Buga - Week seventeen

If I focus on the bad stuff, this week was pretty bad. We have no idea where Pilar is, and Cristian ran away from home, so we don't know where he is either. The other baptism we were gonna have, Mayuri, decided to move in with her boyfriend, who is less active, and Adriana is feeling kinda reluctant about the church and didn't go yesterday. BUT there were 2 really good things that happened this week and Id like to focus more on those...

First, Axel, my convert, blessed the sacrament for the first time, and as I watched him I started thinking about how much he's changed since the first time I met him. Honestly, he was a punk, talked to like 5 girls like everyday and straight up told me that he wouldn't be baptized. Now he goes to church every Sunday, even if nobody else in the house goes, and he goes in a white shirt and tie and stays all 3 hours. When they give him an assignment he does it, better than all the other YM who have been in church since forever, he goes to seminary everyday and reads the Book of Mormon on top of all the old testament homework they give him in seminary, and when he does divisions with me, he teaches the people, and has a testimony that's sooo strong! I love that kid so much.

Also the Light the Wold video came out, "Ilumina el Mundo" and I think its really awesome. We´re already using it and getting people to do the 25 ways in 25 days thing. We showed the video in our family home evening with the Yate family and gave them all a little card, so they can give it to their friends or neighbors. The cool thing is that even though not all of them are active members, or members, everyone committed to do the 25 days thing and give the little card to someone so that we can go visit them. I think that was really cool. We took pictures at the end.

Hermana Hernandez in the district had a birthday on Sunday. So we threw eggs at her (that's the tradition here) but she also threw them back at us. I don't think I'll be able to use that shirt again. 😧 but we ate cake too. It was fun!

cool.....love you all!

Buga - Week sixteen

This week, Elder Gamboa got moved, so now we have to work in like 2 thirds of the city and have no idea who lives in the area because the other Elders didn't fill the area book at all, but I WAS informed of the baptism/wedding that was planned so it was all up to me to get these investigators married and then baptized, so I DID! They're named Andres and Gisella, really cool people, but Andres is only 18 and Gisella 15 HA! They were already living together when we found them and Gisella is also kinda 3 months pregnant so Andres can't go on a mission, so the best option was to get them married. They're really happy. 

Also this Wednesday we went to paint a house as a district. It was actually really fun, I think we spent more time painting each other than the actual walls though. It turned out really bad, but it wasn't really our fault. Also, my companion decided to not help and to play with the kids of that family so that was also really cool. But I had a blast. Also the sisters decided to write DISTRICT WOODMANSEE on the wall, and told me to do my little, "hey look at me" pose that I like doing, so that's also there.

Also we have like 3 baptismal dates, Cristian, who's trying to stop smoking, Pilar who couldn't be baptized last week due to job stuff, and Mayuri, some member's girlfriend who lives out in the middle of nowhere (we had to take a bus to get there). We're working really hard, and with the other area that we have now, we think that we might have 7 or 8 baptisms before the end of this transfer, so that's coool. We won't be able to baptize Adhara (frank;s sister) this transfer because she couldn't go to church this week, because she was "studying"

thanksgiving isn't a thing here.

According to what they're telling me, that guy decided to bring his 4 year old son here too, so he's like getting a passport for him. They're telling me that he'll be here the first week of December. They're sending him pictures of my shoes so that he feels bad and hurrys up haha

love you

Buga - Week fifteen

So the news for this week is that Elder Torres went home to Peru because his visa expired so now we're in a trio with Elder Gamboa. We're called Woodmansee and the Bolivians, which would be a cool band name, but now we have to work in like 2 thirds of Buga. The plan is to just do divisions everyday with different members, which I'm actually enjoying because I only have to work with Elder Roman for every 3 days-that guy is really stressing me out. I'm still training him so I guess that means I still have to teach him things every once in a while, but if I wasn't I'd just leave with Brayan everyday, but I can't really do that...!

Pilar is going to be baptized this SUNDAY (some things came up and the only free time she has these days are Sundays, so I guess Sunday is the day we'll baptize her). It's kinda lame though since I thought that we were gonna baptize her like 4 weeks ago, but we also haven't been working too hard with her because she already has all the lessons and stuff.

Brayan introduced us to his younger brother, Cristian, who is pretty cool, but I guess he has like serious weed problems. The first time we went to go teach him the house just reeked of weed and he was like, "yeah come on in" and we were like, "maybe we should come back later..." haha but he ended up going to church this Sunday and he really liked it, so we think were gonna baptize him this transfer too. He actually hung out with us (the district + Brayan) today and he seems like he wants to change.

Yesterday we went to do our FHE with the Yate family and it was actually pretty cool. It was also the one of the sister's birthdays, so we did a short little lesson and celebrated her birthday. (I think it's really weird that the members here actually invite missionaries to their birthdays here, and at home I didn't really want anything to do with them hahah). I'll see if I have time to send the videos of the family home evening we did. We acted out bible stories and the people had to guess what story they were. We did Samson and Delilah, Eve and the Forbidden fruit, Peter walking on water, and David and Goliath. It was super funny.

everyone here is sad about the election because "now they'll never be able to go to the united states" hahah

ok, times up.....LOve you!

Buga - Week fourteen

This week went pretty good. Since last week was pretty terrible, we tried to have a really good week this week and we ended up having one of the best weeks I've ever had (statistics wise)! We taught a lot of people and had a lot of the new people that we're teaching go to church! weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

So Pilar is going to be baptized this Saturday, if everything goes according to plan (she told us last week that she does have a coffee problem, so we're hoping that she leaves it this week). But she seems convinced and decided about the baptism, whereas last week she was kinda just like, eh. Which I think is really cool because she actually wanted to be baptized LAST Saturday, but we told her that she had to stop drinking coffee first and gave her some time to stop. Her progression is pretty cool.

We did divisions this week; I went with elder Torres, who is actually going home like tomorrow (weird visa things made it so that he didn't finish the mission at the end of the transfer, like normal). It went really well. We went and taught Pilar and did some visits with Brayan who fixed my shoes! (my shoes are kinda screwed) Then I got to put on his little hat and poncho that he bought.

I actually did give the priesthood to Brayan on Sunday, which was really cool! So now Brayan has the big boy priesthood. I think we´re gonna go consecrate oil on Wednesday or something. He's also really good when he comes with us to do visits. He also had an interview with Pres Pricoli about going on a mission, and Pres said that they're gonna have to write a letter to the First Presidency to ask for special permission, but it's likely that he'll be able to go....Super cool! We´re really happy for him.

We´re kinda upset that the branch presidency forgot about Axel and so he still doesn't have the Aaronic priesthood even though he was baptized like a month ago.

So, about Frank (the gay guy): He doesn't seem to be progressing (he didn't go to church yesterday, seems really distracted when we visit him), so that kinda sucks. Also, I think he got mad at us because we started to teach his older sister and his mom (who will probably be baptized this month. They're super good investigators). I think he has this weird jealousy thing with me and his sister or something, but whatever...

okay, love you ❤