really want to work hard here. They say that I am in the hardest zone in the entire mission, in one of the hardest areas to baptize. They call it "el area de castigo" because president only sends missionaries here to punish them haha. But I still feel like we can do some work here, its just hard because there are a lot of problems with the branch. But we have a good number of investigators, some of which are progressing, and I think we can baptise by the end of this change.

FYI I havent been bringing my camera out while I work, so i really dont have any pictures of my work or my area. The area is relatively safe if you are just working like normal, but there are some areas that are just really ganged out and dangerous. One colony we have to enter from the top end, because the bottom is way dangerous. In another colony if you want to enter you have to pay rent, and the gangsters walk around shirtless showing off their gang tats, which is like the most blatant way to show they are gangsters, they are the ones that will kill you if you disrepect them. But for the most part I havent really had any trouble with gangsters on my mission, only with Drunk people (which there are a ton of). My first week here in layco, drunk people asked me for money almost every day. I usually just gauge what kinda person they are, if they look like they are trying to test me to see if I give them money, I give it to them, but if they are just a crazy drunk who is begging so that he can get more smashed I just tell him no, or that I dont have any to give him. One time a drunk guy came up and asked for some change and I asked him, what are you going to do with it? And he told me that he wasnt going to lie he just wanted to buy alcohol, so I told him, "look Im a missionary, and something that we teach is that you should never ever drink alcohol, so it would be dishonest of me to give you money when I know you are going to use it for that purpose" and I just looked back to what I was doing and he went away. haha. I have to say the mission has made me HATE drunk people, really if you want to get me in a bad mood, just come up and bother me while you are drunk.

Oh yeah like the title says, i Have 200 days in the mission. only 43 more, and I will be at the 1/3 mark! yeehah. I still feel like I just started, maybe because its only my second area. Oh btw we have an investigator whose name is "Dulce Amor" hahaha or Sweet Love in english. And thats really her name. But she really is a way nice person, like the godmother of her community haha.

Teresa good luck on the mission. BTW there is an article in the Liahona of September from a missionary in Taichung Taiwan, who converted a guy he met on a scooter.

Let me know if anything cool happens.

Love,

Elder DeVictoria.

Week 19 in El Salvador: Guess Where I Am

2010-08-23T10:42:00.000-07:00

Tengan muy buenos dìas cada uno de ustedes (thats what the venders on the busses say),
Haha well actually I`m pretty close to where I just was, I just got transfered 2 zones away, and now I`m in the very very center of San Salvador. If you look on a map, it is right where they put the star for the capital. The Zone is called Layco, and just a fun bit of history, even though our branch is Tiny, our meetinghouse was the very first constructed in El Salvador. Granted it has been remodeled like 2 times, but yeah. We also have the distribution center for El Salvador in our area, which is pretty cool. I have heard a whole bunch of rumors about this area, that it is really hard to baptise here, and that the people arent receptive, but I am very optimistic, because in 4 days, I have realized that this area is like 2-3 times bigger than my last area, and the people are actually more receptive. So we have plenty of work to do here. Actually we have 3 possible baptisms for next saturday too. I am actually really happy to be here, because my new companion is a boss. I was praying all of the end of last change that I would get a companion who is obedient, and wants to work hard. Not that my last companion was disobedient, but it was just hard to stay at the work sometimes. But I definitely got my wish, my companion is named Elder Fabiàn, and he is really great at missionary work. He was trained by an ex-ap who extended his mission and requested to train him. He is way focused in a good way. I`m really happy though, because I feel like I wasn`t really trained properly, and my second companion wasnt either, but now I get a chance to actually be trained the right way. I think president sent me here just for that. He is slightly phisically-handicapped, but he has never complained, and he keeps up a good pace for work, which makes up for a slightly slower walking speed. I`m really hoping this change will be a good one.
The people say that this area is more dangerous than my last one, but I think that you are just more likely to get robbed here. In my last area they just shoot you if you make them mad, so Its probably a blessing. And since there are a lot more streets, there won`t be as many murders "on my street" anymore. It is a lot more urban here. My last are was like suburbs. But now im in the strait urban area. I even took a picture so you guys can get a feel for what it looks like here (btw that great and abominable church in the background is the "Luz del mundo" which is a church started by a mexican guy who claims he was called as a new apostle, and that an apostle is more important that a prophet. Luckily it is a relitively small population church, and no they dont use all those floors.)
I kinda got jacked when I got here, because the last missionaries didn`t leave any money for breakfast, or any food, and our cook only gives us lunch because we live kinda far away. So basically I havent eaten breakfast for a couple days, and sometimes we dont eat dinner, because my comp just likes to work until 9 (which is actually a good thing) But I get more money at the start of september.
I`m kinda bummed that I got transfered and left a family to get baptised in my old area, but I`m gonna see if I can go to their baptism, because it is only like 45 minutes away. I definitely miss the people in my old area, I felt so sad my last day in Las Cañas....
Okay well I don`t whole lot more to say, Teresa, good luck on the mission, and have fun in the MTC, because that is one of the funnest parts of the mission. Sam good luck in school this year, make sure you go all out so that you can graduate, do the night school if you have to, I promise you its worth it. Danny leave my old stuff alone haha. Mom have fun teaching seminary and making lunches :P. And dad thanks for your paranoid letter haha.
Ps: I think I allready asked you this, but are you forwarding my letters to grandma and grandpa A? because I don`t really have much time to write hand written letters, And they don`t use the internet. So if not, could you print out all my letters and mail them to them, so that they can read them? they have sent me like 3 of their family letters, and a couple other ones, but we cant write hand written letters except on Pday, and pday ends at 6 pm, so I really dont have very much time to do that.
Thanks a lot,
Con Amor,
Elder DeVictoria

