Popayan (Recuerdo) - Week nine

I think the truth is is that as much as I love Colombia and serving the Lord where he has called me, I (and almost all of the other missionaries) am getting kind of tired of how the mission leadership treats us and all of the crazy stuff that goes on here. I try not to tell you or anyone else about the negative things that go on around here, but its taking its toll, and I think that might have an effect on how I'm writing these emails (aka, not very well) but I'm going to try and share more spiritual things instead of just saying, "I know more than you" (which probably isn't true anyway). 

I think that the mission has made me a more humble person. You know that almost all of my companions have been difficult and I think that there's something the Lord wants me to learn. When I was a district leader I went around saying "District Woodmansee wooo!" which is something that I shouldn't have done, and maybe that's one of the reasons I'm not a leader anymore. Even if that's not really the reason why they lowered me (it was fighting with the Zone Leader), but maybe the Lord wanted me to learn something from that.

When I was in Jamundi, I had 4 baptisms and we were teaching so many cool and prepared people. Meanwhile, the other missionaries there couldn't  find people to teach, even though they were probably working harder than we were. I think what happened to them is happening to me right now. We try and try to find people and try to get them to church, but nobody ever goes, even when we try to be more obedient or contact more people, the people don't want to hear us. I think maybe the Lord teaching me to be humble was in preparation for this moment. When our numbers were the highest in the district, I bragged to the other missionaries, but now our numbers are the lowest and the other missionaries make fun of us for not having good stats. But now I don't get offended or anything, which might be a fruit of this humbling process. I think I'll still have to keep working at it though.

I think that one of my gifts and talents has always been getting along with all kinds of people, but I think the lord might have something planned for me after the mission later in life, because those talents have been refined and perfected in the last 21 months. I've also learned to see the good in everyone and to bring out the best in them. My companion the other day was discouraged, but I was able to help him realize his strengths and how he excels in places where I struggle. Since then he's been taking more advantage of his strengths. I think maybe I've passed through the refiners fire and now I just have to help others. Maybe that's why I finally have a good companion. It's something I've developed in the mission. Sometimes I get in arguments with my Pensionist about doctrine and I always end up winning, but he truth is that I read a lot of church books that I shouldn't.

Nobody went to church. We're still working hard and hoping that things go better this week.

Ethan hasn't been converted yet because nobody invites him, not even Dave. Once in high school, his car broke down and he asked me to take him to school.  I said that he would have to go to seminary and he went for a month because I took him! He could have said "no, I'll ask someone else," but he didn't. I never invited him again when his car was working, so he didn't keep going. It's kinda the same thing. Nobody really invites him to do these things. Not even I do. Michelle also said that she was going to church when I get back. Let's take advantage of that!

Today my companion bought me breakfast, then we had a little party in the chapel with (almost) all of the zone. We sang and ate cake, played some volleyball, basketball and soccer. Now we're making pizza with the Pensionist (using my Little Caesars experience!) We took a little break to write home, but we're gonna go back and have birthday round 2. It was a pretty good day overall. I'll try and see if I can get the pictures up on drive!

Popayan (Recuerdo) - Week seven

I think that it's funny that a lot of members complain about having bad missionaries in the ward but what I'm really frustrated about is being in this branch with members who have no idea what they're doing.

The new area rules say that we can't go to branch counsel anymore, we just have to tell our stuff to the ward mission leader, and he has to talk in counsel for us, but in my 7 weeks here in El Recuerdo I've asked for several things and help and they haven't told me pretty much anything, or given me a report or anything, so for all I know they could just not talk about the missionaries in branch counsel at all. Also, the branch president feels the need to speak every Sunday, and give a Patriarchal blessing in his talks and testimonies. Silence in testimony meeting pretty much never happens here, but we have the opposite problem, like people talk for way too long. Some woman (I don't know who she is, but she must have been important because they recognized her presence like four times on Sunday) pretty much burned everyone saying that a testimony shouldn't last for more than 20 seconds. I liked that!

We're still working with Vicente. The other day I decided that I couldn't wait for the branch to organize an activity to get them married (since I've been saying to do something for the past 4 weeks and they haven't done anything), and to just organize and do it ourselves, but I guess that the branch president just started to organize something and thought that it wasn't important for the missionaries to know! Ughh 😒

The other day we were wandering around in the downtown area (Ciudad Blanca, look it up its pretty dope) looking for some less actives and this girl comes up to us and was like "Oh my gosh I've been looking for you guys everywhere!!!" and tells us that she just moved here to Popayan from Huila (in the Mission Bogota Sur) and was going to the church there in Huila (she's been like 10 times or something like that) and since she got here has been looking for the missionaries. Her name is Lara, she really has a testimony, you can tell, but she said that since she started going to church her parents (who have never really been active church goers) started making her be Catholic, going to church, wearing some virgin necklace, and making her memorize prayers or something like that, so I guess that's the adversary working witt people. She says that she wants to get baptized, but she's only 17, so we'd have to get her parents to sign the permission slip thing, which is kind of impossible, since they live in Huila. She's living with some friends, who are probably not the best influence on her. But who knows what we can do to help her, I don't think she can really progress in that environment

We're also still teaching David, he's really good, the other day he admitted that he was really only listening to us to try to contradict us but said that he feels good and feels desires to read the Book of Mormon, but for whatever reason hasn't yet. He promised he would go to Church, but Sunday morning he sent us a text saying that something came up and couldn't go. Lara did the same thing hahaha 😂🔫

We met some member who was going to the other branch but moved to our area the other day, who's literally the best member ever. He's pretty rich and doesn't work anymore, so he said that he can literally spent all day everyday with us, and that he would start looking for people to share the gospel with so that we can go teach them. I guess four of his friends got baptized in the other branch, so I'm pretty happy to have him! I wish that all members were like him, I understand that we all can't do visits with the missionaries all week, but we could at least try to share the gospel with everyone like he does! 

My companion and I get along great. He's literally younger than Darcy so that's kind of weird but we have a ton in common, and we can pass literally all day talking about electronic music--turns out that he was a DJ too! Hes also a really hard worker. I honestly don't really know what happened this week but literally nobody was home or could go to church, but he's not really getting down on that, but I really hope that I can finish the mission here with him, but I doubt it since the changes here are like super fast....

Today we went back to the Morro, and we slid down the hill, Elder Lindao almost killed me! It was fun.

Everything's good.

love you tho