Pasto - Week Eight

Dad's gonna be bishop? Woahhh.  Crazy. I know you said tell no one but I'm gonna tell all my companions. Does that count? He's gonna be really busy now I imagine.

Blake made the volleyball team at Mission Vista! Since basketball and soccer got banned in the mission, I've been playing a lot of volleyball. I'm pretty good, so that just means I can beat Blake at something else now...

So this week a few things happened. The first is that we have another baptism planned for the 26 of March. We're gonna baptize L_, who's like this 20 yr old kid who lives here. He kinda doesn't do anything, but we taught him 2 times this week, and he said that he pretty much wants to learn more about the church and then eventually go on a mission like us, this kinda surprised me cuz he's kind of a punk kid and he's always like, laughing and stuff. But he went to church this Sunday and was pretty serious. I've got so much hope for this kid.

My recent convert here, J_, just got the priesthood on Sunday (the lower priesthood) so that was pretty cool, it's only a matter of time until he gets the big boy priesthood! Also he told us that he bought an engagement ring, and he's planning on proposing to his girlfriend like, next week! So that's really cool--we're gonna help out and stuff so that it all goes well.

In this mission we have pensionists, like we eat lunch everyday with the same family, but the pensionist in this area hardly gives us anything, like a spoonful of rice and a glass of juice, and if we complain she just gives us more of what we don't like, so I've been suffering lately, but this Sunday a member talked to me and said she wants to be the pensionist, and that she used to be the pensionist for the missionaries but she like, had a child, but she's promised to give us pizza, hamburgers, philly cheesesteaks, tacos, lasagna and a TON of food. So were in the process of changing the pensionist.

And last all of a sudden since the other 3 missionaries left the ward, the ward is like, super excited to work with the missionaries again, and all the members want to go do visits with us and everything, so that's pretty good. My companion has like 13 months but I'm senior companion, but he's says now he's going to be really obedient cuz he said the last transfer he almost didn't do anything, and he wants to make up for it this transfer. So we're working really hard, which is good.

Love you all

Pasto - Week Seven

This week some interesting stuff has gone down. The first thing is the baptism, which was really cool. Jorge is a really cool guy. He learned English by watching videos on Twitch, but he gets nervous when there's a gringo in the room so he never speaks English to me. Everyone (the missionaries who are learning English with their gringo companions) says I speak the weirdest English and they can barely understand me, So I guess Oceanside speaks the coolest English.

The weird thing that happened was that I guess a ton of missionaries went home early without honor for something that they did, so everyone is kinda sketched out, and then my companion got a phone call Saturday night from the zone leaders that said "Hey, back your bags, you're leaving tomorrow" which is really weird, cuz the transfers are TODAY, and normally when you get emergency transferred they at least tell you the area and who your companion is gonna be but they literally didn't tell him anything...so I was like, without a companion on Sunday and today I'm with this guy Elder B__, who's really cool. His companion just finished the mission so they put us together until our companions get here. I already know my new companion. He's pretty cool, but I'm senior companion again even tho he has more time than me, which is pretty lame that they keep sending me companions like that, like literally all 5, and then I see people in my group or people who have less time than me training and stuff, It's kinda laaamee but what can you do.

Love you tho!

Pasto - Week Six

I'm kinda stoked about this weekend cuz were gonna baptize Jorge this Saturday and he said "ELDER WOODMANSEE I WANT YOU TO BAPTIZE ME!" and I was like "Yayy!" 

I learned this week that some missionaries are idiots, and they baptize people by convincing instead of converting. This week we went to a recent converts house and she had a ton of questions, like "how do we know that Jesus is Jehova" (cuz in the Bible in Spanish it pretty much never says God it says Jehova), and a ton of other stuff that she should've known before she got baptized. And the lamest part was that she didn't want scriptures or examples from the Book of Mormon, or D&C, just the Bible, and when I asked her why, she was like "Just because." And then this Sunday (this was something I didn't know before the mission but every Sunday in literally every chapel in the world there's a class for investigadors and recent converts and less actives) the teacher for that class wasn't there so we had to teach it, and we were supposed to teach about the Holy Ghost, and we mentioned that the Holy Ghost doesn't have a body like Jesus and God the whole class (who were pretty much all recent converts from like 3 or 4 months ago) all flipped out. Like they had no idea that God and Jesus have bodies, and when we tried to explain to them with scriptures from the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants they were all like, "NO we only want scriptures from the Bible." It's like all these people got baptized just because the other missionaries convinced them, not because they had a testimony of the Book of Mormon, it kinda frustrates me.  

Love you!

Pasto - Week Five

My companion pretty much doesn’t speak English. But I speak good Spanish now so I don’t have problems talking to him. My legs don’t hurt as much now, so I guess you could say that I’m getting used to walking the hills here.

The week was pretty good. I played the piano at a baptism this week (of an 8-year-old) and I don’t even play piano. It was interesting. I did a lot of service, today we had to move a giant pile of big heavy rocks from one spot to like 6 feet to the left of where they were, so my hands and arms are like super destroyed because Colombians don’t know what gloves are. Everyone thinks I’m from Utah, (I’m so glad I’m not from Utah) and we still have 4 people who are really excited about the church and stuff.

The pictures I have are me with fairy wings, cuz the new beginnings for young women’s was this week so the YW president asked us for some help.  [We didn't get Drew's photos.]


Love everyone!

