Feb. 24, 2020 -- Best Man Lives in a Green-House

Hello from the dusty streets and jungley forests of El Salvador. Last week I said good-bye to the strange and yet familiar world of centro, with things like Walmart, American restaurants, and paved streets. Sometimes I just felt weirded out there, but now I am back to chickens, cows, houses made of sheet metal or clay, and a pace of life just a little more relaxed. We cross a little stream in the forest to get to church, and I am somehow a little more comfortable this way.

I live in a green-house. It is just really green. The walls and tile and everything is green. Although sometimes it can also feel like the other kind of green-house. But we do have some good things going for us. Our roof is sheet metal on top of rebar, and we have a piece of bed-frame hung from it to do pull-ups in the mornings. We also have enough water pressure to use a shower-head, so I took my first shower with a shower-head in about six months. 

Our neighbors often play loud music at random hours, and usually it is just super heavy base. But the other day they changed it up and were playing all the super classic songs in english like Ghostbusters, YMCA, Rock and Roll, and Stayin' Alive, so that was kind of fun. 

Here we always drink our water from bags. They come in these little blue-tinted bags that are 500 ml, just like a water bottle. This week we went through over 75 water bags between the two of us because of the heat. Thankfully we can buy 75 water bags for $3.00. Good old El Salvador. This week I also saw the biggest pig I've ever seen. It was huge. Like a small cow. Another thing I saw was a house with a lawn! There are very very few of those. I have maybe seen two or three in the whole mission, and they are usually pretty small. But this one was super big and green and beautiful and had a tree with a swing and lots of shade. I was insanely tempted to just go lie on it and cry tears of joy to see something that beautiful. I can't even explain it. Another thing I did this week was help a kid with their chemistry homework. That was interesting in spanish. I was thinking about electron orbitals and configurations and things all day after that. Took me back to good old AP Chem with Mr. Cruff! 

Sometimes while we are walking around there is suddenly a bunch of black, confetti-like stuff in the air that falls like black snow. It fills the whole sky and comes down pretty good. The first time I was super confused and asked about it. It turns out that after they harvest sugar cane, they burn the fields to clean them out, and the black stuff is all sugar cane ash. 

We visited one member and as we got there they had a trailer full of cement blocks they were unloading, so we helped them carry those in. They gave us directions to find some families we didn't know. The directions involved wild hand gestures and "turn left close to where the Chinese man lives." I love directions here. We visited another guy who told me it was a great honor to have the son of Donald Trump here. I was very flattered. This week I also saw a big old Taquazín! They are possums. I was sure it was a cat, but then it was a possum.

One funny story this week had to do with a drunk guy (as all funny stories do). We were walking along and some guy pulls over and unrolls his window. He says, "Hey, come here!" He already looks sort of shady, but we went over and shook his hand. He had his head shaved and had some tattoos, which almost always signify that you are a gang member here. He asked me where I was from and then took off his seat belt really fast and said he could give us a ride, so our alertness jumped up really fast. But he stayed in the car, and told us, "My girlfriend is coming from the United States this week," he said, pointing to me emphatically, "and I want you to be one of the witnesses for my wedding! It is this Thursday!" I guess he had lived in the states for a little and was just very excited to have a gringo as his wedding witness. He was very sure that this was the correct decision and repeated it several times to us. He asked for our phone number, so we wrote it on the back of a Restoration pamphlet and gave it to him before turning him down again for a ride in his car and continuing on our way, chuckling a little. Not two minutes later, he called us and asked me if I would be his witness. I explained that I wasn't sure if legally I could without being a citizen of El Salvador, but told him to talk to his lawyer and that he could call us again after that. Anyway, it was a funny story. Unfortunately, we had missed the last bus and turning his ride down meant we had to walk for an hour to get to our next appointment. 

It can be a little frustrating entering an area that has no investigators or baptismal dates and feeling like we have to start from scratch. Our area had one new investigator in the week before I got here, and the goal in the mission is 15. We also had one baptismal date, and I left Jucuapa with about 12. Sigh. So I guess we have our work cut out for us. But, I get along well with Elder Padilla. He was a mechanic and once got second place in a big top-spinning competition. And he played national baseball in Guatemala before quitting due to games on Sundays. He also talks in his sleep a lot, which sometimes startles me at night, but he's a good guy. 

