Week 22 in Sonsonate

The time is so short, we can hardly stand it….

Subject:  "You smell something Officer Rabbit?" *sniff* "Fear."

This week was fun. A lot of strange things happened, but we also got a lot done. So it was good.

There have been some rather un-interesting things that I have had to do, like fix my imos account and organize out-of-my-area espionage, and other random things. The more interesting things were things like Elder Duzett getting sick with chicken pox and getting put in the cave (I got to email his family to explain it to them), and Elder Gillette now having nobody to work with. So he's been bouncing around the zone a lot, and since we are right next to his area and in the middle of Sonsonate we've had to go pick him up and drop him off with various people. It's kind of like missionary babysitting. But it's not every day you get to babysit your zone leader, so that's fun.

The zone is doing pretty awful right now. On Saturday there were seven missionaries that didn't work because of sickness. Our zone's numbers were horrible. That's the bad news. The good news, though, is that my comp is doing just fine, and my area is doing pretty good. This week that's coming we want to focus a lot on reaching the standards of excellence, which are pretty high.

Wow. That was crazy. Elder Gillette basically kicked us off halfway through our email time today so that we could go with him (he doesn't have a comp, remember?) to run a bunch of errands. We went and bought some lunch and some stuff for the elders in Castaño (Elder Duzett and the others had literally given us a grocery list, and we had so much that we had to take a taxi to their house. Lazy sick people), and I got my haircut, and we started to order zone jerseys, and mailed some letters, and so on. We almost had to stay with Elder Gillette at his house, but then the elders from Santa Emilia came and he stayed with them. So we got to come back and finish. Otherwise I might have not gotten you all an email this week. That would have been stupid.

Anyway, the zone is doing not so good, but the areas (like mine) that are working are doing pretty well. Me and my comp want to get all of the normas de excelencia (standards of excellence) this week, which include things like 20 lessons with members present, 10 other lessons, 20 lessons with less actives/recent converts, 14 news, 7 in church, 7 progressing, 20 lessons to find every day, etc. They are a little crazy, but we can definitely make it if we run. That's fifty lessons in the week, and the most I've ever gotten in the mission is a little over forty, I think. 14 news isn't that ridiculous; I've gotten that several times. I've gotten nine or ten in one day before. That's one of the great things in this country. We average about one new investigator for every three people we contact (knocking doors or street contacts). That's pretty good. References from members do a lot better than that, for obvious reasons.

So that's what we're planning to do, but what DID we do, you ask? Perfect question. But first, since I don't want to forget, Dad: My Oregon license has my full name, "Edward David Arrington". I just checked it. I hope that helps.

This week, our best lessons were without question with Daniel. That kid is awesome. He's already got three attendances to church or so, and he would totally be baptized if we could talk to him more. He lives outside of our area, so it's hard to teach him, but we have a meeting with him today at five, so that should be good. Except I just remembered that the Bishop is now the only one with the keys to the chapel (we used to have a set, but they changed some stake policy or something and took them away. And they didn't even tell us that. My ward mission leader (who is awesome) just asked to borrow them one day, and then when I asked for them back a couple weeks later he said that he had given them to the Bishop because of the policy change. Dang it) and that's where we're planning on having the lesson. So I have to remember to call him in a few minutes. And it's raining, so I should go home to change into the one pair of shoes that I own that still has more than 40% of the sole intact.

Moving this monologue along, he's awesome. He not only understands things really quickly, but he really believes and applies them very quickly. He's like a 20 year old version of David Mira (the one we just baptized with his wife). In Principles of the Gospel we talked about the sacrament and HE explained in very clear and simple terms why we no longer use wine for the sacrament. That's something that is usually a bit of a pain to teach people here (not super difficult, but still annoying), and he already figured it out on his own. We hadn't even really taught him the Word of Wisdom. He just remembers it from one of the first Principles of the Gospel classes that he was in here where they mentioned the five things we can't take. Have I ever mentioned how much I love teaching people who are ready to be taught? And, even better, Daniel is totally a cool guy and usually drives us home (or to our next appointment) after our lessons, since he has a car. He's the kind of guy I could totally hang out with listening to salsa music (he likes salsa). I can't, of course, since I'm a missionary, but after the mission I would.

Speaking of the Mira family, David Mira just got the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday, got a home teaching companion, and learned how to give a blessing to the sick (even though he won't be able to actually give one until he has the Melchizedek Priesthood). He's learning like crazy, and he and his wife have basically become the most active members in our ward. They're so great. I love that family. Again, it's the perfect case of people that are ready and follow the spirit.

Daniel has a baptismal date for the tenth, and then Jason and his sister, Naomi, have dates for the seventeenth. They just need the attendances and they're good. Actually, we also need to teach Jason the commandments really fast, but then he's good to go. As long as their mom supports them (they're both under 16, so the mom has to be active as well for them to get baptized with three attendances each (the mom is a member already (we have weird rules for when we can and can't baptize kids (I'm pretty sure it's not actually appropriate to put this many parenthesis inside of each other. I've been doing that lately. I'm weird)))), they should be fine. The other two that we want to baptize before I go home are the Tobar family. The husband is our ward secretary, and the wife, Roxanna, and their daughter, Daniella, just randomly started coming to church and love what they have been learning there. They also live outside of our area (that happens a lot in this country, especially in my area since it's the middle of Sonsonate and everyone wants to be a part of my awesome ward, obviously), so it's hard to get in touch with them. We should be able to put dates with them this week, though, and if we can they could get baptized the seventeenth as well. That would leave me five baptisms right before I go home, which would not be terrible. It'd be kind of good, actually.