Pasto - Week Four

This week we put another baptismal date and so now we have three! And we have plans to put three more. This week we invited an investigador, Jorge, to be baptized. He’s the boyfriend of one of the members who’s literally been going to church for 6 months, and just recently the member, Amery? asked us to come and teach him. I think she waited so long to ask the missionaries for help cuz the missionaries who were here before were really disobedient. So this week we taught the lessons with Amery and her younger brother Duvan, who’s really cool, he’s like 20 and waiting for his mission call and always goes out with us, and Duvan and Jorge are in a band together so they’re good friends, but we invited him to be baptized and Duvan bore his testimony, cuz I guess he had a time of rebellion and hated the church or whatever, and he was like "I KNOW this is true" and everyone started crying. Except for me. But it was really cool.

The other person I’m stoked to teach is this punk kid Luis, or Luigi, he goes by both. Like, we taught him with a bunch of his punk friends and they just kinda laugh at us, but he’s genuinely interested, and is reading the Book of Mormon and stuff. He didn’t go to church this week cuz it was stake conference and the chapel was really far, but he has a lot of promise.

And also this week I found and bought a GALAXY JERSEY for 45 mil, which is like 13 bucks. I was super surprised to see it cuz it’s literally the first MLS jersey I’ve seen in Colombia and I see a million jerseys for sale every day. It’s super nice, but it’s kinda small, like it fits me but I’d like it a size bigger. So if I find a bigger size I’ll buy it again and send this one to Riley. I think it’s kinda funny how i came to Colombia with t-shirts of my favorite teams and now I have 90% legit jerseys.

Pasto - Week Two

All I really did this week was get to know the area. I really like my companion, but he told me that he’s been pretty disobedient for the past few months. But for a reason...His girlfriend of like 2 years or so just broke up with him and he was like, so sad he couldn’t work. He showed me all the letters she sent him (she sent him a handwritten letter every 2 months, with pictures!) and every letter was like a novel and they all said things like "we’re gonna get married for time and eternity, from your future wife and mom of your children!" So I guess it was pretty serious, lol. But we’re working hard now and he even said to me this week, “Dude, I feel so good!” The only real problem is that his other companion just flirted with all the girls so all the investigators we have are teenage girls and little boys, and I’m not really down for that.

The ward is super good though. The ward council in Granjas had problems. All they did was argue and not do anything. One time I sat next to the elders quorum president (in Granjas) cuz he’s really cool and he was just playing games on his phone the whole time, and I was like, “Dude, why are you playing video games during ward council?” And he was just like "They’re not gonna listen to me anyways, so when they fix the problem I’ll start paying attention.” I thought it was funny cuz its exactly what I would do--realize that there’s a big problem but not do anything to fix it. The only bad thing about the ward is that all the young women hate each other so they just go to different wards, and we have to go tell them they can’t do that, but they just say that they don’t like the other young women. Lame.

Yesterday was the birthday of my companion, so we celebrated that. It was fun. They requested that I sing happy birthday in English. I didn’t know how to play happy birthday. I improvised.

I’m literally in the coldest part of the mission. Every house has a heater and really thick blankets. I get to wear my cool sweaters now though at least. But the house is kinda small. Our area is really poor.

Love you!

Pasto - Week One

This week was pretty good I guess. We started it off really good by putting two baptism dates for 2 investigadors who are really really good! But then they didn't come to church. I guess from what they told us on Saturday that they see attending the church as a serious commitment and that they want to know more before they actually go. I tried telling them that it’s not even a serious commitment or whatever but I didn't want to push them hard either. So they actually don't have a baptism date. Cuz they didn't go to church. But they're really good.

Some of the pictures I put up are my companion sleeping during personal study, and our freezer overflowing with ice, cuz it’s that good.

Also we had a meeting this the ward mission leader, and we came up with this really dope plan, cuz the ward only has an attendance of like 120 but there are 220 active members, its just that they only come tp church like every other week, so we came up with this plan, we were gonna have a 5 family home evenings, but like huge ones in different parts of the area with every member family in the ward. We were gonna do divisions with the members too so we could do 4 at the same time. We were gonna do this activity cuz we have these little cards that have like 20 things on it like "scripture study, fhe, prayers, church attendance" and you could rank yourself from 1 to 5 on all of those things. Then we were gonna be like "let’s see in what kingdom of glory you're all in, if your score is less then this number you're in the celestial kingdom, this number terrestrial, and this number celestial" and we were 100 % sure that nobody would be in the celestial kingdom.

So we had all these things planned out and...I GOT TRANSFERRED. What?

My goal for the mission was to baptize at least one person in each area. But I was only in Granjas for 1 transfer. So I already failed my goal =/ and I didn't even get to say goodbye to anyone. We visited a lot of member families so Quinto could say goodbye and took a bunch of photos but I don't have any cuz I was 100% sure I would stay. But I at least got to take pictures in the morning with the security guards, or the "MYNIÑOS" cuz they always call us myniños. Nobody knows why. But now my companion is still there and I’m in PASTO.

I only have a little bit of time in Pasto. The area I’m in is called BELALCAZAR. It’s really cold and 100% on an incline. I’m always walking up or down a hill. That's pretty much all I know about the area. I also lost my p-day cuz the bus ride from Cali to Pasto was 12 hours. So that's why I’m writing right now. My companion seems pretty cool. His name is elder Yanzapanta. He reminds me a lot of Nick, but he has like 15 months in the mission and I’m senior companion again, so he must have done something disobedient.

I’ll tell you more about my new area. I just got here. I still can’t even say the name of it yet cuz it’s like Belalcanzaraskhfgjk or something. It’s cold.

Love you!