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.