Christmas Time is Near, Fireworks are Here & No Snow

Hello!

How are you all doing? This has been an interesting week here, I don`t know where to start... People here are starting to gear up for Christmas time. Although Christmas here is not even close to Christmas back home. People here celebrate with lots and lots of fireworks! More than anything this Christmas season makes me really miss Independence Day!

Yesterday we went to the Christmas devotional, that was really nice. At first I was upset that I had to see it in Spanish, then I realized that I speak Spanish, so who cares. It was really nice.

So if it snows there, be sure to send me lots of pictures, to remember what it is like. Several years ago it snowed here in El Salvador, only at the tip of the highest mountain here, really a once in an eternity experience. So there is no hope here for that.

So Yesterday I got slightly mad at the youth, we had an investigator, Kevin, in the young men's class, and the teacher asked Kevin when he was going to be baptized, and he mentioned that "he was baptized last year in another church" all the young men burst out in laughter at him. Here we have Sacrament meeting after the two other classes, so Kevin didn't even stick around for the Sacrament, I hope he didn't feel too embarrassed. Me and my comps had to "machete" the youth a little bit, or lovingly correct their actions. It is always remember to important to behave in church so that outsiders don't feel like.. outsiders!

Well that is about all that I have for now. I am sending out some mail today for you family, hopefully you get it soon. I am so excited for tomorrow because it is the Christmas party with President Glazier in his house, so tomorrow we will be waking up super early so we can be there at 8AM sharp! I am excited.

I am missing you all this Christmas season already, We are still working on finding where we will be doing the Skype call, so I will let you know the time and date, most likely on the 25th. I cant wait!

Here are some pictures...

The one is with E. Caballero, Wyatt and me with our ward mission leader and his son Chele who just left on the mission in Ecuador.

The others are of us messing around on a Nacho Libre bike. Coolest bike ever.

Love Elder Vaughan

Thanksgiving, No Changes & a Buff Kickboxing Companion

Hello World!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving week! Not much really happened here at all, I don't even think I realized that Thursday was Thanksgiving! But this week went very well!

You may be wondering if I got changed or not. I didn't get changed, but there were some changes here. First off I was in the zone San Miguel, I am still in the same area, they just divided our zone, which is now called Rio Grande. This was the biggest zone in the mission, it included three departments San Miguel, Morazán and La Unión. So the zone was divided to accommodate so many missionaries here. It's pretty cool. There are seriously so many missionaries here now I don`t even know a fourth of them!

I am still here with Elder Wyatt, for our third consecutive change together, except this time we are in a trio with Elder Caballero from Argentina. Caballero means "Knight" or "Gentleman" Its kind of a funny name. He is a cool, guy. Definitely the buffest companion I have ever had, he did kickboxing before the mission, so he is buff.

Umm.. So we are still sharing the ward here with a couple of sister missionaries and things are slowly picking up. This week was tough because it was the gran Carnaval de San Miguel. It is basically the biggest party in Central America, comparable to the parties in Rio de Jainero Brazil. So everyone was out partying over the weekend, so things were slowed down a bit.

Oh, it has also been so cold here lately. These are the coldest weeks before the Summer starts. In the morning it gets down to 74 degrees, SO FLIPPIN COLD!!!!! It makes showering a nightmare in the mornings.

Well... I think that is all I have for right now. I am excited to get stuff done this change here, we have a solid 6 investigators who will potentially be baptized in the next 2 or 3 months here. Hopefully I won't be changed out of here before the baptisms right?

I hope that you are all handling the Cyber Monday orders alright, sell lots of junk! Have a good one!

Love Elder Vaughan

Early Thanksgiving Dinner, Potential Changes & Sister Missionary Assist

Hello family,

Well this week was pretty good. Things are really starting to pick up. We are really focusing on getting baptismal dates with our investigators to help them progress to the ultimate goal, you know. We have a lot of hope for December baptisms.

