Jamundi - Week Five

This week, this week.

We had a baptismal date for that kid, who put his own baptismal date, but it fell through. Not cuz he doesn't want to get baptized or anything, but his date was for this Saturday and we’d only taught him 2 lessons, so he wasn't ready, and he still isn't sure why he even wants to get baptized. Also his mom and his stepdad wouldn't let him because they all want to get baptized on the same day, but the mom is married to another man still, so she needs to divorce him and then get remarried, so that's a process.

We did divisions this week, and I was in my area with Elder Smith, who arrived like 4 days ago (when we did them) and we were in my area, so I had to make the plans and stuff. So even though he has more time in the mission (2 transfers, I think) it was like I was the senior companion, so that was kinda stressful/cool LOL. He pretty much told me that there are a lot of things that my trainer does wrong, and when we visited one of our investigadors, she said "your other companion is very undisciplined, huh?" LOL. But he's been here for like 6 months so I think I’ll get a mom* next transfer.

Also, Felipe, our golden investigador, finally was able to go to church! He said that he really liked it, but there were things he didn't understand and that he wants to know more. Were gonna put a baptism date for him this week. We were gonna do it yesterday but things happened and we couldn't teach him. The thing is, he's dating the daughter of a less active family, familia Usma, and the daughter isn't a member, and Hermana Usma is siblings with Hermano Toro, and familia Toro is another less active family whose kids aren't members. I feel like this week we need to work really hard with them, reactivate the families, and baptize their kids. Idk, I just feel like they're really important. The thing is, Hermano Toro is excommunicated, so I don't even know how that works. I think when Felipe is baptized it'll motivate all of them to do the same. I feel like these two families are a big reason of why I’m in Jamundi right now.

Oh yeah, to answer your questions.  We don't regularly eat with members. We have a pensionista that gives us lunch every day, the same member every day. It’s like a calling, so eating with other members (like we did last week) is different.

In Colombia literally every business is run out of peoples’ houses. Food, internet salons, hair cutting places, everything is just in a house. We have an investigator who has an internet salon right across from our house and he lets us write for free, so that's cool.

Love you guys!

*The mission lingo is that your first companion is your dad, but your training period is 2 transfers. So if you get another companion during your training, that's your mom. Also your first area is where you were born, like I was born in Jamundi, and when you finish your mission, you die, and your companion killed you. LOL

Jamundi - Week Four

So I told you about my broken shoes last week? The shoes are fine now, the dad one of our investigadors fixed them and shined them WHILE I was wearing them. I kinda felt like a king. And then he offered us free vodka! LOL

Three things happened this week that were really cool. The first is, I don't know why, but a lot of the members invited the district over to eat dinner, like three times this week. So we got a lot of free food. I'm not gonna complain!

The second, is, you know that 17 year old kid I told you about (or at least I think I did) that is dating the daughter of a less active? Felipe? We taught him 2 more times this week, and man is he made of gold. He kept literally all of our compromises, and (we had to visit with a member cuz the dad wasn't there) the member we were with asked him that if he wanted to get baptized if he knew this church was true, he said he would. Woo! We felt that it would be better if we put a date after he went to church this week, but the parents of the less active family were in Cali, his family has issues, and the daughter didn't want to go to church, so he didn't know how to get there...but he told us he really wanted to, so that counts?

And today, we had, I don't know what its called in English, like, emergency transfers? The transfer period isn't over, but one of the Elders in the district had to leave this morning and we got a new elder (not like new new like me.) So we had to wait for him in the morning as a trio, and when we found him he had forgotten his bags on the bus, so for like 4 hours this morning we had to frantically try and find the bus he was on and get his bags. He's a gringo too, but has 5 months in the mission, but my Spanish is a little better. haha The elder that left, left a ton of stuff too, so we all took it for ourselves. I got this really nice speaker! Sounds good. I'm gonna put conference music on my flash drive, so I can use it.

And the lame thing. This week on like Thursday Elder Bello bought this little ball maze game at the store. And he's like a little kid, man! He stayed up til like 11:30 one night playing it. Whatever, it didn't affect me. 

But one day, I think it was Friday? After lunch he said we were gonna go back to the house and do 12 semanas, but he took the ball and went right to the bathroom and locked the door, and I could hear him playing it. So I started doing language study, and read Preach My Gospel and whatever (cuz stuff happened and we couldn't do it earlier) and it had been like 40 minutes and he was still in the bathroom playing that game. So I thought, this is stupid, I'm not doing anything. So I decided to be a good missionary and pray for courage and words to tell him to stop being stupid, and I did. I think we've been working a little harder ever since. Lol

Love you all.

