Buga - Week thirteen

Honestly, being the district leader is pretty stressful haha since now I have to do baptism interviews and run THE BOX (the zone leaders came over on Wednesday and taught me how to do it) around and pay the water bills for everyone in the district, and honestly, it's taking a lot of time from me. Also, having a companion who's not really willing to cooperate isn't really helping. I feel like every week my son gets more and more, unwilling to obey or do anything the way that we're supposed to do it. I try to help him and correct him but he just only gets mad at me. At this point I'm convinced that he hates me, but whatever. Also, other missionaries (and even the branch president the other day) are telling me that he has serious problems with the sisters in the ward and that he's always telling people about his past life (which was a sinful one). So a lot of the new members and investigators are hearing him and think that all missionaries are like that. My new district and training responsibilities are kinda sucking. I'd say that I'm getting stressed out, but that's not really true. I'm just kinda hoping that this transfer goes by really quickly.

The good thing that happened this week is that Brayan is gonna get the Melchizedek priesthood this week! He had his interview with the district president this last week and was sustained in the district conference. He also asked me to give him priesthood, but the branch president said that might not be allowed (I don't see why not) but whatever, most probable outcome is that I'll give him the priesthood, and it'll be cool to have a bunch of Colombians with Woodmansee as their line of authority!

I don't know if we said this last week but the district goal is to baptize 20 people this transfer, and so far we have 2. I personally have 0 and a lot of the people that we were planning on baptizing aren't progressing so, I guess that means we'll focus more on contacting people. Pilar will probably be baptized this Saturday, but she doesn't know it yet hahah. I'm about to go start working, but the streets are FILLED with trick or treaters, so we'll see if  anyone will attend to us...

As for the missionary who just got back from my mission, I've seen tall missionaries with red hair, but never talked to them. If I'm thinking right, he finished when I was still starting, so I don't think he knows me. 

Also, in the Spanish bible, the annotations make it clear that the teaching applies to ALL sacrifices, even if in that scripture he was only talking about animal sacrifices, but whatever. 

love you all!

Buga - Week twelve

So today were transfers, I thought that they would change me because they never leave me in the same area for a long time, but I'm still in Buga, so I'll finish the training Elder Roman. I'm also the new district leader in Buga!!🎊 I honestly have no idea what to do, especially since the district leader in Buga is the only district leader in the mission that has a BOX (box full of money that we use to reimburse missionaries) and Elder Alcorta, my old district leader, handed me the box and said "here's the box" and then got on a bus and left to Cali. So now I have missionaries asking me about reimbursements and I have no idea how to run the box... or be a district leader really. So that's cool

That baptism we were planning on having didn't happen because Pilar, the investigator, says that she's not ready, even though she has acknowledged that she felt the spirit reading the Book of Mormon and going to church. Freaking CATHOLICS! She says that she can't be baptized because she doesn't know that much about the church even though we've taught her almost all of the lessons. So I think that were just gonna teach her the lessons that she has left and then tell her, "okay, we don't have anymore lessons. You already know everything" and see were she ends up. 

Brayan, my recent convert, is going to receive the Melchizedek priesthood this weekend! AND might go on a mission! (He's 25, so to be able to go on a mission, he needs special permission, that he might get!) AND introduced us to one of his friends named Francisco, or Frank. 

Frank is 17, and he has some problems, like, gay problems, also word of wisdom problems, and pornography problems. When I talked to him the first time he told me that all that stuff he's doing is natural and that we should be doing it because it's scientifically proven that it's good for us or whatever. But that was like 15 days ago, and now that he has gone to church twice, he says that he thinks that knowing the church and the missionaries was probably one of the best things that has ever happened to him, and he wants to get baptized! Which I think is really cool, because the truth is, we haven't even really taught him the Restoration yet (just law of chastity, since, its kinda a big problem) and he says that he noticed that the people who go to church seem happier than anyone else he knows. So he's willing to make a huge change and leave all that other stuff behind (and the first time we talked he said, "I would happily be Mormon with no problems, but you can't take that stuff away from me) which I think is really cool how someone can change that drastically in 2 weeks, just by feeling the spirit! I hope he can be baptized this transfer, but he might not be able to because of the gay stuff, which requires a long repentance process...