One of our investigators convinced us that this past Thursday was Thanksgiving so he made a huge turkey and all for us. So, surprisingly enough, we did have a Thanksgiving dinner even though it was a week early. It's really cool how some investigators can be so generous when we just met them this same week!

So this week is changes week, I really don`t know what to expect right now. I could be changed to a new area (which I would not like) or I could stay here (which I would really like). So we will see soon what is to happen with us here.

The sister missionaries that we share this ward with just had a baptism for a couple that Elder Wyatt and I found a while ago. They went through a lot for them to be able to be baptized and all. Lots of setbacks with a wedding paperwork and other things. It was super spiritual at their baptism. Great experience. 

Umm... well that is about all I have for this week to share!

I hope that you had a great birthday Mom! How old are you now? I ask because I always forget, people ask a lot and I really dont know what to tell them haha. I want to say 44 or something but I am not so sure. haha

Also I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving, have a great week. and good luck on Cyber Monday!

Love Elder Vaughan

El Salvador del Mundo, Zone Conference & a Department Store

Hello,

Once again it is p-day, Seriously, each week only feels like a couple of days to me, and I find it hard to come up with stuff to say.

OK, so this week was pretty cool. We had a multi zone conference. Our zone picture is attached here, but my comp was photo shopped out for pulling a goofy face in it. What a spaz. The conference was really good and motivational.

This week we are really hoping for a baptism with one lady who we have been teaching, and we have a couple more that are likely to be baptized next month. Sometimes I feel like I don't have many baptisms because I had bad luck in the office and some other areas I have had have been dead, and super hard to find people to teach in. But here in San Miguel things are really starting to pick up. We are slowly becoming the better area in our district, which is exciting since the past three weeks were really slow and all. But now we are on the rise, finding more and more people to teach.

 Also attached are some pictures from San Salvador a couple weeks ago. I had trouble sending them last week and the previous week as well. We are at "El Salvador del Mundo", the central plaza in the nice part of the capital. Hopefully these pictures load up alright, the net is kinda sluggish now.

That's about all there is for now. We only have 30 minutes to email now, they cut us down on our time for some weird reason.

Thanks for the money, I got a new suit and some new shoes, with some money left to spare. Walking into that department store felt like walking into a little piece of the United States. It was cool. Soon enough I will be back. But there are still many things to be done here!

I hope that you all have a great week. until next time.

Love, Elder Vaughan

Suit Shopping, Mucho Sisters & Imagine Dragons

Hello once again!

It sounds to me like things are going great. Lots of exciting stuff going on.

Thanks Mom for the Western Union help, everything turned out okay, and in a couple hours here we are going to go look at suits! I will take good care of this one so I can look like a sir when I come home.

Umm.. That's so cool that Ali Kelly is coming to this mission, that would be cool to see here when she gets here (and when I leave haha). There is a large number of sister missionaries in this mission now. When I first arrived in 2012, there were only about 8 sisters and 150 elders. Now there is probably about 50 sisters and 200 or more elders. There are so many missionaries for such a small country. about half of the wards and branches are divided between two companionship's, like ours is here. It is crazy having three missions in this country with more than 200 missionaries in each one, it is nearly impossible to not meet a missionary here. That is probably what it is like in many parts of the world these days.

Good job Dad on the elections. Its funny that you were challenged by another republican dude that has similar values as you do. Here in El Salvador, the Presidential elections are coming to an end. There are three main political parties in control the Republicans (

ARENA and Unidad are the party names) and the Socialist/Comunist party, FMLN. The sad thing is that ARENA and Unidad are both republicans, but they hate each other, allowing the communists to take control. If only the republicans could get along and get a hold on things. Its so sad seeing people resort to extreme socialism as a solution to problems. Poor people here in this country strongly despise the rich people, as if they were evil people. And honestly, in this country to make a lot of money, you have to be a flippin' genius, making money is hard work here. Half the Salvadoran population lives on an $8 a day salary. That includes housing, food, clothing, transport and all other costs. Sad.

Well, it sounds like business is getting better as usual. Nice work. We all know that that is not just good luck, that is skill.

