Week 65...11/2/15...HAPPY HALLOWEEN FAM!!! ITZY

What up fam! Hey guys! Hope you all had a great Halloween. We tried our best to celebrate a bit. Here they don't really do anything.  There's no trick or treaters but I was sure to show a few tricks to the Jovenes. Probably made their day but I'm not sure. We survived the on slot of Fiambre. Fiambre is the typical Day of the Dead food. It's a mix of every vegetable and meat you could ever want, or maybe wouldn't ever want, to eat. It's got a strong taste of beets which I'll have you know I'm not a fan of. Actually, in hindsight, this is Satans food. Probably the worst thing I've ever eaten and even thinking about it now makes me nauseous. But I ate it all, (you can be proud of me mom, but please don't ever cook beets for anyone!) So ya!

FIAMBRE!!!! Yummmy…. ;P 

Oh, we also found some pretty dope costumes so we did some damage to the other Missionaries living in our house. We had a little cat come trick or treating at our door, we gave her some tuna and then promptly used her to wake up Elder Keck and Elder Wilcox. I don't know what surprised them more, the cat that they sent flying off their bed in terror or the fact that we were dressed up like Whinny the Pooh and a Lizard. Needless to say, it was pretty epic.

Me and my companion celebrating Halloween with our trick-or-treating cat.

But just a summary of how they celebrate the day of the dead here. Everyone goes to the cemetery and leaves food and flowers on all of the tombstones and eat fiambre.  Pretty exciting right? Right after I took this picture as the honey hit my tongue I remembered we were fasting and spit it out as fast as I could. I was just thinking about how Pooh would eat honey so I should too.

ITZZY! or Ilsi or Ilsa. She goes by a lot of different names. There was an area named Dalmacia that closed and she was an investigator of them so the other missionaries and we have all worked with her. She sells Mexican candies in Paiz (a big Mercado) so we always were teaching her as we passed by here. She's 28 but looks like 18 and always told us she was 18 until we saw her license. She has a daughter that we don't know very well because she's always working. 

We've been trying to get permission from her dad for like 7 weeks because she works for him and is a really big part of her life. One day she told us that the dad gave her permission! So she got baptized! 

Elder Keck, Elder Wilcox, Itzy, Elder Nielsen and Me

But proselyting wise. we had a great week! The family that we are teaching is progressing really well and 4 of them came to church this week! Just one of them named Jackson has a lot of doubts about the Church. On Tuesday we went and challenged all of them to Baptism. The mom said she'd give us the answer today but this joven named Estuardo said that he accepted and knew that it was what he needed to do! He's so Pilas! Such a cool kid! And he just barely came to church yesterday! 

Wednesday we had a meeting in Malacatan with 4 other zones. My comp and I gave a lesson about defending our areas. We talked about the need to study Preach my Gospel and from that we have been developing a test that we are going to do tomorrow with our Zone. But it was awesome! We learned about being ''consecrated missionaries". We've been trying to exhir(exact or encourage) more obedience in our zone. Thursday I went and interviewed a family in Colomba. They were so awesome! The missionaries prepared them all really well! They had a brother in the family that died in a car crash and in the middle of a prayer for help from the mom the missionaries knocked on their door. They're all going to get baptized on the 6th!

Elder Camargo, Elder Nielsen (my comp), Elder Graham,  Elder Wilcox, Elder Keck, and me.

Alberto and Gaby are some of our recent converts who are just the greatest and make such good food! They own the internet cafe we always write at and they just love the missionaries. 

Friday we talked with one of our investigators that we have been trying our very best to get permission from her dad to get her baptized. She's 28 but still very dependent on her parents. But Friday a miracle happened she talked to her dad and told him that this was something she really wanted to do! And the dad, even though he's a preacher in another church gave his ok! The only problem is she has a really tight work schedule so we had to do the baptism at like 5:00 on Saturday! But she was so happy! It was great!

We had some awesome experiences finding some awesome people this week. We were walking to a Cita(appointment) this week when we passed a family just sitting in their house they just looked like a really good family so I told my comp we should just pass by really quick. And we did. We just asked them ''Why are you guys so happy?'' They were like... "Well, we don't know! We just are." We set up another appointment to meet with them and they accepted! They don't go to any church and said they might come next week!

Then yesterday Elder Keck and I were on divisions in my area and we were looking for some news without any luck at all. I told him the best people are always in the very last house we contact. And cabal, the very last house that we found we had 2 super positive brothers come out and accept to get baptized and said they'd come to church as well! So it was awesome!

Elder Keck Elder Wilcox and I looking our best.

The miracles just keep coming.

We had a returned missionary bring her niece to church. Her name is Mabe.  She's like 32 and when we talked to her we invited her to be baptized the 10 and she accepted too! It's been crazy! So many miracles God has just placed in our hands!

Love you all!

Love,

Elder Pugmire