Scripture to think about:

1 Samuel 15:22

22 And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight inburnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice...

My companion, is like always wanting to break rules, and tells me that we HAVE to do certain things to help our investigators, and always tells me (and everyone he comes in contact with) that "obedience brings blessings, but sacrifice brings miracles..." What he tries to say by quoting that is that we have to sacrifice obeying all of the rules to be able to have even MORE blessings (in other words, disobeying is okay, if its to help someone) I honestly have no idea who said that, but a Prophet of the lord said that obedience is greater than sacrifice, so I always tell him that and he gets really upset with me.

We can apply this scripture in a non mission rule sense. A lot of people tell me that they can't go to church because they have to sacrifice Sundays to go to work, and that God will understand because God knows how much they need extra money. But going to church is a commandment so, Hath the Lord as great delight in sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? No. There's probably a lot more of these examples that you can think of, but people in Colombia are trying to use "sacrifice" as an excuse to not obey the commandments.

Also, I traded my Captain Moroni statue for some dragonballs that Elder Alcorta bought, not because I actually wanted to trade, but because I saw that Elder Alcorta REALLY wanted that Moroni, and he'll be happier with it that I am, so bye Moroni!  🤗😭

We also played Jeopardy with the Yate family in our weekly family home evening! The topics were: The Bible, The Book of Mormon, The Commandments, and The Restoration. I've never seen grown men and women yelling and crying and jumping out of their seat yelling, "I know this! I know this!" like 4 year-olds. It was pretty entertaining. Not everyone who was there is in the pictures we took at the end, but yeah. 

Since I pretty much didn't write anything last week, here's a really long letter this week! love you

Buga - Week eleven

So today we went bowling as a district to celebrate my 16 MONTHS! We literally just got here like 10 minutes ago, so I literally don't have time to say anything else. Sorry! But I have a lot of photos on drive hahaha

I'm having a lot of problems with my son-wanting to be disobedient and telling people that he wants to be disobedient. Honestly, I have no idea what to do, especially with the women he's like always all up on them and I don't know what to do. When I tell him that he can't do those things he gets mad at me...

Yesterday I taught a FHE lesson about scripture study with the Yate family, and pretty much said that scripture study is more effective if we take notes, so do it!!

Sorry for the super short letter, but ill write more next week

Love you!

Buga - Week four

This week was pretty good, but I'm kinda upset right now because I was gonna start writing like 30 minutes ago but the power went out in all of Buga. Now I only have 30 minutes to respond to everyone so that kinda sucks.

Whatever, this week was pretty good. On Tuesday we had a zone meeting where we talked about how nobody in the mission has baptismal dates. So I made a goal to put baptismal dates in the first lesson, and so we had 6 dates all for the 10th of September and all 6 said that they would go to church!

and then nobody went to church!! Wooo!! Colombia is great! 

I honestly don't know why they didn't go to church but it was kinda disheartening. We did have one investigator named Brayan (Brian). He's the cousin of one member of the branch who just got home from his mission about 2 months ago. He's already been 2 times (he went last week too) and he's really good. It helps that his cousin takes him to institute and the YSA activities, and also watches the Joseph Smith movie with him. It's kinda hard for us to teach him though because his parents hate the Mormons and won't let us in the house, even though he's 25 and can make his own decisions. We can't go visit him where he works because it's not a good environment, but we'll find a way I guess. 

My favorite investigator that we have is the Muslim man, William, who is super funny. This week he asked us how many Mormons there are in the world and we said around 16 million, to which he responded, "oh, if there's already so many I don't think you need one more" referring to himself (that joke doesn't really translate very well but it was something like that). So we decided to teach him in a different way: one principle at a time. So when we went we taught "God is your loving Father in Heaven," he gave us a big hug and thanked us for coming when we left! I really hope he ends up getting baptized.

We also had 2 family home evenings, and since my companion's pretty new, I ended up giving both lessons, and they were both fantastic! And pretty inspired. The first lesson I gave to a part-member family, (mom isn't member, dad is less active, son is active, but they can't get married because legal stuff). I taught a lesson about obedience and used an example of the 8 year old Thomas S. Monson who one time used matches when his parents told him not to and then almost burned down a national park. It went pretty good because afterwards the dad said, "God brought you this message!" to his son and then afterwards told me that his son has been misbehaving recently, so that's pretty cool!

