hola ya'll

Greetings from El Salvador! It has been a great week, on monday we learned we'd be getting a mini missionary, she is 18, and she'll only be here for maybe one transfer, but she is a great missionary. It means that Hna Clark is her companion and Hna Woods and I are a duo. It also means that we have 2 companionships in the same area. We are finding so many people. We started teaching the son of one of our member families, they've been being baptized one by one for about 2 years now, and its just him and his oldest brother. The oldest is way catholic, and I get the impression that he's feeling a lot of pressure from his family to choose a religion. It is such a miracle because they've been asking if he'd be willing to be taught and up until this week he's always said no.

We also have a baptism tomorrow. 2 nños. their dad isn't a member, but wants to get baptized, their mom was baptized when she was a little girl, and now is really enjoying coming back. We just have to get them married. witch is a little difficult because to get married here you have to have the birth certificates of your children, and one of their kids doesn't have one. we are hopeful for the 9th of abril, but no guarantees.

OK mom, I could print, but it costs me $.12 a page, so if its really long I could. Also no I haven't gotten your letters, but i'll check on mon when we're in the office again.

As for this question; "we want to know more about what it's like there, terrain, weather, food, people, dress, etc" the people here dress pretty much like anyone you'd meet in the states. I haven't seen to much like the guatemala style here. a lot of jeans and tshirts. it is kind of amusing though, because they have tshirts in english and don't have a clue what it says. it makes for some interesting shirt choices. Terrain. here it is hilly, everything is built on a slope, sometimes gradual, most of the time not. The houses are all made of cinderblock, and most of them have a type of plasticy glass windows, they remind me of the blinds on the windows where you twist the nob and the blinds open, twist them back and they close. The glass|plastic slats are about 5 inches wide and are like that, twist a nob open the window, twist a nob close the window. The houses are open to, air, and there are bars on all the windows. Most of the doors also have a metal frame with a plywood type door that you can close. Most of the time it is warm, i don't think it has been below 60 durring the day and 50 at night. also durring the day its usually around 75-80. The other day the sun was really powerful and I got burned, first time my arms got burned, I have an even darker tan line on my feet than in guatemala and it just gets darker every day. The food, oh its pretty good, I really like papusas, and fried platanos. also one of the ladies in the ward cooked us a banana drink, it was like drinking banana bread. She said it was banana, blended up, then heated up with some water, some cinnamon and whole pepper (like the balls) it was good.

The people are nice, I've only had one door slammed in my face and even that was like -open the door, shake head close door- not to bad really. even if they aren't intersted most of the time they are pretty nice. You do see people seeing you coming and crossing to the other side of the road though. I think the strangest thing for me to get used to is they want to have physical contact when you greet them, so with the women that you know, often times, they do this thing where they reach in and kiss the air by your cheek, that was a bit odd for me the first few times. When you meet or greet someone who knows you if their hands are dirty they'll offer their forearm, I asked my comp what you do, and she said, touch their forearm with your forearm, shake their forearm like its their hand or even sometimes touch their forearm with a fist.

I´m about out of time. Love ya'll

Hna Memorie Allen

OH i almost forgot:
one of the office elders jokingly told me that the speed of a package to get to the mission office depends on the number of Jesus stickers(like catholic Jesus) on the box, oh and as long as the green paper doesn't say anything wonderful, like sweets, it will get here alright. Hna clark got a package that said, bras, socks, and vitamins(ironically actually what was in it) and it got here fine without Jesus stickers. But I'd really love peanut butter next time you send a care package. Love ya!

Surprise!

SURPRISE! I am writing on thursday this week! Tomorrow we have our last multizona with Presidente Lopez. So today is our p-day. This week has flown by, I feel like I only wrote yesterday. Again this week has been filled with Health care phone calls. I seem to be on a run of Dentistry. It could be worse, it could be a run of apendicitis. But I am going to put the 6th appointment for one of our missionaries to see the dentist( so far, we've had crowns that need replaced, several severe tooth pains, and a few crumbling fillings) It is good that I am friends with the dentist. :D

We work hard every day, and I love the people here in Modelo. They have such a great love for the missionaries and the obra misionàl. We are working on getting references and we have recieved quite a few, but so far nothing really really positive, we're still opening up our little area, though we did find an area that we both thought, we should knock doors here. It is to bad that our week has been filled with citas, because we haven't been able to do it.
The language still is difficult at times, but more than not I manage to communicate my thoughts, and feelings in spanish. I am working on being patient with myself, I want everyone to understand me, but I understand that it is a process that takes time, they'll understand me, but I have to work on my language study and my pronounciation every day. I miss a latin comp a bit, it really helps you to expand you vocab if you can't just say the word in English.
This next week promises to be even more busy than this week, we have our day in the office monday, finally, because we really need to organize the nursing things before president Cordon gets here, then tuesday will be the 2nd meeting with the new people, and then wed our district meeting and then Thursday will be our first meeting with president Cordon. then friday will be p-day. Yup it promises to fly by I can already tell.

