The New Girl

So there are a couple of big newsy things this week.

First of all, the last week we have had 3 baptisms and 4 confirmations! We were so excited.  I am going to send you pictures of the people that got baptized. Here is a picture of Hermana Schmidt and I with our District leader and his companion who came to our baptism with us.  Then is a picture of us with Victor and his wife and their member friends. And then David and Alejandro and familia  and finally a picture of Nestor with us and his family.

But last Saturday, Nestor (married to a member) and David and Alejandro (Brothers and friends of members) got baptized and it was just so great to see them get baptized one right after another.  It was a great day.  The friend of David and Alejandro is a Priest and so he was able to do the baptisms and then our district leader baptized Nestor.   Last pday we bought all 4 of our baptism ties.  Alejandro and David wear tight pants and so it was fun to look for ties and to decide with ones they would like and so naturally we got them the ties with a bit of purple and pink in them.  But last Friday we went around to each one by one and gave them the ties we had picked out for them and they were all so appreciative and they all loved them.  We wrapped them up like a present and all 4 of them didn´t want to rip the wrapping paper because they said they wanted to keep it as a memory.   But Alejandro jumped up and down and ran and gave us hugs.  We aren´t allowed to hug boys and so it was a little awkward.  But it made us so happy.  Victor opened his and almost cried.  The great thing about the people here is that they are always so grateful.  They are also so giving.  When they offer food or something to drink, they expect us to take it and they get offended if we say no.  But the baptisms turned out great.

They other news this week, the new nurse came!  It all came by surprise.  President called us on Sunday morning during church and said that the new nurse would be arriving from the MTC in Guatemala on Monday.  And that is exactly what happened so now we are in a trio.  Her name is Hermana Woods and she is from Arizona.  She has worked as a nurse for a year so it is good that she has some experience.  Her Spanish is already pretty good for her first couple of days here.  She talks really choppy but it is a great start.   We have a baptism tomorrow of Sharon.  She is the 12 year old daughter of inactive members and so we have been working with the family and the mom loves church.   We are excited that our new companion can have her first baptism during her first week of the mission.  We felt a little bad because we just had a big baptizing fest before she came but luckily we still have Sharon.  Sharon is a great girl and we always end up helping her with her English homework.

So the other fun thing that happened this week was that Hermana Cash´s (my trainer) companion got dengue and so they came to our house for a couple days while Hermana Schmidt helped nurse her back to health.  So Hermana Cash and I got to do divisions for 2 days.  I loved being with her again especially when she said my Spanish was great:)  But the strangest thing happened.  When we were together we saw Mauricio (our recent convert from Casa Blanca that went totally inactive and  ran away from us twice).  It was so strange that out of all the times that Mauricio would be in Santa Tecla in our area, I happened to be with Hermana Cash because her comp was sick.  Coincidence?  I think not. We had a great time together and we tried to give Mauricio a pep talk to go back to church.  I don´t know what happened to him but it is hard to give in to the fact that he has his own agency.

So, we have some really positive people that we are teaching and really the members are helping us a ton. I have learned on my mission that missionary work is nearly impossible without the help of the members.  Remember that every member has a reference for the missionaries.

I love it here in El Salvador.  Really, every day I think of how much I love the people here.  There is no where I would rather be.

I love you all!

Hermana Bush