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

Greetings from Modelo

Sooo, I had changes last wednesday and I was in colon with Hna Hernandez for 3 days, then on friday night one of the APs called me and told me that I was having emergency changes and that I was going to modelo, modelo to be with Hna Woods as the other nurse. Early sat am they picked me up and dropped off Hna wood's comp but because they are the office zona modelo has their pday on fridays, so I am back to pdays on friday. SURPRISE!!
It was great to read about the birthday party for mom, and all that is going on at home.
We`re opening up a new area here, Modelo 2. And all of our investigators are people we've found or people that are references, Modelo 1 kept all of their investigadores even the ones that live in our area(modelo is the ward, and we have 2 sets of missionaries in the ward), but we're working with the bishop and the ward members to get references, and we're also going through the old investigator sheets from the area book to visit them, also we're working a lot with menos activos.
We live in a really big house(especially for only 4 people) it has 5 bathrooms and 4 sleeping quarters one of which(bedroom and bathroom) is separated from the rest of the main house and is above the second garage. I asked why we have such a huge house, and aparently there are a few good reasons, 1 it is in a safe area for us to be coming back in at night, 2 it isn't any more expensive than other smaller houses, and 3 we get to be the storage for all the things that were in the old office, but they don't have a place for in the new office.
But the house is still huge.
THis past week has been interesting, I got a phone on monday, so that the missionaries in my area can reach me, then we had a training meeting on tuesday, where president anounced that Hna woods would be over the Santa Ana zones( there are 5 of them) then on wednesday we went to Sonsacate to the other part of the areas(my 4 zones) and anounced to them as well that they need to call me with their health issues, then we went to San Salvador, and got things so Hna Woods can take out ingrown toenails, and we looked for an otoscope, that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg. Then, even though we went to San Salvador, we got to work hard for 2 hours in our area, thursday we had our district meeting, and then we got to work in our area again, and now it is friday, yeay Pday!
Well thats been my adventure from the last week and a half, Love y´all and its great to hear what is happening in everybody's lives.
Love ya
Hna Allen

Nueva Dirección

OK the office officially moved, and here is the new address for all (snail) mail. :)

Aquí está la nueva dirección de la misión. Por favor, mándenlo a sus familias.



Misión El Salvador Santa Ana/Belice
Edificio de la Iglesia de Jesucristo SUD
Carretera a Candelaria de la Frontera y Autopista a
San Salvador, Frente a Col. Mendez, Ctn. Portezuelo
Apartado Postal #142
Santa Ana, El Salvador, C.A.

Changes this wednesday!

Hola familia!
Things in the mission are hopping, we had a baptisms on Sunday before church and then he got confirmed in sacrament meeting. :) We have a baptism and wedding tomorrow. Then on wednesday we have changes, we`re closing out candelaria and there`ll be Elders there again. They want to send Elders to Pajonal, and the houses are to close together to have Elders and Hermanas in the same ward. (they are right next to each other behind the same wall.) SO Candelaria will be opened up again(in the states I think they call it White washing, but here they call it closing and opening an area.) by Elders, I'm told it will be Elder Perez and Elder Fox. Elder Perez was my District leader in Las Palmeras. He'll be awesome in Candelaria.
So I'm being sent to Barrio Colon (its part of Santa Ana) and My future comp will be Hna Hernandez. I'm excited to have the opportunity to work with her. She has interesting luck, however so this next change could be quite the adventure. Last change she was in 3 areas. The first they transfered her out of the thursday after changes. (her comp is a green gringa and she said she didn't know why) then they were in another area, and had emergency transfers after a rather interesting experience involving an angry man and a rock, and now she's in Colon. she has a year in the mission and has been in like 15 areas. (thats a lot if you do the math 6 weeks per change).
We had un hombre come to church yesterday who had recieved the lessons from Hna Clark, and is really positive, I didn't get the chance to talk with him much other than to arrange to call him tuesday to find out what day he'll be home so we can teach him. I hope the Elders can find his house(I didn't understand the directions he gave, and aparently neither did Hna Fuentes). Obispo was talking to him after the meetings and said 'you've got another investigador with a date' when I walked up to talk to them.
We had a meeting about the Temple! The Open house for the El Salvador Temple is July 1 through July 23 and Paraiso stake will be going to the open house every friday and tuesday AND the missionaries get to go too!!!(a big deal because the temple won't be in our mission in July). They`ll have 2 buses for every ward, and they hope to have them filled. : )
Mom don't worry about sending me OFF or DEET I have both, and the mosquitos still eat me.
I hope you have a happy birthday and Happy Birthday to all you June Birthdays :)
I need to go, love ya,
Hna Memorie Allen