Oh, also Merari randomly showed up to church. She was an old investigator that we were teaching, but had dropped because she told us that she's Catholic and doesn't want to come to church. We have an appointment tomorrow, so we'll see if any of that has changed.

That's just about all I have time for, so I'll wrap this up. Thanks again to all of you who wrote me this week! This week featured emails from a pretty good variety of people (15 emails total! More than I was expecting on my third-to-last P-Day), so thank you all for that. Me and my comp are going to run like crazy this week, so remember us in your prayers. I have a feeling that, if we make it, next P-Day I'm going to be more tired and more content than any other P-Day of my mission. I can feel my momentum building for these last few weeks, and I'm really glad. I'm ending strong!

Elder David Arrington

PS: If I pull this off, I think that somebody is going to have to invite me to Taco Bell. Gosh, I miss Taco Bell. And Chipotle. The taxi driver of the taxi we took today said that he went to the states and loved it, especially Chipotle. He wants to start a Chipotle chain down here. He's a taxi driver, so I doubt that will happen, but if it did, mmm boy!

Week 21 in Sonsonate

As David approaches the end of his mission, we don’t seem to be getting many pictures these days.  However, we did get some today!!

Subject:  "Is he a man?" "Yes, nineteen." "Is he alive?" "Yes, eighteen." "Evel Kneivel."

Wow. What a week. Me and my comp talked last weekend, which I think I already mentioned last week, and we found a couple things we could improve on and change, so this week we wanted to be really focused on that. We even completely cleaned the house, rearranged stuff, and just had this good overwhelming feeling of being awesome missionaries, and we were ready for a huge successful week of working harder than we had ever worked before. We were stoked, and it was awesome. And then we got the plague.

Monday was awesome after P-day. We had some great lessons. Tuesday morning, though, toward the end of comp study, my comp suddenly said that he wasn't feeling very good. We still went to a couple appointments before lunch, but by lunch he was feeling pretty terrible. He had a fever of over 100, so I figured that, if he's feeling so awful, he might as well rest before things get worse. So we spent some hours resting in the house (him resting and me studying), and then went to a couple of important appointments and meetings that night. My comp almost didn't make it. We hurried back home and took his temperature again, which had gone up to 103.2. The next morning he was even worse, which meant that we didn't get to go with the rest of the zone to a special lunch at President's house for having baptized 22 in the zone. All reports agree that it was a great lunch. I'll have to take their word for it. My comp was in bed, with me studying (and doing anything else to stay sane), all day Wednesday. Thursday, he suddenly felt better, so we got to go work, even though most of the day was spent running around the zone doing random zone related tasks. That was the day of our huge stake activity (I uploaded pictures of the theater to the home server). Each ward did a drama based on a story in the scriptures. My ward did the 2000 stripling warriors, and did a great job. The missionaries did their own, which was very clearly the best thought out, the funniest, and the most spiritual (as it should have been), but I don't have the video yet. We're going to make DVDs of the activity and all of the dramas, so I'll get one of those and we can watch it (you all watching as I translate, that is...) when I get home. So the activity was awesome, but we almost didn't work in our area all day because of it.

Now a little backstory. Elder Duzett's comp, Elder Rosas, got chicken pox, but a special kind of chicken pox that affects people who have already had it once, which is weird. Elder Tuck, one of our ZLs, had already had it AND the vaccination and he caught it from Elder Rosas, so this thing just doesn't care. President got wind of it when he came to the stake activity Thursday night, and then heard that my comp had been sick, too. That's the backstory.

So Friday morning, we're feeling great, finished comp study, and we're getting ready to leave, but Elder Gillette calls with a quick question. We then had to wait for him to call back before we could leave (we're sitting with backpacks on waiting for like fifteen minutes), and President Cordon calls us. The conversation went more or less like this:

"Elder Arrington, this is President Cordon. I heard that your companion was sick, is that right?"
"Yeah, but he's fine now."
"He doesn't have a fever?"
"No, not anymore."
"Did he have a sore throat?"
"No."
"Does he have any spots appearing on his skin?"
"No."
"Has he had diarrhea or anything like that?"
"No, it was just a fever, but it passed and he's completely fine."
"Okay. I don't want you two to leave the house for the next two days, and Saturday night we'll check your progress to see if you can go to church."

Okay. As it turns out, though, this chicken pox thing has been spreading around and it starts with a fever for a day or so, and then the dots start appearing, at which point one is highly contagious. So it made sense to lock us up for two days. Fortunately, we got permission to take my comp to Elder Duzett's house, where Elder Tuck and Elder Rosas were quarantined, and me and Elder Duzett and Elder Gillette did divisions with the APs, who came for Friday. But, again, I hardly worked in my area, and I spent the night in Las Delicias with Elder Duzett and Elder Gillette. Saturday my comp talked his way out of being cooped up in Castaño in "the cave", so he got out and we FINALLY worked in our area for half the day Saturday. And then Sunday. And that was our week.

Also, the plague has passed on to an office elder and a couple more, so President Cordon is pretty much trying to stop an epidemic. Fun times.

