Week 15 in Sonsonate

Subject:  Ah, yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it you can either run from it, or, learn from it!

This was a slower week. We only found seven new investigators and had to drop a few others that still seem kind of positive but, for one reason or another, are not progressing. Not very fun to do. One of those that we're dropping (or better put are not visiting nearly as often) is Juan Carlos. You've all heard a bunch about him and how he was progressing, but he needs three attendances to get baptized and just won't come to church. He even has one attendance already. It's really sad to see that. He keeps saying that he's going to come because he wants to get baptized, but I think there's something he's not telling us. Maybe he's started something bad, like drinking or smoking again, and wants to clear that up first. We'll have to figure it out. But for now we can hardly find him anyway, so it's getting tough to focus on him. Also, he told us on Saturday that he was going to try to miss part of school on Sunday to go to church. He didn't, and we went later to ask him why. His family told us that he still wasn't back, but that he hadn't even gone to study. That's why I don't feel particularly comfortable with the situation.

Anyway, there was him and a few other people that are just not progressing well now. The most positive investigators that we have are not even that positive, either. The Campos family is probably at the top of the list. The wife is the biggest obstacle with them, though. She is very evangelical and doesn't want to go to our church at all or even listen to us. The worst part, though, is that she doesn't want to get married. We went up there with our ward mission leader, though, and she happened to come out so we started talking to her. She confirmed everything that I just said, but we also caught her interest with something, although I don't know what. I think it had to do with us helping her husband change and become better. Makes sense, right? I'm pretty sure that's what every wife wants. The husband told us that he was going to come to church on Sunday, and true to his word he showed up. Even better, he somehow got his wife, daughter, and niece to come as well. That was pretty awesome. They were a little bit shy, but the husband was definitely involved in everything and was even asking questions. That's awesome. I think that even if we can't convert the rest of the family right now, he'll get baptized once we get them married.

Another investigator that came to church was Mauricio. He is a crazy guy, which I mean in the non-literal sense of the word. He was on the national team here for soccer a long time ago, and is now some kind of super important guy in San Salvador and is in charge of electric and something else for the country. I forgot exactly what it was, since it's pretty technical. He was also in charge of the campaign that got Mauricio Funez elected President here, so he's got a lot of contacts. Also, his house is super nice. He's like 65, too, but looks like he's 45 because he's in really good shape. Crazy. Anyway, he reads the Bible every morning and night and loves to read, so the Book of Mormon is going to be golden there. We're taking one over Tuesday night, since we are currently out of them. He is a reference of the stake patriarch, too, which is pretty sick. The only problem, though, is that he is very catholic. He wants to talk a lot about the bible, but I think he may take a little longer to get converted due to his great lifestyle. People tend to be that way, which is why we generally have more success with poorer people.

Also, he is a very educated person. After church he told us that all of the meetings were great, and he started giving us these crazy in-depth analysis of each one. The thing that made me slightly sad, though, was that he said he didn't like sacrament meeting because there were kids making a ton of noise and crying and running around and screaming, and there were a lot of people not paying attention and even a lot of adults just talking for a lot of the meeting. That's a problem that I have been well aware of for a long time (twenty-two months now!), but talking to the bishopric hasn't really helped. We'll have to find a solution, because he definitely noticed it and expressed to us that it should not be like that during the most important meeting in our church, especially while they're passing the sacrament. I'm almost relieved that someone else here saw that, though I'm almost ashamed that it was an investigator and that that is the impression he was left with.

There was another woman named Carolina that came to church, too, but it was the first time that we had talked to her, so we don't know much. She just showed up, I think, and lives in Sonzacate, so it's a little harder to teach her. We're going to do so on Thursday, though, since she's going to come down for mutual. Good times.

Here's something super crazy that happened, though. I called America, the other area in my district, to get their numbers on Friday, and they didn't answer. Just a side-note, by the way, we report how many lessons we teach, referals we receive, and news we find every night, and it's my job as DL to get those from the district and report them to the ZLs. Anyway, I kept calling them after 9:30 and they weren't answering, which is slightly bothersome. By 9:50 it was worrisome. By 10:30 it was very worrisome. The ZLs even called their bishop, who went over and banged on their door, but nobody answered. Eventually, around 11:15 the zone leaders talked to the APs and basically said that what they said is that we should just wait until morning. There wasn't much else to do, since we couldn't leave the house. I was pretty worried, to be honest. Stuff like that doesn't happen very much, if at all. The next morning we finally got ahold of them. They had tripped over the phone cable and the phone broke. And they went to bed early, so they didn't hear the bishop banging on their door. Wow. That's horribly anticlimactic. It's a lot better than some of the situations I was imagining, though, especially since their area is pretty dangerous.