Man, maybe I have said it a lot already, but it is crazy to me how fast the time goes. In primary and young men's and things we spend so much time talking about the mission, and now that it is here and I am living it, it passes way to fast! I already feel like it is going to be harder to leave El Salvador than it was to leave home. I think all of this has just helped me realize that we have such little time, so we really have to enjoy every minute of it we can. I think it is important to even enjoy the difficult and crazy different things, and maybe especially those things. A lot of happiness depends on attitude and not circumstance. Anyways. I am just really happy. I don't even know why. I struggle a bunch when I have to speak english to people now, it is crazy hot here, and we have a very demanding schedule. I sleep with a mosquito net and live on a dirt road. It is just kind of crazy, but living the gospel of Christ really brings a sort of resilient happiness. Life is sure amazing.

Pictured is the house with the pull-up bed and the super comfortable hammock with our millions of boxes of pamphlets in the background. I was also eating lunch one day with the member who makes it for us, when suddenly there was a kitten crawling up my pant-leg. Also included is a little sugar-cane ash, the smallest lizard I've ever seen, and Elder Padilla and I in a neighborhood that had streets made of gravel from those airy lava rocks. It was great. Zero dust and every step sounded like Minecraft. 

Elder Harris

Feb. 17, 2020 -- The Triumphant Return

So, spoiler, this week I had . . . EMERGENCY TRANSFERS! Stay tuned to see what comes next.

So, back in Soyapango everything was good. When I tell people I was there, they just always have wide open eyes and say, "Ooooh." One lady said, "Ah, Soya-panic-o." Haha. I just thought it was amusing because I really really enjoyed it there and thought it was pretty calm. It was a cool place. We visited one older lady there and my companion said something like, "Do you have any questions for us? Like why there are two super white guys here?" And she said, "Oh yeah, you guys are just like peeled yucca." Yucca is a sort of potato-like substance and looks the same as a potato inside, so that was flattering. We laughed a lot. In my area we also had not one, but TWO stop lights. So that was crazy. I also saw some big old iguanas running around of late. The members we ate lunch with have a whole bunch of instruments and had a violin, so I played them a little Devil's Dream. It might be a horrible sin to play a song with that title during the mission, but it was fun. I miss playing the violin.

Things were all good with Elder Bowman. We just got along super super well and had lots of fun. For one companionship study we played a game where one of us would just open up the Book of Mormon and start reading in a random spot, and the other would have to find where they were reading in their own Book of Mormon. We had a timer and played several rounds to see who knew their scriptures the best. It was a lot of fun. Anyways, it was just a blast being with him and working super hard.

So, we came home normal after a day's work and went to bed. Just after we prayed, turned off the light, and were nice and comfortable, Elder Bowman's phone goes off with the sound that means he got a text from President. He got up to see and said, "Uh-oh, elder, I think you're going to have to wake up." Turns out one of the elders needed some special doctoring help and was going to be staying with my comp so he could keep an eye on him. This meant that I was ejected from my area after just two weeks in "emergency transfers!" How exciting. And just when I finally got the house clean.

I stayed up and packed and in the morning caught the bus with my new companion for Usulután! It is a city back east in Oriente about an hour from my first area, Jucuapa. And it is hot. Really hot. February and March are the hottest and driest months in El Salvador, and I got to one of the hottest parts just in time to catch it! We spend our time walking down dirt streets with dust on the ground as thick as light snow, and the sun beating down without a cloud in the sky. After about an hour every day, my shoes are a nice light brown no matter what color they were when I started. Even at night when the sun has set or in the early morning we are just sweating and sweating and the heat never leaves. So this will be a little crazy, but I am super excited to try a little piece of everything. I actually enjoy it a lot here and it is amazingly pretty even though it is so hot. 

My new companion is Elder Padilla, from Guatemala. He is just a very pleasant guy. He plays the guitar really well and loves nothing more than his taser flashlight. We get along well. We went and visited some less active members and they taught us how to make pupusas, so I made my first. It was fun and everyone was very impressed that a gringo could make some. I also had to make a phone call to someone from the mission offices and just give them a phone number, but it was in english, and it was the hardest thing ever. I was stumbling over all my words and random spanish was coming out every second. This is not promising for my future dating life. 

