My Journal for the last month. Wedding, baptisms, and Cockroaches
I really haven't had a lot of time to journal in the past weeks, so this email is kind of going to be my opportunity to journal down the most meaningful things for me in the last month while I have a computer for a few hours. Enjoy!
Carlos and Sarai
I think I told you guys about how on our 2nd day here we found a crazy guy on the street named Edwin who brought us over to his family. Well now we've found that his sister Roxanna is an inactive church member who was baptised when she was about 15, and stopped going when her daughter was born. She was converted when she was given a Book of Mormon and chose to try and read it even though she didn't know how to read before. But with that book Roxanna not only learned how to read, but she felt the spirit testify to her heart and mind the truthfulness of the gospel and was baptised!
Well anyways that was like 30 years ago, but now when we found her family thanks to Edwin, we started meeting with Roxanna's daughter, Sarai, who now has a daughter of her own. By meeting with her we also found her boyfriend Carlos, and the both of them are incredible and were very ready to receive us. From day one Carlos opened up and shared with us that he had spent a lot of his life in worldly things, and it never brought him joy, but now that he has his little family with his girlfriend and little 1.5yr old daughter Evelyn, he wants to make some changes in his life and give his family a better life than he had.
(He had a rough family life and began to live on the streets at about 8 years old during a time in this country where gangsters were the government. He went through a lot during those 10 years before he joined the army at 18 years old, where he served for several years as a commando, but now serves in a more relaxed job as security to a higher officer so he has more time to help out with raising his daughter and to go dirt biking up in the mountains with his buddies. But anyways back to the story)
But he shared with us his desire to leave the world behind and join God's side for the good of his personal salvation and for the greater good of his family. What a coincidence that God sent two authorised servants to their house on our second day in an area that neither I nor my companion have ever been, to share with him exactly how he can make those changes through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Familia Solano:
Wedding:
Baptism of Carlos and Sarai: 
The funniest part was after the baptism we leave the room all happy and hyped, and our buddy Edwin comes up to me and is like "Hey why didn't they thank me. You remember how I was the one who brought you over to their house man, they wouldn't even be here If it wasn't for me." Edwin needs a round of applause please. He also needs a whole other email to fit all the funny things he does. Here I'll try
- As we waited outside the house while Carlos and Sarai had their baptismal interviews, Edwin sits down next to us and starts telling us about how he likes to sing, so we ask him to sing one of his favorite songs for us. So he starts singing in a super high pitched voice some spanish love song. I tried so hard not to laugh but I ended up doing like a stiffled crying laugh instead.
- He usually finishes every thought with saying in a high pitched voice "NOESFACIL"
- He decided he wanted to hop on a bus to go visit the temple in the capital city of San Salvador, so we brought him over to the bus, he sat down all happy, and then we were like alright have fun! And he suddenly looked like a 5yr old on the bus to preschool for the first time and looked at us with puppy dog eyes and asked us if we were going too. Sorry bout that Edwin. But even though we sent him as a lamb to the slaughter he came back happy and had a great time so we are all good.
Edwin:
Meanwhile, there was the Familia Coc, who we also happened to find this past month and who ended up coming to the Baptism of Carlos and Sarai. This is how we found them...
F. Coc
One day we were walking down a road to a visit and suddenly Elder Harward says "There's someone in this street" Alrighty Elder Harward, I trust you, lets go. So we enter the street, start walking down looking at the doors, and then I say "It's this one" Alrighty, I trust you too Elder Johnson. Lets go.
We knock the door. No answer. We knock again. No answer. We knock a third time. No answer. Well DANGIT. (that's called a trial of faith, which always comes before miracles) We go to the next door (turned out it was just the garage door of the same house. Latin America houses are confusing okay) and then this lady comes out and looks at us surprised. We start talking to her, tell us we're missionaries, and she's like "Oh my husband served a mission like you guys too." WAT. We find out her husband is from Guatemala and served his mission here in El Salvador, and at some point after the mission he ended up moving here to El Salvador. We set up another time to visit when he'll be there.
4 weeks later we’re telling this story together in their house laughing about how the Mom, Yanira, totally heard us knock and was just ignoring us because she was busy, and she just thought we had left by then when she came out and to her surprise we were right there standing by her garage. Also turns out that the Dad, Julio, was on the corner of that street and watched the whole thing happen. He hadn't seen missionaries anywhere near his house in the 3 years they'd been living there, and he had been praying that God would send some to give him a priesthood blessing of healing for a condition he had been suffering. So he stood there on that street corner and watched as we stopped at his street, spoke to each other for a moment, then began walking down his street. He said to himself "If these Elders have the spirit, they are going to knock on that door" And sure enough we stop, turn, and knock right on his door.
Now they have gone to church as a family several times, we have heard a LOT of incredible stories from the mission of Julio and I don't have time or space to write all of that here, but they came to the baptism of Carlos and Sarai and had some powerful experiences with the spirit.
The mom, Yanira, tried to explain how she felt when she watched us go up to the front of the sacrament room to confirm Carlos and Sarai members of the church and give them the gift of the holy ghost (baptism by fire, the second ordinance in the baptismal covenant) She described it as a moment where suddenly it was as if nothing else in the room was there and she was just focused straight ahead at us, and then there was this slight smell of flowers and oil as a deep feeling of peace and calm came over her and we confirmed the gift of the Holy Ghost to Carlos and Sarai.
They're working with a lawyer so that they can nullify a past marriage with a crazy ex wife of Julio and get married so that Yanira can be baptised. Their son has also been reading the Book of Mormon and this week we’re hoping to put a baptismal date with them this week.
Familia Coc:
Well I’m kinda outta time but a quick review of where I am: it's a new transfer but i'm still in Casa Blanca with Elder Harward, just that another Elder has been added so we are in a trio with Elder Loma, and also we just got news that a fourth Elder will be joining our companionship today because he just had an operation for his appendix so he'll be recovering in our house for a few weeks and well just rotate us 4 to be taking care of him and also leaving to visit around.
Heres some counts
Pupusas: five hundred fifty somethin. I'll get back to you on that.
Cockroaches: 191
(we started a cockroach kill count cuz our new house has a lot. This is what we've gotten to in the last 3 weeks.)
All the photos: https://photos.app.
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