Mar. 16, 2020 -- When the Going gets Tough, the Tough get Going

Travel log: 8 months - 33%

Weather: upper 90s everyday - dusty

Health report: suffering from extreme tan lines on the elbows, neck, and watch area

Mental wellness: forgets how to say lots of things in english

Holy smokes! How crazy is that. Happy 8 months for those of you in the MTC gang that may be out there listening. Time flies. 

So you may have wondered, "What does one do with there garbage in Usulután?" If so, today is your lucky day. We always put our garbage in plastic bags left over from grocery shopping and then put them next to a sign that says "Don't Put Your Garbage Here." This is the spot where the garbage truck comes to take away the neighborhood's garbage, so I'm not really sure how that all works. But! There is another option. Almost everyone chooses to use . . . the dirty river! It is literally a river behind our house that is pure sewage and drain water, and it is also where everyone just dumps all their trash. It is kind of gross and slightly worrying for global health. But, yeah, that river is right outside our back door. 

Here we have a quick flashback to about five months ago:
To set the scene, greenie Elder Harris with his trainer Elder Peck are waiting in the bus station of Usulután (my current area) to go to Jucuapa (my first area). A young man walks up to us and says, "Hey can I ask you guys a question? I just heard that you guys worship some John Smith or something." We started to explain about Christ and who Joseph Smith was, and he let us talk for a couple minutes. Then he jumps in and says, "Nah, I'm a returned missionary here and just wanted to mess with you! See you later!" I thought it was the last I would see of this prankster, but here he is in my current ward and his family gives us dinner once a week. Kind of funny.

This week I saw 6 iguanas in one day. They are big and super fast. They say that these ones can run on water, but I have yet to see it. 

I finally took cousin Zach Payne's advice and bought myself a thing of mini M&M's to put coins in. It is the perfect size. I don't know why I didn't recognize this wisdom earlier. 

Last week I mentioned Kevin, a super cool kid that can't talk but wants to get baptized. With all the craziness of cancelling church and things, it looks like we won't be the ones to baptize him, but he'll do it in the states. He is super great. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he takes it everywhere around the house with him and started typing it out word for word on his tablet.

Man, there is an older couple here that is just super sweet. They normally give us dinner once a week, but this week they called us and felt really bad because they didn't have money to buy dinner the night we were going to go with them. It just breaks my heart. We are really very lucky in the states. Lots of people have very tough lives. But, what I think is most important, is that lots of these people that are very poor are very happy. Happiness is all about attitude, not circumstance. 

So, I didn't want to be cliché and talk about coronavirus, but I'm going to. I'm pretty sure pretty much the whole world is panicking about this craziness. We are sort of out of the loop, but word on the street is that it still isn't in the country.

When we get information about things like that, it looks like a drug deal or something. Here's the scene: Young men waiting on an isolated park bench in white shirts and ties. Two similarly dressed young men enter with a black plastic bag. They give the bag to the men on the park bench and in return receive a bottle with a clear substance from a cardboard box. Excited conversation, handshakes, and everyone disperses.

Haha, we had to deliver some baptismal clothes (the bag) and our zone leaders gave us a big bottle of hand sanitizer. Then we get the blackmarkert information that they brought from San Salvador: 

"Hey! We just came from the mission offices and the secretaries say that nobody is going to attend general conference! And Rudy Gobert has coronavirus!" 

"No way! Those are both extremely tragic events!"

They put the country in quarantine and nobody can enter. Everyone here has school cancelled too, and it is just a little crazy. The big talk is about if they're going to put a mandatory schedule if the virus enters. It would be something like people can only be outside from 12-2. We will see. But, we don't have any problems with toilet paper shortages, so things are pretty good. We had church cancelled, but the stake president authorized priesthood holders to do it in their homes, so we had the sacrament with some members. It was kind of cool and made me remember reading stories about Latter-Day Saint soldiers in WWII breaking the sacrament in their foxhole. It is interesting how things like "Come, Follow Me" help us be spiritually self-reliant and be ready for crazy things like this. Also, this Friday was Friday the 13th. Some sort of connection? I don't know...

Anyways, with all the craziness, it can be a little frustrating and discouraging, but I let the subject line there be my little mantra that I repeat to myself. When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

So, that's all for this week. I'll see you all next time if the world hasn't collapsed. Here I have some pictures of intestines inflated like balloons to make sausages, a tie-fighter that I cut out of the back of a cereal box (I have to walk like half an hour both ways to buy cereal, but it was definitely worth it), and our 11 bags of water bags. Woo-hoo. We're all set. President sent us to the store today with an extra $50 too to stockpile a bunch of groceries. 

See you around,

Elder Harris