Granjas - Week Three

Colombia has Santa. Christmas here is literally the same. People always ask me if Christmas in the US is like this and I'm like, yeah, its the same thing!

The ward didn't have a Christmas program. But the ward mission leader is big into choir and since I'm an amazing singer he always asks me to go sing or go Christmas caroling with him. lol We sang in sacrament meeting together with his family, and we went Christmas caroling with some of his friends. I had to sing tenor with him because no other tenors showed up in this choir of 25, and so I sight- read all these arrangements of Christmas music. I thought I did alright.

This area is still pretty trash. I literally haven't even taught a single investigador lesson since I got here. I guess part of the problem is that a lot of the people here are just super lazy. We had an activity this week where we were gonna show the movie Meet the Mormons and the plan was to have members bring their friends so we could contact them. This was announced at church like a million times last week and the week before, but literally nobody came. We watched it just the 4 of us missionaries. The bishop didn't even come. The ward has like 800 members but only an attendance of 130. I don't even think any of the wards in this stake should be wards.

I'm talking with the stake young men's presidency about organizing a soccer tournament between the wards. There's six wards and they all have their own chapel so we can do home and away games and I'm thinking of doing round robin pools to seed the teams and then do a double elimination tournament. The idea is that the young men invite their friends so we contact them, like we always did in churchball. Invite friends to win I mean. The young men like never come to church here. And I wanna be in charge of it becauseI don't trust the Colombians to do it, and I have all this experience running Smash Bros tournaments, so I know what I'm doing, lol.

A problem I have is that every Sunday after we make food my companion and this guy from the other companionship go to sleep and I talk to this kid from Idaho, Elder Killpack for like 3 hours and it just stresses me out, because all he wants to do is talk about how awful the church in Colombia is and how screwed up the mission leadership is and how the church here doesn't progress, and every week it stresses me out. lol. It just kinds stinks how there aren't any good things to really talk about. mission-wise.

I think w'ere gonna try and talk at 2 or 3 on Christmas day after lunch. But the problem is is that we still haven't found a internet salon that'll be open on Christmas with cameras and stuff. And we're not allowed to go to the houses of the members. It might be a search, but expect to hear from me this Friday!

Love you!

Granjas - Week Two

This week was literally my worst week ever stats wise on the mission. I got to my new area and my new companion literally doesn't know anyone. It's pretty much like we're opening the area and I'm senior companion. Tuesday night when we were planning he says "Okay at 2 we're going to go for this person....and there's nobody else." And I was like what? There's no way we only have one person to visit tomorrow. So I looked in the area book and the list of less actives, and on my second day in the area I planned the whole day out. I guess nobody likes him very much because he;s really disobedient and flirts with the hermanas, and he talks back to all of the leaders, but if he's with a good companion (like me!) he'll work hard. I get along with him pretty well, but I get along with almost everyone pretty well. We've just been visiting members less actives and recent converts sharing this "A Savior is Born" thing that the church is doing. I literally didn't teach a single investigator this week and I don't even know any. The ward members don't really work with the missionaries but we're going to change that pretty soon. I've gotten to be friends with a lot of the members so far. My plan is to make friends with all the members so they actually want to come with us and not just because they're obligated.

It's just the two of us in the apartment. The view is really nice. And I got the package on Saturday in the zone meeting. I think it arrived sooner but they just are now giving it to me. Did you put a picture of the holy virgin and the divine child Jesus on it? lol. 

We got a text message this week that just said "you can't watch the Christmas devotional, you have to work" from the zls. 

Something funny, I met this guy in the ward who is like 70 and bought tickets to the Rolling Stones in Bogota this March, and he was telling me alllll about it. He bought the most expensive tickets so he could be in the giant pit in the front and I'm pretty sure he's gonna die. 

Something spiritual, we were visiting some members and we asked if we could leave them with a prayer. They're about 60 and it's just a married couple living alone. The husband started saying the prayer and it was literally the most powerful prayer I've ever heard. And it wasn't even for anything special. He started crying during the prayer. If we all prayed like that I think we would see the results a lot clearer. 

Something interesting, The ward mission leader sings a really good tenor, his wife alto, and his daughter soprano, and when he found out I sing an "amazing bass" he said that we were going to go Christmas caroling just the 4 of us (none of the other missionaries can sing!) 

Love you!

Granjas - Week One

I got transferred. I'm kind of happy because there were really no investigadors for us to teach. Jamundi is DEAD: I Came, I Saw, and I Baptized the only 4 people who live in Jamundi who could have possibly been baptized. I'm pretty sure the ward only had 3 other inverstigador baptisms all year until I came so I guess we did pretty good.

