Week 4 (Campestre, Atiquizaya)

This week has flown by. It is so crazy here. There are dogs in the street. There are wild herds of 4 or 5 horses roaming the streets. Luckily the heat isn’t bad here at all. When I landed in San Salvador it was so humid, like unbearably, but as we drove to Santa Ana it got better. 

The area I am in is called Campestre. It is huge. It is close to the city Authhcupan something like that haha. The members here are so nice, there are about 50 in the ward. The building is really nice, but it is surrounded by pointy gates haha. The rest of the houses are tiny shacks. The roads are dirt and rocks. Our house is super nice, and it is just me and my companion in it. His name is Elder Rosales from Nicaragua. He is really cool.

We can´t buy instruments here. The Spanish here is really hard to understand though. They use a lot of slang and talk really fast and really soft. Which I don´t get why because they blast their music so loud, like their speakers are as big as their houses, so you think everyone would be deaf and had to talk loud.

Today there was an earthquake, I think I ate something bad yesterday because I had diarrhea this morning and almost threw up on the bus and now I just feel like crap. But good thing it is p-day haha.

Other than that the food is really good, except I had fish already. Luckily it wasn’t that bad, it was fried, and had the texture almost like chicken. So basically it was chicken fingers. I also doused it in ketchup. It has only rainded a couple times here, but when it rains it pours, and is super loud. We have been contacting a lot going door to door, and luckily everyone here is super nice and believes in Jesus Christ Like everywhere you see posters of Jesus. And they also can’t slam their doors, cause they don’t have real doors haha. But it also sucks cause everyone goes to a different church and aren´t interested.

We  taught a couple lessons though, which is hard cause I can´t join in as much cause I can´t understand the people. It is crazy though, everywhere you see people standing outside with shotguns haha, also my front door neighbor is a drug dealer.

Two days ago was cool, we were going to have a lesson with an inactive family named the Campos, but the husband, the only member in the family, wasn’t there, so it was just his wife and his kid. The kids name is Frank and he is two, and he is the cutest fattest kid with a super high voice. Haha but so we couldn’t go inside, a so we just sat on her porch and talked, it was dark because it gets dark at like 6:30
here.  But then her neighbor came, and she’s a single mom named Karin, and she asked me to read her sons English homework while she recorded me so he could hear the right pronunciation. After that we just talked to the two moms for like an hour, but it started off talking about our lives and then at the end it turned super spiritual. So we have lessons with them tonight I think, so hopefully it goes well.

 

Also I am getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, so I will probably have zika in no time haha. Other than that I am loving the country and the members here. Hope all is going well at home
 
Love Elder Blanchard

Week 3 (Arriving in El Salvador)

I got here safely, the flight kind of sucked cause I didn’t get any sleep. But we got there, went through customs and it took a while to find the president but we eventually found him. It was so hot the second we stepped outside, but luckily it is so much less humid in Santa Ana than San Salvador. I got to go with two missionaries on their route and it was really cool, it is really different, and they speak really fast. Well I don’t have zika yet so that’s good. I don’t get to write much but everything is going well. We get our new companions tomorrow
 

 Love elder Blanchard

_____________

Dear Missionary Family,

We are happy to announce that your missionary has safely arrived in our mission. We were able to spend a day of orientation with this new group and they are all excited to begin their missionary work. We are grateful for the sacrifices you and your missionary have made that allow them to be here. We pray that our Lord Jesus Christ will pour out his blessings upon your family. We are very happy to have your missionary with us and know they can be a blessing in the lives of many people here in this beautiful country. Through diligence hard work, obedience and love of the Lord and the people of El Salvador, they can have great success.

Sincerely,

President and Sister Spjut

Companion: Elder Rosales from Nicaragua

 

Area of service: Campestre, in Atiquizaya Stake  

 

Week 2 1/2 (MTC)

So they are giving us a little time to do laundry and write emails today because we won't be able to on Monday. I’m excited to leave.
 
First off you know how I was talking about that TRC investigator? Well we had our last lesson with him yesterday and it went really well. He came to the lesson having read Alma chapter 13 which was where Alma was teaching Zeezrom about the gospel and about repentance and the atonement, and he said he really liked how clear it was, and he was talking about how he loves how we can be clean through this process, so we talked about that for a few minutes, and then my companion said that we can become clean through Christ and that we should be like him. He then went to Matthew chapter 3 and we read about his baptism.

Sergio ( the investigator) said he liked how even though Jesus didn't need to be baptized he did it to cumplir toda justicia, and after that I told him my favorite phrase of the scripture is when it says there was a voice that said this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased, and I told him Heavenly Father says this about all his children who get baptized, and then I said, he wants to say it about you, and then I invited him to be baptized, which the spirit helped me say the invitation perfectly. He thought about it a little bit, said he wants to learn a little more first, but then he said he wants to. It was really cool, we set a date for him to be baptized next Saturday because he leaves for Mexico in 2 weeks.

I got to host some new missionaries this Wednesday and it was pretty fun. Although there was this one kid who had three massive luggage’s and as the host I took the two heaviest ones, which wasn't too bad at first because it had the cool wheels that you can push in any direction, but when I took him to show him his room, it ended up being on the 4th floor. We don't have elevators. You have to go up a set of stairs to get the first floor. I am not strong. I have never struggled so much in my life. My arms are still sore from this experience. When we got to his room, his key didn't work. I was about to cry because that meant I had to take his luggage back to the front of the MTC so I could exchange the key. Luckily right as I was about to turn around, another host with his new missionary came and were in the same room, which they had had trouble with the key too so they had already gone to get a new key. It ended up being a problem with the lock but we eventually pried it open with the new key, so I didn't have to go back to the office with the luggage.
My flight leaves at 1:02 am but I have to leave the MTC at 9:45 pm on Sunday. Once I get there I can call you guys so be ready for that.
 
I have no pictures this week because I don't have my camera with me right now because I wasn't
expecting to be able to write. Plus I think I only took one picture this week. We might go on a temple walk tomorrow with our branch so I will have lots of pictures of that if we do go.
 
Love Elder Blanchard