Week 18 in El Salvador: Hello Fam Bam

2010-08-16T13:21:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone back home,

Hope everyone is doing good.

Our baptizm fell through again because of papers.....but they are gonna get baptised this weekend. We have three baptisms planned for this weekend, but its gonna be some new elder who is here for them. I still don`t know if I`m leaving, but Its pretty depressing that I most likely wont be here to see them get married and baptised. I really don`t want to leave this area right now, because the members here are way cool, and all the work we did this transfer is for a baptism that will happen right at the start of the next change..But on a happier note, I`m still doing good here, and trying to work my hardest. I hope you guys are being blessed for my service lol.

Thanks for the linguistic lessons, I`m still working on it. Right now my main goal is to learn to be able to whistle really louds, I`ve been working on it for over a week. Still no real signs of success on that front.

I feel kinda bad that we didnt baptise last change...I think we have just been working wrong, or something, but I am willing to work to make that better. My goals are a lot higher now.

I hope Teresa, Sam and Danny are good. Teresa, good luck on the mission, get me stuff from china, and I`ll get you stuff from El Salvador. Sam keep preparing for the mission, and make sure you do Everything possible to graduate this year. Set your own goals high, and dont worry about what mom and dad say. Danny keep working hard, say high to all the people in the neighborhood for me, and remember that you cant only play video games, you have to balance your interests.

Send me more pictures if you can haha. I`m gonna send a bunch.

Lo Siento por Abuelo Joe.

Espero que todo està bien allà.

Love Elder DeVictoria.

Week 17 in El Salvador: Tomorrow is 6 Months!