I'm running out of time now, dang it. I wanted to make this email a little bit more work-focused, which is why I kind of dove right in at the beginning. Oh, and I forgot to say that I gave a talk on Sunday, which went well. My comp gave one, too, and his Spanish was actually somewhat decent for it. I was impressed. Anyway, thanks for all of the emails and updates and such! If I'm not mistaken, Dad just told me that I will be giving my homecoming talk in two different wards, which is kind of crazy. I don't know if that was supposed to be the same talk twice or if I was supposed to come up with a different one for each ward, though. Oh well. I've still got two whole months to think about that. That's forever away. It's like four Christmas breaks in a row. Or my entire time at the MTC again. Or one sixth of a year. Or 66 days. However you calculate it, it's a lot. So don't be thinking that I'm getting baggy out here. I'm just getting warmed up before the crazy super ultimate awesome end of the mission rush. Which, again, is far away.

Thanks again for all of the emails and support that you guys give me out here! I love reading about all the stuff going on back home, and it actually is making me a little bit curious to see how things will be when I get back there. Well, we'll just have to wait and see!

Elder David Arrington

Week 14 in Sonsonate

Things seem to be mostly back to normal for David, including this whole lizard thing.  Cute, in a reptilian sort of way…  We even have pictures!

Subject:  "Don't use the weight room line!" "Excuse me, do you know where the weight room is? It's okay, I'll check it out."

It was one of those weeks where some things went great, and others went not so great, and it all averaged out to a kind of medium un-great-not-great week. It was a pretty much average week.

Before I get too much into that, though, I thought I'd respond to dad's questions. Why Raintree? That's a good answer, and I have no response. Except that that is where me and Kent had talked about living. He just confirmed that he is not cutting his mission to make it for Fall semester, so really I guess I could live anywhere. I don't really know any other places, though, so I'll have to leave that up to all of you to decide for me. Put the family council together and get me a good apartment!

And I've grown rather attached to my schedule. That may just be because I get slightly baggy thinking about all of the post-mission BYU attending, but still. Good work to all on that one. Now we just have to find me a job I can start when I get home and we're set!

Now back on to the week. It started out pretty good. We were visiting a lot of investigators and such, but it was really rough because we had a bunch of meetings. Monday was P-Day, Tuesday we were gone all day for meetings, Wednesday we were gone for different meetings, Thursday we had a multizone, Friday we had a special temple trip, and Saturday and Sunday we got to work. It was pretty busy, but we managed to find a couple really great families and investigators in that time. One of the families is especially cool. It's the Campos family.

Basically what happened with them is that we had told Elder Gillette, one of my ZLs, that we were going to find 5 new investigators that day, so we were out contacting trying to make that happen. Really, it's not that unrealistic here, we just had to go do it. We decided to go to this place in between a couple colonies to contact since we had never been there. One thing that really helps start a conversation sometimes is to ask for help to find someone else, so we went up to a house and asked where the Hernandez family lived. We weren't actually looking for one, but it got the conversation going. They gave us a couple referrals for people who had talked to missionaries before, and almost as we were leaving pointed out that the house up on the corner might have been where the Hernandez family lived. Or, at least, that the wife's last name might be Hernandez. So we went there after striking out at the other houses, and there was the Campos family. The wife was not super into the lesson at all, and the daughter was out playing, so we mostly just taught the dad, and he was absorbing it all like a sponge. He told us about how he had already, through prayer, overcome an alcohol addiction, which was a really cool story. Then he told us that he was going to read what we left him, pray about it, and go to church. Those are the normal commitments we leave with people, so it wasn't that big of a deal, but he was just really interested, I think. The next day we had a special temple trip specifically for investigators. It was mission-wide, and it was great. President had planned a bunch of awesome stuff and even a tour of the outside of the temple and various other buildings (since they can't go in yet). Anyway, we had six investigators go, and the Campos family was three of those. And they loved it. It's also very impressive that they walked all the way down to the stake center to go, too, considering it was a day after we met them, it was early in the morning, and there were no buses running because of Holy Week (it was a good 45 minute walk, then, at least). The wife really opened up on the trip. We went back and talked to just the husband, since the wife was working, and one of the first things he asked us was "How long would someone have to wait to be a member of your church?" Well, we like those questions. He also asked us how we had found his house and explained to us that he had never really gone to a church simply because he didn't know which one to go to. Then he explained that a few days earlier he had had a dream, in which he was on a slope with his wife and saw, down below, a church building. He could only see one side of it, but he said that it looked a lot like the stake center. So imagine that. He dreams that, wants to go to a church, and we show up. I love this country.

Here's another fun story: We found a big lizard thing in our stairwell one day during lunch. It was trapped there since it couldn't get up the stairs and the door was closed. After a lot of running around, screaming like little girls, and filming it all, we caught it in a giant plastic bin. After lunch we let it go. Fun stuff. It was huge, though, just so you know. It wasn't one of the little geckos we usually have. It was like as long as my arm, and a whole lot faster than we were. But it was kind of cute, too, in a reptilian kind of way. I took a bunch of pictures, but I didn't bring my cable, and we're running out of time, so I have to get this off soon.

The bad part about this week is that a bunch of investigators had dead dates and had promised they were going to come to church, but nobody did. We even went to invite a bunch, but most had randomly had to work, which is lame. We had only one investigator at church, then, and she was brought by a friend. We didn't even know who she was. This week we'll start teaching her, though. Oh, and Christopher got confirmed and received the Aaronic Priesthood, which is awesome.

