Humildad...la clave (Humility...the key)

Dearest Familia,

How´s it going? I hope all is going well in the great US of A. God bless America!

Things here in El Salvador are going well. Same old same old...we´re teaching lots of people, looking and trying to find those that are prepared and ready and willing to accept the gospel, getting wet by the rain almost everyday, finding new and strange bug bites about every other day, eating various things, watching the miracles unfold each day, and enjoying the work and the chance to serve the Lord. 

"This is called a Schmaco (like s´mores, but a taco). 

Delicious."

I am falling in love with this work more and more each day. It´s truly amazing. And having a killer awesome companion sure helps a whole lot. We´re praying for one more change together. Fingers crossed.

It´s really sad to see how much pride destroys our spirits. And to watch how pride really is the beginning of every fault. We need to always be humble and rely on the Lord and recognize our unworthiness before Him and ask for His help and guidance in everything. 

I don´t ever want to become that person...the person that thinks they are better than everyone else...the person that is too prideful and selfish to think of others and help others...the person that ignores God and looks as my own will. That´s the person I never want to be. I want to obey God. I want to be a faithful and loyal follower of Christ, in the way and order that He has established. And I am going to pray for constant humildad to recognize that and to always rely on the Lord. 

Saturday we got to go to the women´s session of conference. Apart from the fact that we missed the first speaker due to El Salvador time and lack of preparation, we were thankful we got to hear the other speakers. I loved the talk from Presidente Uchtdorf. He talked about how we can follow the path of discipleship. He said this includes obeying the commandments...ALL of the commandments, and not just the ones that seem easy or enjoyable. Sometimes we act like children with a plate of vegetables in front of us...we don´t want to eat it, even though we know it´s good for us. Sometimes we are that way with the commandments from God. 

He asked, do we really know and understand that God knows better than we do? Do we understand and believe that He wants the best for us? If we truly believe this, and that God wants us each to return to live with Him, then we can live all of the commandments, even the ones that seem hard. 

He compared this to the rain. The blessings that God wants to give us is similar to a torrential rain storm. He literally wants to pour down the blessings from heaven on us. But unfortunately our sins and disobedience stop the blessings from reaching us, just like umbrellas stop the rain from getting us wet. But as we obey the commandments, this help take away the umbrellas and lets us receive that torrential rain storm of blessings. 

Really, the decision is ours. And our motivation to live the Gospel of Jesucristo, changes when we better understand the purpose of God.

"The conferencia with the hermanas en el barrio"

To walk the path of discipleship is not bitter and treacherous. In fact, quite the opposite. It is amazingly sweet and rich and full of joy and happiness. And the most amazing part is that we are the ones who get to choose it. 

I love this Gospel. I know it´s true. I know God lives and loves us, each and every one of us. And I know that His way is always the best way. May we all live a little more like God would want us to live.  

And so life continues...let the crazy cycle of the week began once again. 

Love you lots and lots.

Love,

Hermana Wright

2 Buses down, lots more to go...

Familia,

This week we got the chance to meet with Elder Ochoa, he´s the first counselor in the Area Presidency. It was a reunion that literally lasted all day. We left the house at 630, got to the church around 7am to prepare. The meeting started at 9am and we were there until 5pm. But it was sure powerful and we learned so much. We learned a lot from him as well as a lot from the spirit. 

Elder Ochoa talked a whole lot about faith as well. He told us about how he has a collection of 100 or so scriptures that help him increase his faith and he challenged us to start our own collection. I am going to do that. But really, faith is everything. And we all need to increase our faith. 

Red Mountain

As part of that he talked about talking to everyone and he told us that really we should be shouting this message to the world, we should be announcing it on the bus rides and everything. But he was serious about the whole bus thing. Well as we left to go home from the reunion, we had to take a bus, obviously, and I knew my duty and that we needed to contact in the bus. I told Hna. Paredes we were going to do it, she was much more penosa and nervous, but I was pretty nervous, and really didn´t want to do it, to be honest. But I knew I needed to. I have a message of peace and happiness and everyone needs to hear it. And those that are ready and willing will be open to hearing the gospel. So, I stood in front of that bus and shouted to try and find someone who wanted to accept an appointment for the future to visit. We got one man who gave us his information. And while I felt full of fear and not wanting to do it...I felt like a million bucks after. The best.