2010-08-09T10:30:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone,
Well as my title says, Tomorrow I will have 6 months in the mission woohoo! 1/4 down almost. I miss the MTC lol. but yeah the mission has been way good for me so far. I´m still in this same area, but this 18th of August is the transfers, and I´m about 80% sure that I´m going this time. I have no Idea where though lol. It is still raining every single night, and usually starts at around 7:00 pm. So If I´m gonna go out to the country where its hot, I hope I got now while its still Cool. I guess it just gets rediculously hot out in the "oriental" as they say. Personally I hope that I stay in close to the center. I don´t have anymore stomach problems at all, so I´m pretty sure it was just a vius. All i have now is some phlem in my throat/lungs still. And I think I gave it to my companion.
As for what you said grandma, I DEFINITELY appreciate the USA haha! All the gringos down here allways talk to each other about how great America is. I guess its kinda prideful, but I am definitely thankful to have been born in such a prosperous country. It definitely gives me the opportunity to progress.
I guess teresa knows alllllll the secrets now. Its too bad, I was thinking that we could keep teresa out of the cool kids club for longer.
I can´t tell you how much I miss American food. El Salvadorian food is just not all that good. The only thing I really like is pupusas, I know I´ve allready told you this. But Mexican food is probably 8 times better than el Salvadorian food. But the people are great so I can endure the gross food.
We are stillw roking to baptise this family. We put a date for the 14th of august, but it is all dependant if we can get their papers together this week. Its gonna suck If I taught this family for a whole transfer and then I have to leave and someone else comes and baptized them their first week here, not even knowing their story or personality. At least they will get baptized though. Thats all that really matters. And I know that they will, its just a matter of getting everything done legally.
Well I don´t have that much more to say. Just know that I love you guys and I´ll see you in 18 months. And its is AWESOME that me and teresa get home the same month! Hahaha,
Send me a chinese book so I can catch up.
Much love, Elder DeVictoria.

Week 16 in El Salvador: Ni Hao Ma?

2010-08-02T09:13:00.000-07:00

Wo shur Elder DeVictoria und ich spreken todos las idiomas.
Hows Sunny California? Its still raining here. Pretty much every day it rains, usually in the night. There are some stinking cat outside our house that are a just soooo annoying, I guess its that "special time" of the year when all the cat are just hungry for kittens...but starting at like 4 in the morning these stinkin cats are just howling and howling! oh my gosh I´ve never wanted to kill a cat so bad in my life. Also our next door neighbors think that the best way to wake up at 5 in the morning is to a good old fashioned 3 hours of gangster regatone at full volume. So basically we just have to sleep through a bunch of music every day. I don´t know if this song is as popular up there, but there is one called "baby baby baby oh" by some white kid that they just love down here. I´m guessing its pretty popular up there, because everything that is popular up there is popular down here. Fun trivia fact, you cant buy real DVDs, or CDs here, its is ALL pirated, I havent seen a real DVD for sale since I got here, not even in walmart, because they know that they cant beat the thousands of stalls around the country. I guess its just not really a law here, they police dont do anything at all, they just sell them in huge stalls alll over the place.
Well I am still sick, but not in the stomach, I just have like my yearly bronchitis again. I think I either got a virus, parasites or dengue, but they say dengue lasts longer than 2 days, and if it is parasites, I should have a fat attack of diareah, fever and stomach pains again in the next 1 or 2 weeks. But we´ll see what happens, I think it was just a virus, because everyone is getting sick right now, members, investigators, missionaries and all. There are definitely a lot of interesting smells down here, I think the most disgusting is the smell of putrid rancid soaper water that is just full of bacteria and has been sitting for weeks. Bleah its like a black color and its just disgusting. The trash smells pretty bad too a lot of times. But we are still working. We didn´t have a baptism last month, which is kinda depressing, but the same family we have been woprking on their papers are really close, they just have to wait 9 more days to get her new birth certificate, then we can take out her ID card, then we can marry them, then they can get baptized. But they are way positive, they have gone to church 5 weeks together without missing a week, and they fasted and payed fast offerings yesterday. How is that for powerful convert lol. But yeah I really hope that we can baptize them before this change ends, because I´m pretty sure I´m gonna go, and I don´t want to go the whole change without baptizing, because that looks really bad. We are putting a date for this 14 of August. Keep the Lopez Alvarado family in your prayers!
Anyways, all the missionaries just left this room, so I need to get off, but I hope all is well in paradise. I heard from all my friends from school this week which was pretty cool, the oldest one has 13 months allready! wow. But yeah I´m not too far behind hehe. PS: I hope you are forwarding these to grandma A, because I havent been writing her by hand because I thought you were.
PPS: Tell grandpa Joe I said Hola, and that I hope Puerto rico is treating him good, I´ve met a couple returned missionaries here who served there.
Adios pues Adios,
Elder DeVictoria

