Week 98: Merry Christmas

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

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

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

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

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:

(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

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