Sunday, though, we had three investigators at church. One was Daniel, that I mentioned before. He is super super positive. He pretty much told us the first time he talked to us that he wanted to get baptized, and Sunday after church we put a date for the 10 with him. It may get moved back, but he's definitely getting baptized in June. He himself said so. Then there was the Tobar family, whose husband is a member. The wife and daughter are also really positive, but it's hard to get a hold of them, so we can't talk again until Thursday. And we almost put a date with them. And then we went and put a date with Jason, the kid that we had passed to Sensunapan but that wants to get baptized in Sonsonate. He's getting baptized on Sunday.

That was not very much about my investigators, but not that much happened this week. I guess that's what happens when the mission is attacked by bio-terrorism in the form of poultry-related outbreaks.

I hope you're all doing great! It sounds like everyone is still alive, and is loving the super busy normal lifestyle. I'm sure I'll figure out what that's like one day. But not yet! Not yet! (Also a quote...).

Take care, y'all!

Elder David Arrington

PS: Yeah, I said y'all.

PPS: I don't have my Oregon license with me, so I'll have to get back to you on that, dad.

PPPS: Thanks for starting the Arrington-Duzett rooming arrangement. We were talking, though, and it may be pretty awesome to upgrade to the Arrington-Duzett-Rasmussen rooming arrangement. Would that be a hassle? Probably. Would it be worth it? Definitely. I guess we'd need input from the Rasmussen's, though.

PPPPS: I get back before Elder Rasmussen. HA!

Week 20 in Sonsonate

Subject:  Sometimes I do what I want to do. The rest of the time, I do what I have to.

That's a good quote. I like it. Five points to anyone who knows what it's from.
But that is really how I've been feeling lately. The mission was really exciting in the beginning, and I had a lot of people supporting me and excited about everything that happened to me, and I was basically starting out on this big adventure and it was fun and awesome and I felt great doing it, and now I'm coming to the end. The mission is still exciting, and I'm still definitely glad to be out here, but I've noticed that, like a good friend of mine said, the end of the mission is like carrying two fifty pound bags of salt to your car. Or they could be bags of sand or bricks or feathers, really. Either way, it's fifty pounds. The point is, you get tired out here, and the going gets harder. And I can feel it as I approach the end. And it's a little bit sad, too, because I know I'm leaving here soon, and I'll miss all these people and the mission and everything that is going on. I'm just noticing that everything has come down to these next four weeks. This is the climax of the show. The odds are even more against me than ever before, and it's no longer even remotely about making everyone at home or girlfriends or anyone else happy or interested or proud, it's just about me, my investigators, and the Lord. It's about how well I get the job done. That's why these last few weeks determine what kind of man I will be for the rest of my life. NOW I get it.

That being said (although, reading that back to myself, that may have been kind of confusing. To sum it up, these next four weeks are going to be intense), I am pumped. Last night me and my comp re-evaluated the way we're working, saw some things that we need to change, and are working on them. We even re-arranged the desks in our house and such to get an even stronger we-are-better-missionaries-now feeling. And I definitely feel that those small changes that we're making will make a huge difference in the way we work and the success we have. It's exciting to think about. Although I am kind of scared of the Area Book right now. I'll have to explain that later.

Oh, and now that the desks have gotten re-arranged, the ants that are always over everything have been coming out in hoards, but I don't know where they're coming from. If I did, we could draw a chalk circle around their hole (evidently, ants can't walk on chalk), but I can't find it. But now they are all over our desks, as if trying to figure out what happened to the old setup. It's a little annoying. That is one thing I will not miss from here. Having ants, spiders, cockroaches, and mosquitos flying/walking around you constantly is not nearly as much fun as it sounds. I wouldn't even consider it one of the exciting tourist attractions of this country. And yes, the ants and cockroaches all fly, too. I don't think the spiders do, though.

Anyway, let's talk investigators. The biggest news, of course, is the awesome baptisms that we had yesterday. The Mira family got baptized, and it was an awesome service. I baptized them both. Also, as a random side note to illustrate how awesome David Mira is, he read the Pearl of Great Price the day after we showed it to him. That's right, I didn't say he read IN the Pearl of Great Price, he read the ENTIRE Pearl of Great Price in one day. That's including Joseph Smith History and Joseph Smith Matthew. He's so crazy awesome.

I just got an email saying that I got a package. Awesome!

Oh, and just so that I don't forget, Happy Birthday, Dad! I don't know how old you are now, but I do remember back when we got you a card for your fortieth birthday. Something about being "over the hill". And that was a long time ago, so you've got to be a bit older than that.

Anyway, that family is the most awesome family that I have ever taught, I think. They are powerful. I also do not have my cable with me, so I will have to send those pictures next week, although at this point I could almost just wait until I got home. But I won't. I don't think.