Week 15 in El Salvador: Weekly Email

2010-07-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

Dear everyone,
I hope all is going well, I´m more or less okay here in El Salvador, I got a little sick on saturday. But other than that I feel allright today. Still working to gett his family baptized. the only thing stopping them still is their documents. But we are working on that. At least we will baptize them this transfer. Its pretty bad here if you don´t baptize for a whole transfer. Elder Suarez is kinda funny, every time we dont comply with our goals for the week he gets sooo depressed. But its halarious, because he sets the same goals every week, and they are the "standards or excelence" that the mission president puts. I don´t know I don´t agree with his way of planning, but I´m not senior comp so I don´t complain at all lol. I could machete him with Preach my gospel a lot about planning, but I don´t. because the planning doesnt even really change how we work that much. We just try to keep our days filled and busy, and Personally I don´t worry about the numbers that much. Because I know elders that teach 30 lessons a week for a whole transfer and never baptize, and I know other elders that teach below the standards of excelence and baptise tons of people.
It was pretty cool getting a lot of emails this week. Even though mom basically sent me the same letter as last week, with a couple additions lol. Btw, MOM and DAD why are you buying SAM a truck and not me? And second question why does he only have to graduate from seminary and not high school? Oh well I´ll just get one when I get home. Btw did you guys sell the buell yet? (question with an obvious answer)
Its kinda sad how little I have to write to you guys. I´m in the same area, and we dont have a whole lot of investigators. But 3 more people got shot on our street this week. so we are at a running total of 7 since I´ve gotten here. Thanks for sending me the Arizona law thing. Its kinda interesting. Its not really any different than what allready existed, other than the policemen are now intructed to question suspicious people about their immigration status.
Teresa should practice chinese with you guys. It will help a lot if you can get to the mission allready speaking chinese.
Bleah my stomach hurts, well hope alls well in paradise. Let me know if anything cool goes down.
Love,
Elder DeVictoria.

Week 14: Transfer 3, Week 2

2010-07-19T21:48:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody,
How is it going? Everything is just about the same down here. Still trying to get people to get baptized. We are teaching a couple families, but only one of them is going to get baptised. The sucky thing is that we have to change her name, take out her national ID card, and get them married before we can baptize them. Bleah. Why dont people just get married... We have a new District leader now, hes named Elder Streeter. This week was pretty much the same as any other week. And El salvador is just as ghetto as normal, a guy got killed in our street again yesterday which makes murder number 4 in our street since I´ve been here. I should take a picture of all the gang tags all over the walls where We live, and the 30 pairs of shoes hanging from the power lines outside our house. But actually we are perfectly safe, because the gangsters know we live there, and we always say good night to them every day, and they are all positive and say it back. Sam sam sam. I just image that you are playing Xbox 360 every minute of the day that you are not busy saving plastic babies. Russ is gonna fool you one day. Tell all those gangsters at the water park that Joe D says hi. I don´t really know what more I can say, its kinda a boring week. They did give us 198 dollars extra on accident and I had to send it all back in cash today. So we took some cool pictures with both of our extra cash like gangsta ballah pics. lol. The members in this ward are really cool. I´m thinking about buying some gifts for the people that siempre give us food and shelter whenever we pass by. Thats something that I plan on doing when I get home is making sure the Elders are always welcome in the house lol. because now that I know what they want/are going through, its pretty cool. we always talk with members about their missions, and they are always asking us about how the mission is now and stuff.
Utah sounds pretty boring this year, you guys will probably have a really wussy parade lol. I hope dad is enjoying the motorcycle, it sounds/looks like its a lot more fun that his old dike bike. I wish I had a motorcycle down here, I swear we spend like 25 bucks on just bus fares every month each. And they only cost 20 cents lol. Did I tell you guys I have a list of things that I want to do when I get home. ITs pretty cool. I´m just gonna go down the list lol. Only 20 days more and I have 6 months in the mission!!! woot woot. It is pretty cool to be able to understand spanish now. I wouldnt say I am fluent, far from it, but I can definitely follow and participate in a conversation now without too much trouble. But yeah hopefully by the end of the mission I will be able to speak without even thinking about it. I really need to work on my accent.
I really don´t have a whole lot more to say, ask me questions if theres something more you want to know. Sorry for the boring letter,
Much Luv,
KittenKittyLoverXOXO

Week 13 Pictures

2010-07-19T21:45:00.001-07:00