sonsafuego

Well the rainy part of the year is officially over.

I remembered that I`m in the hottest zone in the mission again.I like being a missionary. I feel like I`ve really grown up these last 4 and a half months. I`m not the same kid that stepped  on the plane that day in July. I like the older me. I`m a lot more focused, I have a lot more willpower and desire to work hard, and I speak Spanish. 

I especially felt old this week teaching a few of our investigators. Well, one is a less active member and the other is an investigator, but they are living together and so in my mind they're both kinda investigators. She wants to get baptized and he wants to be good. So we have to get them married... right? oh yeah there`s one thing I missed. They're 15! Telling them about marriage or separating and the law of chastity made me feel old.


So this week was thanksgiving!! I made it all the way until 9:00 in the night that day without even realizing it. Haha They don`t celebrate it at all down here. But last week we celebrated it as a mission so... I wasn`t upset!

This week we found another english investigator. We were walking down the street and he called out to me in English. I started talking to him (poor elder Torres couldn't understand) and he swore a lot; like every sentence. But, he shared with me a great desire he has to change his life and to come to Christ. I really hope he starts to progress. His name is Rafael. I struggled SO hard to speak English with him. Maybe it's the fact that I speak Spanish 24/7. Maybe it's the fact I haven`t had a gringo companion to talk about gospel things in English since the CCM, but I kept accidently speaking in Spanish, It was hard to teach a lesson in English. HAHA I love Spanish so much!!!

Me and my comp started a band. We play only in our house from 10 to 10:20 every other night or so. Ok so we`re not a band. We just both like to play the guitar. He bought a uke and I am teaching him how to play it. I feel like my letters are getting progressively more and more boring. I haven`t had any fun rants in a while... This week it snowed black! ok not really they were burning sugar cane so they could harvest it(im not sure how that works, but hey) and a bunch of the ash was falling from the sky. super cool stuff you never see in the states that`s super normal here.


This week I've learned a lot about God. I know that he is there, and I`m starting to see His hand more and more in my life. He very carefully is guiding everything that is happening. This week I was starting to catch the vision that He has for my life. I can`t explain it, and I don`t know what it is, but Ive learned to love it when life is hard and to submit myself to God`s will.


If we let Him, God will shape us into more then we ever before imagined. If we do his will we will learn wonderful things about us and about Him. We will begin to change. One day we will stand before Him and will thank Him for purifying us so we can stay in His Presence. I love this Gospel. There is no doubt in my mind that this church isthe Church of Jesus Christ aqui en la tierra. He guides us through a living prophet, who leads us back to Him. God`s plan is perfect. Just think, everyone who comes to this Earth will live forever in a state of Glory. If we keep our covenants we can live forever with our families in the highest of all Glories. How amazing is that? I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me. I know that He lives!! all of us can be happy in this life through Him. He is the only bread that fills to never hunger again. He is the only water that forever quenches thirst. His perfect Atonement saves us from the Fall, and lifts us to exalted hights. I am so grateful for Him and His love!!!


I love you all!!!
Elder McFarland

Himni

Hey so I kinda got distracted emailing Tyler and the fam so I hope you`ll forgive a shorter letter.
This week was a really good one!! We went on splits three times (I was with a different member every time!) this week! There is an area in our area called Santa Emilia. It is about a 10 minute bus ride(or 2 and a half hour walk... we take the bus.) from the rest of our area and I spent a lot of time there this week! Lots of potential there, but we can`t just work there so my comp stayed in the center while I went to Santa Emilia. It was really great.

Lastimamente Ricardo wasn't quite ready to be baptized this week. He smoked Thursday, and so we couldn't baptize him Saturday. He has a really strong testimony and a desire to change so I know he`ll bebaptized real soon! I had a really reflective week. Wednesday morning I had a quick 2 minute party in which I ate an Oreo and took a picture to celebrate Tyler getting home this week.  I thought a lot though about how different I`m going to be when I get home, and how different I already am, and how much exactly the same I am. I dunno if I exactly came to a realization of anything, but I just reflected a lot. I am so grateful for Tyler`s example. I want to finish my mission like he did. Giving everything that I have and am to the Lord so that when I finishI can be proud of who I have become.

I have a really strong testimony that Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior of the Earth. There is no doubt in my mind that He lives and that He directs His church here on the earth through living prophets and apostles. I know that He answers my prayers. I know that He answers yours. I know that immediately after the storm the peace and strength He sends can heal us to the core. I know that His Atonement can do all things. I know that through Him I can be saved from my sins to an everlasting state of strength and Love. I know that The Book of Mormon is the word of God. I know as sure as I am here in El Salvador that the prophets in the Book of Mormon lived, and that they testified many centuries before the coming of Christ that He is Lord. I know that Joseph Smith was called of God to restore the fullness of the truth to the Earth, and that he was given power and authority from God to lead the church. I know that that power and authority, which came from Jesus Christ through His Apostles, has been transferred down through the years to us today. I know that Thomas S. Monson holds that same power, and that with it he receives revelation from Christ to direct us here on the Earth. I know that my family is forever. I knowthat if we hold faithful to the end I will live with them for all time and all eternity with my Father and my Savior. I know all these things through the power of the Holy Ghost, and I bear them to you with all my heart and soul. I know that the Holy Ghost will tell you the same if you ask God the Eternal Father in the name of Christ. I know He will help all of us live according to what we know. All these things I bear to you, knowing that they are true, as a servant of Jesus Christ, whom I have been called to represent here in Las Delcias, Sonsonate, El Salvador. 