That's about it for this week. I can't think of anything else that I am missing, and the ZLs are reminding me that our time is now up. I'll try and get some great stories for next week, since we might have a little more proselyting time (although we will have at least one more meeting in Santa Ana and interviews with President). I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder David Arrington

PS: Would it be bad for me to remind you all that I have nine P-Days remaining? Maybe I'm counting wrong, but I think that's right.

Week 13 in Sonsonate

David is recovering some. That's good, right?

Subject: My name is Phebus. It means "Sun God".

I got a pretty good haul of emails this week, so thank you to everyone that made that possible. I think it was a pretty good group effort, even though a few key people sent me two or three emails. But I got emails from Mom and Dad (they are the most consistant to email me), Julie, Sarah, Dave DeRurange, Lindsay, the bank, the office, President Cordon, and Brian (Oliverson, that is). I had a total of 14 emails. Not bad! But that's also why I'm emailing so late. I had to split my email time in half so I could eat pizza with a few people.

First, since everyone has clearly been on the edge of their seat for it, let me put all of your minds at ease. The situation (code-named "Shot through the heart, and Sarah's to blame. She gives love a bad name." (That could be a song! I call dibs, Bon Jovi!)) has been completely cleared up. Well, really nothing has changed as far as the actual situation, but I feel much, much better about it. I realized throughout the week that what happened happened, and now I can move on. The worst part was me thinking about all the memories and such that I felt had suddenly gone to waste, and then I realized that I will now get to relive, in a way, a lot of those moments with somebody new. And yeah, I was with Sarah for four years, but I plan on being with my future wife for a tiny bit longer than that, so eventually I will have more memories with whoever she is than I have now with Sarah. Unless by some strange happenstance that actually does end up being Sarah, which would make that last statement some kind of paradox. The point is, God has promised me some dang good things, so I'm just going to go ahead and trust that He knows what He's doing. As one of the apostles said in his talk, "God always keeps His word."

But now the part that's scary: I have to find another girl. That means I have to date girls. Girls are scary. That's going to be really weird when I get back. It's really weird now. Maybe I'll just not think about it too much until I get home. That worked so well for my career path. "Hey, Elder Arrington! What are you going to study when you get home?" "I don't know, but I've got two years before I have to worry about that!" Two years later I still have no idea.

Speaking of schooling, I have to say that it was a very interesting experience to read, "Hey, you have to start thinking about the classes you're going to sign up for." and then almost immediately afterward read, "We attached your schedule for fall semester. Looks like you've got some good classes!" That being said, I'm pretty happy with the schedule that I have. Here's a few things I noticed, though. First of all, I have to get up and get to class by 8:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Dang it. I know that's not a bad thing, but still. I guess I'll get out of classes earlier, which is good. I'm not exactly sure what a couple of the classes are, but I'll trust that things will be good. But what's with Spreadsheet skills? That seems like something that would be really easy, and that I probably learned just in my time as a secretary here. I'm sure it's more interesting than that and will teach me some good stuff, though, so I'm alright with the class, but I also noticed that it's at four in the afternoon. Seems a little random to me. So I'll either have to go home and find something to do for several hours (which of course means I'll be studying and doing other responsible things), have a closeby job that doesn't mind me working three hour shifts, or I'll just have to hang around campus for five hours. Which will probably result in studying in the library, playing the piano at the hfac, or maybe scouting out a couple other classes I might be interested in. Those aren't bad things, either, of course, and would probably help me in the long run, but it's just something I noticed. Overall, good work family. The only suggestions that I would have had would have been maybe one fun class like bowling or golf, maybe a music class, and maybe one of the classes I had to withdraw from earlier (not my fault. I'll explain those later).

Yeah, and as far as my grades go, I would just like to say that the mission has changed me. I have repented. And I was planning on maybe retaking one of those classes, but the retake policy changed while I've been on my mission, so now the grade averages out with the old one, instead of replacing it. They had allowed a year on the old policy to give people a chance to retake anything they wanted to before the change, but I was on my mission during that year, so it hardly helps. Does anyone know if I will be able to retake classes as an RM during my first year back with the old retake policy? I doubt it, but it would be good to know.

Also, let's all remember that if the minimum weren't good enough, it wouldn't be the minimum. I'm just saying.

The last thing I was going to mention about school after the mission was housing. Elder Packard and I have talked a lot about rooming together after the mission, and as far as I know that's still the plan. The only problem is that I'm pretty sure he isn't going to cut his mission to make it in time for fall semester, which means that won't happen until winter semester. We were planning on rooming at Raintree, though, since he lived there before and we both know it pretty well. It's a little off campus, but the walk isn't terrible. We made it a lot while we were there. Though it might be good to invest in a bus pass, should I live there. I don't know if you have to sign me up this week, but if you do, that's what I'd decide. I did just send an email to Elder Packard, though, to see if he is still planning on rooming after the mission (we've talked about it a ton, so I doubt it would have changed in the last few weeks), and if he is actually going to come back for fall semester or winter semester. He probably has already written today, though, so he won't be able to tell me until next week, so I won't be able to tell you until next week if he is going to room with me fall semester or not. I guess you could try talking to one of his parents, though. They might know what he's planning on doing. If I have to be signed up for housing this week, though, my choice would be Raintree and a bus pass, with a space saved for Elder Packard until next Monday when we know for sure if he's going to be back for fall semester. Unless you'd have to pay to keep a spot reserved for a week.

