Starting from Zero, Help From Members & Progress

Hello,

This week was somewhat interesting. First off last Monday we had the baptism of Eduardo, the only sad thing is that it technically doesn't count as my baptism since the area was divided and he is not on my side of things. Either way, it was a great baptism and I was glad I had the chance to teach him and help him prepare for the baptism. 

The other one we were hoping to baptize won't be able to because her parents don't want her to yet. So she will have to wait to be a little bit older to do that. Annoying, but whatever. We are still happy to have helped her in her spiritual progress, and we will continue visiting to encourage her.

Other than that, I am really annoyed with my side of the area, because it is the side that Elder Caballero and I hardly ever worked in, so really we had to start from zero. But, whatever, we are really trying to get the members going and working with them, because most of them are straight up dead. The family that is supposedly "helping" the other girl get baptized, they don't come to church with her because they have to go to the beach every Sunday to swim and some other very important activities. Nothing is more annoying than members that don't help us after we do everything for them. 

Other than them there are some good members here, and they are helping us and things are really starting to get going here. It will be cool to see the progress in this mission in the years to come.

That's about all for now. I hope you all have a good week. Until next time!

Love, Elder Vaughan

Elder L., No Room For Noobs & 18 verses 19 year olds

Hello,

Well this week was interesting. Me and Elder Caballero are still in La Pacifica, but they sent us two more missionaries, dividing the area in two. My comp is now Elder Llamacponcca, seriously, good luck with pronouncing that one. He's from Peru. Elder Caballero is now with Elder Ponce on the other side of the area. The four of us are living in a tiny house, while trying to find a new one. Nobody warned us that they were going to divide the area until a few hours before our new companions showed up in our area. So this week has been pretty nuts, looking for house and all, sleeping like dogs on the floor ha ha. That's the mission. 

We are really running out of places to put all the missionaries that are coming in. There are hardly any wards or branches that only have one companionship of missionaries. We are running out of places to put the missionaries. Our area was already super small, and now its even smaller. So that will be fun working this tiny area.

I cant believe that it is registering time again for school. I was wondering if it what classes would be necessary to redo and which ones not. I plan on spending a decent amount of time this summer studying my text books to get back up to speed on mainly the Math and the CS classes. Let me know what kind of schedule you get set up for me!

About the choice of serving at 18 or 19 years old... It's a toss up. Really, I am glad I came at 19, rather than 18. There are pros and cons for both. Waiting another year would give Jesse more time to prepare spiritually and stuff. Which is a huge advantage. A lot of 18 y.o. missionaries come here and simply aren't ready, because mom and dad pushed them out the door. But Either way, they learn on the mission. The biggest downside of going at 19 is having to do a year of school, then forget the stuff you learn, but I don't think that will be that hard anyways. Personally for me, I prefer leaving at 19 years. But if Jesse is ready, go ahead and boot him out. That is a choice he needs to make though. Good luck with that. 

Well... That's all I have time for now. I hope you all have an awesome week! 

Love Elder Vaughan

PS -- Thanks mom for taking care of my school junk!  You're the best

PS2 -- Is Mother's Day the Sunday before I go home? because if so, we will get another Skype call before I come home! :)

Baptisms Pending, Taught a Lesson on a Roof & Six Weeks Left

Hello World...

It's hard to believe that another week has gone by. Really, I don't even feel time anymore. It is the weirdest thing. Other people who were missionaries before can probably relate.

This week was slightly disappointing, we were expecting two of our investigators to be baptized, but for logistic issues and other things. But the good thing is that they are ready to be baptized and all, so on April 12 we plan on doing that baptism. So yeah, that will be cool.

One of those two investigators is named Eduardo, and he is the nephew of the 1st counselor of the branch. We have been teaching him for two weeks and he is all ready to be baptized. The other day we helped them with a service project, replacing the roofing on their house. Unfortunately the project took most of the day because the people delivering the roofing material showed up late and all, but in the late afternoon we finished. So we decifed to just teach Eduardo the last lesson since we were already there. We just so happened to be on the roof of the house, when we decided to just teach him the lesson on the roof. I can see the mission president doing a huge facepalm to that, but it was funny, and believe it or not, a very spiritual lesson!

Well, this week is the change meeting, I don't know if I will have changes or not, I doubt it, but who knows. That means there are only 6 more weeks left and then I will be home. That's weird. I have the weirdest feeling of being super excited and super sad, knowing that I will probably never see this place or most of the people I know here again. But yeah. That's that.

I don't have much else to report for now. I hope you all have a great week. Talk to you all next time!

Love, Elder Vaughan

Usual Challenges, Don't Over-Complicate Missionary Work & Opportunities Will Be Presented

Hello,

Now that I am towards the end of my mission, I am finding it hard to find new or interesting things to say! Things are great here, there are always the usual challenges here in the stuff, but nothing new. So far, it looks like we will be having two baptisms for April, they are pretty solidly committed and everything, so hopefully all will go well.

Mom, you asked if I had an official release date, I am still guessing May 15th, because May 14th will be the transfer day, then the flight will be the following day. The fact is that this is my 15th change, the next will be the 16th change, making it my last. But, just in case, I sent an email to the office, asking for the official day so you can make plans or whatever.

Really, I don't have much else to say... My mind is drawing the biggest blank ever.

I can really relate to what Dad was saying about the missionary work in the ward. Too many people here (members and other missionaries) overcomplicate missionary work. Its really not complicated, we just need to work like missionaries have always done, and the members need to be the missionaries best friends and be good friends to everyone else. That's really it, if people do that then the opportunities will present themselves to share the gospel!