Also, mom, I want you to know that I almost always talk about you when I teach people, and relate the stories I tell about God and us, because we're his children and he's a great parent! I'd give some examples, but I'm short on time so you'll have to remind me next week.

I don't share a religious message in my emails because I only have like 50 minutes to write each week and I have a lot of people that I respond to. So, there's not really any time and well, when I say we couldn't do much this week, I don't mean that we couldn't do anything, but that we had a lot of time taken away from us, and we lost a lot of time. Not that we didn't do literally nothing. And the garments? I mean, I had pants on, but what else was I supposed to do, put on a wet shirt? and I don't think that anyone really reads the blog anyways. 

that's it, no more time. Love you!

Buga - Week three

So this week was good and bad. It was bad because we had a ton of stuff to do (not missionary work related) and we lost a ton of time and barely were able to work this week. Tuesday we had a "health conference" with 3 zones and some old dude from Utah came and talked to us in Spanish and that took alllllll day. So Tuesday we couldn't do anything. We worked pretty normal on Wednesday and Thursday, but I don't know what happened because nobody was able to talk to us. So we didn't do much those days either. Friday we had a meeting with the branch president that took like 3 hours and since we live 30 minutes from the chapel, we lost 4 hours that day. On Saturday, other missionaries in the branch had a baptism, so we had to go to that too. Then Sunday, we had to give a little Preach-my-gospel class to the members here in Buga about the gospel, so we lost a lot of time on because we had to first plan it, and second, give it. So yeah, there was a lot of lost time. I did get to see a lot of friends at the conference though, so that was nice.

The good part is that I'm getting along a lot better with my companion. All he had to do was get really mad at me first. So I'll explain. We were teaching a family at like eight at night, and since they're super friendly and talk a lot, we ended up just talking for an hour and didn't teach anything. At 9 my companion wanted to go home, but I wanted to like, talk about the gospel for like 15 minutes first (we have until 9 30 to get home). So we did, and we committed them to read the Book of Mormon and stuff, and on the way home I bought some bread. When we got home he started yelling at me, but we talked to each other for a really long time on what we can each to to get better and everything worked out. Ever since that day we've been working a lot better as companions. So I guess that's my testimony about companionship inventory. 

I don't remember if I told you about that family that we were teaching. That's like a really big family with investigators, both active and less active members. The active members told us that the less active members know that the church is true and that they just don't go because they're lazy/scared, and the investigators don't go because their husbands/parents don't go. So why should they? Anyways, we decided to not teach anything in the family home evening, instead just scold them or kinda yell at them, call them out, but with love. So we watched part of a Jeffrey R. Holland talk called "Feed My Sheep" (we started watching at 38 minutes if you're interested) and it was really spiritual. It was kinda exactly what they needed to hear. It talks about the progression of Peter from first, ignoring that he knew Jesus, to then being that guy that people hoped to be in the shadow of. But it all started because he realized that he loved Jesus more than anything else, and decided to be a disciple of Christ, not only for 3 years, but forever, and it's something that we can all apply to our lives...

That Muslim guy is pretty interested. He's super friendly and always makes us dinner. I think his 2 sons are more interested though. He says Hi btw and says that you guys are excellent parents. We have an appointment with him today, I'll let you know how it goes next week. 

I've been working on a little art project too. Every month in the Liahona there's a little part with Book of Mormon heroes and some things that they did. So I cut them all out and put them next to our door. It's pretty cool. 

Today we played soccer. In the morning we went and all bought jerseys of the local team in Cali (the district) and we all played with them on. So that was pretty cool, but we had to change after we played so that fans of the other teams don't stab us. 

I haven't bought any shoes here because, there literally aren't any shoes here in my size! I have to have them made especially for me. But I guess I can try. 

I don't think you guys would even like to come here, since Cali is pretty sketch and "anti gringo." I also don't think that you're allowed to come. 

Anyways, that's about it. Until next week!

Buga - Week two

Do you remember what I told you about my first companion in the MTC and how HARD it was to be his companion? Well, my companion that I have now is like, the second coming of that companion. I'm having a hard time. 

