Desafiando

Well my beloved fam...Another week away here in the mission and it was packed with a whole bunch of stuff. It’s crazy that it’s already Memorial Day and stuff... hopefully you guys (Zacho) eat my fair share out in Herriman at the Chuckwagon Breakfast! My comp and I had a pretty successful week and learned a lot too, so this is just some of the stuff that happened!

Last week I was able to bless the sacrament for the first time here on the mission. I felt like it was my first time blessing the sacrament when I was 16…but it was seriously the coolest thing ever. I stuttered over a few of the words but ended up doing it well enough and just felt so great because it really doesn’t matter what language the prayer is done in because you can always feel the spirit.

We had some super crazy rainstorms this week and that with tin roof houses makes it literally impossible to teach people. But it gives us the chance to just play games with the investigators so that’s always fun!

We have been bringing a kid that’s 16 to church for the past 5 weeks and he’s been doing pretty well but has always said that he doesn’t really want to be baptized again. So in general we would just drop people like that after awhile but he’s the best friend of one of the members and he’s been going to church so we just didn’t really want to drop him. So I literally taught him every single lesson possible about a second baptism, about getting the Holy Ghost, the priesthood, and just like everything possible to convince him to get baptized again. But every time he would just say ‘I just don’t really want to get baptized again, sorry’... so anyway on Friday we were teaching him and focused on desafiando... or just like working around the problem until you find the actual problem. We invited him, César, to baptism like a billion times and just did everything to convince him to accept a baptism date and like an hour later he’s just like shaking and says...’It’s because I HATE water and never want to enter in it again because I’m scared.’ WOW did I feel dumb. The whole time he had been saying he didn’t want to get baptized again was just because he didn’t feel good about actually doing the ordinance again is all. The whole time I was teaching him stuff that didn’t even matter to him and it was just that he doesn’t like water. Boy oh boy did I feel dumb, haha, but at least now we can figure everything out and hopefully he can get baptized this change!

Also this week we brought a teen to church named Adrian whose parents died two years ago and is now living with his uncle. He has had problems with robbing people and finally opened up to us and shared with us his problems that he had been facing. It was so sweet to see the real desire he has to change and stop doing all the bad things he had done in the past. He’s now preparing to be baptized because he knows that he has sins and needs a baptism to be clean. The rest of my baptisms I’ve had weren’t people that had really been doing bad things in the past so this is the first time I’ve been teaching someone who will get baptized with a total change of heart and with true desires to follow Christ in his life. If everything goes well he will be baptized this coming change! It’s so awesome to be an instrument in the Lord’s hands and help others repent and change so they can be worthy to do the ordinances they need to return to our Heavenly Father!

That’s all for the week folks. Love you lots. Be Obedient. Love your neighbor. Read your BofM and life will be good! See ya next week.

Elder Crump

Hna Tadeo sent this petate to Matthew from Pushtan-
He uses it to do his exercises on.

Rain on a hot tin roof.
It's hard to teach during these storms.

With the Buena Vista Branch President and his wife.

Umbrellas donated by an investigator :0)

Life Lessons

BUENAS TARDES FAMILIA!!  I LITERALLY COULDN'T BE MORE HAPPY AND PROUD FOR ZACHO!!!! Like seriously it makes me feel so great to know you’ll be able to change people’s lives out in California Bro. You are going to love it. It’s the best thing to help you grow spiritually and you are helping others at the same time so it’s just totally awesome. Keep preparing by reading your scriptures and praying and you’ll be ready to go!! 

Well this week went by fast and I’ve learned a lot! It was great to talk to you all Monday and really helped me out a lot. Last time we talked at Christmas it just made me baggy out of my mind, but this time it helped me a lot to get focused and remember the many reasons for why I am here on the mission. I’m so, so blessed to have such a supportive family and so grateful you guys are always there to support me every step of the way. I couldn’t possibly have been blessed with a more loving and blessed family. I love you guys.

I don’t have too much of the ganas to write this week but I’ll share a little bit of the things I was able to learn!

