MTC - Week 5

So I got my Latino companion on Wednesday, and I'm in a room with 6 other Latinos (one of my other friends is in my room/district so I get to speak English sometimes). At first it took some time for them to get comfortable and open up to us but now every night is always a blast. We all stay up until like 11 talking and apparently the Hermanas that live above us get really mad cuz they can hear us laughing all night LOL. 

My companion is cool, I like him a lot. His name is Elder Suyón and he's from Peru. He's really funny, but not in a way where like, he just always tells jokes and is trying to be funny, but some of the things he says and does always make me laugh. 

The Spanish is kinda hard, there are a lot of words that I don't know, but its kinda like, the more I know the more I don't know. I've learned a ton of Spanish while I'm here but I kinda feel like this is my peak that I can learn here. I can understand a lot of the Spanish spoken to me too (unless its the Latinos from Venezuela, they don't even speak the same language!) so that's kinda nice. 

I'm counting down the days that I have until I can finally leave and head out to Cali! All of the Colombianos tell me that Cali is literally paradise, with the best food and the best looking women LOL. One of them said it's kinda like Vegas because its pretty much sin city, but I really can't wait to be free and not have to wake up at 5:45am every day. We haven't really done much though. All the lessons and classes that I'm doing now are the exact same as I did the first 4 weeks but they're 100% in Spanish, but I don't really mind it that much. I learned that if I want to speak Spanish, I can't think of what I want to say cuz then I can't think of anything and then I'm screwed, so I just have to start talking and I somehow find words to say. But when I want to say something that I know all the words for, everyone tells me that I speak really good Spanish! It'll probably stink at first when I get out in the field and can't understand anything but I'd rather be helpless outside tham stuck in here for longer, LOL

Today we went to the temple in Bogotá for the last time, and for me the last time I'll go to any temple for 2 years. 

Something interesting about the temple here is that they have to have like a hotel in the parking lot for all the people who have to travel really far to go to the temple, and we went on Tuesday with the Latinos as well because some of them weren't even endowed yet, kinda sad, but kinda cool that people are willing to travel that far just to go to the temple. 

That's kinda all that happened this week, nothing really cool happened. We get to go proselyting for another 4 hours tomorrow but this time I'll have a Latino with me so itll be better i think!

  

Ethan probably wasn't at the baptism because he had work, but he told me that he was taking all the lessons with him because they were teaching him at his house. I'm really happy for Allistar. The other night I had a random thought that he would serve a mission, but who knows, it could've just been a random thought. I'm glad you took a picture!

My Colombian soccer jersey.

My hammock!

Next PDAY is on Tuesday at the MTC, but I'm leaving on Monday night/Tuesday morning so the next time I write all depends on when PDAY is on the mission. If it's on Monday I might not get to write next week. Alright. Love you all.

MTC - Week 4

Okay, So I guess a few notable things happened since Thursday, the first being that we got to go contacting for 3 hours in Bogota! It was kinda scary at first because we all took a bus to some random part in the city, and they gave us 2 copies of the Book of Mormon, a Liahona, and some pamphlets about the Word of Wisdom, Plan of Salvation, and the Law of Chastity (which was the hardest one to give out LOL). They expected us to hand out everything. 

Well, the first people Elder Momberger and I decided to talk to was a mother and her 15 year-old son playing basketball, so we walked up and were like, can we play with you for a bit? I knocked down like 5 shots in a row, and the Mom was kinda impressed, and so I went and talked with her while my companion talked to the son, and that went really well. The Mom really liked that we took the time to play with her son a little, and she asked me if I played basketball in school (yes), where (the US), and why I was here. Which was like the perfect question. I kinda talked to her about the Mormons (I think lol) and gave her a Book of Mormon and a card with the church address on it. She was super interested and then my companion taught the son a lot too, and they said that they wanted to know more and go to church with us on Sunday but we were like, sorry were actually not real missionaries yet!  But my companion and I bore our testimony to them and when we left we both just felt soo cool, which is weird because never in my life would I think that giving away a Book of Mormon would make me feel so good! lol. I know for a fact that because of the friendship we showed to the son and the Spirit we felt that they will get baptized. 

We actually ended up giving everything away, and we gave our second Book of Mormon to 2 guys drinking beer in the park who seemed interested ,and when we walked by later they were reading first Nephi so that was cool. Also we totally got lost with a Latino companionship and were like 30 minutes late to the bus. When we walked in the bus everyone was clapping and hitting us for making them wait, and we got the nickname Los Perdidos for the rest of the week. But we got 5 contact informations and gave everything out, and I honestly wouldn't mind doing that every day for the next 2 years.