I mean, I'm not having a hard time because he's obedient, because my last companion was obedient and I really liked being his companion. The problem is that I'm only his second companion, so he's used to the way his trainer did things. So when I do things in a different way, he legit gets mad at me and tells me that we shouldn't do things like that. (for example, contacting people in the street by first talking about the Olympics or the current trend at the moment, and then afterwards talking about the gospel, like how the MTC and Zack taught me). Sometimes he calls the zone leaders and tells me I'm doing something and they're like,, "uh, is there something wrong with that? We do that too." (like putting my camera in my scripture bag). I guess the part that annoys me the most is that he's wayyy too serious. I like to get to know the people as people, but I guess he only sees them as objects to read scriptures at. He also doesn't like walking fast like I do, he likes speed walking (like the Olympic sport). Way too fast...

But anyway, he's a good guy and a good missionary, but I'm not a fan of his style.

Also, the area I'm in is kinda trash too since the missionaries that were here before us didn't really do anything. So there's not a lot of people to teach. So we focused on finding people. Some of the people we found here were pretty great. We found this one guy named William, who's a journalist, and he's also MUSLIM. The first Muslim I've met here. He legit reads the Quran, prays 5 times a day facing Mecca, and speaks Arab. But he's super cool, super friendly. There's also this family here that we're working with. Like, a really big family! The dad (80yrs) and one of his daughters and son in laws are active members. His other two children are less active, and their spouses aren't members, even though the children are active members. The other daughter is a Jehovah's Witness (meaning, we're not even gonna bother working with them), but we have a big family home evening planned out with them. Some things have happened to the less active children and we, the missionaries and the active members of the family, see this as an opportunity to reactivate/baptize everyone else! I think that it'll work out.

Also, today I went back to the hospital and got my ears rinsed. I HEAR EVERYTHING! A ton of stuff came out. But because of that trip, we did kinda lose 5 hours today, so I'd write more but I don't have hardly any time! Maybe this week I'll buy another SD card and start taking photos again.

Did you ever send that 1 year package? I DESPERATELY need new shoes and new black pants! I'm actually using shoes that another elder left in our house, also trash, but they fit me and they're better than what I have now!

anyway, I'll write more next week. love you guys

Buga - Week one

Last week we couldn't really do anything because, since my companion was the district leader, we were busy doing interviews alllllll week last week, (since Andalucia is kinda isolated, one interview = one day lost). My companion had to baptize one of the hermana's investigators, so I Saturday was lost too. All in all, we only got to work Monday, Tuesday and part of Wednesday. So, kinda boring.

Also I got transferred again, so in the last 3 transfers I've had 4 areas and 4 different companions. So the last transfers were pretty trash since I was only in each area for 3 weeks and that isn't really enough time to do anything meaningful, but I'll never be able to go back to those areas which also sucks because I really liked both of those areas. Anyways, now I'm in a town called Buga. I'm senior companion again, but my companions like a huge dweeb and freakishly obedient again, which is good in some ways and bad in others (for example, like even now as I'm writing this letter he's like watching me and asking me questions like, "what website is that???" it's google drive, I use it to send photos, "are you allowed to use that??????" yeah, I have permission, "who gave you permission?????" President Pricoli, and stuff like that) He barely finished his training so I'm like his 2nd or 3rd companion. I'm pretty sure they put me with him as a test to see if I really am smoking weed in the mission or if I was innocent like I told them I was. But whatever, this should be fun.

Also, ever since like January, my ears have been getting kinda plugged up any time I lay on them at night. Then, starting in like May or April, they started scabbing (or bleeding I guess) so I told my companion about it, and he was like, "hey, maybe you should clean your ears." So I tried cleaning my ears with like a q-tip, and when I took it out, I literally couldn't hear anything. So I went to the hospital today LOL. They gave me some ear drops I have to take for the next 10 days and then after that I have to go to an ear doctor to have them flush my ears out. So that's cool! I'll just be kinda deaf for the next 8 days or so.

I also haven't been taking a lot of pictures because, my SD card I brought from the US broke, and the one I bought here in Colombia just happened to be a pirate product (found out after I examined it closely) and decided to stop working, so that's great.

Anyways, I'm short on time, (since we went to the hospital, which is like an hour away) so I'll write more next week. Love you