Hello to all! How are you all doing? I have had a very rough but good week! First off I want to say go Horns and hahahaha BYU, I always knew that Texas was way better and always will be, once a Horn always a Horn! I'm sorry to hear about Sister Burnett, but they fact that we have the plan of salvation in our lives is amazing. I love teaching about that in lessons because we always have the spirit with us when we teach that. It’s amazing to know that n we can be with family forever, we have all the tools and knowledge that we need to for this and if anyone doesn’t know about this or would like to hear from the missionaries talk to bishop Joseph N. Herman of the Hiram ward or go to www.mormon.org :) wow I am such a missionary. I’m in an area in San Salvador in Soyapongo and my area is called Paleca. There are quite a few other missionaries here! The boundaries for my mission are huge! Some of my friends are 4 hours away.

So ill start off with the good because it seems there is a lot of bad. So we have one baptism for this week and her name is Keiry Marthinez and her first name sounds like Katie...ha I thought that was interesting. But she wants me to do it! I am so excited for my first baptism but not for the fact that I have to memorize the prayer in Spanish and her name. Spanish people have a thing for long names so she has like 5 or 6 names that I’ll have to memorize. Another good thing is another Hermana we taught came to church on Sunday with her grandson and he loved it!

Well here’s the bad. I have had diarrhea for the past week and have been very sick! I have been having the worst stomach pains I have ever had, I thought it was food poisoning but it wasn’t it is way worse than that. I don’t have a worm but I have a parasite. So I am taking pills and have been very uncomfortable for the past week relying on those to help. The other bad thing is that I got bit pretty badly by a dog here. it didn’t do too much but were watching it because the dogs here are nasty and well think about a third world country with thousands of dogs running around that eat out of the sewers and no one takes care of them.

Some interesting things I have seen here...well there are a lot. Not many people have cars here so they take the bus. The people here try to pimp their buses out and they don’t do a very good job but they do have some subs in them and it’s really funny to be walking on the road and hear this huge bus bumpin! It’s really funny for me to hear that because I like subs also. Another is that the women here hawk some of the biggest loogies I have ever seen. We will be teaching a lesson and they will just spit it out on their floor. Oh how America is so different haha I also have see cockroaches the size my palm. There are a lot of churches here and we I saw a church called nuestra iglesia es verdadero which means our church is true.

I would agree with you and say we are spoiled with a cook and someone to do our laundry but the main reason we do that is for them. They make money off of it and they sure do need that here. A couple extra bucks a month goes a long ways here, things are really cheap here. So this is more for them than us.

I'm glad we got my shoes and socks at missionary mall. I feel I’ll wear through them pretty fast and need to get them replaced, good thing they have a two year warranty. The terrain here is pretty rough. The roads aren’t very good and if you’re not on a road you’re in rocks or poop from dogs!

Also will you tell people I can receive dear elders here so if they want to write me through there they can also! I haven’t gotten any letters from anyone yet but I’m hoping to get them tomorrow or Thursday.

I don’t feel that effective always here. This is my first area and imp not sure what to be doing but I know I could be working harder. My comp isn’t as great as I thought he would be. I'm having a tough time with this because I know I could be doing a lot more in a day but he isn’t as affective as he could be. I need to say something but don’t want to because I have to be with him for 10 more weeks but I’m on the Lord’s time not his or mine so I need to! Wish me luck. Not much else has gone on here, like I said it’s pretty slow here. Oh as of today I got my Visa and am no longer illegal..Yay for being legal ha Thanks for all of your support. I love and miss you all!!

Love,
Elder Herman