Wow. Normally I'm supposed to email about my mission and stuff, huh? Sorry. You got me thinking about college and such. That's going to be crazy.

Back to real life, though, aka the mission, this week wasn't a fantastic one. I feel fantastic, and conference, of course, was fantastic, but the numbers sagged a bit. We only had one investigator in all of the conference sessions. Not one per session, one total. His name is Eli, and we had only taught him once and were super excited about him because within five minutes of talking to him (literally) we had put a baptismal date for April 15. However, we just found out that since he's 14 (even though he looks like he's 17 or 18) he needs 8 attendences, which means he can't get baptized until May. Lame. He had a friend, though, named Jason, that we taught with him. They both had the date for the 15, and since Jason's mom is a member (less active... for now!) he only needs 3 attendences. So we only have to change his date to the 22 (he had already told us that he couldn't go to conference this weekend, but we thought he only needed two attendences, so we had put the 15 as the date).

This week I also changed from hair gel to hair cream. I'm pretty happy with it. It doesn't hold my hair in place quite as well as gel, though it does a good enough job, but it keeps my hair soft and silky. I like it. It's better than crunchy hair. In case you were all wondering.

And before I forget, I uploaded a few pictures. They are of a few baptisms (Christopher, the twenty one year old, and Saul, the eleven year old) and some other stuff. The picture of the old guy getting baptized with a bunch of us there is a guy that got baptized after one of the Saturday sessions. We missionaries were the only ones that were there for it (and a member of Santa Emilia's bishopric), but it was a super fun service. Elder Brown did the baptizing, and the guy was really pretty clueless during the whole thing. And he had to get baptized five or six times because he wouldn't go all the way under the water. But he's awesome, and it was a great service. Honestly it was probably the funniest baptismal service I've ever been to, while still remaining spiritual. There's also a picture of me running through the streets. I was attempting a picture of me running through a flock of hundreds of pigeons, but right before my comp took the picture a bus passed by and scared most of them away. Lame. There's still like two in the picture. And the last picture is a cathedral that is here in Sonsonate. Me and my comp think that it looks exactly like the It's a Small World ride from Disneyland, so I snagged a picture. The church says "Our lady of the angels" or something like that above the door. I don't know if it's the name of the church or what, but there it is. Also, it might be referring to a lady from Los Angeles. I don't know. It would make sense, since I have yet to meet someone in this country who does not have at least one family member in the states (generally in Los Angeles, which 90% of the population believes is a state, not a city).

I am horribly out of time. My bad. I've been talking about nothing for most of this email. I hope that's a sign that I'm doing better, though, because I really am. We may have to drop a few of the investigators that we have, though, since they have stopped progressing and are making excuses. Juan Carlos, though, is still super positive. He and his wife were going to get married and he was going to get baptized, but then they decided that, since they don't even like each other anymore and Flor doesn't want to give up the US residency she's about to get, they are just going to seperate. So one day, while Juan Carlos was at work, Flor grabbed almost all of her clothes and left. And that's the last anyone has heard of her. It doesn't seem like her, but at the same time it does. What really baffled me, though, is that she left Aaron, their one year old son. It's a crazy world we live in. Juan Carlos wasn't even that hurt about it at all. And as sad as all of that was, it means that he now has absolutely nothing between him and baptism. Nothing except church attendences, that is. And since it is no longer a family that we're completing, he needs two more. So his date is now for the 15 as well.

That's all I have time for right now. Next week I'll try to stay more on topic. I hope you're all doing well, though, and that you all have a great week! I'll try to do the same here, of course!

Elder David Arrington

PS: Special thanks go out once again to Dad and Mom for their great emails, Julie for her hillarious pictures, and Dave for his completely unexpected, but very good, first email to me. It only took you 21 months! Also, Brian and Sarah sent some pretty good emails. Brian's was especially hillarious. There was evidently a mission reunion with President Lopez that he went to with a bunch of RMs from here, and I'm super super jealous.

PPS: I almost forgot! Yes, we did see Elder Archaletta (how the heck do you spell that?) in the Saturday afternoon conference. According to what President Cordon's daughters (who were watching the session in English with us) gossiped to us, he's going to a mission in Chile, but nobody knows more than that. Most of my district in the MTC went to various missions in Chile. Cool.

PPPS: I put that last PS first because this one is better. I wanted to anounce something that I doubt anyone at home caught from that same Saturday afternoon session. Alejandro Lopez, formerly known as President Lopez, Señor Lopez Mota, or "Sí, lo siento Presidente" is now Elder Lopez. He was called as an area authority. Sweet!

Week 12 in Sonsanate

Ouch. Rough week for David. Nothing much more to say than what is said....