Pupusas!! (I´m getting pretty good family...

so get excited)

Now the adventures are getting really interesting on the mission. Gotta love it. I went to Candelaria again to do interchanges friday, and me and Hermana Garcia decided to contact another bus. Buses contacted = 2. Good times. 

So why? Why do I stand up and look like a crazy person in front of a bus full of people, preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Why have I become that person? Well...it´s because I am beginning to better understand my purpose and responsibility as a representative of Him, and the responsibility I have to find those people who are ready and waiting to hear this wonderful message of peace and happiness. 

Making Tortillas.

Time is seriously flying by! In one month I will hit my one year mark. That´s craziness, seriously. 

Not a whole lot to tell yáll. I still absolutely love my companion! And I really love this area. Another change together here would be marvelous! But it´s unlikely. We´ll see. Until then, I´ll enjoy it.

The church is true. Don´t ever forget that.

Love you lots and lots. Praying for you always. 

Love,

Hermana Wright

"It was pretty for about 10 minutes before we left the house...

...15 minutes later is was frizz again, ha!"

Happy Independence Day!!

Familia,

Today is Independence Day in El Salvador! 

Delicious mexican burrito.

Story time:

The other day we went to visit a house where we have two investigators, a grandma and her granddaughter. We walked up to the house and the door was open and it was dark inside but the tv was on. We looked inside and there was the whole family basically watching tv...like 10 people, no joke. "Buenas" dijimos. ("Good," we said.)The abuelita (grandma) asked us if we were going to enter, we of course said yes. Well next thing we knew, people were standing up, moving around, they opened the door completely, and turned on the light, and within literally 45 seconds, there was no one in the room, only us and the abuelita. Everyone literally ran away. Haha. It was classic. We truly are terrifying. 

This week we did interchanges with the nurses of the mission. There are two of them and I spent a day with each. Boy, their job as missionary-nurses, is quite something. They are super busy, are taking phone calls all day, and at the last minute have to go to San Salvador at 10pm in the night when a sister gets appendicitis and has to be operated on. Yep. That happened. But they are great missionaries, despite all the craziness they have to deal with apart from the mission craziness.

Claudia se bautizo!

Yesterday Claudia se bautizo! We had her baptism at 7:30am before church because she wanted to do it early and that way she could be confirmed in sacrament meeting. It was a pretty hectic morning. We got up at 5am, got ready and went to the church to fill up the pila (baptismal font). We left the house at 6:15am, we then went to bring Janet to the baptism and while everything starts late in El Salvador, it didn´t start until about 7:50am. Josef was still asleep when we got to Claudia´s house to help her with Andres and Josef. Craziness.

But the baptism was bien bonito. We asked Josef to give a talk about baptism and the holy ghost. He gave the last talk and it was a moment really special (gotta love the Spanish order of the verb). He got up there and the tears just came to him and he started crying and had a hard time speaking. He didn´t say much, but he said that he was really glad that his mom was finally going to be baptized, and that his little brother Adres will be baptized soon (he´s 6 years old) and that his family will be all together. It was a moment really special as Josef was trying to fight back the tears and the spirit was strong and really touched his heart and her heart. 

Then Claudia shared her testimony at the end and it was really powerful. She said that she has had contact with the church for a few years now, but had left and was in another church for awhile, but that now she has taken this decision and she said she felt something now that was unexplainable. She cried as she said she just wants to follow God´s will and she said that she knows her pathway is long, but it is sure. It was really special, and boy do I just love her. She has so much faith and such a huge desire to serve God and to be an instrument in His hands. And it´s been amazing to be part of her conversion process.

