July 30, 2012: Espíritu Santo

Hola Familia,
  Another super crazy week, with a super crazy ending. Sounds like over there everything is good. I am super jealous that the Olympics is on. I love the Olympics and I will definitely have to watch the opening and closing ceremonies when I get home. It is so sweet to see the whole world compete in sports together. I bet it is pretty fun. Sounds like it has been pretty hot. It went this whole week without raining and so it was super hot. My hands broke out in a rash because of how hot it is.
 
The work though is fantastic. We worked really hard and we saw some great fruits. The Lemus family is doing great. they were excited the whole week and they ended up getting married on friday and on saturday we went over and the mom (Vitia) was super hesitant for her baptism on sunday. In the end we were able to talk to her and she really understood, especially with the help of her husband, and in the end the both of them were baptized on sunday. Marcos(the husband) is super awesome. He is already asking us when he can leave with us to work and help other people.
 
So we are also teaching this lady named María. She is about 50 and is super awesome. She had gone to church twice and liked it a lot, but did not want to get baptized at all. On Saturday we went over and supposedly she had done something super bad to her knee and couldn't walk so she wouldn't be able to go to church. Sunday in the morning we received a call during the sacrament meeting and it was her! She said she had walked from her house and it was in a ton of pain. So we went out and we found her and she came to church. We went to her house right after all of the meetings and she told us that Sunday morning she woke up early wanting to go to church. She went to open her door and her door that can only be locked from outside was locked and she was SO confused cause she had the only key. Her daughter had to jump over to open it. She explained to us that she thoroughly believed it was the devil trying to stop her from going to church. I then told her that I thought that the devil knew she was going to do something better than just go to church. She started to tear up and we invited her to be baptized and she said yes. We told her there was a baptismal service that same day of the Lemus family and she could also be a part of it. She accepted and we called up the district leader and he did the interview and in the end she was baptized. She was so happy too. It was an AMAZING miracle.
 
We have a lot of great people progressing and I am super stoked for this area in the upcoming weeks. The only problem is I won't be here to see it all. We received the call last night for transfers and I will be leaving. I was so mad. I have been here for 6 months and it has gone by so quick and I wanted to end my mission here so bad. So for my last transfer (my last 6 weeks) I will be going to some new area. It will be a cool experience and I am excited to get to know more, but super sad to leave this area. It has been awesome.

Well I have written a lot and I will talk to you all next week. Enjoy the Olympics!

Elder Gillette

July 23, 2012: John 10:16

"And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd." - John 10:16

Hola Familia,

Crazy week up there in the states it sounds like. Everybody here has heard about the shooting that happened and they keep asking me why the states are so crazy. Then I just kind of stare at them and ask them the same question. They are very funny people the El Salvadoreans. But it still does sound super crazy what that guy did and my comp right now is from Colorado so he was interested to find out where it happened, but in the end he lives like 7 hours from Denver.

So that is really weird that Chase is already home. I can't even imagine how it will be when I see kelsy. I imagine it will be an interesting experience. That is really cool that Dani is going to have a baby. i didn't know that, but that is exciting.

Everything here has been going really well, except for the weather. It is super super hot during the day and then in the night it just pours. Both of my pairs of shoes now have wholes through them. It is pretty intense.
 
The week though went really well and I really enjoyed it. We are teaching some really great people. I told you all a little about the Familia Lemus. They are great. A young couple that we are teaching and this week we went with so many members. The family is really excited, but they played a mean joked and when we got there they started saying that they didn't feel like they could be baptized and how his work was really hard. Then they both started laughing and were like, "Just kidding, we are totally going to get baptized the 29th." They are awesome and they have a little 3 year old kid named Jorge that is the man. I love that kid.

So I also told you all briefly about the super rich family that we found last week and this week we were able to go back and teach them again. And they are AWESOME! The dad's name is Jose and it is a family of 5. They are all really chubby even down to the 4 year old daughter. The dad said our first visit that he has been wondering his whole life why Christ never came to the Americas and why he only loves Jerusalem. We explained The Book of Mormon and he loved it. We shared John 10:16 and he LOVED that scripture. We went back another day and he said the day after we talked he got all of his employees together for a meeting (He owns many shoe stores and a plant that makes all of the shoes, so he said he will repair my shoes for free, which he said is about 300 workers) and said that he read that scripture for the meeting and explained about The Book of Mormon. I was in awe.

The family went to church and they loved it we gave them like an hour tour of the chapel with the bishopric. It was awesome and he asked when he could get baptized. He and his family will be getting baptized the 29th also. I am so excited for this weekend. It will be fun.

Well other than that not much else. It has been fun this week here, except for the whole cough I have had this week. I know it is from the super weird weather. I can't imagine what my body will do when I come home to the super dry cold weather. I feel like I am just going to fall apart.

I love you all and have a great week.

Elder Gillette

July 16, 2012: Friday the 13th...

HOLA FAMILIA!!!
   Sounds like the family had another super successful Garage sale. Really, El Salvador is just a giant garage sale. I know if mom were to come here to El Salvador she would absolutely love it. I have learned a lot how to barter. I bargained with a lady for a 20 dollar hammock the other day and got it for 12 dollars. I was so excited. I have been sleeping in a hammock for the past month now at least.
  
This week though was a difficult week though. Things were getting better in our area by a little, but the zone is doing way good. I am really liking the missionaries that I get to work with and we saw a lot of great miracles.  My area though was struggling and we have a lot of members that are sleepers. One day everything we had fell through and 2 of our most positive investigators decided that they don't want to listen to us. It was a bad day and I felt terrible after.
  