Subject: "All that means is that it wasn't personal to you. But it was personal to me. It's personal for a lot of people."

Up until this point in my mission I have tried to keep the mission and my personal life seperate, and I think that for the most part I've succeeded. But this week had a lot to do with my personal life, so this email is going to start with me explaining a lot of that. So sorry in advance.

Oh, and since a couple of you mentioned it, yes, I actually have seen 500 Days of Summer. It's an amazing movie. I loved it. I had no idea how that would feel, but I thought it was great. Probably my favorite line in the entire thing is this one, at the very end, after the wedding: "So I guess I should say congratulations." "Only if you mean it." "Well, in that case..." And he just stares at her. At the time I thought it was funny. Now I just relate to it.

This last week has definitely been the hardest in my entire mission. In the past I've gone through sickness, exhaustion, investigators that drop us, investigators who can't get baptized, bad numbers, confusion, worry, and even depression and anxiety, but it all passed. When things like that happen in the mission, you just have to kind of endure it, push forward, and move on, since you know that everything will soon be back to normal. You find new investigators, you start feeling better, the numbers pick up, other baptisms come, and so on. But in this last week, I've been hit with absolutely all of the things that I mentioned, and then some. And it's not a situation that gets better.

So you may remember that last week at the end of my email I mentioned that Sarah had sent me a rather un-favorable email. I won't go into the details of what is going on there, since the details aren't important. The point is that, like a couple of you have told me, she seems to have moved on. When I first read that on Monday, I was in shock. I had printed off the emails and was reading them in the house, and was in a fantastic mood, to be honest. The week before was the best week in my mission, and I was reading some great emails from everyone (including Brian, formerly known as Elder Oliverson), and it was great. And then I read Sarah's email, and everything very, very suddenly dropped to the highest hign to the lowest low. And it pretty much stayed there for a while. When I wrote to all of you last week, I was still in shock, and that continued for most of the day. I told a few people about it, but it wasn't that bad. But after P-Day ended I went to an investigator's house and pretty much just broke down. I was explaining to them why we had gone to visit them, since we had set an appointment for the next day, and it had to do with what had happened to me, so I started to explain it, and I just couldn't handle it. Monday night I think that I might have gotten a full hour of sleep, but I'm not sure. Tuesday was kind of the same, except that I started to feel physically sick from it. I still went out to work and, for the most part, was able to forget about it while I was teaching, but in between lessons and in the house I was a wreck. Wednesday morning we had district meeting, and for some reason President wanted to come see our zone meetings. While he was there, I asked for a special interview and a blessing specifically to help me through the process. It was a great interview, and I was basically falling apart the whole time, but he gave me some good advice and the blessing. When I got home, I went in our back room, shut the door, knelt down and prayed. A lot. My comp told me later that I was there for over an hour and a half. I didn't feel it. But by the time I was done, I felt much better. I've still been in ridiculous amounts of pain throughout the week, but I'm coping much better with it. I've found that the easiest way to cope, by the way, is keep my mind off of it, which means that I've been reading a lot of the scriptures. There's nothing else to do, really. So in my free time I've read a few hundred pages in the Bible. I'm almost out of the Old Testament now, finally.

Just so you all know, by the way, I really appreciated your emails this week. There was a lot of advice and such that kind of helps, but after a week of thinking about it (since there was really no one to talk to about it besides President), I'm pretty much done worrying about what is going to happen. If something happens when I get back, it happens, but if not, I'll eventually find someone else. I'll still get married one day, have a family, and be sitting on the couch eating potato chips while my wife nags me. It's just in the plan. Maybe not the nagging, but still. Right now I'm not going through a there's-nobody-else-I-could-ever-be-happy-with stage, I'm just going through the this-loss-hurts-more-than-anything-I've-ever-felt-in-my-whole-life stage. So thank you all for the prayers and the advice. I'll be alright.

Enough about that. I probably won't ever mention it again. I just wanted to let you all know how I was this week. But the ridiculous mental, emotional, and physical health issues were only one part of why the week wasn't good. It was the biggest part, but only a part.

At the beginning of this week, we had six baptismal dates for the month of March, which would have put us at seven in total for the month. That's pretty epic. I was stoked. Let me run through all of them. First, Christopher. He got baptized yesterday, and it was awesome. He loved it, and it was a great service. He's super powerful. I'll send pictures of his and Saul's baptisms next week (I'm running out of time). So that was the good one. The next most positive was Juan Carlos. He had his baptismal interview and passed it, but we don't know if he went to church yesterday. He was going to be at school and would have had to go to another ward (since it was closer), and we haven't been able to talk to him since. If he didn't, then he can't get baptized this month. If he did, then we have to plan a wedding and work through some worries about US Embassy fines before Saturday. If that all works well, then he's getting baptized.

Next, the Paredes family, which consists of Wendy, the mother, and Alejandro, the son. Wendy has three attendences, and can get baptized still on the 31. However, she has to work through some law of chastity issues with her boyfriend before then, and she needs another interview. It can definitely happen, though. Alejandro only has two of the three attendences that he needs, but since the 31 is conference weekend we might get special permission for after one of the sessions. Neither of them came to church this week even though they said they would when we passed by in the morning, and when we left church to go get them they weren't home. Not a great sign.