We have a few other investigators that are progressing, but the most notable is this kid named Jason. He is super close to baptism, and he had a date for next week, but stuff happened. Let's review. Jason was an investigator who was a referral from someone in our ward who lives just outside of our area. Seriously, he lives like one or two blocks into Sensunapan's area. We talked to the zone leaders about it, and they said that, since it was from someone in our ward and Jason wanted to go to our ward, we could go teach him. So we did, and we even had a baptismal date with him. However, the sisters that work in Sensunapan started complaining because we were actually teaching a few different people in their area (all of which were referrals from this same member in our ward, and all of which wanted to come to our ward with her), so the ZLs said we should probably stop going down there, so we passed all of the investigators we had down to the sisters. They haven't even visited all of the investigators we gave them, and this happened like a month and a half ago. So those investigators are just not being visited anymore. They taught Jason a few times, though, and then stopped visiting him because he didn't want to go to church in their ward. Two Sundays ago, he showed up to our ward again with the member who was helping us. She and our ward mission leader had started to visit him to finish teaching the lessons and such because the sisters stopped doing it. We talked to him there, and he made it very clear that he wants to go to and be baptized in our ward. We told them all that we cannot visit him at his house, since the zone leaders haven't given us permission, so this member and our ward mission leader have been doing just about everything. We put a date with him for next Sunday and he was excited. The sisters found out and complained to the zone leaders (who also agree that he should just get baptized here anyway), and then went and found some obscure technicality that means that we have to move the date back a week. Then they told the zone leaders that they're really close to reactivating the super inactive mom, and she wants to go to Sensunapan, so we shouldn't baptize Jason because he should get baptized there with his mom active again. Makes sense, right? They've talked to the mom exactly twice. Not even visited and taught her twice. TALKED to her twice. That's just stupid. Even the zone leaders are upset at them, and I have to admit that I am, too. They very clearly want to take this baptism from us that we already gave to them, and have basically tried to sabotage us to do it. That's so stupid. I couldn't care less who reports the baptism. They can do it and take credit for it for all I care. I just want this kid to be baptized! He's awesome and wants to really badly, and it really ticks me off that the only thing standing between him and baptism is the sister missionaries. That should NEVER happen.

Sorry, I'm a little bit fired up about that, I guess. It just drives me crazy that some missionaries can be so childish. I'm kind of childish too, though, I guess, so I can't hold it against them.

I'm super running out of time, so a few more quick things: Dad - yes, Elder Duzett and I were talking about rooming together, and yes, you have permission to look for the best housing options you can find. I trust whatever you come up with. Laptops will definitely be a big point when I get home, but I don't really know what technology has done since I left. A Macbook Air sounds like it would be high quality, and I could always dual-boot to Windows with it (that used to be pretty easy back in the day), and I may actually enjoy a Mac. I've never tried one. And the trek sounds good, and the traveling plans sound good. I especially like the part where I drive to Utah to drop Michael off at the MTC. That would be sick! But then I'd be stuck at BYU with a car, which I wouldn't complain about...

I think that was all the big stuff anyone asked me about. Thanks again for all of the emails and support and stuff, and I'll be sure to get some crazy stories ready for next week's email. I love you all!

Elder David Arrington

Week 19 in Sonsonate

Previous to this email, we were able to talk with David for Mother’s Day.  We looked forward to that for months, knowing that in just a few weeks he’ll actually be home.  Wow.  Just a few more weeks!

Subject:  Those aren't moist towelettes, those are baby wipes.

Before I forget, I wanted to reiterate a couple things from the phone call yesterday. First, Elder Duzett and I were talking about rooming together after the mission, so if that is still a possibility I'd like my personal secretaries to make it happen. Second, I wanted to expound a little bit on this post-mission roadtrip idea that Dad kind of threw into the conversation at the last minute. I was just thinking about this, and that sounds like an awesome idea if I could pull it off. Specifically I was thinking that it would be a great chance for Michael and I to go visit all family in Utah, Arizona, and even California (on the way back), since I haven't seen anyone or anything in two years, and he won't see anyone or anything for two years. Plus, it would be a great bonding-type thing for me and him, since we will only have two months together before another two year gap. Plus I could start getting him pumped for the mission. So I was kind of thinking it would be awesome as a me-and-Michael road trip, but I wouldn't want to limit it to that if anyone else wanted to go. I just think that it would be awesome. Here are the things I would want to know about that: 1) Would it be feasable? 2) Is that how the word "feasable" is spelled? [editorial note:  No, it’s feasible] 3) Would Michael be able to get work off for several days? 4) When would be a good window for said trip (Probably in the first few weeks when I get back would seem to make the most sense. To me at least) 5) What car would we be driving in? 6) Should we worry about fund raising, or just fun-raising? 7) How many of you ACTUALLY rolled your eyes at that pun? 8) How long would the trip last? 9) What is the current plan with Michael's iPhone? (Not essential for this trip, but I'm still wondering) 10) Anything else I should think about that I haven't mentioned?

And here's a quote to sum it all up: "Wait a second, I can't just pack up and leave! I mean, I've got a mother, a father, a girlfriend, a great job, and ehhhhh!" (Okay, so I do have a mother and father, but still. I thought it was funny.)

Now what kinds of interesting things can I say that I didn't say yesterday? I guess that, for the sake of having it written down, I'll repeat what is going on with our investigators. Mauricio passed his baptismal interview, but refused to get baptized on Sunday like we were planning. We still don't really know why, but it probably has to do with some sin that he doesn't want to leave but knows that he should. That's generally what it is. We have an appointment with him for tonight, so we'll see what's up there. Then we have the Mira family, who now have baptismal dates for this coming Sunday, which is really exciting. We've even announced it in church already, so we're going for it. Tuesday they have their interviews, and should pass with flying colors. Their kid, though, as I've mentioned before, is horribly obnoxious. In church yesterday he kept running and screaming and hitting and being ridiculous. When we split for priesthood and relief society, he went with his mom, and then started crying saying that he wanted to be with his dad, so she'd go leave him there, then he'd start crying saying that he wanted to be with his mom, and the whole thing repeated. We eventually got him calmed down, though, by literally playing fetch with him with a small Barney toy thing. So we seriously spent most of priesthood throwing this thing across the room for him to run and bring back to us. In this case, I think I would have preferred a dog.

