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!