Monday, February 24, 2014

La vigésimo tercera semana!

Hola mis amigos,
 
Wow, I really can not believe that this week is over. It flew by like a peregrine falcon diving for the kill. That is the best analogy I can come up with on the FLY. I think it might be because we are working as hard as we possibly can. We contact like nobody's business, at this point I feel like talking to a complete stranger about the gospel is the same as talking to my best friends, really easy. We keep finding new investigators because we will teach anyone who will listen. Our problem at this point is that everyone will listen, but we can't find those who will DO. We visit 10 houses every Sunday morning, but no one will come to church and everyone is scared to pray about what we teach. But we try to have as much patience as we can and show the saviors love. The people here love the Lord, they are really misguided sometimes. For example, most people think that the Catholic church was directly founded by Christ, when in reality it was founded 300 years after he died. I also talked with a man who told us Christ wasn't murdered and that he just died for our sins. All I could think of saying was "Well, Brother, he certainly didn't crucify himself!"
 
All in all it is going great out here and I am really excited for the future. I think we will have a lot of success in our area. We are reopening the area, so we started with nothing. The members are super helpful and we can always go out with them and they show us where the good investigators are. I was a bit scared to ask for help from them in the beginning, so we are just barely seeing the fruits of working with members.
 
This week I did some pretty cool stuff. We went to the volcano of San Salvador. I also milked a cow in the morning. That was weird. Heads up, I am learning to play harmonica, so I will be pretty cool when I get back.
 
Love,
 
Elder Vierkant
 







 


 

 




 


 

Monday, February 17, 2014

La vigésimo segunda semana!

Hola amigos!

This week was nuts, it flew by like nothing. I feel like I am always going at a 100 miles per hour trying to get everything done and trying to do it well. We had some cool experiences this week too, so here it goes.

First off, this Wednesday, we went searching for a contact that we received from the mission office. Some might say that it was a bad idea to do that without a member, but the result turned out be a great experience. The main problem is that our search took us an hour and a half from our house in Opico by pickup, to San Isidro, the farthest point of our area. We got there, taught a lesson to someone we contacted and then went looking, during our search, we found out that the last pickup leaves at 3:30, ten minutes away at that point. We went speed walking for the point where the pickups leave. We talked with the people there and they said we should just wait there. We waited. And waited. Finally a lady who actually knew what she was talking about told us the pickup had left early and that we were essentially stuck 40 kilometers from our house. We went looking for someone with a cellphone and began calling everyone we had numbers for to see if someone could give us a ride, but no one could. Finally one of them told us to wait for a truck with swimmers (there is a river nearby) to pass by. We started walking for a while, but nothing past. Finally we sat down and prayed. The second I asked Heavenly Father for a ride home, a pickup truck appeared. I ended the prayer and we quickly got a ride home. It was one of the coolest experiences I have ever had.

This Sunday I had the opportunity to give a talk with a 10 minute notice because one of the missionaries leaving didn't write their farewell. Luckily I had already written talks so I was well prepared for the opportunity. It was pretty cool!

Adiós por ahora!

Elder Vierkant















Monday, February 10, 2014

La vigésimo primera semana!

Hola mi amigos!

I got to say this week was a ton of fun. Our area is starting to warm up, in both ways. At 6:30 in the morning it is 80 degrees and its cold. In the day time it is like 95 degrees of pure wrath of sun beating your skin with a whip. We make it fun. I am starting to get a nice watch tan, which I would already have, but I was taking my watch off and putting it in my belt loop. Then I decided my watch tan would make a nice picture, which would help you understand how well the sun works here. It is all worth it, because it is the only way we can get fresh mandarin oranges all day, along with avocado, marañón (the fruit that makes cashews) and other fruits. It really is like the classic Central America country side; poor in worldly things, but rich in the sense of nature and beauty. Sometimes, when we are hiking the dirt roads and we get to a turn in the road, we have to stop and admire all the creations of the Lord. I will send pictures next week.

The other way that our area is warming up is the work. We have been working hard, looking for people to teach. We talk with everyone and teach anyone that we can. And, for the most part, our work is showing some fruits. We haven't had a baptism yet or had people in church for two weeks, but people are starting to let us in their houses. We have about 5 positive investigators which is a lot better than last week. We have one investigator, Leonardo, who is preparing himself to be baptized and he knows the church is true, he just needs to finish preparing. We also gave a man named Virigilioa a Book of Mormon and visited him a week later and he had already read to the Book of Omni. Maria Lourdes told us after the first lesson that she thinks the Book of Mormon is true and has read only 7 chapters. It is really satisfying to see even just a little bit of success. We will keep working as hard we can, because we can really see the blessings!

I have to say at this point that with all the work that we have been doing, I have hardly any free time, and slowly it has consumed all my thoughts. All I can think about is how we can work better, how we can help the people and I sometimes forget to think about home. I can say with assurity that I don't want this to end for a while.

One Direction music video in the cyber café we are in, got to go. ;)

Love,

Elder Vierkant

(Missed these pics from last week.)
Proof
 

District

District


Monday, February 3, 2014

La vigésima semana!

Dear Everyone,

I have a little more time to write today so you will get a lot more information. I will start by talking about the meeting with Elder Cook, then I will talk about my area a little bit more and I will talk about how the work is going in my area.

The Thursday before last, we had a big conference with Elder Cook in the chapel by the temple. We had to get up at about 6 and leave at about 7 to arrive on time to the temple because the bus ride there is about an hour and a half. We met up with part of our zone at the chapel in Versailles, a city here and also the name of the zone I am in. We rode with part of our zone and part of the zone arce to the temple. We arrived to the temple early but most of the missionaries were already there. There were probably 600 missionaries  in the chapel and the cultural hall because we were meeting as all the missions in El Salvador. When we arrived, I headed up to the stand because I was part of the choir. I sat three rows up on the stand, with the three presidents of missiona in front of me. After about an hour, president Cook walked in by himself, all 600 missionaries standing quietly. It was a beautiful thing. He then at down on the front row of the stand, about 2 seats to the right of me and 2 seats down. I could read his note book from where I was sitting. Then began a spiritual feast, beginning with the spirit he brought into the room, helped by the amazing male choir that I was in, singing Army of Helaman in Spanish. We had talks from the area presidency and Elder Cooks wife. I learned a lot from what Elder Cook taught, especially how to break scriptures down and link them with other ideas. I am really grateful for the opportunity I had to listen to him.

My area is out in the country side like I said. There are a lot of people who tend land with lots of fruit trees. I have learned a lot about fruit, including what fruit cashews come from. I had no idea that they were a seed that sticks out from a really delicious fruit called maringon. Or something like that. There are cows, chickens, goats, dogs and horses every where as well as every type of tree. We walk down roads, dirt roads and the equivalent to hiking trails to get to places. It is really calm and tranquil here, a huge difference from where I was before. There are more beautiful views and you don't have exhaust blowing in your face all day. Our area is extremely huge. There is a town in our area that is over 40km away from where we live. We share the ward with two other missionaries who work mostly in the town of San Juan Opico, where we live.

The work. We work hard because when we got here, there was hardly anything. We have one investigator from the missionaries before, and I believe he will be baptized this month. We have had to contact like crazy and we have to work with the members a lot to find people. Luckily, the members here are extra helpful so we have grown our area very fast. I have learned a lot because I am in charge of what we do. I have learned to talk to random strangers in the street likes it is nothing. I even enjoy it. It took some effort to learn how to do it well, but it has paid off and we have found quiet a few potential positive investigators.

More next week,

Elder Vierkant