Speaking of which, there was a dog running around the chapel during church. That's happened a few times on the mission, but it turns out that this one was from the Carias family's neighbors, and the dog had apparently followed them all the way from Lomas del Muerto to the chapel, even getting on a bus with them. So it just kind of chilled in the chapel for a while. I was contemplating counting it as an investigator at church, but didn't because I don't want to go all the way up there to teach him. Well, that, and it was a dog.

Our attendance used to be around 110 every week, but for the last month or so we've been hovering right below 140. This week was 138, and we've already gotten 138, 137, and 136 several times. Why can't we just cross 140? We're so close!

Anyway, an old investigator of ours named Jason showed up to church this week. We had been teaching him, and he even had a baptismal date, but we had to pass him to the sisters in Sensunapan because he technically lives outside of our area. But the sisters stopped visiting him, since he doesn't want to go over there to that ward, and our ward mission leader and another member have started teaching him. And they got him to church, and we got him to accept a baptismal date (again) for the 27. And he's excited for it. That's a nice little consolation prize for all of the people we passed to the sisters.

And another guy named Daniel showed up to church, but we don't know much about him yet. We'll get on that.

That's the stuff about investigators, I guess. Not much else going on there.
Is there even anything else interesting going on in the world? Probably not. In between last night and this morning I think the only thing that has changed is that I realized we need to take our laundry over to the lady who washes it. And I ate some Captain Crunch, which I didn't even know existed in this country until a few days ago. And yes, it cut the roof of my mouth. I even tried to be careful.

I'm running out of time and interesting things to say, and I still have a couple other emails to send, so I'll send this off. Thanks for all of your love and support, and it was fantastic to be able to talk to everyone again. A lot of missionaries out here won't get to again for seven months. I get to in six weeks. Ha!

See you in six weeks!

Elder David Arrington

Week 18 in Sonsonate

No transfer this week!  So, Sonsonate is where David will complete his mission.  I think that’s a good thing….

Subject:  I prefer the weapon that you only have to fire once. That's the way Daddy did it, that's the way America does it, and it's worked out pretty well so far.

Wow. You all blew it. I was so hopeful that I would get a fair number of emails this week, and then I opened my email. 23 emails. Shameful. Well, it's definitely not the most I've ever gotten. Actually, it's the second-most I've ever gotten. By now you may have realized that I am speaking ironically as I have nothing but good things to say to you. Keep doing what you are doing.

Hey! So I found out what is going on with changes this week. Are you all ready for this? My last changes in my whole mission: Nothing. I am staying right here in Sonsonate with my current comp, Elder McLean. I am very happy about that. The only thing that I am slightly bummed about is that my Spanish accent has pretty much tanked these last few months, and I was thinking that my last comp, if it were a Latin, could help me fix that, but that's no big deal at all. Elder McLean is awesome, and we're going to be tearing it up out here for the next six weeks.

Six weeks! Well, it's six and a half, so let's not get ahead of ourselves. Six weeks is a long time. I can do a lot of things in that time, and I'm going to, so I hope that none of you expect me to get baggy any time soon. But still. Six weeks.
This week was awesome. We did so much better. If you will all recall, we were having a difficult time with our lack of investigators, but this week we suddenly found a ton. It was great. I will only mention a few of the more positive ones, though, to avoid an overly long email. The first was a family of five called the Rivas family. They are not super super positive, but we had some really interesting lessons with them about how one of the brothers can stop drinking, and about forgiveness and repentance and such. The family did not come to church this week, but there is some potential.

Then there was a guy named Alfonso, who was kind of interesting. He wasn't super positive, really, but his son is deaf, and we have a lady in our ward that is a sign-language translator. So we're going to get her involved and see if we can make something happen. It would be cool to baptize a deaf kid.

Now on to the more positive ones. First, we have the Mira family. They are ridiculous. The husband, David (and yes, they are already married, which saves us a step) was studying to be a Catholic priest for a long time, and then he left that and became a Lutheran pastor for six years. After all of that time, he noticed a lot of corruption in all of the churches, and stopped going about four years ago. He also drank, which was not prohibited in the Lutheran church, but he felt that he shouldn't, so he had no right to preach if he drank, too. So he just stopped going to church. Then he got married to Isabel, and they now have a two year old son, Luis. And let me take a moment to say that Luis is a nightmare. He is the most obnoxious kid I have met on my mission. Almost. Maybe Brian (or the rest of you, but Brian was actually there) will remember a lady in San Salvador (I believe her name was Ana) who had a five-ish year old son who was basically the devil. Luis is like that, except he is super happy while he is obnoxious, and his parents don't really do much about it. Last time we went there he was literally climbing all over us completely naked, stealing our plaques, and grabbing our ties and screaming. At one point he ran and stood on somebody's bed and just started peeing. Really crazy kid. But the parents are super, super positive. David has told us a couple times that he had been praying recently to know what he should do, since he feels like he should be going to a church. And then we showed up. I love being an answer to people's prayers. And they went to church on Sunday and absolutely loved it. And they have read the pamphlets we left, and are starting the Book of Mormon. And they always have really good questions. Golden family, as far as I'm concerned. And the husband was showing us a bunch of his Lutheran pastor stuff, which was really interesting.