On Monday the Latinos left, but I wasn't really that sad, I was only really close to like 3 of them. I get a Latin Companion for the last 2 weeks at the CCM, so I really hope that I get along with him, and also we don't even get a bathroom for just the 9 Nortes anymore--I'll have to sleep downstairs and use the janky Latino bathroom, but I hope I enjoy it. lol

Today we went on a tour of Colombia. It was super sick! I took some pictures. 

We took a gondola all the way to the top of a mountain where there were some pretty sick souvenir shops, and I bought a pretty dope Colombia football jersey for like $35000, which is like, $15. And its an official FIFA First party one too! Well worth the price I think. 

After we walked around in the city and went to more souvenir shops in the city. There was mostly jewelry, but I got a really sick black yellow red and blue hammock for $50000. He originally wanted $68000 but I was able to talk him down pretty well LOL. I forgot to take a picture of the hammock but I'm just super happy I have a hammock and a jersey lol. After we bought some Colombian chocolate which was kinda good but I convinced everyone to go to a Dunkin Doughnuts and I BOUGHT 3 DOUGHNUTS and they were honestly the best doughnuts I've ever had cuz the circumstance. 

Yeah I guess that's it, I just hope I get a chill Latin companion this week.

I'm pretty good at Spanish now. The accent here is really cool. They pronounce all y sounds and the double l´s like a zj, and I think it sounds sick. 

 Love you all

MTC - Week 3

A few big things happened this week, probably the biggest was all of the new missionaries that arrived on Wednesday. We got 2 new elders staying for 6 weeks, and they're staying in our room. Even though I've only been here 2 weeks longer than they have I feel like I have been here a lot longer than they have, it's kinda like being a sophomore at high school again lol. The 2 new elders, Elder ___ and Elder ___ are okay i guess. Elder ___ is like really humble and will probably be an awesome missionary, I really like him, but Elder ___ is yelling any time he talks and every day when the alarm goes off he moans for like 5 minutes, that gets old really fast. There's also a new elder staying for only two weeks and named Elder ___ and hes pretty cool too, but we don't get to talk to him that often.

One cool thing that I got to do this week was give a priesthood blessing. I always wanted to do one, because whenever any of the hermanas in our district felt sick or sad or anything the district leader and his companion got to give the blessing, which was never me. But for whatever the reason, when the new elders arrived on Wednesday, Elder ___ asked me to give him a blessing with oil and stuff. The blessing wasn't super long or inspiring, but I'm pretty sure that I said everything that needed to be said, and I felt really good afterwards. 

The other big-ish thing that happened was I got a companion switch. I was super excited about that lol. Elder ___ is my new companion.

We make a pretty good team I think. We taught a lesson together on Sunday for church and it was pretty much 50/50. It was all about what you focus on expands, and I used a lot of the things that Cameron told me in the letter he gave me. Everyone said they really liked the lesson too!

The new group of Latinos aren't as fun as the last group. I felt like I was friends with almost all of them last time, but hardly not as many this time. When we play football for gym hour they always want to do Nortes vs Latinos instead of just playing with us and having fun like the last group. Because of that me and 2 other elders do real workouts during gym by ourselves, and it's pretty hard lol. I think that if I continue to do it with them I'll make some serious gains.

We went to the temple again today and that's where I took more pictures with my new companion and our district, so they're kinda the same, but the weather was way nicer than it was before so I think they look better.

Next Wednesday we get Latino companions and then I get to actually be a real missionary, so I'm kinda excited!

I had to go to the customs office to get a Colombian ID. I think I'm officially a legal resident of Colombia now.

I can write and read Spanish almost perfectly, but understanding and then speaking it is way different, idk.

Okay, until next Tuesday. Love you!

MTC Week 2

This week was way better than the last one. I´ve been learning a lot of the language mostly and we´ve been learning how to contact people. On Saturday they let us out of the fence for a whole hour to go do street contacting, and I understood a lot of the Spanish, even though I didn't recognize a lot of the words. Call it the gift of tongues I guess! Most of the hour was met with "I'm Catholic, go away" which was kinda expected. We had a lot of good conversations going until my companion would introduce himself as a missionary and then ask them if they believe in God. Its like, dude you can't just jump straight into being a missionary like that! Most people were more receptive if you got to ask them a few questions first. It was really fun, and we met this one guy who was pretty interested, so we got his contact information and everything, but later I realized I probably should've given him a Book of Mormon, I felt pretty bad after that LOL.

