Week 30 (Nopal)

Hey this week was another good one. The Hermano S..... came to church again this week. When we asked him if he was going to come he said, nothing can stop me from coming, nothing is going to knock me off this path, and then he showed up an hour early to church all ready, and we didn’t even have to pass by for him. 

He liked it a lot and participates a lot. The only problem is we have another situation with a crazy wife. They aren’t married and she refuses to get married. 

Saturday morning we did some more service and were talking with her and she was joking with us and super nice, and then last night we went by to talk with S....., and she came and started bawling saying how she doesn’t want us to come over anymore and a bunch of other stuff. Then S..... came out and we just sat out in the dirt talking in the dark, because he doesn’t have lights. 

They are super poor and their house is a couple of logs coming out of the ground with black garbage bags nailed to the poles. He believes she is possessed by a demon. I just think she is bipolar or something. So this will be a challenge because he can’t get baptized if he continues to live with her without getting married.   

We have a couple more people who are progressing. We have a baptism next week so hopefully everything works out, because it’s the guy who works in San Salvador during the week so is only home during the weekends. So pray for R..... if you can so he can be baptized on the 18th.

Everything is still going good, we met a couple really interesting people this week. We had a lot of rejections that were really funny. There’s one guy in the area that you knock on his door, he opens it sees us and just says a bad word and closes the door. Also I have been helping the stake president in his school cause he teaches English so I have been doing the oral tests, and that is really fun.

Everything is going good though, a couple other things happened but I just ran out of time to write.

Hope everything is going good.

Love elder Blanchard

Week 29 (Nopal)

This week was really good.

I’m loving this new area and my new comp. We had the baptism this week and it went really well. The baptism we had for next week fell through because he didn’t come to church, because he had to work. So that sucked. 

This week though we put another date for  a guy who has met with missionaries on and off for 3 years. He has never come to church. Until this week. We did some service with him and worked really hard with him, and he came to church and basically put the date for himself because he asked when the next baptism was and said he would see if he was ready by then. It will take a lot of work cause he’s not married with his wife, and apparently he smokes  a lot of pot. 

Our investigator is literally a white grandpa. He's got a Harley, likes hunting, wears cowboy boots and has gnomes.  He is our front door neighbor. He's whiter than me.

The members are super nice here too but they didn’t really work but that’s alright.

Being district leader is super nice but it kind of sucks because I get less sleep, but I have a feeling my nights of going to bed somewhat early are done.

The work here is going good.  Me and my comp have a lot of fun contacting people now because we are both pretty bold and we get along with the people really well. We just start off by talking to people and just getting to know them and we get them super comfortable. It’s amazing how much of a difference it makes for people to let us in when one of the comps isn’t super angry and does the voicemail routine.

Well apparently holding animals is against the mission rules. So ignore these pictures.

 

Also my new comp is a Latino who can sing. It’s so nice, now  we can actually start lessons with singing, and it invites the spirit instead of scaring it away haha. 

My old comp misses me though, he’s called me a couple of times to see how I’m doing.  Also I have been seeing a lot of the members from the old ward and I saw the investigator who was afraid to leave his wife in the road cause he sells juice on his bike.

My area is five minutes from my old one so it’s nice seeing the old members but weird too.

Pic from my old area, a road I hated to walk on because it took us 40 mins to walk.

 

This week a bunch of us got an email from the US embassy  saying that being here is super dangerous and to be careful haha. My area is even more chill than my last one.

Have a good week.

Love Elder Blanchard

Week 28 (Nopal)

Hey this week was really good. I ended up having transfers. I am now in an area called Nopal- It is five minutes away from my old area, but it is so different. I am now a district leader and my comp is Elder Cerdas from Mexico. He’s super cool and we get a long super well. He was comps with my old comp in the MTC so we have a lot of stories to share with each other haha. 

   

This area is super cool. The members are so nice, they give us lunch every day. The recent converts are so cool. The investigators are super cool too.

We have a baptism this week. She is J....., and is 92 years old haha. Then next week we have another baptism with our front door neighbor. It’s hard though cause he is only here the weekends and right now he is thinking it’s a little too early but  we will try to work with him to feel comfortable- Then we are trying right now to put a date for the week after that. 

We are working hard, and having fun. I am also going to get really skinny because in my last area I was getting a little fat. But here there are a lot a parts with crazy dirt stairs which you will see in the pictures. It’s all hills too.

 

I am already super close with the ZLs too. One went to me school I didn’t know him and the other went to Alta. I knew them before this area and we were already good friends. Now they live up the street from me. One was the AP when I got here to the mission and he picked me up from the airport. So I am loving this area right now.

Hope everything is going at home.

Love Elder Blanchard

Week 27 (Campestre, Atiquizaya)

Well still no news of transfers yet. I am feeling super anxious and nervous. I am so ready for a change haha. No the stories about my comp were not fake or a joke. He literally wanted to break my face. But I have officially diagnosed my comp with Bipolar because Monday night he was back to loving me. 

We didn’t really have any problems this week, other than him not really wanting to work. These past three months have been really difficult but the crazy thing is I have never felt not happy. 

Some action shots of me enjoying a cantelope popsicle.

This week we were visiting a member who is an ex bishop and right now high council member. He is a super tiny old man who is the hardest working member I have ever met. 

We were on interchanges and one of the zone leaders came with us. Well we started singing The Spirit of God and just felt so much happiness and excitement for the work, and then the member was talking about how he is sure he will live to be 100 because he prays every night for it because he wants to continue working. 

And then after that lesson we went to have a lesson with an investigator we just barely found and it was a super powerful lesson. These experiences kind of rekindled my enthusiasm and was a cool tender mercy. It was also nice being on interchanges because it’s nice having someone teach with me. This week we found a lot of new people so that should be good. We had a couple of really good lessons. But right now all I can really think about is changes. I could barely sleep last night.

This laguna was super dirty, so i decided to teach repentance unto it.

We had a stake conference this week and that was really good. Elder Alonso from the seventy came and spoke. Our mission president spoke too. Then the temple president from San Salvador. It was super good. Well the first part was boring. The counselor to the stake president gave a super boring talk on tithing to start everything off. Basically everyone was sleeping. 

Then the person announcing the changes did a terrible job and Elder Alonso was super mad with him and got up and tried to correct him. Then when Elder Alonso spoke he was talking super loud and had a lot of energy and was super funny and everyone woke up and payed attention.

Other than that nothing really happened.

I guess next week I’ll write you to say if I had changes or not.

Have a good week.

Love,

 
Elder Blanchard