Then there's Abby. She isn't quite as positive, but is still good. Actually, she was one of the first investigators that I taught here in Sonsonate, but we only went like twice because she just kind of straight-out told us that she wouldn't go to church or get baptized or anything. Then one day, while we were planning, we decided to put her name down. We showed up, and guess what? She's awesome. She told us that that very night she had been going through some really hard times and was praying for help. And all that morning she had been praying for it, too. And then we showed up. Again, I love being the answer to people's prayers. President Monson mentioned that in conference, once, if I remember correctly; that there is nothing more satisfying than following a prompting and finding out later that you are answering someone else's prayers.

And then, to wrap this up, there's Mauricio. He is progressing very well, and we actually have a baptismal date for next Sunday with him. He'll have his interview on Thursday. But he also is very, very intelligent and likes having answers to things. He already knows that this church is true, too, so I feel like most of his research is just out of curiosity, and not trying to compare or see the pros and cons (I almost wrote ver the pros and cons. Spanglish for you). Yesterday we went over and he had done a ton of research on the internet and such. We spent two whole hours (too long, I know, but still) answering questions about everything. I think the only thing that we didn't talk about was the temple-related stuff, which is probably good. But we went into polygamy, baptisms for the dead, the Fall, the kingdoms of glory, Quetzecuatl, Solomon Spalding and the Book of Mormon, the Urim and Thumim, the gift of tongues, the apocrofa, etc. We also went through each of the articles of faith in detail. Very fun discussion, since I think he was definitely asking to learn, not to argue. He also went to church, by the way, and noticed that this week was much more reverent than the last time he came, even though our attendance dropped from 136-ish the first time to 125 this time. Also, I thought it was interesting that he worked as a business consultant for a lot of years, and has already shown that he is very good at identifying and fixing problems. He could contribute a ton to the church.

Alright, that's all I've got time for today. My bad. Time flies now. All of you are doing a very good job of reminding me how little time I have left, so I will do my best to stay focused and make the most of it. Oh, and I remembered that I will need to go clothes shopping pretty immediately after getting home, so I will need older sister help to do so. I do have two years of wearing nothing but a white shirt and blue-and-gray-striped tie (yes, Brian, I mean the last Lopez office tie), so my fashion sense is a little wack (and yes, I did just quote a Weezer song. Points to anyone who tells me which. Not many points, though, because it's easy).

Thanks for all of the 23 emails this week! Actually, they have now reached 25, since a couple last minute emails have been trickling in. I hope that you all have a great week! Keep sending me emails while you still can! Well, you'll still be able to in six weeks, but it won't be nearly as exciting.

Elder David Arrington

PS: Michael! I am so stoked to find out where you're going! You'll have to let me know on Sunday when I call!

PPS: Good thing I just remembered to mention that. I'll be calling on Sunday at 6:00pm our time, which translates to 5:00pm your time. I chose that so you have time after church and don't have to rush home. As far as conferencing and such, I really don't have a preference either way. I would definitely like to talk to the whole family (of course leaving the bulk to the one whose day it is), but if y'all think that it's better to just wait the month and a half, it's fine, too. Talk about it, and let me know on Sunday when I call. I'll call the house number first, by the way, just to see, and then I'd call the conference number.

Week 17 in Sonsonate

This was a fun letter to read—great progress!

Subject:  He's in managed care. It's ironic, right? He never managed to care for me.

What a pivotal week! Oh my gosh! I think this week I have seen more improvement in myself than in any other week of my mission, which is saying a lot. But before we get to that, I think I should mention that I got 27 emails this week. That is insane. That's more than double the regular week. Granted, there are a couple reasons for that. Brian is probably the biggest one, but then there was a bunch from the mission letting us know that we got 152 baptisms this month (the highest in almost a year), our zone got 22 baptisms (the highest in almost a year and the highest in the mission), and that we won't have money for another week or so. That means I might have to pull out even more money from that account you guys have left me. I've been trying to pull out money only when I really need it, but I feel kind of bad. I've been pulling it out more often toward the end of my mission, and I can't figure out if it's because everything is more expensive here in Sonsonate or if I'm just more careless with money. I hope it's the former. Either way, just know that I may be pulling some more out today. I was thinking about it, by the way, and I decided that I really want to pay that back sometime, too. So I hope you're all keeping track of how much I owe.

Anyway, that 27 emails has given me a lot of different things. I got some fantastic pieces of news that came in unexpected ways, I got some random tidbits (that's a word, right?) of stuff going on back home, I realized that Lindsay's business is doing pretty awesome (which means I am suddenly a rich man, kind of), and so on. It was a lot to read, though I still haven't read some of it. I'll print a bunch of stuff so that I can read it later.

Also, before I forget, I was wondering what the schedule is going to be like when I get home. I mean, it's still seven weeks or so away, but someone should be in charge of that. Otherwise I don't think I'll have any idea what to do for that first week or so. So someone should get on that, and they should make sure I have time to visit old friends, play the piano, and, maybe less importantly, watch Toy Story 3, Inception, and Tangled, in that order. Probably the first three nights I'm home, so that I have the smallest risk possible of people spoiling it for me. And those could probably be with most of (or all of) the family, in an epic movie night. I'm just saying in advance so it doesn't come as a shock later. That probably seems pretty insignificant in the list of things to do, but I've spent 22 months running (literally) out of the room whenever anybody mentioned one of those three movies, so I want to get that cleared up.

I realized as well that I now have less months left than my comp has years left. I have a little over a month and a half left, and he has a little over a year and a half left. Crazy. That makes me KC Clyde in The Best Two Years.

Next week is changes, as well, so we'll be able to see where my comp or I go. My bet is that I'll be staying in Sonsonate, so here I will die. But it's possible that I'll be changed. You never know.

