Las Palmeras

Here I am in my new ward!  It was very strange to change areas for the first time but what I can tell, I think I will enjoy it here.  I am in a city called Santa Tecla which is right next to San Salvador and we work in a ward called Las Palmeras.  My new companion is Hermana Schmidt who is a real nurse.  The schedule of the nurse is a little different.  On Mondays we have to go to the mission office and work their most of the day.  Every other day she is ¨on call¨ till 9:30 in the morning and so we start studying at 9:30 until after lunch and so we leave the house at 1 every day.  This week we really haven´t done much because on Tuesday we went to the office to welcome in the new people to the mission and the new sisters went to work with us and slept at our house.  We got two new sisters and they are both from the other mission in El Salvador.  They were not very friendly and one of them would never smile.  Then on Wednesday we went to the new people meeting where the new people meet their trainers.  Thursday we had multizona and then on Friday we had our weekly planning session.  And today is pday.  I feel like I haven´t done anything all week! But I need to remember that this is my new calling to learn how to be in charge of health because in 3 months I am going to be in charge!  It really scares me and I have heard so many health stories of what has happened in the last 6 months in the mission.  I came to the conclusion that I need to study twice as hard so that I can have faith enough that no one will get hurt.  I think it is a good plan.  And then if anyone gets sick, I can just read them a scripture and they will magically be healed.

So the new ward is great (at least what I know about).  The attendance is usually around 180 each sunday!  That is 100 more people than the wards in Chalchuapa.  We share a house with 2 other sisters that work in the same ward.  The other sisters are both latinas and they are both really cute and little.  I have met some people in the ward and they all seem really nice.  And the weirdest thing off all is that people have musical talent here.  The ward actually has a little orchestra that practices together and they also have a ward member teach english classes every day.  And they have ward missionaries.  I couldn´t believe that I am in a functioning ward.  I am really excited to be here and to work with people that I can relate to more.  And after this week we won´t have to go to meetings so that we can work a lot more.

I don´t feel like I have too much more to say because I just wrote on Monday.  We are going to work hard because Hermana Schmidt only has 2 cambios left and we want her to leave with a bang.  Oh, one thing about her is that her Spanish is terrible and so sometimes she has been talking and the people don´t understand her and so she has to ask me to explain.  It makes me laugh and it is good because she doesn´t really care if her spanish is bad.  But so many people have told me that my spanish is excellent.  I know it isn´t but it is nice of them to say so.  I think that I am going to enjoy my time here but it is going to take time to get used to the nursing schedule and to accept it because I feel antsy to get out and start teaching.

Just want to say that I love you all and I am excited to be in my new area and to learn a lot about missionary health.

Love,

Hermana Bush