On Monday night all of the Latinos and some hermanas had to leave for their missions, so it was kinda a sad goodbye, like even though we couldn't understand most of what they said and had only known them for like 2 weeks I felt like we had been friends for a long time. Me and three other elders all went into the chapel after dinner on Monday and all sang hymns together in Spanish, that was probably one of my favorite things so far. I'm sad to see them go, but they'll probably all be great missionaries.

Nothing else really happened except for on Tuesday, (PDAY) we got to go to the temple in the morning, I really liked it again. The Bogotá temple is way smaller than San Diego but I really like it. But after the temple me and the 2 other missionaries serving in Colombia (all the other nortes are serving in Ecuador) had to go to customs and we left straight from the temple and didn't come back until like 8 so we missed all of pday with the MTC all to ourselves and didn't get to write home yesterday. We waited in a line for like 5 hours it was kinda awful, but I liked hanging out with them. 

They only have devotionals on Sunday but everything else is about teaching or the language.  Thanks for writing, good to see what everyone is up to. Love you.

MTC Week 1

Hey! 

It's not really weird being called "Elder" most of the time. Most everyone just calls me "Woodmansee" (or the Latins try their best anyway).

The MTC is pretty much just like school. You have to wake up early and get ready, then you have to go to class til breakfast, then more class til lunch, then more class til our hour of playtime, and then class til dinner, and then class til bedtime. The classes consist of mainly 4 different things: Language, how to actually teach lessons, personal study, and study for our fake investigadors (who are just teachers here without their name tags). It's normally a struggle to pay attention LOL until we get our gym hour at three, where we just play football for an hour. After that I'm normally pretty awake. 

The food is good, I eat everything except for when they have potatoes, I still can't eat those! But apparently what they have here is pretty common for what they have in the field. It's like meat, (steak, fish, chicken) rice and then something else. We don't really get to go outside ever, it kinda feels like a jail sometimes LOL. So I don't really know what the weather is like though.

We got to go to the temple today and it was like 60 or 70 and rainy, but it normally doesn't rain.

So the only North American Elders here are the ones who all flew to Bogota together, and 8 sisters flew with us as well. I'm really good friends with all of the Elders and the 4 sisters that our in my district.

We all call ourselves "Los Nortes" and I feel like we have known each other for way longer than just over a week!

Me and my companion, Elder ___. 

Even though I can't speak the language very well I think that I'm the best of Los Nortes, and I've made a lot of Latino friends as well but they are all leaving next Tuesday which makes me kinda sad.

I don't really get homesick or anything, because I'm always doing something.  All of the Latinos at the MTC and all but 13 North american sisters will leave on Tuesday, and then we get a new group of missionaries for 2 weeks. No more North American Elders come until 5 days before I leave. The first day seemed like it took an eternity, but since then it's been better. I'm getting used to waking up at 6, I guess. Still, lol. 

And . . . he's off!

Drew's flight to Bogota via Atlanta boarded at 8:09am, so we arrived bright and early at the airport in Orange county at 6am.  After we checked his bags, we found the lower arrivals level of the airport was deserted, so we sat there and chatted (took pictures) until it was time for Drew to go.

Drew never wants to be in our photos.

But we insisted!

We watched him go through security . . .

and then he stopped for a last goodbye.

Here's the letter we got the next day:

Hi guys.

The plane ride was really long and kinda hot, so I didn't really get to sleep that much. When I landed in Atlanta I met up with like 17 other missionaries, like 8 elders and 9 sisters, or hermanas. We all flew to Bogota together, and I guess we're all a part of the same MTC class. The MTC only has like 50 or 60 people in it--it kinda feels like adult EFY. Most of the missionaries in my group are going to Ecuador though. Only 2 others staying in Colombia, so it feels like I'm making friends with all these people I'll never see again. I went to the money exchange when we landed in Bogota, so i have a lot of Colombian cash, lol. 

The p-day schedule here is really weird. It alternates like every Tuesday and Thursday? So the next time I write it will be next Thursday on the 25th, and then after that it will be Tuesday the 30th. I got my name tag so i look official, and the Latins all like me because I said I didn't like American football and I would play soccer with them, lol. I understand a lot more Spanish than everyone else in my group so I think it's a good sign for me!

-Elder Woodmansee

Bogota Colombia MTC