This week, like I said, was pretty pivotal. We have definitely not had much success lately. We pretty much dropped the last few investigators that we had and are starting fresh, which means we're spending a lot of time looking. Unfortunately, we haven't been spending a lot of time finding, which means we are probably doing something wrong in the looking part. We're working on figuring out what exactly that is, although I have some ideas. So we'll be making the appropriate changes and trying again this week.
The best investigator that we have, then, by far, is Mauricio, the older guy that used to be on El Salvador's national soccer team. He understands things so quickly it blows me away. We had left a lesson 1 pamphlet with him a few days ago and went back yesterday to follow up. Not only had he read the whole thing (one of the first times that has happened to me in the mission, I'll have you know), he understood and explained to us, as if he were already a member, the Atonement, the apostasy, the need for a prophet, the priesthood (both the Aaronic and the Melchizedec and their functions), the Book of Mormon, where it came from, the three and eight witnesses, Nephi's plates vs. Mormon's plates vs. Moroni's plates, etc. Then he started explaining to us how his Catholic baptism was wrong, and that we should not worship the Virgin Mary, and how prayer, when done in the right form, gives us answers, and how God has a plan for us and what happens after this life. Like I said, he's ridiculous. The only thing that he had a problem with still is Joseph Smith being a prophet because it didn't seem like God would have left the world without one for 1800 years. But we did a pretty good job of explaining it to him, I think (and we had a member with us that helped a bunch), so I think that's taken care of. He even said that he is pretty sure that what we're teaching is the truth, even though that comes from his logical analysis instead of the spirit (we wouldn't have wasted two years of our lives if it weren't, so many people can't be wrong, etc. I didn't mention that, even though we have 15,000,000 members, there are a lot more people in other churches who, let's face it, are wrong). But, as I think I've said before, I think that he still is going to have a problem getting baptized because he is so focused on learning all of the doctrine before making a decision. I don't doubt that he will one day get baptized, I'm just afraid that it won't happen very soon. I hope it does. He could be a powerful member.

One of the amazing things that happened this week was that we had a temple trip on Thursday. It's been several months since the last one, and I was missing it a lot. Fortunately I'll only have to wait a month and a half for my next (and last) one. But going to the temple is always such an incredible experience. I won't share the details, of course, but President had asked us to study Moses 1-5 before going, which I did, and I spent some time pondering that and reading my patriarchal blessing in the Celestial Room. That helped me so much it's ridiculous. I know some things I have to change, and I'm excited to do so.

And now I'm out of time. Look at that. Time flies when you're having fun, right? Before I forget: Whoever's in charge of my schedule when I get home needs to add time to go do a session in the Portland temple, either that first weekend or the next. Also, time to go swimming would be nice. And maybe go to the lake with those wave runners Mom and Dad were thinking about selling this year (again). Oh, and let's not forget time to look for a job. If Julie can pull some strings for me at Red Robin, I think that that would be ideal. And I can speak Spanish, which might be a plus. I think I had already mentioned to her that I wanted to put her string-pulling skills to use, but I'm just reminding you all. And everyone can get to work finding me a job just in case. Gosh, it's good to have a big, influencial family that likes working on projects together that benefit me.

Thanks again for all of the emails! This week I got some from: Stacey, Lindsay, Julie, Google, Brian, Nicole, the Bank, the Mission, Mom, Dad, President, Sarah, Jairo (Huaman), and Brian. I mentioned Brian twice for two reasons: 1) He sent me a pretty good chunk of emails and 2) I had already written, "Sarah, Jairo (Huaman), and", before I realized that there was no one else, and I couldn't just go back and move the comma and "and" around. That would have taken way too long.
Elder David Arrington

PS: I feel like that scheduling assignment is going to get passed to Emily or Stacey. They tend to be the schedulers, right?

Week 16 in Sonsonate

Subject:  Have you ever had a caviar garnish?

I feel like this week was a little bit quieter as far as events go, but it was good because it has helped me to see a few things that I need to change and fix as a missionary. That's always a pretty important thing, right? I think so.

Just for a little background, I'm going to attach a picture. That's a map of Sonsonate, and most of what's in the image is my area, although there is a little that's not. But my area does extend north beyond the screen. The point is, our house is point A. The chapel is point C. It takes us fifteen minutes or so to walk to the chapel, which is a lot longer than I've ever had to walk to a chapel before. Generally the missionaries live pretty close to it. But after seeing that that is a fifteen minute walk, look all the way up there to point B. That's where most of our investigators live. It's the Lomas del Muerto, and it takes us fifteen minutes or so to walk to the base of it, and then another 15 minutes or so to climb up it. That means that we have to head all the way up there and then down to the church (the route I've highlighted) to invite people to church. Round-trip, it's about an hour and a half of just walking. That's not terrible for us, since we can handle it, but the hour that it takes those investigators to walk from there to the church (since they walk much slower than we do) has proven to be too much. Even though a bunch of those investigators were progressing a bit, it looks like getting them to church is just not working. That means that we have decided to just about completely drop the Diaz family, the Campos family, Josue, Juan Carlos, and a couple news that we had found there. That may seem a little harsh, but teaching people who can't or don't come to church basically wastes our time, which might be okay if we were in a difficult country, but there are too many people ready to hear the gospel here, so we have to move on.

