Andalucia - Week two

Yeah, so this week went pretty alright. I mean, a lot better than last week where I didn't get to do much of anything, but, yeah.

So I think I mentioned that when I got here we pretty much didn't have anybody to teach, so in the district meeting we made a goal to find 4 families. Then this week we found 5! So this week we had 19 new investigators (which is supper good in this mission) and all of the families we found are married! (which is super weird because nobody gets married in Colombia). So yeah, we are definitely gonna work really hard with them. Most of them couldn't go to church this Sunday because they already had another compromise, but we committed them all to go to church the next Sunday. They all seem super prepared, so I hope that everything goes really well.

Also, last week the branch president asked me if I could play the piano in sacrament meeting and I said something like, "If I could practice for like an hour each night I could probably learn 3 hymns." Then he told me, "okay take the piano home and practice for and hour each night." So I did and learned 3 hymns and played them in sacrament meeting! The hymns I learned were "I stand all amazed," "nearer my god to thee," and "let the holy spirit guide" because they're the easiest hymns I could find. But it was great! So I think I regret not getting better at the piano because I'm kinda good at it. So make Blake learn some hymns!

Also this Saturday the sister missionaries had a baptism, (and i baptized him) but it honestly made me realize the importance of baptizing converts, not just getting people a little wet, because, I feel like this kid I baptized didn't really want to get baptized, and the sisters just kinda made him do it, (when I said that to the sisters they got super defensive and stuff, since one of them has only 1 month in the mission)But then this Sunday he took off his tie and untucked his shirt right after the confirmation, and didn't even take the sacrament, which made me think, what's the point in even baptizing people like that? Why are we on the mission? To baptize as many people as possible to send the pictures to the family, or to actually help build the kingdom of God?

Anyways,

I actually wrote to president about the incident, and he told me that the area authorities told him to send us home! So I guess I can't be really mad at him for only making me junior companion. Also, our stats this week were pretty good so maybe in one week when the transfers get here I won't be junior companion anymore! ha

anyways, thats kinda it. love you guys

Andalucia - Week one

So...I know that the zone leaders SAID that we were in the house sleeping but that's literally not what happened, but nobody believes anything I say in this mission anymore so, whatever. What REALLY happened was that after church and branch counsel we got out at 2, (church started at 10) and then one of the families who had just gone to get sealed in the temple had invited us to go over and look at the pictures that they took. They gave us a little bit of food but at 4 we got home and started cooking, so that's why we were in the house at 5. We were also in garments in the house, so I guess that's why they said that we were sleeping, but whatever. On Wednesday they came again in the morning and just told us to pack our stuff because we were leaving, so we had to pack all our stuff up in like 1 hour and then take a bus 4 hours to Cali, and were interviewed. The interview itself was a joke, he did show us the pictures, I have no idea where they found it because I had never seen it before, but what could I say? Oh, it just magically got there recently lit...nah, but I was like, "President I have no idea how that got there or whose it is, but I can promise you that it wasn't one of us, and if you don't believe me we can do a drug test, because we have nothing to hide." To which he responded, "No, I'm not gonna do that, I'm just gonna assume you're lying." So yeah, after doing divisions with the assistants and sleeping in the mission house, in the morning they told us our transfers. Now I'm in a suuuuppperrr small town called ANDALUCIA, (no really, this place is like super small) and they made me junior companion, and my new companion is like suuper obedient to the point where he makes up rules. (so President obviously didn't believe me, but honestly, I probably wouldn't believe me either). So I was kinda really upset for like the first few days. 

I mean that's kinda all that happened this week. I have no idea who the new missionaries are in my old area, but we were working in 2 areas, and now the new missionary there have to work in 2 areas without knowing them. When I looked at the mission statistics for this week, they had 0 baptism dates, so the 4 that we had when I was there are gone now. so.......