Sometimes it is easy to shrug off the effort to share the gospel and just think, "Nah, they probably aren't really interested." We asked one lady for directions and she didn't seem super open, but we went the extra mile and tried to put an appointment. Then we visited her and she was super positive! She had lots of questions and didn't like it when churches paid their pastors, so we were super excited. I think you just never really know if someone will accept the gospel until you invite them.

This week I found out that Stiven and Miriam got baptized. They were two investigators I taught and have mentioned before. I was there when we started teaching them and invited them to be baptized, so that made me super happy that it all worked out.

Here in the pictures we have me and Elder Bowman with my suitcases and our planning board, a day in the office, and me and Elder Padilla in the streets of Usulután.

See you all around,

Abe

Feb. 7, 2020 -- Planimal Planet

Hello hello and welcome to Friday P-Day.

So just to clarify, my new companion is the mission doctor, but he is not, in fact, a middle aged man. He just studied medicine at BYU for a year. He is a normal missionary. So anyways. I have been learning lots of stuff about rabies and medicine and missionaries who make bad health decisions through him and his phone calls. But I am super pumped to be here with Elder Bowman. We get along well and he is very cool. We are just working super hard and are both committed to being super obedient, so this is just way fun. 

These last transfers while we were waiting around for our companions, the only ones in the office that weren't in a meeting for trainers were Elder Gunderson, Elder McMillan, and I. They were my MTC comp and other district member from our legendary district of 4 people 6'2'' and up in the MTC. Speaking of the MTC, I have a theory. They give us these nice leather scriptures in spanish, but I think they are like the factory seconds that just have a tiny defect so they can't sell them! Mine had one page that didn't have the tab cut out in the middle of the indentation and my comp had some other tiny thing wrong. If anyone can confirm, please do.

A lady here gave us some cookies from Canada! That was fun. They were good. This week we did some deep cleaning and I weeded . . . inside the house! First time doing that. This week there was also an air show here, so they were practicing over the city which was super cool. We are talking jets roaring overhead so close that you can see the little parts and details. They were doing loops with smoke trails, falling straight down and pulling up last minute, and all sorts of things. That was fun to see while we walking between appointments. 

This week we were walking up a dark street and hear, "Hermanos, catch that rabbit!" and then the rabbit comes running towards us. My companion shot and missed, but I caught it by the foot. First time catching a rabbit with nothing but my bare hands. Future hunting skill, maybe. But, we were able to put an appointment to go back and visit the lady for whom we caught the rabbit, so that was pretty nice. 

This week we also shared a super cool object lesson we have done with tons of people. Then we went back later and the family told us that it was a trick of the devil like when he told Jesus to turn stones into bread and that they didn't want to go to church. So that was too bad. I don't think I've ever had an object lesson go quite so poorly. Things like that are always discouraging even when it is just crazy people and not really your fault. 

As the doctor, my companion has to be in the mission office two days a week just in the morning, so sometimes I help the secretaries out with stuff. This week I went with one to the center of San Salvador because we had to buy a bus ticket for an elder. I saw the national palace, a big catholic cathedral, and some cool street art. We also drove past a Cannondale store, and I wanted more than anything to stop and go in. I do miss a pretty bike.

Today for P-Day, my comp and the secretaries went to a place called Los Planes. It is sort of like the El Salvador version of Bear Lake Shakes but with pupusas. Anyways, it is super famous and was a lot of fun. We went to a place called Boomwalos, which was a super cool place with three stories of open-air restaurant tables and cool decorations like barrels and wagon wheel chandeliers and stuff. It was super cool and had an incredible view of all of Centro. 

I also completely robbed an idea from Chipper and drew Planimal Planet on our planning board. I find it somewhat humorous.

Here is a spiritual thought from our mission president. He said that a lot of our happiness depends on our attitude about the commandments. We all have commandments from God that we need to live by. He said that if you happily comply, it is like cotton that we're carrying. But if the commandments become a burden, it is like carrying about big rocks. We have to carry the commandments no matter what, but we can decide if it is something easy or hard. If we make the commandments a burden, we're going to get tired and bitter, but if we enjoy them, we feel light and free. Kind of like how for most members of the church, not drinking coffee isn't a problem or a big regret. It's just cotton. I hope that makes sense.

Anyways, see you all on the flip side.

Elder Harris

The pictures are Planimal Planet, me in front of the new house, and the cool view in Los Planes.