That is unfortunately all that have to share for now, maybe this week will be more interesting for me here. I hope you all have a great week, don't get caught in any mudslides or anything.

Love Elder Vaughan

Elder Scott Visits the Mission, Our Branch is Growing & Trunky vs. Baggy

Good Day,

This was kind of an interesting week for us here, I don't know where to start really... Yesterday was stake conference, every stake in central america had theirs yesterday. The reson being was for a special transmission from a few general authorities. Did you know that Richard G Scott can speak Spanish?? He spoke Spanish in the whole thing while the others had translators. His gringo accent was hardly noticeable really. It was a good stake conference and all.

In our branch here, we are preparing for some future changes, the main one would be the new church they are building for the branch, which will soon be a ward. Our attendace is around 80 or 90 each week. So there's only a little improvement to do so that we become a ward, and when that happens they will begin construction on the new building. The new building will be so cool because it is literally in the center of the area and has a huge piece of land and it is visible from everywhere. Right now they have us going to a building that is a 20 minute bus ride away, so as you can imagine that makes it a nightmare to take investigators to church. We even offer to pay a taxi for our investigators, but they can be pretty tough to get to church.

The good thing is that once the new church is built within a few years, it will be way easier to take people to church. But for now, we will continue taking the bus.

Dad, I think it's funny how you say "Trunky" when you talk about a missionary being ready to go home. For some reason here we say "Baggy", but it's all the same really. I could be baggy right now if I felt like it, but I try to pretend I'm a greenie still. I can get baggy when I am on the plane.

Dad, I can't imagine how cold that Lake Stevens water felt when you jumped in with your clothes on in a dare. When it gets under 80 degrees here I shiver. So... well... That will be cool to see what happens in May when I get home ha ha! Way to go Dad, seeing the white house dog, Its kinda weird that you were there in DC, it's so far away from home. Even though El Salvador is super tiny (smaller than Massachusetts), I feel like its so big sometimes, but it really isn't. It probably takes 5 hours or more to get from the east border to the west border.

Well that's all I have for now! I hope you have an awesome week everyone!

Love Elder Vaughan

Kickboxing Companion Saves Woman From Harm, Cell Phones & Awesome Faith

Good day,

This week was a pretty memorable week, for some interesting things that happened. Lets start with the most fun part. 

Last Monday after p-day ended (at 6 pm) we went to go see an investigator Yeimi (pronounced Jaime) and as we were walking up the road, we noticed an angry sir who was yelling at the mother of Yeimi. He was obviously drunk. When we were about 10 meters away from where he was, and he chased the lady, with the intention of beating the pupusas out of her, yelling lots of swearwords. Luckily the lady closed the gate behind her, but he was pushing the gate to get in and beat her up. The lady's son came up behind him to restrain him, but he received an elbow to the face, then my companion (who just so happened to practice kickboxing and martial arts before the mission) put the drunk in a lock and was able to calm him down and talk. 

We were then standing in the street listening to this drunk cry about his life for about 5 minutes, while the lady hid in the house and called the cops. The cops finally arrived and while we were talking to him (trying to keep him calm, since he was a large powder keg ready to explode), three officers pinned the dude to the ground and took him away. It was awesome. Ok, sad that the whole thing happened, but awesome because my adrenaline levels haven't been that high in a long time. 

Well, other than that the only other cool thing is that we now have cell phones here. Honestly, a cell phone is the most useful tool a missionary can have. We have only had them for a few days, and I am already loving it for so many reasons. We have wasted so much time before for not being able to communicate with people or other missionaries. Seriously, I cant believe I missioned for 21 months without one. Ok, I did have one in the office, but I hated it because people only called me to ask for money. It's so awesome.

Well, most of what I said has nothing to do with anything to do with the work. Just so you know, one of our best investigators is Carlos (original name, huh?). But he has cancer, and unfortunately does not have many months left in this life, but the great thing is his desire to change and follow Christ is ginormous. Hopefully April 5th he will be ready to be baptized. For the pain that cancer causes Carlos has to buy a very expensive medication that he cannot afford, and so his only other option to calm the pain was (you guessed it) medicinal weed!!! :D But when we taught the word of wisdom, he was sad to hear he couldnt take that kind of herb anymore, but was more than willing to leave it behind. That's an awesome faith!.

Well thats my week in a nutshell. Have a fantastic week! I love you! :)

Elder Vaughan

Stressful Annoyances, Big Earthquake & Being in Good Hands

Hello,

This week was honestly kind of stressful. Between all the interchanges with other areas and what not, I'm kinda tired. I am glad to be working hard and to have this chance to serve and all. But my biggest annoyance right now is feeling like all the missionaries are a bunch of kids who don't know anything. But that's okay. I just wish that people could treat me more adult like, because I still feel like a little kid sometimes ha ha.

Well, good to hear that Lokey is back on his feet. That dude is quite the trooper. I seriously thought he would be gone by the time I get back, well it's still possible, but whatever.

I think it would be cool to use my Spanish skills in work, if at all possible. I would just have to really polish my vocabulary for lighting and decorating products, that is something that they didn't teach in the MTC.

Umm, everything else is well here. Two nights ago, according to my companion there was a big earthquake in the middle of the night. I didn't feel a thing. He said he felt his bed being tossed side to side. I guess I am just a heavy sleeper. Our area is actually pretty darn close to the volcano, all day we see the thing seeping out smoke. Its kind of intimidating, but whatever. If something were to happen, we are in good hands. 

That's all I can think of for now. All is well. I hope you all have a great week!

Love Elder Vaughan