La octava semana!

¡Hola!

Sorry about my lame letter last week. It was a lame way to start an adventure. I am not going to lie, I got distracted and didn't use my time that wisely. But here we go, I will try to satisfy your thirst for knowledge.

I will begin by talking a little about El Salvador. The first thing that I would like to say is that the wilderness- the mountains, plants, and other landscape- is very beautiful. There are a lot of small mountains and some inactive volcanoes. I haven't had the opportunity to see a lot of the wilderness, but I would like the opportunity to check it out. Next up is the city. I am in the very center of San Salvador right now. The Palacio National is a few blocks away from my house. My house is a football field away from where the San Estaban cathedral was before it burned down like a year ago. The City is crazy. Defensive driving doesn't exist. Neither does yielding to pedestrians. Crazily enough, I have yet to see an accident though. All the houses here are small. Space is a luxury. It is pretty dirty and stinky. There are all types of people here, selling all types of stuff. There are lots of very humble people. You have to see it to understand it and it is hard to accept it at first. It definitely takes some getting use to.

I got here Monday night, the 29th. We went to the AP's house and stayed the night. The next day we traveled to the temple grounds and ate breakfast in the distribution center. We then had different orientation things and an interview with the president as his wife. It was kind of hard sitting through all of that when all you want is to know who your companion is and where your area and what it is like.

The next day we woke up early and went to Versailles to find out who our companions would be. We sat through a long meeting where they reminded us to be patient through our failures . It was more intended for the trainers who were in there. It was long and I was tired because I had only gotten like 5 hours or less of sleep. Next, we went to the chapel with all the missionaries in the mission who weren't already in Belize or hadn't been transferred there. We had a bunch of different slide shows about different things that didn't have a whole lot of value to me because they were about the achievements in the past month and I didn't really understand the significance of them.

Finally, they started the slide show for cambios. My companion and I were about half way through. I didn't see which area we were in because as soon as I saw who my companion was I started looking for him.

His name is Elder Maldonado. He has 20 months here in El Salvador. He has been a trainer for most of his mission, so he is pretty good at it. He has also opened 4 new areas here. He kinda looks like an Indian Chris Rock.He likes soccer, he is really good at chatting and he is pretty cool but we don't really share the same sense of humor. He is from Honduras, which is one of the fastest speaking countries in central and south America. I guess you could say it has been out of the skillet into the fire. I speak Spanish all day 6 days a week, although I don't say a whole lot because I am still learning. I try though.

My area is interesting. We are opening it, it has been closed for 5 years. We have to walk a lot to get to our area and our other people because they are at the other end of our area. Everyone is pretty poor, outside one area which is a gated area. We go there to teach a lot because that is where a lot of our investigators are. There are a lot of stores. There is also a Burger King that we eat at a lot, especially during changes because the other people want burgers.

Our members are really cool. We have 30 members in our ward, but they are really strong. Our bishop is awesome. He showed us a lot of the people that we talk to now and has spent a lot of time with us. We also have a great member who loves to share the gospel with her friends, so she shows a lot of people.

It has been a hard first two weeks. There are times that I get really homesick, especially when I don't have the opportunity to be working. But I wouldn't trade this opportunity for anything. My testimony won't let me go home. I also know that only through these trials can I achieve what I want from my mission. My last story for today.I decided that I wanted to make a list of things that I wanted to change about myself while I was out on my mission. I spent about an hour thinking and writing things down. The next day I was studying Preach My Gospel and I decided to study chapter 6 "Attributes of Christ."  As I read this chapter, I realized that everything I had written down, everything that I wanted to be, fit into one of the categories of the attributes. It was incredible. I want to invite you, if you have the opportunity, to read this chapter and think of the blessings that come from living these principles. You will realize that it is worth everything you put into living these principles.

Elder Vierkant

Matthew forgot his camera at his home, so we will have to wait til next week for his fun mission pics. Here are some El Salvador Temple pics to tide you over:

Here is some map information from the places he mentioned being near his residence:

Palacio Nacional

Iglesia San Esteban

'The Palacio National is a few blocks away from my house. My house is a football field away from where the San Estaban cathedral.' (notice the burger palace next to Palacio National :) )

Click to enlarge.

Click here for the above map on Google Maps.