The new areas okay. I'm glad that I finally have a good companion now but at the same time, super bummed out. He just barely got here this transfer and the missionary before him literally didn't do anything. (one of them was my companion in Pasto, and the members here literally hate him, it's like if you're a bad missionary and don't do anything the members don't hate you, they just forget about you, so he must have been all sorts of bad). So there isn't really that much to do here, people to visit I mean, so, yeah. I guess that's it.

I tried to make the situation not suck so much and I did some things to lighten up my mood. Like, I bought a candle with the Virgin Mary on it (to bless the house and stuff). In the offices, they have these little signs that they put on the rooms where the new missionaries and the dying missionaries sleep, one side says "new missionaries" and it has a bunch of pictures of missionary work and stuff, and the other side says "trunkies" with pictures of a couple getting sealed in the temple, so I took a picture with the side that says trunkies...and the mattress when I got here had a little message on it. I'm sure I don't need to explain to you what happened....and I found this attack on titan sweatband, so it's mine now. Yeah, that's it. 

I was talking to my companion and explained to him what happened and he was like "well, the way i see it you can do one of 2 things, just stay being mad, or forget about it and show president that youre a hard worker" so i opted for the second. Hopefully in 2 weeks ill be senior companion again. who knows. 

Popayan (Americas) - Week three

Yeah, so the area is kinda getting better. We found a few cool people to teach. One of them is a family, but only a few of them are really interested. It's a family of 3 generations (like, the grandma, the mom, the daughter (all women no priesthood mission titanic!)) Apparently the missionaries were teaching them before but they didn't really understand anything that the missionaries told them, and then they started having problems and all the sudden they started understanding the things we started telling them. I actually made them cry while explaining what the Atonement is. Then we taught another family, and they started crying when we sung "Families can be together forever." So I think we're doing pretty good. We invited a lot of them to be baptized and they accepted, but they just couldn't go to church because they already had a family vacation planed. I think next week they'll go.

Speaking of temples, the area I'm in is like 16 hours away from the nearest temple. So the members only go like twice a year or something, and this week they all went. Everyone spent a ton of money just to go, and even some people quit their jobs. So it makes you think how lucky we are to live in the United States where there's literally a temple around every corner. This Sunday everyone shared their testimony and everyone started crying (mucho espiritu) and one family who just went and got sealed shared their testimony, yeah, powerful stuff. We're all pretty lucky.

Also noteworthy thing that happened this week: We went to go contact this family that used to always go to church when a certain elder was here, and when we got to the house her little kid (should be like 3 years old?) was playing outside, and we were like, "hey can you go get your mom for us?" So he runs inside and then like 2 minutes later comes back out and says, "my mom told me to tell you that shes not here." So, that happened lol

Then this week our zone leaders called the mission president and told them that they found a joint in our house and that we've been smoking weed and not working (last weeks numbers were pretty low) but we've cleaned the house several times and I've never seen a joint in the house, so I told president that they were lying (because they were) and he said he would call me back in 5 minutes and he never called me back. So I'm probably gonna have to deal with this soon, not sure what' gonna happen but it's super lame. I'll keep you updated on what happens, but my companion and I were so upset last night that I could barely sleep. 

Yeah I guess that's all. The pictures are of me and my district leader and pictures with that recent convert family, the one where I had to confirm the dad. 

love you

Pompayan (Americas) - Week two

I don't know why but I've forgotten to look at the blog the past couple weeks, and I just want to say that those new MVHS jerseys are suuuper sick. Is it too late for Blake to make it to the NBA?

Anyways, I think I said last week that we pretty much walked around lost because we have 2 areas to work in, and I was just assuming that it would get better next (this) week, but i was wrong. In the area I'm in, my companion just "killed" my trainer the last transfer, and knowing Elder Bello, they probably didn't do anything-because there are literally 0 people to teach! I asked my companion, "hey, do we actually have investigators?" and he was like, "not really." Soo that's really lame, because I don't really like not having plans in the day. Like Wednesday or Thursday I was just so discouraged that I was considering calling President and telling him that I have a girlfriend here so that he'd transfer me! ha, not really, but I was thinking stuff like, "this area sucks. I miss my old area." I was pretty much homesick for Cali, lol. Anyway, I think things will be better this week, we made some pretty good plans.