Then we have the Diaz family, Juan and Reina. They are both married already, so that's a big difficulty out of the way, but they didn't come to church either, so neither can be baptized until April. They are still pretty positive, though. They had told us the day before that they weren't going to be able to come to church yesterday. Still, I didn't appreciate it much.

And those are the six. Honestly, I think that we're going to end this week with one more baptism, and it will be Juan Carlos. That's my forecast. But we'll have to wait until next week to see, now won't we? For those of you counting at home, that means that two of the dates fell, two more are close to falling, and one is unsure. And one got baptized, which is nice. But still. Now, all of that happened in this terrible week that I'm having, and I know that it's not terrible to have five investigators that are preparing for baptism, but when the zone was pushing so hard to meet the goal of 20 and all of that happens, it hurts. Now, because of that, we won't make it. Elder Beaton, one of the APs, and the zone leaders spent a day or two in my area even to try and make everything a little bit better, but it just kind of starts falling apart. Those five, by the way, are not our only investigators, but they are pretty close since the rest are starting to drop us or need to be dropped by us. And we only found three new investigators. None of them are very positive.

Well, there it all is. It's been a rough week, and one of the longest weeks of my mission. But things are starting to get better. And the sooner I get through this emotional trauma that suddenly popped up the better. Thanks again for everything! I'll work hard out here this week, and just take it one week at a time.

Elder David Arrington

Week 11 in Sonsonate

A great week, and then it all comes crashing in.  This was a tough letter to read.

Subject:  “You want to be in love in a movie!”

This email may not be fantastically long. Just a heads up. I'm running out of time.

This week has got to be the craziest roller coaster ride of my mission. Seriously, I was flying for most of the week, and it was by far the best I've been in the mission as far as success goes, and then today it all plummeted. It's the biggest contrast of feelings I've ever felt in my life.

Let's start with the good. We worked fantastically this week. My comp still just generally sits and listens in the lessons, but I feel like I've been teaching really well. And we're having fantastic success. We had nine investigators in church on Sunday. That's awesome. And all of them can be baptized this month, which is also awesome. Saul also got baptized on Sunday, and almost all nine of the investigators stayed for the service. It was stake conference yesterday, and it was a special broadcast with Elder Packer presiding, so I'm sure it was fantastic. During the actual conference, though, we had to run out to another area to bring baptismal clothes that someone had forgotten. But we came back as it was ending.

The baptismal service was amazing, and I'll send pictures next week. My mind is kind of messed up right now, so I should probably wait. We went all out and had given invitations to everyone and everything. After the service, I went and talked to Christopher, whom you all may remember from several weeks ago. He was the one who had come to church for a couple months but just never wanted to get baptized, since he felt like it would be playing with the things of God. It was authority that he couldn't quite agree with. Anyway, we had dropped him, but invited him to the service. I asked him after how it was, and he said it was very interesting and that he had never seen baptism done like that before. I asked him what he thought, and he grabbed me and basically said, "Next Sunday, it's my turn!" Nice! So he's getting baptized on Sunday! I was so stoked. Seriously I just couldn't stop smiling all day. And we're really close to putting dates with the other families that went, which were the Paz family and Wendy and David. This is going to be a great month.

Oh, and remember Juan Carlos, the one whose wife was going through some stuff that made it so that she can't get married? Well, we talked to her about it, and she basically said that she doesn't want to go to the states anyway. She wants to study cosmetology here. So she's dropping all of that, and she and her husband are getting married on the 31! And Juan Carlos is getting baptized! Flor, the wife, is already a member, but still! I loved this week.

That's about all I have time for, unfortunately. Just know that I am doing amazing, and that not only is my area leading the zone (by a lot, but I don't know about the rest of the mission), I feel like the Lord is helping me do what I need to do. And I'm feeling the growth. It's amazing.
Thanks for all of your emails and support! I love you all!

Elder David Arrington

PS: I wasn't sure how to work this into an upbeat email like that, so here it is: this morning I got an email from Sarah that no missionary ever, ever wants to get. I think you can all guess what it said, more or less. I won't bore you all with details, but just know that I am going through a very trying part of my mission. Please keep me in your prayers. I'll need all the help I can get to trust that God knows what He's doing and that everything will work out well. And to keep myself focused on the work. Thank you all in advance!

Week 10 in Sonsonate

In which David hears more about our cruise (yes, it was fabulous!) but does a little vacationing on his own.  Sort of.  But we have pictures of his little jaunt!

Even better, David greets a mini-missionary—one with special significance to him personally….

Subject: “If she looks as good as a mailbox, I might be crazy enough to turn my life upside-down and marry her.”

So, I am a little tiny bit jealous about the cruise thing. I'm not going to lie. That looked pretty ridiculous, and I'll have to hear all about it when I get back.