Hey so we've had this idea to do FHEs with our investigators and Menos activos and cook 'comida typica' (typical food) from the states(you know two gringas together it doesn't make sense to make baliaras (a honduranian food)...) but we've realized that we cook with recipes in the states. We can't do anything that requires a whole lot of time, and most people don't have an oven, only a stove top, but I'd apreciate any ideas about what we can make, and with those ideas, if you could send me the recipe too :D thanks
Mom these are the ideas I've had, Navajo tacos, and if they have an oven buiscuits or brownies, and we have an oven in our office AND in our chapel where we meet weekly and we'd love to make cookies so if you could send me recipes for these things (chocolate chips and peanut butter are dificult to find here, but I think I've seen most other things) I'd love it. I'm so excited to try this.
SO we have so much to do, but I am so excited to know that I have another niece :) and if you can I'd love to see some pics.
Love ya
Hermana Allen

Hola! (from Santa Tecla, El Salvador)

So here I am in El Salvador. I'm in an area called Santa Tecla. We have walked all over our area and it includes a whole bunch of little communities. Anyway, I am with a trio, i don't know if you heard that. they are both nurses as well. it is kind of fun Hna Woods is the nurse right now and in another 2 changes Hna Clark will be the nurse. So I get to see the workings of what are the responsibilities of a nurse. Also we have an hermana that lives with us who is also a nurse( she's latina so the education for that is a little different than ours) but she's way fun. She just says some of the funniest stuff like its alright to defrost your meat in the sink, but don't spit your toothpaste into the sink. we don't need those germs in the sink.

On another note, I am having quite the adventure, between the hours of 6am and 9 pm we don't have running water in the house. It makes for an interesting shower after exercise in the morning.(we run water into what is called a pila at night and then during the day we use that water to bathe with, wash our dishes and flush the toilets, you just have to fill up a bowl with water and take it where you need it, in the shower and use a bowl to pour water over you, to the toilet so you can flush it (the trick with that is pour it in fast enough that it'll flush, pour it in slow and it just trickles down), or bring your dishes to the backyard where the pila is to wash them.

It has been a pretty interesting week, we have a family that we're teaching and their two little boys are getting baptised this weekend, they have to get married before they can, but they said they'd start the paperwork. We have another woman who has a testimony of the church, she knows that the BOM is true that JS was a prophet and that Jesucristo speaks to the head of this church, but she doesn't understand why it is important to come to our church and not another. She said she'll come this sun.

Ok so i thought I should mention I have p-day on Friday for this cambio. its because I'm with the nurse and we're in the office on Mondays. Entonces, I am glad you got to read the little bit about my new mission pres. He is really nice and Pres Lopez is awesome. I love Hna Lopez and I'm sure I'll love Hna Cordon as well.

OK so if you send a package i know that there is an address on my blog, but Dani if you could if there needs to be things added to it will ya? They gave me this one with express directions to not send it through UPS, FEDEX or DHL because someone has to go to the airport to get them, but if you send it through USPS it will go to the mission office and then I can get it from there. the address is:

Misión El Salvador San Salvador Oeste| Belice

Bulevar Del Hipodromo #537

Colonia San Benito

Apartado Postal #367

San Salvador, El Salvador, C.A.

I'm having fun and what an adventure this is. Everyday brings its challenges and its highs and lows and the culture is so interesting to me. Here people sell everything on the street and deliver anything(they even deliver McDs I was told) And the busses, oh what an adventure, its as crazy or more than when we were in Egypt mom.

Love yall tons and I'll write again next Friday


Note from Dani: I did update the addresses on the side bar. They should all be correct now!