Jamundi - Week Three

This week was more or less the same with the numbers and whatnot, but I think the lessons we did have were a lot better. There's this recent convert in the ward, named Juan David. He's 16 years old, he's really cool. I think he and Blake would be really good friends LOL. Anyway, he gave a Book of Mormon to one of his friends at school, and his friend started reading it, loved it and the first thing he said to us when we met him was that he wanted to get baptized. Cool! His name is Yordi (the y in Colombia is like a J, so Jordy) We taught him and his parents twice this week, and the whole family is super interested and whatever. One cool thing the mom said is that she noticed a change in her son when he started reading that book, and she really wants to have that change too. Cool! So when they go to church next Sunday we're gonna put a date for all 3 of them! I'm not gonna baptize them though. I think it'll be more special if Juan David got to do it, and I told him he was gonna do it. It'll be more special for him than me, and I'll have more chances to do it later on. 

We had a zone conference this week, and we got to eat Dominos pizza again, lol. That was the best part. The lessons and stuff were good too, but I have to think really hard to understand when people talk really fast or not directly at me and it's hard to do that for a long time, but I'm still getting better! When I follow all the rules and the schedule in the morning I find that I can understand better than when I start personal study late, or go to bed late or whatever.

Also my shoes are already breaking. My companion says that my shoes make me look like I have 8 months on the mission, there's no way these are gonna last a year lol. It's a sign of hard work I guess? idk. 

Tell Zack I said happy birthday! 

It's weird that Chloe is married already lol. I'm older than she is! Is Darcy gonna get married in a year too? jk 

And we went to the zoo last week as a zone. It was fun, but I always feel weird talking to another North American. Its like, should I speak to him in Spanish or in English? It's weird, but everyone here is really cool.

Love you all!

Jamundi - Week Two

This week was a little more difficult than the last. Like 4 times this week we taught 0 lessons and had 0 new investigators. Sometimes I felt like my companion doesn't know how to use time wisely, and honestly he really doesn't. I was getting frustrated and whatever, but then one night he said "Dude you're so lucky, you get to start your mission in a brand new house (we moved on Tuesday), the members here are amazing, you got here at the best time of the year, I wish I had the same luck as you" and it really changed the way that I looked at things. Now I try to look at the good more than the bad.

We taught one really solid lesson with this family we contacted a while ago, and the second lesson they invited their daughter to hear too! We left them with a Book of Mormon and a challenge to pray, and I think that if they do that, then well have success with them!

One thing that sucks about being tall and being in Colombia is that I have to duck a lot. One day I wasn't looking and now I have this big gash on my head. LOL

In our new house we didn't have anything to put our little mosquito nets on, but I MacGyvered a little thing to hang mine up on and I'm really proud of it. lol 

I don't have time cuz we started writing at like 5:30 and have to finish at like 6 but I love and miss you all and I'm glad you're doing good!

Jamundi - Week One

So the first two days I had in the mission field I spent with the mission president and the assistants and stuff. We got to eat Dominos pizza and really nice food and what not. They explained a lot about the mission.  The mission is really small I think. We only have like three states or territories or whatever they're called in Colombia, the Valle, Cauca, and Nariño. The Valle is really hot, Cauca is perfect, and Nariño is really cold

Okay. My first area is called Jamundi, which is in the Valle, so its really hot and humid like all the time and I feel like I'm sweating all the time. Like I shower when I get home and wake up sweaty and come back home all sweaty. The best way I can describe Jamundi is that the nicest parts of Jamundi are like the worst and grossest parts of Vista. We have to sleep with nets over our beds too bedause the mosquitoes will come in and kill us, but everyone tells me that this is the best area in the mission in the best mission in the world, cuz this is where I was born, LOL. The best part about Jamundi is that the bread is super good, and there's a panera on like every corner, and you can buy like 10 things of bread for like 2mil! (which is like less than $1)

My Spanish is pretty okay. What the general consensus the people have on it is "he only understands a little, but he can speak really well" which is what I've heard people say a lot. But I'm pretty good at teaching lessons and stuff. We've taught a few, The only person so far that I've done all the work for (like contacted myself and taught a lesson--all the lessons except this have been with investigators that were already here) is this 17 year-old kid named Filipe, who is dating the daughter of a less active family. We taught him the first lesson and he was almost crying and whatnot. I really have high hopes for him!

My favorite area to go to is called Amigos 2000, which is like 20 minutes from Jamundi. Its like dirt roads and all the houses are just brick and concrete. Its really poor! I took pictures of the it and of Jamundi, But my companion erased all my photos when he switched the language on my camera to Spanish, so the only pictures I have are ones I took today! My trainer (or dad) is named Elder Bello, he's from Peru. I took pictures with him and stuff, but they got erased. He's a really cool guy and a good trainer. He knows a little English too, but I don't really like it when he speaks English to me because I really want to learn the language! But he tells me that I'm way better than every other newbie gringo, and all the families in the ward do too. 

Last thing I want to share is a cool experience I had. I normally take like 600 pesos in coins with me in case we ever need to make a phone call (We can't bring the phones outside the house). But on Saturday I was like, maybe I'll bring 1500, just in case, idk, it was a random thought and then when we took a bus from Terranova back to Jamundi my companion was short 1500, and guess who had 1500 pesos? Little things like that are really cool.

Love you all!

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