While I'm on that note, by the way, I just got an email saying I will be going home on June 21, 2012. That is 101 days from today. Wow. That's the email I never thought that I would get. Oh, and I told them that you would all be picking me up in Portland (PDX). That's still the plan, right?

Let's not be baggy now...

The cruise! I am jealous, but I did also get a little vacation of my own this week, which was pretty awesome. Well, actually it was just for a few hours today, but it was great nonetheless. As a zone, we headed down to Acajutla, which is the only area in our mission now (I think...) that is on the beach. We played some volleyball and soccer for a few hours at the chapel, which was fun, and then we went to eat at a restaurant overlooking the beach and some cliffs and stuff. It was a great view, and we took some awesome pictures. My camera died right after we got to the beach, though, so I took pictures with other peoples' cameras and will just have to copy the pictures next week. This week I didn't have time since we're writing so late (it was a long activity). But it was great to be down on the beach and at least imagine being able to go swimming in it. And the restaurant was kind of expensive, but very nice. I got some kind of fish (boneless) that was stuffed with shrimp. And some guy even came up and we paid him five bucks to play a few guitar love songs. I uploaded just a couple pictures. And a couple from other stuff. But that was the activity. It was nice.

What wasn't nice, was that our cook lady, Karina, who cooked us breakfast, lunch, and dinner, suddenly got sent off as a mini missionary. So suddenly we had nobody to cook for us and no food at home (we just paid her instead of buying food), so this week we spent a lot of time fasting. And buying pupusas. And it looks like we are very much running out of time this week, so we may not be able to buy any groceries again. Ouch. We may ask special permission to buy, though.

Here's a cool story: An Elder in my district got sent home, although I have no idea what it was for. Supposedly it was something that happened before the mission. Anyway, when that happens they usually call in a mini missionary to replace him until more come from Guatemala (all missionaries now go to the Guatemala MTC instead of staying in Provo like I did). And that's what they did in this case. So the next day, Saturday, we had a stake missionary activity for the primary, and I got to meet the mini missionary. Guess who it is? Mauricio Granados... my first baptism! I was not expecting that at all! Actually, somebody had told me that he had moved and went inactive, which was terrible, and then out of nowhere he shows up as a missionary! So I'm pretty stoked about that. One of my converts is in my district. I baptized him, and now I'm his DL. Crazy.

Also, you may remember that another one of my converts, Gerson Castro, already served as a mini missionary. He is leaving in about a week for his mission in Peru. I think I already mentioned that he had gotten his call, but I figured I'd give you all the update anyway. Having converts go on missions is the coolest thing ever.

As far as other investigators go, we have kind of half dropped a lot of investigators. We got several references this week that are super positive. We already put dates with some of them, so now we have four dates, although only two have been to church. Saul is one, and he is getting baptized this coming Sunday after stake conference. Oh, wait, I lied, we only have three dates. But two more are coming quickly. The other two we have are with a lady named Wendy and her son David. Wendy's mom is a member from a long, long time ago, and they're really good friends of a few members, and now want to come back to church. Wendy and David now have dates for the 25, but only Wendy came to church on Sunday. I think David was just shy. He'll open up more when he goes to mutual on Thursday, since he loves playing soccer and they do that a lot there.

The one that I started to count as a date was with a really interesting reference named Dafnee. She had been baptized a long time ago, but never went to church again and so supposedly was never confirmed. That was like 12 years ago, and now she wants to go again, since a member has been visiting her a lot. The first time we talked to her we put a date for the 25 and she was basically crying and saying that she already wanted to get baptized and wanted to know what she could do to speed up the process. That's a cool date to have. She even came to church on Sunday, and loved it. Golden, right? Right. She was golden. And then we found out that she had gotten confirmed the same day as her baptism. So she's still awesome, but is now a member, not an investigator. I guess there's no such thing as an easy baptism, right?

That's about all I have time for right now, so I'll have to catch you all up on the rest next week. Thanks for all of the support that you all give me, and for all of the updates about daily life. And vacations. It doesn't make me baggy, really, it's just fun to see. Oh well. I love you all!

Elder David Arrington

PS: My comp just told me that a new For the Strength of Youth came out, and it specifically says that we cannot download music illegally. And supposedly we can't get a temple recommend if we do it. That's interesting, but I'm totally for it. Can anyone confirm that for me?

Week 9 in Sonsonate

David continues doing missionary work even when his mom and dad are off vacationing on a cruise.  And, of course, he’s making progress with his investigators…DiCaprio is not one of them.

Subject: "Well, she's married to the Muffin Man." "The Muffin Man?" "THE MUFFIN MAN!"

When I read that Mom and Dad are on a cruise now and that they got to go to some Cuban restaurant, I was a bit jealous and told my comp. His response: "Elder Arrington, you've been eating in Salvadoran restaurants almost every day." Oh yeah! I'm out of the country, too!

So this week was pretty good. We worked really well and got a lot done, even though I had to spend two entire days in Santa Ana for some meetings. There's a lot of good stuff going for the mission, like getting 134 baptisms in February. That's definitely still down from the 200 or so we used to get every month, but in the last six months we hadn't gotten over 90, so it's moving in the right direction at least. And our zone, Sonsonate, is looking pretty good for March right now. And we've already got one baptism later this month that is about as sure as a baptism gets, and we're looking to put three more dates. It's going to be awesome.

