Popayan (Recuerdo) - Week One

First off, when I was talking to my new companion, he told me that in his 6 (7) months in the mission, he hasn't had a single baptism, and that all of his companions (including his trainer) haven't been hard workers. So he asked President in interviews for a hardworking companion so that he could have baptisms. There haven't been any baptisms in this area for a loooong time. So I guess that's why they sent me here, which makes sense, because President told me in my last interview "wherever we put you, we know  that you have the potential to shine."  And I guess they lowered me because the district leader here (a great friend of mine, see fotos in drive) just got here and is training. So I’m thinking that's why they transferred me, and I'm not a DL because there's already a good one here. So that made me feel a little better. President hasn't responded to my interview solicitud either. Oh well.

The area is really big, but my companion only knows a small part of it, so we spent a lot of time exploring the area. We found 14 new investigators this week (above the mission average) and we even went out to work one day at 10 (when you should do it at 11), so were working really hard. The coolest people I've met are 2 families that we’re probably gonna baptize this transfer. They are both so prepared and married, so that makes our job easier!

The first family is the family Vasquez I think? A young couple with 2 daughters, but the older is always upstairs with the boyfriend and never wants to talk to us.....but the parents and the younger daughter (13) are super receptive, and prepared! They have said that they feel the Spirit any time we go teach them, they're super excited to read the Book of Mormon (we even gave an English copy to the dad because he's a translator, he actually knows a ton of English) and when their neighbors started criticizing us (”they worship Jose Smith!”) and they actually defended us! they didn't go to church on Sunday, were not sure why since we called them on Saturday night and they said that they would go, but the grandparents are sick in the hospital so im thinking something happened there. But we’re really excited for them!

The other family is just a single mom and her 8 yr old daughter, and the Mom (Sonia) just got out of jail like a month ago, she doesn't tell us what she did but she's really trying to make a big change. Her and her daughter have a baptismal date for the 18 AND they went to church yesterday, and they walked there! (Which is really impressive, because they live like an hour away walking!!!) her faith is so big, she was willing to walk that far just to go to church that she's never been to before, with her 8 and 3 year old daughter....

Also, we don't have energy in our house....the bill got to us like on Wednesday and on Thursday they came to cut the light....so we've been sleeping with candles, and we also can't cook anything since our stove is electric, so we've been eating delivery like every night, which is kinda expensive...

AP physics was really easy...for me anyways, cuz I’m good at math. Physics and Calculus were the only AP classes I took senior year, and I didn't do too well in calculus because the teachers method didn't favor me at all (explain very briefly how to do the problems and then let the class do homework for an hour, helping the students who didn't understand and letting those who do understand work, which isn't really a bad system, but the teacher always gave priority to the girls and left me alone).

People always ask me how I feel about Trump, and my response is always "eh" the Colombians don't like him either. They ask me about Obama a lot too. I normally respond "at least he was cool and tweeted about basketball." I’m not a big politics fan. I don't think I’ll vote when I get back anyways, I’ll be a happier person.

Is Darcy gonna get married yet?