We decided after that we had to do something huge this week and we decided to do a big activity and do a family night and invite everyone for games and piñatas. We invited a ton of people and told the members to invite a ton. It was frustrating cause the day before we went to all of the members and they all told us they had forgotten to invite their friends. It sucked. It got to the day and all of the sudden a flock of people came. We had for sure at least 150 people there. We all went to the basketball court and played some games. We played a really sweet game where you have a bucket with a quarter on the bottom and fill the bucket with like 2 inches of flour. Then the team gets into a line and you have to get out the quarter without using your hands. You go one by one blowing the flour out until you can take out the quarter with your mouth. It was so much fun and everyone loved the game. I had flour all over my face by the end. It went super well. The piñatas were super crazy like always also. It was great after such a terrible day the day before.
 
The next day in church went a family we have been teaching the family Lemus. They are awesome and I was so happy to see them. We went last night to talk to them and they were super excited. They now have the goal to be baptized this 29th of July. i am so excited for them. It was great after how bad of a day we had this week.
 
We also found a super rich family that is probably the family most positive I have ever found. They were awesome and had such great questions. I am excited to see what will happen with them.

Well It turned out to be a good week. Say hi to chase for me. That is crazy he gets home this week. Love you all and talk to you next week.

Elder Gillette

July 9, 2012: The Release Date

HOLA FAMILIA,

Hey everyone. So it sounds like mom got a little anxious this week to find out about when I will be going home. This last Sunday I was thinking a lot about what I should do in this time. I went Tuesday to the office for a meeting that we had and after I talked to president and when I got in I just knew. He asked me what I thought about my release date and I said that when I got my call that I accepted serving the 24 months and that that is what I want to do. I may not go to school, but I feel like I will be able to get a pretty good job, since everyone will be in school and I will want to work full-time and I now know Spanish I think I will be able to get a good job. So that means I will be coming home the 13th of September. Wow that is in only 2 months.
 
Anyways back to El Salvador, we had a really good week this week. I really focused in on trying to help the people. I think one thing that has been kind of hard for me to buckle up and just do in the mission is service. I mean I love doing service.. when I am doing it, but to get me doing it is the hard part I feel. So this week I made it my goal to get better at it. We ended up cleaning practically the whole house of our investigator one day and several other times we washed there dishes. It was a lot of fun and I feel like it helped us a lot get better relationships with the people.

I think I told you all about an investigator that we were teaching a while ago named Israel. He is awesome and we have about 4 months that we have been teaching him. It is probably the longest time I have taught someone without dropping them or them getting baptized. Its not that he doesn't though. He is amazing and is right now in Alma 7 and has been going to church every week the last 4 months. The thing that holds him back are a lot of things he did in his past with the word of wisdom and the Law of chastity. He used to be a drunk and all this stuff but has changed so much. We are teaching this lady named Maria now that went to church this week for the second time and she saw Israel there and was so surprised. They weren't able to talk because she had to leave really quick, so yesterday we brought Israel over to her house to teach her. IT WAS AWESOME! Even though he isn't a member, I believe I heard one of the strongest testimonies I have ever heard. I guess Israel and Maria used to be old drinking buddies and would go to the clubs together. She was in awe the whole time and It was awesome. She asked him how did he do such a drastic change and he said, "Through the atonement of Jesus Christ, Anyone can be forgiven". It was awesome. She said she will start preparing to be baptized. She has some changes to do though also.

Other than that everything has been good in the area and zone.  I am having a lot of fun and enjoying all of this time. Sounds like everyone is having fun over there too. I hope that the fourth of july was amazing. I bet the firework were great as always. Good luck also to Gennie. I am super impressed that you are going to do this triathlon. That will be sweet.

I love you all though. Have a great week and know that I now I only have 2 months so I got to use it to the best possible. Talk to you all next week.

Elder Gillette

July 2, 2012: ¿ya es Julio?

Hola Familia,
 
How is everyone doing over there? I hope all is well. Sounds like it is getting hot and I can't believe about all the fires they are having up there in the states. That definitely is super crazy. That is hilarious about the kids and there wild night with mom. It would be mom that would get all of the kids hopped up on sugar and play in the water. Hopefully none of them have developed pool burp. That was always the worst...
 
So I will start off telling you all that I talked to my president last Monday about my release date.... then he had to go to Belize and I haven't been able to talk to him since. Ya so we will all have to wait another week to know. I think I am going to give him dads address so that he can write to you and tell you so you can know sooner the exact date.
 
But enough with that. This week was a really awesome week. I was able to be a part of some really cool lessons where just the spirit was so strong. The spirit really is so vital in this work. We went to talk to a lot of families this week that the missionaries had told us before that they weren't super positive and then we went and you could just see that by doing a prayer or by going to church it had changed them a lot. It was very cool to see and to teach to a lot of very humble people. I think in the mission we have to learn an art that is very hard. A lot of people think that if we explain more, they will start to catch on. It really is true that the best teachers are the simple teachers. That is why I love so much the talks of the General Authorities. I have been reading the Ensign from the General Conference in April and so many talks are so great. The talk by Elder Holland is absolutely wonderful. It talks about the forgiveness of God and his kindness. I invite you all to read it, cause every time I do I feel something.
  
Elder Uchtdorf said something in his talk that I have had in my mind a lot, "Preaching without action, is like a fire without heat or water that doesn't quench thirst". It is so true. If we make any plan or goal or tell somebody to do something and no action is made. It was pretty much just a nice dream. I love what the prophets teach.
  
I can't believe we are already into July. It is crazy the Chase goes home this month. That will be cool. Happy birthday also to Dad this week. Lucky that you are going to Yellowstone. I love Yellowstone.
  
I also know that you all would love to do a trip and all after the mission and that is totally fine with me. I am really going to be up for anything. If you all plan something than I am willing to do it.
  
Well I love you all a lot and hope you all have a great week. Take care and have fun and ENJOY THE SUMMER!

Elder Gillette