One Week Break

Christmas tree in little mall thing called metropolis‏

My TREEEEEEEE THANK YOU‏

Pupusa Lady, she is great

I bought a backpack! My first real purchase $35 but fits all the scriptures and pamphlets perfectly‏

I was unable to write last week due to a severe lack of time and the world''s slowest internet. But last week was great but first I will include what happened two weeks ago.

So there was a huge earthquake a 5.3, It was about 6 in the morning and I looked up and my whole house was just shaking including the walls. So that was really crazy! I have never really been in an earthquake and I was laying on my back so I just watched the roof shake above my head, haha that was pretty cool. I was glad our roofs wasn't one of the people who had a collapse.

I also got sick with Chikinguna, man that sucked. It really hurt the eyes and makes your whole body really sore, there isn't a cure and it is given by mosquitoes. I was able to do missionary work everyday while I was sick but there was one day that was really a struggle. The day I was really sick we went to this one person's house who doesn't believe in Christmans. I was so tired I just told her to be happy because we celebrate the birth of Jesus although he wasn't born in December, she was driving me crazy and my patience and stamina were running low due to the Chikinguna....

Also I am helping a man named Jimmy Romero to stop drinking, we made a deal that I wouldn't eat pupusas for a week and he couldn't drink alcohol for a week. Unfortunately, he made it to the last day and then "he had to drink to combinar con la carne", I told him that was a lie. He drank beer to combine with the meat, apparently beer and shrimp are an unbreakable combination. But that week without pupusas was rough, it is my dinner at least half of the days, so that was quite the struggle to walk past all of the pupuserias at night and smell those delicious greasy pupusas.

I am gaining weight, it's getting a little scary. I don't believe I'll come home obese but I'll be a little more chunky certainly. 

I have always enjoyed making funny sounds with my voice, and I made this one family die laughing because I did voice impersonations of all the people who walk around in the streets selling things. AGUAAAAA! Gelatina! Gelatina! Geeellllitina! E-pan! E-pan! PAAAAAAANNNN FRAAAANcesssss! These people walk around with their product just yelling and I like to make fun with their voices a little bit, this always makes the ppl laugh so I always do it.

Last tuesday I was knocking on people doors and instead of finding people to teach I kept finding people who had already been baptized and don't come to church very often. I found 4 ppl like that in one day while looing for new ppl to teach, so that was really cool. Some of them are going to come to church soon.

They held a graduation in our local chapel, it was a high school graduation and they did it in the morning so that was really weird. Why in the morning? But ppl spend a ton of money for the graduations! Man! It is crazy to see how much money they spend to show up in taxis all dressed up with fancy gifts, my thought is put that money towards your home and make things a little nicer there. But I was glad to see how much ppl enjoyed that event, I was there talking to people about the restored gospel and I got rejected pretty hard by some ppl who really just wanted to leave and go party hahah. But, it was a great event and fun to see.

The mom of Freddy and Johanna Gonzalez denied us the other day, her kids want to be baptized, have been reading in the Book of Mormon. But the Mom is a member of a church called the "TAbernaculo"which is just a breakoff from the Mormon church. Unfortunately they preach apostasy in her church and she won't let her kids get baptized yet. I just want to say "Wake up and smell the roses", because her church really is only a setup for their founder to make bank by charging these poor ppl to go to church!

We had lunch with Hno. Alvaro Merino yesterday on Sunday and he gave us HAMBURGERS! The hamburgers were marginal but just to taste somewhat real meat in a hamburger form was a happy moment. I cherish every opportunity to eat beef, so I was really happy to have a little beef the other day:))

Well all is good here, I am growing to love these ppl here a lot more and really feel for them and the things they go through, that has surprised me a little bit. I am enjoying life and I am grateful for the Christmas season, I am getting fat I know but I'd still like to exhort all of you to enjoy sugar cookies and some of the treats of the season that are currently unnaccessible for me:( I am grateful for Christmas, I know Jesus lives and that knowledge is really freeing. Be happy, don't worry about the little obnoxious things in your life and allow the love of Christ to radiate freely through you. Enjoy the Christmas music, the gifts, the gorgeous lights, but remember the real gift of Christmas which was that of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. 

With Love and the best regards from one of the most dangerous places in the world,

Elder Gardner