Me and my comp have been working really well lately, too. We have never fought or anything, but he always seemed to walk a little slower and such. This week has been much better. And he's starting to take part in lessons a little more, which I think is because he's understanding what people are saying a little better. I remember what that was like. Well, I spoke a little bit better when I got here, but when you don't know a ton of Spanish you tend to want your comp to teach. Even if you know what's going on, it's hard to think of the right way to say things with a limited vocabulary and grammatical understanding.

By the way, I've noticed that my sentence structure, or just word choice, maybe, gets really messed up when I've been talking to a Latin in Spanish for several days straight. It kind of just makes me laugh. I don't have an accent, though, so sorry about that. I speak English way too much for that.

Alright. On to my investigators. The most positive right now is named Saul. He's a kid (10 years old) whose mom is a member. I think I already explained how we found them, and it was awesome. It's the Karias family, which I think I mentioned already. But something else that's interesting: when we found them, it was four days after the wife's husband had been killed. We had no idea until she told us yesterday. But because of that, in addition to a lot of other things, she felt like she really needed to go to church again. And for the last three weeks she's come on her own with her family, one of which we're going to baptize. We've taught him just about everything, and he's a great kid, so he was going to get baptized this week, but we decided to change the date to the 17. That will give us time to announce it to the ward (which they forgot to do on Sunday) and make invitations for people he wants to invite (future investigators, of course), and really just plan everything out really well. President has been telling us a lot lately that baptismal services should not be improvised. It's the most important day of that person's life, and we should plan accordingly. Plus, an event that spiritual is perfect for finding new investigators who will have already had that spiritual experience (or witnessed it, at least), and who have already visited the church building, which makes it infinitely easier to get them to church on Sunday. So we want to plan this one really well.

Another one that I had mentioned a lot in the last few weeks was Juan Carlos. His wife is going through those processes to get a US residency, and it threw a big, fat, stupid wrench in the middle of our plans to get them married and baptized (the wife is already a member, actually, so just him). However, we talked to him yesterday and basically found out that they have two options: A) Forget the plans they had, get married, get baptized, and just do their best to work here in El Salvador and trust that, since they're following God's commandments they'll be better off, or B) Not get married, live in iniquity for a year or so until this process ends, and then live apart for several years and maybe never get married, since she will be in the states and he'll be here. With the baby. So, when you look at it like that, it's pretty obvious which one we want them to do. But they see the trip to the states as an opportunity to earn a lot more money, and it's pretty attractive. It reminded me (and I actually shared this in the lesson yesterday) of that story that was told in conference about the two missionaries who were going to go home, and the President got them tickets for the Titanic, which to them was a huge, awesome, luxury cruise ship. Which it was. And I'm sure they were super excited to go on that famous ship. They probably would have even run into famous people, like Leonardo DiCaprio. Heck, I'd want to go. But some little thing got in the way, and they couldn't make it. And we all know how the story ends. The point is, a lot of times we see things like that that are big and fun and we just want it. It might not even be a bad thing, like her going to the states to earn more money for her family. That's not a terrible thing. But if we trust that God knows what he's doing, and do what he asks, then in the end it will work out a whole lot better. Even if we don't know why. And even if it doesn't happen in this life. We win in the end.

That was a lot about nothing, but it was a fun lesson. We have a couple other positive ones, but nobody that's really progressing. Christopher is still really hung up on the authority thing. We taught him yesterday with an RM who is way good, and he basically just sat Christopher down and, using various New Testament stories and personal experiences, explained the need for the Priesthood. It was actually a very good lesson, and I think Christopher got it, he just has to wrestle with it a bit and pray about it. Eventually, though, he'll get his answer. If he really wants it.

By the way, we had a couple investigators named Paty and Sonia, who were sisters, both with little babies. They had been progressing a bit and looked really interested, but the last few times we challenged them to baptism they said they weren't sure. This last time we taught them Sonia just said no, and Paty said she might go to church but she'd never get baptized. I don't get that point of view. We claim that Jesus Christ himself said that no other church in the world is true, and that they are all hypocrites, so either we are right and he said that, or we're blasphemers. There's no middle ground. I've tried explaining that, too, but people don't get it. They assume that any preaching about Christ is good. Which can be true, to an extent. But in the last lesson we asked her my favorite question to ask: "If God Himself parted the heavens and came down in front of you and shouted that you have to get baptized in this church or you will be damned, would you do it?" Normally, people say yes to that, but she said no. Crazy people. But that means we'll probably drop her for good. Maybe we'll go by once a week or so.

That's all I've got time for today. I hope this is a little bit more satisfying than last week's email. Thanks for all of the mail you all gave me to read today, which was all very fun (except for Lindsay's big fat zero. But I trust you to turn that frown upside-down). I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder David Arrington

PS: I am coming right up on 21 months. But I am not baggy! We're going to keep tearing it up out here!