Things kinda got better when we left to do visits with a member and he showed us some cool people. There's also this one super active family, (parents and 2 kids), that always go to church, but it turns out that the mom's not a member! So we went to go teach them and the oldest son also has a girlfriend that we taught, but she just kinda looked bored the whole time. (and on her phone) We tried to like, make conversation with her, but she gave us one word answers and went back to looking at her phone. I honestly don't understand why anyone would want to date anyone like that, but oh well! The mom knows so much stuff, I was surprised that she's not a member. She's even been to the temple when the family goes! (didn't go in of course but you know, looked at the gardens and stuff). The husband says that she was raised in a super Catholic family and she feels like she can't betray her family traditions and stuff. (There are a lot of Virgin Mary photos in their house). We're gonna work hard with that family, because, how hard could it be to baptize someone who already goes to church every Sunday?

There is literally 0% chance that this mission will get iPads within the next 30 years. The cell phones we use are old Nokia phones from the 90's and we can't even take them out of the house because they always get robbed. Here in Colombia, Apple products are way more expensive than Android stuff (even though in the US it's like the same) So having anything Apple is a sign of being super rich. Walking around with an iPad would be like wearing a sign on my neck that says, "hey please rob me!" Also, I don't think that I would even like teaching with an iPad. 

We were gonna celebrate the 4th of July by eating hamburgers and stuff, but the zone leaders said that we were gonna go play soccer again. So we didn't really do anything to celebrate, but I am wearing red white and blue! I love and miss you America.

I love you guys too I guess

Popayan (Americas) - Week one

I'm in the city Popayan, but my area is called Americas. There are like 3 wards in this mission called America lol. This is the first time I've been in a branch instead of a ward! But I don't really like the city. Cali is a big city like Los Angeles, Pasto is a smaller city but still big like San Diego, and Jamundi is a city suburb like Oceanside, but Popayan is like this middle of nowhere country town. I've run out of local examples, but it's really small! I don't like it...

Anyways, we honestly didn't do that much this week because in this last transfer like 25 missionaries finished the mission and went home, but the mission only got 3 new ones! So they had to close a lot of areas. Normally, there are 4 missionaries that work in one ward, but since they took out the other 2, we have to work in 2 areas! My companion isn't really familiar with one of the areas, so we kinda got lost. A lot of what we did this week was just walking around to get to know the members in the other area, so we could gain confidence. They would show us people to teach, but the problem is, the lessons with active members don't count as lessons taught for us! so our stats were kinda low. We organized a bunch of family home evenings that all the members loved! 

Also, I guess that the missionaries in the other area baptized a family, but they kind of "forced" or pressured them to get married and get baptized, so the parents started fighting and the dad only got baptized and didn't go to his own confirmation! His baptism was like 3 or 4 weeks ago. So, we worked a lot with that family and somehow were able to convince the dad to go to church and be confirmed! So, score! 

My companion is pretty cool. He's from Ecuador, but I don't really like the way he teaches: (reads paragraphs from these pamphlets we have.) I'm pretty sure he has music from the "world" on his player that he listens to in the shower. He's a HUGE fan of Adele, like has a huge crush on her, and he always brings our dvd player/music player/photo viewer in the shower with him. I can HEAR stuff like David Archuleta singing hymns in Spanish and the Mormon choir, but I can also hear stuff like him singing Adele songs. I think he maybe lowers the volume when that stuff comes on? He's still pretty cool. Last transfer he #killed" my trainer, so I don't think they worked that hard, because that's how Elder Bello is lol.

