Well family it's been another week, or so they tell me, it seems like only yesterday I was writing you guys an email. this past week was crazy to say the least. We had a baptism and a marriage on Saturday, and all sorts of meetings and stuff to do during the week. the baptism was really cool, I was the one that was chosen to baptize which made it was sweet. her name is C M, and she 40 ish with two kids. Unfortunately I am at a different cybercafe, and this one has USB connections instead of giving your card to the front desk, and I didn´t bring the cord, so no pictures... I'm sorry next week I promise ill make it happen. The wedding was awesome too, it was between R and P, P is a member but R isn´t and they have a two year old named M. R has really changed since I first met him. He has stopped smoking and really has a love for the gospel. It is awesome to see people change like that. He should be baptized this coming Sunday if everything goes according to plan. Mango season has officially started and I am loving it! I could literally eat them all day, here they have different varieties than in the states, and since they aren´t picked green to be shipped away they can be left on the tree longer, you can peel them with your bare hands! I need to pace myself and not eat to many, my companion ate five or six in one sitting yesterday, I only ate two because I don´t want to have an unfortunate encounter in the bathroom. I actually haven´t really gotten sick yet! one day I had a sore throat because I didn´t drink enough water but other than that i have been fine! which is lucky!
I'm finding out more and more that Izalco is a strange place, now that I can understand people a little better I realize how strange their questions are. Izalco is kinda famous for having "Brujas" or witches/prophetesses its a little different from what I'm used to. luckily for me elder N is a scriptural wizard and has gotten us out of a few jams They as the strangest questions and the answer is buries deep somewhere in Hechos (acts) 47. I have a lot of studying to do!
In response to a couple of your questions. we have a lady that cooks us lunch almost every day except Monday and Sunday, and there is a lady that washed everything but garments. one day this week Hermana E (the cook) made fried stingray! it didn´t really look like anything supper different because it was fillets but it tasted amazing, I took a picture of the plate so you guys can see it. Sorry but you´re gonna have to wait a week to see it.
Anna- I totally understand what you mean, most of the time yes I have to translate everything from Spanish to English, and then what I want to say from English to Spanish. But more and more as I am becoming able to speak more fluently I don´t have to translate at all and I think of my response in Spanish. The other day an investigator asked me to pray in English, I had a hard time doing it because I am so used to praying in Spanish, and I even let a couple of Spanish words slip here and there. It lets me know that I am starting to learn Spanish when I can think in Spanish. The thing I really need to work on is vocabulary. Its kinda tricky here because El Salvador, and each region even has their own vocab for a lot of things. and words that are okay to say in some places are swear words in others, so its a little confusing. The dictionary I have is good for more complicated words, but for everyday speech its not what they use. So I carry around a little notebook and write down vocab words during the day and study them when I get a spare moment. It has really helped alot!
my goal for this week is to take some pictures of some of the buses here so you can see what they look like, we´re not supposed to carry our cameras around during proselyting hours so ill see what I can do.
I can´t believe that Bishop M is getting replaced! He is the bishop that I know the best and it will be sad to not come back to him as the bishop, please let him know that I'm doing great and congratulations for a wonderful five years of service.
FYI I haven´t gotten the contacts yet. I think packages are a little slow here. I'll find out on Wednesday if it came this week or not so I'll let you know in the upcoming email what happens. Almost all of the Gringo´s in the zone have contacts so I know that you can find solution here. So don´t worry about that.
So yeah all is well hope everything is going well Love you all! have a great week!
Elder Schriever