My last week in Jamundi we didn't really do anything. We made banana cream pie and key lime pie for Thanksgiving, and I said goodbye to all the friends I made. I never realized how many friends I had until this week. I said bye to Paulina and Daniel and Michell and Juan Camilo and Camila and some other members and it was kind of hard to leave my converts. I was friends with the whole neighborhood where we lived. Every night when we came home everyone was always like "Hey WoodMANsee! What going on!" Literally like the whole neighborhood, lol.  

The area I'm in now is called Granjas. Jamundi was kind of like the suburb of Cali, and now I'm like straight in Cali. It's really big. Its kind of like Los Angeles, and I only say that because it's the only other big city I know. lol. His names Elder Quinto, he's like 5 inches shorter than my shoulders and he finishes the mission in 2 more transfers, including this one. So I think I'll be with him until he "dies." He seems alright to me so far. 

Love you guys. 

Jamundi - Week Seventeen

This week is probably my last week in Jamundi, and I kind of can't wait to get transferred. I feel like I baptized the only 4 people who can progress in all of Jamundi! If I stay here, well, I don't know what I can do for another 6 weeks. All of our investgadors SAY that they'll go to church on Sunday, it's like we won't even bring up going church and then as were leaving they say, "This week I'm gonna go to church!" And then they never come. In fact, the other 2 missionaries in the district, Elder Smith and Almeida, went to the house of the mission president last week to just talk about their area because nobody in Jamundi wants to go to church. So yeah, Even though I have all these friends, I'm kind of done.

The other thing is that whenever there's a national soccer game (this problem I think is nationwide) is that we literally can't work. I know when Colombia has a game because I leave the house in the morning to buy breakfast and everyone is in their yellow soccer jerseys. And I know when Colombia scores because EVERYONE, the entire city starts screaming., This week there was a game and we just kind of walked around for 2 hours, because nobody wanted to talk to us. I don't know what to do during this time. 

The only investigador I'm excited to work with is someone I met this week. We always take this shortcut on the way to lunch and sometimes there's people smoking weed in this park, and this week one of these stoners starting talking to me in perfect English (I say perfect because normally the kids try to talk to me in awful English that they learn at school) and said that he was baptized in Florida and went to church for 2 years or so, but had to move back to Colombia and didn't know where to find the church again. We went to his house and he introduced us to his mom who isn't a member and we had a really good lesson. This guy started tearing up during the lesson, and he and his mom went to church on Sunday. The mom just has to get married and he needs to stop smoking, and drinking. It'll be a process but tha'ts why were here, no?

I think for Thanksgiving were going to make pie at a members house, and when I say we I mean Elder Smith because he actually knows how to make pie. Turkey is expensive and were all poor. lol 

Love you guys. Stay chillin!

Jamundi - Week Sixteen

This week we had another baptism tho! We're really good friends with this family down the street from us. (They have an internet salon that we like to use sometimes.) The family consists of Paulina, her husband Clelio and their son Daniel. The parents are like 55 and Daniel is like 20. I feel like if I weren't a missionary I'd be really good friends with Daniel. We do a lot of the same things, the only thing he does that I don't has to do with his girlfriend ...but he's been to church like 30 times. BUT ANYWAY, Paulina has told us for a very long time that she wanted to be a member of the church but we just hadn't taught her everything. The other week we taught her and invited her to be baptized and she straight laughed at us lol. She said she wasn't prepared and didn't know enough. Then we had a member bear his testimony about prayer and how to recognize the Holy Ghost and we committed her to pray. We visited her the next day and the first thing she said to us was, "I prayed, and the answer was positive. I'm gonna get baptized!" So yeah, I baptized her.

The service was really good, and she even bore her testimony at the end! She was really happy on Sunday, too. 

The other kinda cool thing we did was I made 2 pizzas, because we were with Fam. Toro and I mentioned that I worked at a "pizzaria" (Little Caesars) and they were like okay now you have to bake us a pizza.

So we bought the stuff and I made some pizzas. They were pretty good. Everyone liked it at least.

There's a new rule in the mission that says we cant play soccer or basketball anymore, Like we can't even touch a basketball, so that kinda sucks. But we played volleyball with the ward for like 4 hours this morning, because that's the only thing we can do. I dominated. 

You asked about how we contact people. Here everyone talks to everyone, so we don't have a problem with people not wanting to talk to us. A lot of the time people contact us because they want to know what we do. Everyone thinks were students, or pilots, or businessmen, or things like that lol. In this mission it's literally against the rules to go knock on doors because its a "waste of time" and there are more effective things to do to meet new people. 

