Welp family this is definitely the hardest thing I have ever done and maybe ever will do in my life..... BUT IT IS THE BEST. Literally I had no idea how hard it would be but now I know what RMs mean when they say it is so hard and I can tell how much a mission is going to help me grow. I dont even know where to start and this letter is probably gonna be all over the place but ill try my best. My companion is Hermana Estévez and she is amazing. I am so so so grateful I got her as a trainer. As I see some of the other hermanas that came here with me and their trainers it makes me super grateful because i can tell my trainer is the best haha. She is way funny and super nice and super patient. She is from honduras and she has been out for like 4 months. She does speak english which i think is quite a blessing so we can communicate, but we always try to speak spanish so I can learn. She actually told me she wasnt too excited to have a gringa companion because all of her companions have been gringas and im sure it is frustrating for her to have to teach with someone who doesnt speak spanish yet and such, BUT she is so patient and she told me she has felt something different with me. She hasn´t had much success in this area in the past so i think she has had a rough time in the past few months. Oh I am in the El Espino area in the Ahuachapan zone. Anyways, I am going to work on changing her faith and we ARE going to have success here. So I am definitely in El Salvador and it is definitely different. I cant tell you how many times I have thought to myself how much easier this would be if I was like in Europe or the States or speaking english or something. So our house is quite small, cinderblock walls, and it feels like an oven during the late morning when we are studying. Ill send pictures and stuff another week because i would rather spend time writing. So we do have a shower, but it is freezing cold water, and actually I have taken a few bucket showers because some nights and mornings the water is turned off. haha so yep its fun. Our kitchen consists of a table with all of our dishes and a microwave and a fridge. Oh and also we got a sandwich maker so thats good. IT IS SO HOT AND HUMID HERE. Literally I am dripping with sweat all day long. Luckily at night its not as bad. Also it is the end of the rain season I think, but it has rained a few times while we were here. Yesterday we were walking to the stake center for conference and none of the taxis would stop and give us a ride and we were getting soaked...even though I had my umbrella. Food is great I have loved it. We sometimes eat at members, we have a cook who is our ward mission leaders wife and she cooks for us some of the time. Hermano and Hermana Trejo (the ward mission leader and his wife) are literally my favorite people ever. I love them. I can already tell I am going to be so sad when I have to leave them. Hmo Trejo served in Honduras and we had ward mission council with him and he really wants to help us out. Also we have visited with some members in the stake and they have the cutest daughter who loves the gringas so she was super nice to me. Food is lots of beans, sometimes eggs, tortillas (which are SUPER thick here) and i dont know. Fruit too. It might be different now cause this first week I was just eating my companions food so we will see what I buy today at the store. My spanish...well its difficult. I am getting better though. I actually understand quite a bit if they will speak slowly and a lot of times my companion will tell them that and they will so that is nice. and each day i am understanding more and more. It is just frustrating teaching and contacting because I cant do as much as I want because I cant speak and say much. But I know it will come. Apparently my spanish is much better than the last gringa who was here before me because all of the members and investigators say that. So I dont feel like it is impossible but it is hard. Probably the hardest thing is how much energy it actually takes to spend all day listening and trying to understand the spanish. You wouldnt think sitting in a lesson and not saying much would take a lot of energy but by the end of the day my mind is exhausted from trying to understand as much spanish as I can. OH and I literally have never slept so good in my life as I do here. I am out every night. The streets here basically are what you would think. The houses are all connected...most of them are like cinderblock painted colors. Most of the houses are like half outside half inside. People like live on their porches kind of. We dont really knock doors....its more like you just go up to the gate or window or door and say "Buenas!" hahaha. There are really poor areas too. Half of our area is kind of more in more of a city with buildings...but we also have some areas that are most in the dirt roads and such. We also have too REALLY poor areas in our area where we actually arent allowed to contact because the people just want money. They literally live in cardboard houses with tin roofs. We are allowed to teach there I guess if they have had a lesson or come to church or have a baptismal date I guess (I dont know i dont quite understand it yet) but we just cant contact in that area. It has defintiely been a humbling experience. So its been kind of a week just getting used to everything. Figuring out how things work and everything. Ill be honest there have been plenty of moments where I have asked myself Can I really do this? can I really learn spanish? Will I ever become a good missionary? Can I really live like this for 18 months? But I know I can do it. This week I am super excited to just go to work now that I know how things work. My companion works hard...but I feel like we could work harder..even though im exhausted already at the end of the day. But I feel like we could walk faster, contact more people, but its hard to initiate that since I dont speak spanish good enough yet, but I am gonna tell me companion this week that I want to do more. Also my companion usually leads most of the lessons and contacting obviously, and she is a great teacher and teaches in simple ways so they can understand...but the one thing is she hardly every introduces or talks about the Book of Mormon in first contacting and lessons. And I dont know if that is right really. In the CCM we learned so much about how the Book of Mormon is central in our role to conversion so I feel like we should talk about that more. But for those of you who know how PMG works she always just shares messages through God is our loving heavenly father through the apostacy but then she hardly ever starts talking about the restoration. I feel like we could have more success if we introduce the BoM even if it is just very very simply and then we could teach more about it later. So anyways I am gonna talk to her about that this week and see if we could try that and have more success. When I got here she didnt really have any investigators or anything. We worked a lot this week on inviting people to conference. She said in the past she hardly has every gotten investigators to come to church and it is really discouraging, but we had 5 people come to conference so that is good. Conference was at the stake center and the new missionaries (6 months or less) got to watch it in english so that was great. Mom I loved Elder Hollands too and yes I was thinking about you a lot. There were so many i loved and I dont have time to really talk about them but it was great). We have one mom Alva who we taught the first lesson and she and her daughter came and i hope she really felt something. Also we contacted a family in the park and we have visited with them but then we found out they arent in our area so we have to pass them on. But that dad went to priesthood and really like it and then the next night we invited him and his wife and their daughter to a bautismal service. So hopefully the other hermanas will be able to have success with them. Oh also I love my zone and more especially my district. Our district has a trio of hermanas, me and hermana estevez, and then two elders. They are all great. It is honestly so awesome to be around the other missionaries becaue they are a great strength. Hermana Hunter and Hermana Herrera from the CCM who came here at the same time as me are in my zone. Please please please pray for Hermana Herrera. She has been struggling and wants to go home so keep her in her prayers. Sorry I didnt really answer all of your questions or talk to you specifically but maybe next week I will be able to do more. I read all of your emails and Ryan and Colby I am sorry I couldnt call you at the airport but I love you. OH the airplane! I forgot to tell you about the lady I sat next to. She was from Peru and she was so loving and cute. I talked to her about missionaries and such and I gave her a book of mormon all before the flight even took off. On the plane she read all of the introduction and through chapter 4 of Nephi. She liked it and she wrote down my name in the book and my email. Anyways I dont know what will happen with that but that was a great way to demonstrate to me that I can actually do this. Oh and our first two days we stayed with other hermanas near the mission office. It was the hermana who is the mission nurse and there house is quite nice. Hermana elms was great in giving us advice because she has only been out 6 weeks longer than us. President Cordon and his wife are great, I love them and their daughter is so kind too. sorry that was out of order. Anyways I love you so much and I appreciate your prayers. I cant wait to work hard this week! Hermana Groneman