Doing Great!

Dear Mom,

I am doing great. I got about 7 pairs of new garments. I cannot tell you how good it feels just to have something new on you. Because everything that I have is starting to wither away and die. I am not going to lie. A ferris wheel sounds tempting. But here, those are prohibited for missionaries. One because it is dangerous, and second, the "carnivals" are super sketchy and everyone gets drunk at those sort of things. Halloween doesn't exist here, but last year what we did was switch plaques. It was pretty fun. My companion is called Elder Wyatt. If you want you can talk to his mom. Her name is Amie Wyatt. She apperantly doesn't know about the El Salvador mom Facebook page. Pickle Ball sounds pretty epic. Just look up the Wyatt family on mormon.org orlds.org. I have been using Elder Wyatt's camera. Speaking of which. He forgot his at the temple trip, we woke up 20 min. before we had to leave. It really stunk, we had the alarm set for 3 in the morning. And we totally slept through it. We woke up at 4:40 in the morning. We jumped up and threw on clothes and ran to the chapel (about a mile away.....). We are now starting to find more people to get them baptized. We found a member who was super inactive and he was living with another lady and they aren't married (yet) and they have a kid. And they are so cute and converted! Way to be Emilio on his band comp. I know that he is going to be a killer music man. He'll have to teach me. Katlyn and Braxton! That's my dog! They'll be a good family. Give them my congratulations in my behalf please. I'm working on and doing better at being more positive. I love all of you guys. 

Sincerely,

Elder Medina

A Little "Baggy" and Earthquake Recap

The earthquake was acutally really fun. I was planning with my companion. And we started giggling a lot. And then we finally started to think when it got stronger, we should probably leave the house right now. So we did and there was a bunch of people in the street and little kids calling for parents. The adults were all fine and we were cool. Except a member two doors down from us, she got scared for us and sent her son to check on us. We were still in the giggle stage. Thank you for the love. I haven't gotten the package yet. I did get your letter. I liked it a lot. I did feel a bit baggy about it.(I asked Victor what Baggy meant and he said that it meant "trunky" or missing home.) About the plates, I haven't seen a single one. Everyone here is so poor and they use a lot of plastic plates. And sometimes little buckets.  ( I asked Victor if he has seen any decorative plates. I wanted him to get one and bring it home with him, so we could having something to display in our home that signified El Salvador) Olivia is tearing it up with Cross Country. Way to be for her. I am proud of her. Emilio is still a beast. I know finishing towards the end isn't the best feeling. I remember feeling that way. I used to talk to a lot of freshman about it. My philosophy is if you give it all and you are not ashamed about what you've done in the race,  you still accomplished a personal goal. My companion is a great man. He has a mormon message about his family. You should check it out. He is a really good guy. We are trying to do a lot more with the area here. I remember small branches, but that small. Dang Elder Keil's getting it hard out there. I hope he isn't getting chased by orks or by elves. I forgot to tell you. We are building a house. It is actually hard. Super hard. Without real tools and cement. We are using rocks, a hammer a shovel and a couple other odd tools. And wood, tin, and nails. It is a very fun experience. But it stinks when we get dehydrated.

I love you guys. Thanks for your prayers. I hope everything goes great this week for you guys.

Sincerely,

 

Elder Medina

Earthquake!

Just wanted to document that El Salvador had a 7.4 earthquake out in the Ocean on Monday Oct 13th. This is the email that we got from President and Sister Vasquez the following day. What an exciting mission! There will be lots of stories to tell when Elder Medina comes home.

Todos los misioneros de la misión El Salvador San Salvador Este, incluyendo su hijo o hija, están bien.

Doctrina y Convenios 84:88

Con amor,

Presidente y Hermana Vasquez

All of the missionaries in the El Salvador San Salvador East mission, including your son or daughter, are ok.

Doctrine and Covenants 84:88

With love,

President and Sister Vasquez

Save Me a Piece of That Corn!

Dear Mom,

We are doing better health wise now. We have been able to kick the sickness and get back to work. The only weird thing is that I keep on getting really dizzy. We are working harder in this part of the world. We were blessed to have another baptism from less actives kids who we have fought for. Their stepdad is actually starting to show some progress. Now that he has seen us starting to help his kids, he has started to be less mean and showing more progress. We are starting to work on him getting married to get him baptized as well. The girl, her name is Odaly. She always looks mad. But when she was at home the next few days, she has been super nice to her whole family. When we had visited them after the whole amazing day. She has been reading the scriptures and helping out her mom more, who has chikungunya as well. Yes rain continues to fall. It gets actually kind of horrible. It really stinks because a guy stole my umbrella in the first few months here. And my last new one got broken. So I need to get another one, my body gets quite wet. But everything goes well. It really didn't hit me that grandma passed, until a few days ago. I do miss her a lot. I am glad that the mortuary did a good job talking with the kids. That was such a nice thing for them to do. Good job to Alesia for singing at the funeral. Have you guys seen the Meet The Mormons movie?I saw something on the church website. It looks really good. I miss you guys. I love you all.

Sincerely,

Elder Medina

Chikungunya

Dear Mom,

Tom, just got married? He's a beast I am so proud of that man. Mom, you and that hairdo. It's awesome. I almost didn't recognize you. You look good. Tom would hide his truck for the wedding. Lame! But funny that you got him back. Me and Elder Wyatt have something called Chikungunya. Or in other words (as elder Wyatts joke) a varieation of Malaria. It is horrible! I still feel dizzy. You get this nasty red rash and it itches forever!!! There is nice diarrhea, fever and vomiting and who knows what else. Your body hurts and it is impossible to sleep. Other than that, life is good. Two more baptisms next week! I am so sad about Grandma D. Elder Wyatt says, "hi "and sorry about Grandma. I have been failing this past week on writing in my journal because I have been so sick. But I'll get on that and get back to doing better again. I already miss Grandma D so much too. I love all of you guys. I still write to Tori every week. Lets see if I can still woo her when I get back in a year (wink, wink) I love you mom. Keep up the good work. Oh yea, even though we don't eat much, I have gained weight. I now weigh 147. I am getting fat! It turns out, running really did help me keep weight off all those years. Not being able to run has caused me to put the weight on. I'll have a lot of work to do to get back in shape when I come home. One more thing, we got to go Almond picking. It was pretty sweet!

Sincerely,

Elder Medina