In His sacred name, amen.

Love you all
Elder David O. McFarland

Himni.

Hey so I kinda got distracted emailing Tyler and the fam so I hope you'll forgive a shorter letter.

This week was a really good one!!

We went on splits three times (I was with a different member every time!) this week! There is an area in our area called Santa Emilia. It is about a 10 minute bus ride(or 2 and a half hour walk... we take the bus.) from the rest of our area and I spent a lot of time there this
week! Lots of potential there, but we can't just work there so my comp stayed in the center while I went to Santa Emilia. It was really great.

Lastimamente Ricardo wasn't quite ready to be baptized this week. He smoked Thursday, and so we couldn`t baptize him Saturday. He has a really strong testimony and a desire to change so I know he'll be baptized real soon!

I had a really reflective week. Wednesday morning I had a quick 2 minute party in which I ate an Oreo and took a picture to celebrate Tyler getting home this week.  I thought a lot though about how different I`m going to be when I get home, and how different I already
am, and how much exactly the same I am. I dunno if I exactly came to a realization of anything, but I just reflected a lot. I am so grateful for Tyler`s example. I want to finish my mission like he did. Giving everything that I have and am to the Lord so that when I finish
I can be proud of who I have become.

 I have a really strong testimony that Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior of the Earth. There is no doubt in my mind that He lives and that He directs His church here on the earth through living prophets and apostles. I know that He answers my prayers. I know that He answers yours. I know that immediately after the storm the peace and strength He sends can heal us to the core. I know that His Atonement can do all things. I know that through Him I can be saved from my sins to an everlasting state of strength and Love. I know that The Book of Mormon is the word of God. I know as sure as I am here in El Salvador that the prophets in the Book of Mormon lived, and that they testified many centuries before the coming of Christ that He is Lord. I know that Joseph Smith was called of God to restore the fullness of the truth to the Earth, and that he was given power and authority from God to lead the church. I know that that power and authority, which came
from Jesus Christ through His Apostles, has been transferred down through the years to us today. I know that Thomas S. Monson holds that same power, and that with it he receives revelation from Christ to direct us here on the Earth. I know that my family is forever. I know that if we hold faithful to the end I will live with them for all time and all eternity with my Father and my Savior. I know all these things through the power of the Holy Ghost, and I bear them to you with all my heart and soul. I know that the Holy Ghost will tell you the same if you ask God the Eternal Father in the name of Christ. I know He
will help all of us live according to what we know. All these things I bear to you, knowing that they are true, as a servant of Jesus Christ, whom I have been called to represent here in Las Delicias, Sonsonate, El Salvador. In His sacred name, amen.

Love you all

Elder David O. McFarland

No, not Parisians.

This week was the best worst week I`ve had this week.

Are you confused yet? ok let me explain:

Let`s start at the very beginning:

Do Re Mi.

Dang it i`m sorry, I`ll get to the point.

I got parasites this week!!!

I love how much this country is trying to kill me!!! I`m not being sarcastic I really am so happy. so what happened is that Monday, I was feeling a little bit ugh and my stomach started to hurt me pretty bad. That's relatively normal here to have one day like that, so I waited it out to see if it would go away. Wednesday, I called the mission nurse. She told me to go get some tests done at a clinic close to where we live, so I did. Let me let you in on a secret they didn`t take any blood to test if I was sick. Can you think of another way they would find out what`s inside me? I`ll let you stew on that one. It was a really long day because we had to make four trips to the clinic by the time the day was over. And when we picked up the results? yep, sure enough I have parasites AND an internal infection!!! I'm on medicine now though so don't worry I'm feeling so much better.

But enough about me, this week a couple of really exciting things happened.

The first is that we had a baptism!!! Dolores Flores was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ and became a Latter-Day Saint! she is so powerful. If she sets an appointment, or agrees to be somewhere, or to do something, she does it exactly as she
promised at the time she promised to do it. That's really rare here in a country that runs about 20 minutes late and where people are afraid of commitments. When we taught her the Word of Wisdom she stopped drinking coffee from that very moment onward, and always tells us how well she is doing.

The second is that we are going to have another baptism! Ricardo, our investigator who we had to push back his baptism a couple of weeks ago for Word of Wisdom problems said to us this week(rather unexpectedly) Thank you thank you for all you have done for me! I`ve been able to change my life so much, and I am eternally indebted to you and the Lord. I`m going to get baptized this week, but I`m a member of the church(we explained to him later that only after baptism do we become members of the Church, but what he meant is that he`s all in, fully committed, etc.) If he can hold out strong with the Word of Wisdom
this week he'll be baptized Saturday!!!

this week I learned something really powerful. I learned that the good times always follow the hard times, and that God gives us strength to carry on, even when we don`t know where that strength is coming from. I know without a doubt that God is with me and that he bears me up when I am falling down.

There is a Mormon Message called The Will of God. We've used it a lot this week with our less actives, and so its been on my mind. It talks about a currant bush, and about why we experience trials in our life. I want you to go look it up. Even if you`ve already seen it. Think
about how God is directing your life, and have the courage to be grateful for trials.

I love you all, and I pray that you will have a great, no, an amazing, no, the BEST week this week.

Elder McFarland