Joy Ashton              July 18, 2016

Wow.

Well, last Tuesday we left the MTC by bus at 6 am and all the people headed for El Salvador were shoved in together! We drove for a few hours on really windy roads with so much jungly green around us. It was beautiful but the feeling in my stomach was not. I threw up my breakfast but luckily I had a bag ready.

We got into El Salvador and it was a couple more hours until we got to San Salvador. We dropped off the Santa Ana missionaries, which was hard because I had to say goodbye to Houston but luckily I still had a couple of the elders from my CCM (MTC) district with me.

The San Salvador temple is beautiful on the outside and I think I will get to attend it in August.

We got to the President´s house and we were there all day being lectured by the assistants and the nurse and stuff.

That night we stayed in an apartment which was the grossest place I’d ever seen. But we swept up and I put sheets on my mattress and sprayed everything with deet and then I took the fastest shower I have ever known because the bathroom, which was once white, was now brown. When I went to turn off the water though, I got a little shocked so there was a little time when I didn´t know exactly what to do to turn off the water, but finally with the shower curtain I was able to turn it off.

The next day we got our companions and I am so happy with my trainer! She is the cutest little Peruvian that you have ever met! I love her so much! She is super friendly and even though she 

doesn´t know English, we are working together on the communication between the two of us. She is so patient and I am so grateful for that. She knows "don´t worry" and "super cute" which are surprisingly very comforting.

We then traveled by bus for another two hours to San Miguel which is my area. It is a city which is good because we can catch buses if we need them.

The buses here are strange because they will stop wherever you wave your hand. They don´t actually have bus stops.

We arrived to our house and it is so so nice. I was so grateful that it was not like the first night in El Salvador. The house is really big for just the two of us and it has a really cute teal door, and there is a shower but the drain doesn´t work. So, we have to use a bucket to take the water out and pour it down the sink. I’m fine with that. The best part is that our bedroom has AC!!!! un milagro!

The food is good for the most part. We have a member of the ward make us lunch everyday so the first day that I arrived we went over to her house and it was the first time that I really got scared about the language. I. could. not. understand. a. word. she. said.  It was horrifying. Honestly, I felt like I knew no Spanish at all. It has improved a little bit since that first day.

There is something here that is really weird. It is like hot yogurt and the people love it, but it is not really my cup of tea. Last night we had to eat a pint of it each. It was so much and I had to eat it all. I forced myself though.

The language is going to come but it is taking its sweet time. It was like night and day though when I realzed that "bien" not only means "well" but also "very." It was incredible what a difference that made! haha.

The people here are always shocked to see me. I am so "bien" white.  We are walking up and down the streets constantly and people will literally lean out the windows, and they look back as they are driving to make sure that I am real. It is a little funny. It is also a little annoying. But, it’s all good.

The people are pretty nice but it is still really hard to understand them. Luckily Hermana Jara, my trainer, speaks real Spanish so I can understand her if she goes slow. We still have our moments where we have to break out the dictionary to explain ourselves.

There are dogs and garbage everywhere and never have a sweat so much in my entire life. I am never not sweating. San Miguel is good though. I love the people here and it is fun when I actually can understand things. It is sort of obnooxious that the people think that I’m stupid and talk to Hermana Jara as if I am deaf and mute. I am doing my best but when they don´t speak properly, it makes it harder. Jara explains their way of speaking as "campo" which I have taken to mean as “ghetto” or just less educated so the words that I read in Spanish do not sound like the words I hear.

But, I am in the right place. This is where God has sent me. And there is purpose in all things! No parasites yet!