Also, just so you don't get the wrong idea, we wouldn't have dropped them if they had been progressing really well. All of them have kind of died down a bit, except for the husband in the Campos family. He's still reading and such. But the only interactions he's had with the church are the temple trip and one week of church, where they happened to talk about baptisms for the dead in every meeting. So he's had some pretty hard times accepting that. We finally helped him understand it a little bit better, but he can't get baptized because his wife straight-out refuses to marry him. We even went with Elder Gillette (my ZL) and Elder Alvarado (an AP) to try to talk her into it, but she kept on ignoring us and just walking away. Seriously, there were a couple times where Elder Alvarado would be talking directly to her and she would see someone out on the street and just leave the house to go say hi to them. And then she'd try to go visit somebody else, so Elder Alvarado and Elder Gillette would literally chase after her until she agreed to come back and talk just for a couple minutes. So she'd come back, and go into a different room and not come out. It was very frustrating, and very rude, and very much tells us that, as positive as the husband is, he's not getting married any time soon.
Mauricio is the next positive one that we have. He lives in the colonia 14 de diciembre, which you should be able to find on the map. It's a better location, much nicer neighborhood, and he lives in one of the nicest houses I've seen in my mission. I think the only one that beats it is that time we went to teach an American at a member's house (also American). Both worked at the US Embassy, and were at least filthy rich in comparison. And they gave us pizza. That was a great night. Brian, who is reading this as well, should remember it. Good times, right? Man, I miss doing divisions with that kid.

Anyway, Mauricio is very smart and understands things very well. It's like a breath of fresh air, since it's been a very, very long time since I've taught someone that doesn't forget what we taught five seconds after we move to a new subject. He even has come up with his own conclusions, and works them into what we teach. For example, he already knows that the Catholics did not have the authority to baptize him, nor did they do it correctly. He told us that baptism is a promise between man and God, so it can't be done as a baby. There should be a specific age set for baptism to make sure that people are ready and understand it. That's the kind of stuff he reasons for himself, and seriously I cannot express the contrast that that is to most of the other people we teach, especially those who live in much humbler settings. My worry, though, as I may have mentioned before, is that he is going to want to know everything before getting baptized. As all of us who have been raised in the church know, it takes a very, very long time to learn everything. We're not exactly sure how long, since I'm pretty sure that none of us have done it yet. That's why humbler people get baptized so much quicker. They don't (or in some cases, can't) rely on logic and knowledge to understand the doctrine, so they go by what they feel. Why would that work so well? Well, it's kind of the point of it all. As the scriptures point out, to be learned is good, but only if we humble ourselves and submit to the will of God.

So the bottom line is that we had only one investigator at church, and she was a new that is a reference from two RMs that just got back, who are brothers, who both left and returned on the same day. We'll probably be doing divisions with them sometime, since they still have that mission-ness to them. I hope I have that when I get back.
There you go. We need to find new investigators, and ones that live closer to the church. It'll be a little bit rougher, since the areas around the church are either much richer areas (as rich as Sonsonate gets, that is), or businesses. Not ideal for contacting. Oh well. That's why we don't do it by ourselves. There's a third-party that we get to help us that is a lot better at finding and convincing people. Who is he? Oh, no body. He's no body. Get it? 'Cause he's a ghost! And a rather Holy one, at that. (I mean the Holy Ghost, for all of you scratching your heads back home. Gosh!)

I have actually been thinking a lot about the topic of repentance, which was really interesting because it fits perfectly with something that Dad sent me this week. Anyway, I was thinking about it a lot because I've wanted to understand what it is a little bit more and how it differs in our beliefs from other peoples'. Mostly that's because every time I think I've ever taught repentance to someone and then challenged them to repent of their sins they just say, "Oh, I repent every night, so I already do that." That's a hard thing to correct, of course, because I don't want to tell them that they haven't actually been repenting, but that's the way it is. So I realized something. Repentance, as the world sees it, is just changing from a bad person to a good person. More often, actually, it involves just saying "forgive me" in a prayer, and you're set. The single biggest difference between our church and the rest is Priesthood authority, so how does that work into repentance? Well, quite simply: We are the only church in the world with the authority to baptize and administer the sacrament, which are the ordinances that must be performed by a person to complete their repentance. We use the example a lot of cleaning a shirt. Here, of course, they do it by hand in a giant stone basin. Step one to washing the shirt is to get a bunch of soap and scrub it like crazy. That's the repentance, or at least the first part. It's the scrubbing to make the shirt clean. But the repentance is not complete until you rinse the shirt of by pouring a bunch of water on it. Obviously, lots of water represents baptism (or the sacrament if one has already been baptized). Repentance without baptism or taking the sacrament with the proper authority is not repentance. So one might say that repentance to the rest of the world means saying you're sorry and changing, but in the Gospel of Jesus Christ we know that the cleansing power of the Atonement must be applied not just through change, but through covenants.

That's just a few thoughts I've had over the last few weeks. I don't know if it made much sense to you all (or you're probably wondering why it took me so long to reach that conclusion), but it's been good for me to think a lot more about these principles. It's amazing how much I could have told anyone about any of the principles of the gospel before the mission, but out here I've started to get a depth of understanding for those principles that is really hard to describe. It's awesome, said simply.

I hope you all have a great week! This week I got emails from Julie, Lindsay (and Nicole, but both were business, so that's kind of cheating... JKBS), Stacey, Mom, Dad, President Cordon, the APs, Brian (Oliverson), Jairo (Huaman), and Elder Packard. 16 emails. Not a bad haul. Thanks again for those emails and for the support you guys give me while I'm out here!

Elder David Arrington