Serving in "the Savior's" Land, El Salvador: First Week in El Salvador

My Companion Elder Vasquez

Dear Familia,

I have to say, this kinda stinks not knowing spanish. Half the time I can't understand what's being taught. But when I do, I feel so accomplished. I've seen more cockroaches then I'd like to and have had about half a million crawl all over me. They seem to like that they have "roommates". For example, I bought a box of cornflakes. The next day, I went to pour a bowl of them. Instead of a nice toy rolling into my bowl. A huge, nasty, fat, disgusting, flipping cockroach landed in my bowl. I was instantly feeling super sick. Because if I didn't see it, I would have eaten the bowl. Other than all of that, and my super bad stomach. I love it here. The people have a great love for the work and the gospel. Everyone is so nice and so helpful. Even if a person isn't a member of the mormon church, everyone here has deep roots in religion. Which makes it harder to teach them sometimes. But, it helps too. Me and my companion are, at the moment, teaching a young man about 20 yrs. old about the gospel. He has already accepted the invitation of baptism. We are just working towards the baptism date. He is super excited. We have also been rejected for the invitation by others(I hope I spelled that right) for baptism. But everyone here is pretty awesome. My companion is pretty cool. His name is Elder Vasquez. He knows predominatly spanish. A bit of english. So it's hard at times. But it's ok. I met Elder Flake, he does remember me. I like him a lot. Congrats to Clay and Josevy! Olivia, good job on your running stuff. Just remember, work your tail off. I love you all. Do you know how hard it is to not be able to eat bacon? It really stinks. Oh and ordering food in Spanish is super hard too. The bus system here is insane. I haven't had any gang related problems yet. So that's good. Be good all of you.