El Salvador

Hi family

I am in EL Salvador now and all is good, we had papusas last night, and they were very very yummy, I don´t have much time to write but I'm here safe, I´m assigned to be comps with the mission nurse, there are two here right now so Ill be in a trio still, officially tomorrow. Love you tons, Mem

Hola ya'll, week 5

Greetings from Guatemala for the last week. Monday we head to our missions and I am so excited. I have to focus pretty hard still to understand a lot of people but I am thinking it is becoming a vocabulary issue rather than I just don´t catch the accent. It is good to read your emails and hear how things are going back home. I'm glad you got the quetzals mom I thought they were pretty cool too. it is so weird to me that Q8=$1. So this week was great. I think I told you last week that I´ll get a new mission president in July, President Cordon. When he becomes my president my mission name changes to El Salvador, Santa Anna Belize. He is a worker at the temple right now and a friend of Pres Steimle, so on Tues we got to have a meeting with him and ask him questions about him and his wife and his family and the mission. It was great. He said that one of the goals for our mission for the next 2 years will be to establish a stake in Belize. He said currently Belize has 23 Ramas pero no estacas(23 branches no stakes). He also said that though Belize is bigger in size it has fewer people than all of the mission in ElS. He also said that the people of Belize speak Spanish(some of them) English(some of them) and a blend of the 2(some of them) as well as a whole ton of mayan dialects. It could be interesting! On Monday we got to leave the CCM and get to do some real contacting and tocar la puertas. My comp and I talked to 10 people and got 9 references for the missionaries of this area. It was so amazing. Although I didn´t always understand the language. My Comp, Hna Montalvan is such a great missionary. She told me to not worry about asking for words, because they´ll understand that I´m learning the language and will appreciate it even more for it. So the day after the Steimles got back, One of the Hnas was sick, she threw up and then passed out and was out for about an hour by the time we got her to the ER. They couldn't get wake up pres Steimle so her comps ran panicked into my aula, and my comps and I woke up Pres steimle and called Dr McArthur and one of my comps was a CNA before the mission which down here means she´s a nurse-weird- and she helped me get the vitals to tell the doc so he could tell us what to do. Anyway pres Steimle and Hno Dubon took her to the hospital ER and she was admitted and stayed there for 24 hours and then came back to the CCM. She is just starting to feel better today. The weirdest thing is they don't know why she passed out. On another note, the NA elders are getting a bit stir crazy, yesterday was ´cambien su corbata cada agenda cambiar´ and they changes ties like 7 times. it was weird. they also have ´boot day´' and who knows what else. I am running out of time but real fast I want to tell you that I learned something really cool. Moroni 10 3-5 real intent means that when they get an answer they are willing to act on it. Many don't feel like they get an answer because they don't have any intention of acting on it. We heard an account on mormon.org of a girl who was afraid of getting an answer because she knew she'd have to act on it. Haven't gotten any cartas as of yet, but I'm hopeful for tomorrow. Love y'all tons Mem

Hola from Guratemala, week 4

Hola familia,
Mom don´t worry I did get David's email, but if anyone else has tried I haven't received theirs. Send me their addresses and I'll add them to my list of mailing people. Dani yes I have pday Tuesday last week It was because of the market thing as well as that the new missionaries needed the compluters at all hours of the day to be able to email their families to tell them they arrived safely. This week it has been a little cooler here in Guatemala. Overcast and I feel like I need a sweater (its probably about low 60s or high 50s) but when the sun comes out I am plenty warm. It has been raining alot so I haven't gotten to be outside very much this week, nice for my comps, they don't get burned but I get a little stir crazy. Last Wednesday we went to the temple. The session was in Spanish for the first(and probably only) time they have this thing about wanting us to do the sessions in our native language but last week there weren't enough NAs to do a session in English. I have a new Latina companion her name is Hna Montalvan. She is from Honduras and is serving in my mission with me. She speaks English pretty well which is helpful for me because then when I don't know a word in Spanish she can help me with it. She was a preschool teacher in Honduras before the mission, and she taught the little kids English. Hermana and President Steimle are out of the CCM for the week. We have the temple this afternoon and I'm so excited for it. I'm learning a lot and am having a lot of fun. I still struggle with understanding some people, I think it is because everyone says things differently. I especially struggle with those that talk like Argentinians and those that speak fast and slur their words. I can usually get the gist of what people are saying, but ask me a direct question and I am so lost. When I say those that talk like Argentinians I mean they make their Ys and lls sound like Js. It almost sounds a little like Portuguese. I am doing well and am looking forward to hearing from you. I hope I get your dear elders tomorrow! Love ya tons!!!