About the new Church handbook changes.  Nobody has said a word about it here, I wouldn't have known if you didn't tell me.

Love you!  

Jamundi - Week Fifteen

This week started off pretty lame but ended up really good! On Wednesday we went to the house of Family Toro with the intention to put a baptism date for the 14th of November, And we did. At first Camila STILL wasn't sure and had doubts. But I read this scripture from, I think, Matthew 4 when Jesus calls Peter and Andrew to be disciples, and how it says  "And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets, and followed him." And I was like "listen, when Jesus told them to follow him, Peter and Andrew didn't think "maybe well think about it for a few months, maybe if we listen to his talks and we like him a lot, THEN maybe we'll follow him" but it says they left their nets IMMEDIATELY and followed him. And they didn't know anything about Jesus Christ or the gospel, but you know everything and still are too scared to follow him. So you're going to pray tonight and we'll come back tomorrow for your response and NOTHING ELSE."

I lied, because the next day was her birthday and I made brownies for her and the family, and then she said she felt really good when she prayed and wanted to get baptized, on the 14th. Cool! But then the next day her dad called us and was like "hey, were going to do it this Sunday." Because the Hermano Toro baptized the wife of the stake president on his mission, and since he's kinda excommunicated and can't baptize his kids, the stake president was going to do it for him, and Sunday was the ONLY DAY he could do it. SO we had to call the zone leaders (we live like an hour away from the rest of the zone), and we made the agenda and wasted all day Friday making plans for the baptism, but it turned out really great.

Aside from them being baptized, two cool things happened. One, the stake president's wife gave a talk during it asked me to stand up and then started crying and thanked me (and my companion but mostly me LOL) for all our hard work and patience we showed towards them, and I even almost started crying because the spirit was so strong. The second cool thing was that the district sang A Child's Prayer, and when I say the district I mean three of us and a member. The first verse in Portuguese, the second in English, and the last in Spanish. So that was really cool. But I was so happy to finally see them get baptized after three months of work!

Nothing else really happened. If everything goes well were going have another baptism this Saturday. (Paulina) She's really funny. When ever she says my name she says "Woodmansee, Ve!" which is like "look!" and says funny things to me in the middle of the lesson like "Woodmansee, Ve! speak English to Rolly (the dog) maybe he'll understand you!" "Woodmansee, ve! In California the beaches are really pretty, no?" "Woodmansee, ve! Elder Bello didn't know anything, huh?" always right in the middle of the lesson. One time we were reading the Book of Mormon. and she was like "hold on a second" and went to make us lunch, in the middle of the lesson. Sh'es like Eve before she ate the fruit of the tree. LOL

The members went to the temple this week and brought be back some cool things like Jesus the Christ in Spanish because I already read it in English and a temple recommend holder. And . . . I'm fat.

Love you!

Jamundi - Week Fourteen

This week really sucked. We always set appointments, but everything always falls through. Its like, we'll call in in the morning and the appointment will be confirmed, but when we get there, they're not home. We go from house to house and nobody is ever there. So I talked with my companion and we both agreed that this week we're just gonna go drop literally everyone that we know, well almost everyone. Everyone who hasn't come to the church yet, which is like everyone but five people, and we're gonna open the area. It's going to be hard because I'm friends with a lot of people here, but they don't want to do anything! What's more frustrating is that I get a lot of good contacts who seem like they'll be really good but they live in the area of the other missionaries. I know these two kids who are always playing League of Legends in our neighbor's house who I'm pretty good friends with (and they go to church like every other week), but I can't teach them because they live in the other area. But they're always in our area so the other missionaries can't teach them either! It's frustrating. But even so, I have like three people that I refuse to leave this area without seeing them baptized. One being Paulina (who dressed up as a Mormon Pioneer for Halloween LOL) and the freakng Toro kids. I'll be working hard with them for sure.

But they do celebrate Halloween here. It's actually kind of weird.  When you ask for candy you have to say "Quiero paz, quiero amor, quiero dulces por favor!" which is "I want peace, I want love, I want candy, please!" LOL

And everyone dresses up, and it's pretty much the same. I actually got a lot of candy just because the members gave me a lot.

The ward had a little party that was pretty cool too.

Honestly nothing noteworthy even happened this week. The most noteworthy thing was I learned how to tie two different tie knots that I can do if I'm ever feeling a little fancy.

And now I have a Book of Mormon in Portuguese, so I can learn Portuguese and talk with Riley. LOL

It rains every night here and then during they day when we work it's sunny and hot and then in the night it starts raining again, which is good because I don't want to work in the rain!  LOL

Love you guys !