Apart from that, Janet loved it and she is dying to be baptized. She asked us how soon she could be baptized. In the baptism of Claudia she said, "That´s going to be me soon, right?" Amazing how the Lord prepares people and works. Love this work. 

Goat...

Love you all lots and lots and praying for you constantly.

Love,

Hermana Wright

Chillin'

Random mix of thoughts and events...

Familia,

We ate lunch with Hermana Estela. This sweet sweet lady, she just LOVES and ADORES the missionaries. She made sopa de pata...which is super famous here in El Salvador, but I´d never tried it. It was quite the adventure. 

"Poor Elder"

1. She gives us SO much food, it´s ridiculous. But we were blessed to have the Elders there with us and so she gave us much less than normal because she loaded a bunch on the plate for the elders. Tender Mercy. And when there was a huge blob of who knows what part of the cow it came from...that was in my bowl, but as she turned away I was able to sneak that little guy into her soup bowl. I saw the opportunity and I took it. God wants us to be proactive and autosufficient. And He provided a manera and I took it. It was entertaining and I ate the part of the cow intestine that she left in my bowl. Not a big flavor, just a strange texture. 

This past week we realized that we played the roll of marriage counselor, therapist, athlete, missionary, nanny, etc. Wow, the things we experience on the mission. Just two young girls counseling others on how to learn and grow and be happy in life. It seems a bit ridiculous, doesn´t it? Is it because we have a ton of life experience? Definitely not. It´s because we´re called of God and we have been given authority to do so. And that is the beautiful thing about it all.

I have been working on really refocusing and giving my all. Not that I´ve been out of focus, but there have just been little things that I have slacked on or gotten comfortable. But I´m working on repenting and remembering my goal to forget myself completely and really turn outwards always and help others like Christ would do. So I´m refocusing and excited for the chance to learn and grow. Things are going well.

The other day it rained a whole lot. Torrential down pour. (well that often happens actually) The streets turned into rivers in some parts and it was definitely an adventure. A man passed by us and offered to give us a ride through the street to pass through the river. So we jumped in the back of his pickup and he drove us through the river and up the street. I absolutely adore moments like that. They are just surreal, never can capture them on film, but just have to enjoy them every step of the way. 

Road or River?

Claudia is going to be baptized this week and we´re thrilled. Love that woman.

Aside from that, this week I was caught up into lots of reflection about how wicked the world really is today. I have a million thoughts on the subject, but not time to share or desire to type them all. But it all starts with pride and lack of faith and confidence in the Lord. Oftentimes we think we can do it ourselves. Oftentimes we think we´re strong enough to resist this or that. Or we think that this commandment or that commandment doesn´t apply to me. We need to remember who we are. We´re children of God, and He wants to guide us. But we need to let Him. We need to be humble to recognize that we can´t do it alone. We need to always confide and trust in Him, and overall have more faith in Him and His son Jesus Christ. 

How can you trust more in the Lord? What do you need to change to be more humble before the Lord? 

Love you all like CRAZY! 

Loves and prayers I´m sending your way always.

Love,

Hermana Wright

Short and sweet....or maybe just short...

Familia,

Well, there´s opposition in all things. This week was so so. Had its good and bad moments. (I guess that sums up every week of everyone´s life, so pretty general haha)

My own personal dressmaker.  :)

My health was pretty off this week. As a result, I went to the doc in San Salvador again. He didn´t have much to say ha, just the same old, that I lack digestive enzymes to digest food, so he changed the meds I´m taking and told me to try that for the next month to see if it helps, and once again if not, to go back and see him. Go team go. The only bad news is these new meds make me have to pee every 30 minutes. But seriously,
I´m not joking. Not the ideal situation in El Salvador.

Tracting here.

Apart from that, the work moves forward and I´m working to be better. Changes are this week and I found out this morning that we don´t have changes!! Woohoo!!

Love you lots and lots family.

Love,

Me

My companion.