So this week we were able to have some really powerful lessons and had some real funny activities in the church because it was the week of the family. As a missionary we always work super hard to be able to find the people that want to be baptized and obviously baptizing is our main goal, but helping reactivate people brings a whole bunch of happiness as well and this week we were able to have a sweet experience with a guy named Oscar. He lives with his wife and two kids and they are all members of the church. For the longest time his wife and just one kid have been going to church and they’ve had a few family problems. Like literally, everyone here has family problems and it always makes me so happy because I’ve been blessed with a perfect family (perfect for me). But anyway, we started visiting Oscar because we just really felt he had potential to change so we just like went all out and started passing by like every night to read or just motivate him. Well, this week he put his white shirt and tie on for the first time in a long time and went to church. When we visited him last night he was so happy and couldn’t stop talking about the peace and joy he felt in the church and how much he had missed not going for the past few years. He still has a long way to go but we are starting to make plans with them so they can get sealed in the temple the end of the year. It’s just so sweet because we are saving souls in so many different ways and although baptizing is awesome, reactivating is HQ as well.

Also this week I’ve been able to learn a lot of things from my companion as always. Last week I was a little upset because I was going to be another change with him but I have done my best to change my mind set and work hard to learn the lessons I need to from him, while helping him get his testimony as well. He likes to talk about Nicaragua non stop but I’ve learned that it’s just because he loves his country and his family and I need to help him get that same love for the people here in El Salvador. The people he loves, he loves with every fiber of his being and that is the Christ like trait he can use to have success in his mission. I know if we work hard he will obtain the love he needs for the people here and the rest of the details won’t matter.

This week I have been reading Jesus the Christ like every free second I have and it makes me so happy every time I read it. I didn’t know a ton of the stuff I’ve read and have learned so many amazing things about the life of Christ and the sacrifices he made for us. Before I started reading I didn’t have any idea about how human Christ was and how hard it was for him to go through everything. My relationship with Him has changed entirely and I feel so much closer to Him by learning more about Him. If any of you guys haven’t read the book. Read It. Your love for Christ will change more than you could ever imagine.

That’s all I have time for but ya, I love you guys all so, so much and Zacho, you’re the man bro. You’ll love the mission and I’m so so proud of you! Love you guys!

Elder Crump

(No pics this week :0(  He forgot his camera)

Mother's Day Success

Well... HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO THE BEST MOM IN THE WORLD!! It’s such a blessing I have been given to be raised by a loving mom that has always given everything she can for the well being of her kids. I’m truly grateful that Heavenly Father blessed me with a mom that knows exactly what I need to hear to cheer me up and is consistently there for me when I need comfort. I literally couldn’t ask for a more perfect mother. I hope the day was a good one Mom. I love you past Pluto and back!

This week we were able to celebrate Mother’s Day with all of Buena Vista and it made me think about all of the great woman that influenced me back at home. Here in the branch, the whole church is dominated by women because there are so few priesthood, so it’s awesome to see the power that women can have in guiding and running the church. They may not have the priesthood but they definitely do have power from above to help build the Kingdom of God here on Earth.

We celebrated Mother’s Day by baptizing two mothers and it was one heck of a beautiful day. The Hermana Orbelina was baptized by her son and it was the most precious thing in the world watching them hug after she was baptized. When the service finished the two gave their testimonies and it was amazing to listen to the two of them and the changes that had happened in their lives. Orbelina was so thankful for all we had done for her and that she was now going to be happy for not only this life, but for an eternity with her only son. The Hna Cecilia talked about how she had finally decided to be baptized and how she had grown to love the church and all the sisters in it. It was HQ to say the least.

So I don’t really have time and I’m just gonna talk to you all tonight, so have a great week and we will chat it up in a little while! Love you guys!

Elder Crump

Apparently he's doing plenty of walking.

Mother's Day baptisms.

Hermana Orbelina and Hermana Cecilia

Homemade fries and fry sauce - what a cook!
He said it was divine :0)

Miracles of the Fast

Well my dearest family… seems as though another week has passed away and I get the chance to write of the many miracles that I’ve seen throughout the week here in Chalchuapa! It’s weird how I literally do the exact same thing every single day and have the exact same schedule week after week, but how much happiness I can feel when doing it. This week lasted forever but I was able to see a ton of blessings and miracles and I’m so grateful for the time I have to serve the Lord here in Rama Buena Vista. So... here is what went down.