Week 6-candelaria

Hola familia,
Por fin(kind of like finally) the birth certificate for our investigator arrive so they'll be able to get married on the 7th of june :). We were hoping for the 31st of this month, but He has something wrong with his kidneys and has a doctors appointment for that day(from what I understand it is recurrent kidney stones but I'm not really sure if I understood right) BUT other good news his future wife was finally able to come to church for all of church so that is one attendance and she came again yesterday after she got off work(which means she came for Relief Society), and she'll be able to be baptized with him. :D Also we have another young woman, who wants to be baptized and she has permisson from her mom, but she wants the support of her dad. She's going to visit him this weekend so we're hopeful that she'll be baptized the same day as our other two on the 7th. BUT to complicate matters, our chapel is going to be expanded and yesterday was the last meeting we had in the chapel, this next sunday we'll be meeting in a really big house. But we won't have a baptismal font, so for our baptisms we'll have to use the font in Paraíso (about 45 min from candelaria) but they are alright with that. We have another investigator who is positive, but he only has one time coming to church I'm hopeful that he'll be baptized too.
We spent (a lot of time) yesterday talking to the wife of the bishop and to the relief society president to help us figure out how we can strengthen the ward here. We have come to the conclusion that the ward lacks love one for another, but I'm not sure how to help them learn to love one another. Any ideas? all we can think of is being examples.

It is hard to believe that we only have one more week left for this change, Next monday I'll know where will be my next 6 weeks and who my companion will be. The other area further up in the mountains (Pajonal) will be opened up this next change is what we've been told, so there'll be 2 companionships living on the property.
The rainy season has started. so far It rains a little off and on in the afternoon and then about 8pm it starts to pour and it pours until after we go to bed. The crops are growing, and they are planting other things here(old style, with a stick and a bag of seed) I am honestly not sure what they grow. But the cows and horses are starting to look more healthy now that there is plenty of grass in their fields. It is humid, which means it takes my clothes 2 days to dry. and even then they always feel a little damp. Also there are some really big bugs that apparently accompany the rainy season(ugly critters) and flys...

I found a store that sells bug spray(OFF). It is a good thing that we get reimbursed for it or I couldn't afford it. Its almost 6 bucks for a can about as tall as my hand. It lasts about 2 weeks. I still get bit, but not as bad as the first week when I was using a different type of spray. And I'm using the dryersheets that Hna Strong left me. I think they help. My legs are healing and I don't see to many new bites ;)
I think thats about it, I love you all,
Love Hermana Allen

Week 5 change 2

Greetings from Santa Ana!

Today has been an interesting day, and a long one at that. We woke up at 4 this morning to get ready so we could catch the bus at 5:00, we were out and waiting for the bus and it finally passed at 5:30- oh wait really this day started last night when our zone leaders called and said all of the Hermanas were going to San Salvador for P-day, and that we had to meet president at a certain place in San Salvador at 9. It was cheaper and faster to take the last ´direct´bus to San Salvador (as opposed to one that would take us to Santa Ana, and then we'd take another one to get to a popular bus stop-called the saber- and then another to this place) so we took this bus, and got off in the saber at about 815 and then waited for another and took that to where the elders told us to go, then walked back to where we were meeting the APs(abt 9), and realized two things, 1 that the last bus wasn´t necessary because all the busses passed this point and 2 there were two 'Q' places and that we hoped we were at the right one. We were about to head to the other one when the APs showed up at 930. gee sometimes I wish I had a car(an then I'm glad i don't because I don't want to drive here) We played futbal all of the Hnas in the mission except the 4 in Belice, and then we went to president's home where we ate lunch and president told us which Hnas are going to Belice this next change. Its not me. : ) more time to work on my Spanish, but it is Hna Clark, and Hna Woods is burned out so they asked me to prepare myself to me the next mission health care specialist. (they also call it mission nurse, but you don't have to have a nursing license or even have the education to be the nurse for a while in one of the missions the mission nurse was an elder who had 4 years of med school, but hadn't graduated yet, and in another mission they had one who was a health science major, and had worked in a lab for all of her school. It just means that you are the mediator between the missionaries and the president and the area medical advisor.) They said that Hna Clark will be in charge of Belice, and that we'll split El Salvador for a while while I transition into having the full burden of all of the missionaries here in El Salvador. And that that will start next change. Who knows where I'll be, its possible I'll stay in Candelaria, because the mission office will be in this stake. But I might move into Santa Ana, we'll see in another 2 Sundays.

SO now we're here in Santa Ana again writing, we still haven't bought groceries, but I don't really need any, although I do need to pull out money for the next week. The work is good, although difficult, and every day really is an adventure. We were hoping to have FHE with one of the recent convert families tonight, but it doesn't look like that will happen as it is 5 now and it is an hour to Candelaria and the area where this family lives is one of the areas we don't go after dark.
It is always good to hear from you, and I'm hoping for a response from Jake and Zac any day. (HINT HINT WRITE ME!!!! little brothers!)

Its fun to hear that you are working your way though 2 Ne, thats where I am-in Spanish- you think Isaiah is hard to understand in English.... ;)

Love you all, and you are in my prayers always
Hna Allen

Map

Hey so I was working on a map of my area and thought I'd send you a link, so you can see (kinda) what candelaria looks like :) it goes all the way out to El Jute and we've been up to Santiago de la Frontera, but only once that used to be another area and they had some investigators there, but we've had to drop them because it was to far. and it also goes out to (i think) La Arenera.
Love ya!

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=es&q=El+Salvador&aq=&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=51.621706,113.994141&ie=UTF8&geocode=FYl70gAd7ouz-g&split=0&hq=&hnear=El+Salvador&ll=14.112765,-89.650455&spn=0.003886,0.006958&t=h&z=18>