Random side note, have you heard of a band called Imagine Dragons? Supposedly they are super popular now. I was in the MTC with the lead singers little brother both in Provo and in Guatemala, we just didn't realize how famous his brother was because the band wasn't big at that time.

Anyway. That's about all I have time for now. Maybe next week I will share more details about the missionary work in our area. All else is well. I love you and have a great week!

Love Elder Vaughan

Lamanite Tribute, Sick Companion & Great Ward Mission Leader

Wow, I just have to say that the warehouse is pretty huge, I didn't realize that you had done so much stuff there in such short time... well I guess that I have been gone a while. It is so good to see all the progress that is going on there in these days. It is good to see that the business is prospering. Speaking of business, I was reading Mosiah 18, when the lamanites are controlling the people of Limhi and what not. The Lamanites put a 50% tax or "tribute" on the people of all the things they owned and gained. That "tribute" is still here in El Salvador. The gangsters go to all of the businesses and charge them an obligatory tax between 20 and 50%, and if you don't pay it you can be hurt or killed by the bad dudes. It's crazy. Even like the Burger Kings pay this tribute to the gangs because they have such control over the people here. its sad.

Well, that was random. This week has been alright, Elder Wyatt was sick this week, so it was hard to work when he needed a baño every 15 minutes. He is much better now so that we can get stuff done this week.

Right now we are just focusing on getting more investigators to teach. That is going great and our new ward mission leader is a great help to us here. Hes a sweet dude. He owns a huge cosmetics school with about 400 students and he makes bank. 

Well I don't have much time right now because we only have half an hour today to write.

I love you. Have a fantastic week!

Love, 

Elder Vaughan

Gavidia Ward, Rescue Trio & Metallica

Hello Mom and Dad,

I am not sure what email addresses you are currently using since you changed the company one, so I am sending this to all of them, hopefully you get this. 

I have been getting your letters, even though they were sent to the other mission office, I know the guys there and they are nice enough to send the stuff back to my mission office. Just so we are clear I am in the El Salv San Salv EAST mission, but I am sure you have that figured out by now!

The last letter I got from you was the one mentioning that you were expecting a container from China with product. I hope that all went well with that, and that you will be able to continue that in the future. I am kind of curious as to how the warehouse has changed since I have been gone! Could you maybe send me some pictures of it? I would be interested to see that.

So as of me I am still here in San Miguel, the place that is as hot as hell, right. Still with Elder Wyatt from Logan Utah. We are pretty much kicking butt here. When I got here the area was for the most part dead, in terms of investigators, none were progressing, and in terms of members, they did nothing. The ward we are in is called Gavidia. It has the lowest church attendance in pretty much the whole oriental part of the country, for a ward that is. On average 80 people attend a week on Sunday.

We share this ward with a trio of sister missionaries who are specifically assigned to the "rescue" of the inactive members. Although the sisters are still missionaries and teach the investigators they have along with the references people give them, their main focus is on teaching and reactivating the inactive members. So Elder Wyatt and I can now focus our all on investigators!

Lately we have found some really great investigators here by our own efforts (since members don't help too much). The other day we were teaching William, an 18 year old kid who in super big and buff, and loves  Metallica and what not. His mom was there asking us if Metallica was bad and the two of them pretty much broke out in argument between each other about it. We settled it for them by suggesting that he buy some head phones so that she doesn't have to put up with his music. On Friday, William introduced us to a friend of his who we started talking to and has obviously been prepared by God to receive the gospel. He was pretty much quoting the Book of Mormon even though he has never read it before. He's a cool guy.

We also know another friend of William, who's name is Bani, he used to be a crack dealer in LA and got deported for it, he is actually a really cool guy because he gives us more referrals than the members in this ward do. He's a cool dude.

So... I think that is all I had to say for now... yeah. I am probably forgetting something here... oh well... there's always another pday! I am pretty close to the end of the mission now, this is my 12th change, only 4 more to go after this!

Well I hope that you all have a great week, I love you!

Love Elder Vaughan