So, first of all just to make sure you guys understand how things are here in El Salvador, the amount of churches that exist and the amount of preaching that goes on is unreal. The people like to read the Bible and stuff but they just have no idea what they are reading and why they should read. Sundays we go out to work and literally every two seconds we pass another church where they are singing at the top of their lungs, pounding on drums, and waving their hands in the air. It’s some real intense stuff. So one of the problems we have is that people then come to our church and think it’s boring because nobody is playing the guitar or drums or nobody is screaming out praises and stuff. Like for reals, it’s a huge problem we have. The struggle is real out here.

So anyway, during this week we were able to prepare the Hna Orbelina for her interview Sunday so that she can be baptized next week. She was so, so nervous because she like forgets everything we teach her and she had to be interviewed by President for some issues... but we went every day and did practice interviews and when Sunday came around, she passed with flying colors! So, as long as everything goes well, her son will be able to baptize her Sunday for Mother’s Day. Is that just awesome or what people! haha But ya, keep her in your prayers because Satan will be working overtime to try and mess everything up!

Throughout the week, our other baptism date was literally nowhere to be found. Cecilia had like literally disappeared. We passed by where she lives like 2 or 3 times a day and never found her. She had always been going to Relief Society every Friday and she didn’t even show up to that. So, when Friday night rolled around I was so, so sad because I was almost positive our date would fall. So anyways, that next morning we started our fast for the month. The only thing is for a whole bunch of different reasons we have been fasting A LOT recently and so we almost just decided not to do it Sunday because we had done enough. But we wanted the blessings so we just did it. Fasting has always been a struggle for me and on the mission it’s nice because you have the Lord’s help but still, walking around all day on an empty stomach isn’t the funnest thing to do… so I’m just like ‘Heavenly Father, please, please, please just help us be able to find the Hna Cecilia today and be able to talk to her for a bit’...Well one awesome miracle later, coming back from a visit out in La Libertad, we see an older lady slowly walking down the lane. You bet we started running full speed to catch her! It was so sweet, and we were just like ‘Hey we’ve been looking all over for you!’ Come to find out she was visiting family and had just stayed some nights there because she didn’t want to walk home. But later that day we had a sweet action lesson with her and saved our date. HOORAY!! She’s like, ‘Ya I was feelin’ like I shouldn’t be baptized because I don’t know the church much and need more preparation but I guess I already told you guys I would be baptized next week. So let’s just get er done.’ Pretty much, haha it was HQ. She had felt the Spirit so strong the last lesson we had in the church and so that’s why she had said yes to the date and now she’s gonna keep her word! So ya, what a miracle that was and I know it came because of the fasting we had been doing.

So one other sweet thing that happened this week, we were able to bring a family of 5 to church that we have been working a ton with these last few weeks. The mom is less active but wants to start going to church again and the Dad has gone to an Evangelico church his whole life. I was super worried the dad wasn’t going to like the church because of what I explained about how they love just getting the adrenaline rush instead of actually feeling the spirit, but turns out he loved the meeting. It was testimony meeting and the members bore some super powerful testimonies and the whole meeting was just terrific. They are all planning on coming back next week so hopefully this next change we will be able to baptize them! We brought a total of 8 investigators to church yesterday which was a record for me here on the mission and it really helped motivate me to work as hard as I can to be able to baptize the people that came. And I know with the Lord’s help it will be possible!

That’s all for the week. Never stop praying and reading every single day. Know that I have a testimony that this is the only true church upon the face of the earth and that if we are obedient, the blessings will ALWAYS come. Love you guys so much and I can’t wait to chat it up next week! Peace!

Elder Crump

Pic, the Familia Mendoza that was SO kind to me when I first got here in El Salvador. The Hna was my cook and the boy left with us a lot to visit. They helped me so much to get over the home sickness on the mission and it was rough to not say bye to them when I left my first area.  But last Monday I went to visit them and it was super sweet! So ya, that's them in the picture.