Speaking of Elder Bello, on Saturday we had to go clean out the house that the other 2 missionaries were living in, since there's only 2 here now, and it was pretty trashed. Then, while we were cleaning, the neighbors came and started screaming at us! Apparently Elder Bello got in a fight with the neighbors and they were threatening to call lawyers and stuff. I learned a few new words LOL. 

Anyway, that's about it. We played soccer as a zone today, it makes me frustrated because I've SEEN enough pro soccer matches to know what I should do, but I lack the skill and technique to actually do it...so everyone is better than me ;(((( lol.. but yeah. 

love you guys tho

Morichal - Week twelve

So like straight up, we didn't really do that much this week, (its not like we honestly could with the copa america but USA HYPE WE TAKING IT HOME BOYS ARGENTINA SUCKS) but I did go around saying goodbye to a ton of people because I had a feeling I was going to get transferred. So I admit that I actually did go around saying goodbye (one family made me hamburgers because AMERICA) but the most special was definitely saying goodbye to the Leiton family. We had plans to go visit them on Friday with plans to teach them, but we showed up to the house and the lights were off and stuff so I said to my companion, "yeah they're probably not here..." and then they opened the door and there was literally a surprise party waiting for me! They had balloons and pizza and soda and a sign n shiz. So yeah we didn't teach anything that day, but can you blame me? Also, they game me a ton of gifts, bought me a cool shirt and like 3 pairs of sunglasses because I once made an offhand comment about wanting sunglasses. Also, they told me that the day before they spent ALL DAY searching the city for a USA jersey for me but couldn't find one. They also gave me like some nail polish to help my nails grow (they've actually been painting my nails for months now...lol its transparent). I legit felt like crying I just love them so much. Then they went to church the next day, I finally sent the husband's reference to the offices. I have faith that they'll get baptized this transfer, even without me.

They also bought a Colombia jersey for Mugsy because I mentioned that I had a small dog LOL so I guess I'll send that home soon. I love that family!

So I did get transferred. I'm not in Cali anymore, I'm in a city called Popayan and my area is americas. It's kinda nice here, way different from Cali, it's super quiet and small here. Small noteworthy thing: this transfer like 26 missionaries went home and we only got 3 more, so they closed a ton of areas. So now we have to work in 2 areas here. It'll be interesting.

short on time, love all

Morichal - Week eleven

So yeah. This week was actually pretty trash (aside from the baptism) because I have this disease called Chikungunya and I'm pretty much gonna die. Lol, jk. But srsly. I woke up on Thursday feeling a little light headed and didn't have much strength to move. I had to teach people though, so I walked around all day anyways. Then on Friday I was super cold for some reason even though my body was really hot and then I woke up with these red things on my body EVERYWHERE. It kinda looks like acne/chicken pox which is pretty gross/worrying, so I called Hermana Pricoli and she just told me to drink a lot of water, which I guess the only thing you can do. I feel pretty fine right now though. I just look like I have leprosy...ha!

Andrea's baptism went really well. Her cousin's husband baptized her. She was super happy before and after and just super smiley all the time, and she also shared her testimony; it was pretty great. Then, on Sunday, she asked ME to confirm her! Wow. I was kinda nervous, since I had never confirmed anyone before. I always feel like I'm not that good at giving blessings compared to other missionaries, but I actually think I did a good job...so add confirmations to the list of things I've done in Spanish and not in English. 

Besides the baptism, we had to stop teaching a lot of people this week, and didn't find anyone new. There's this one member family who lives in the same house as their cousins (the mom is a less active member and the son isn't a member). We were teaching the son with his cousin who is an active member, but when we went to go teach him this week, he said that his mom says that he can't talk with us anymore, and if he does, he'll be grounded or something like that. It is really lame since hes like 16, and his MOM IS A MEMBER OF THE CHURCH. I was legit so mad afterward

Almost every less active member I've met in Colombia have told me that they hate the testimony meetings. A lot of the active members say the same thing actually. Maybe they're rubbing off on me. But i do testify with investigators...obviously.