Week 8!

Hey guys!  It's been a good week! Super busy...ish.  It's hard because we have a full day planned, but most of the time, our lessons fall through.  A lot of times its because there isn't a man in the house and we can't go inside. We try to find a brother from the ward to help, but there aren't that many and they're usually busy when we need them.  Oh well, the Lord will help us out.  I know that if we work harder, things will start to work out. 

  

I know the Lord is watching out for us because every time we get discouraged, he puts a service opportunity in our way.  This week we were walking to an appointment right after one dropped, and we found some women in the street trying to move a bunch of stuff into their new house.  There were only two men there to help, and one of them was in a wheelchair and they were moving to the second floor so he wasn't moving much.  We got to help them out and the mom just kept telling us that we were a blessing from God.  After, we got her information and now we have a lesson with their family!! Let's hope it works out, hahaha.  

  

We also did Intercambios this week, which is where we trade companions for a day to learn from the other companions.  I was with Elder Justiniano from Bolivia.  He is super cool and a really hard worker.  I felt bad because my feet hurt so bad I couldn't walk very fast, but he was real patient with me, haha.  We do a lot of walking out here, and the blisters on my feet are AWFUL.  But I sliced em right open, drained em out, and now they don't hurt as bad, hahaha.

Today my inner "mom" kicked in and I cleaned the whole apartment.  It was disgusting and it was driving me NUTS.  It took me like 30 minutes just to sweep.  AND OUR APARTMENT IS ONLY LIKE 4 ROOMS.  I think Elder Sotoski was a little worried because I was just silently cleaning for like an hour, hahaha.  But it was good.  It looks a lot better now.  Then we went to the Exito (which is like Walmart) and bought some much needed things for the place, haha.  

This morning we played soccer with some other missionaries from our district, which was a ton of fun.  I'm not too big into soccer, but I don't really have an option now that I'm living in Colombia, and my companion is from Brazil.  It's funny because they are always laughing while they play like it's all fun and games, but it's freaking bloodthirsty.  

Well here's my report for this week! Hope things are good at home.  Love everyone like crazy! I wish you could all be here to experience this place with me.  See ya! Talk to you next week.

Elder Leishman

Here are a some questions that Robb asked, and he got some great answers! 

1.  Tell me your favorite thing about Bogota Colombia so far. 

Empanadas and the people here are super nice.

2.  What do you think of your ward?

The ward is great.  I love it because they sing a cappella and Latins are horrible singers, but there is nothing more beautiful than hearing them all sings hymns as loud as they can.  It's super cool.

3. What do you think of your Mission President?

I haven't talked to him much, but everyone says he is super nice.  He has a really deep voice and it's pretty cool.  Unfortunately he told us we can't listen to EFY music, so rest in peace all the music on my Ipod, hahaha.

4. What is your daily schedule like?  When do you wake up? When do you go out? Do you have mission prayer time?  When do you go to bed?

We get up at 6:30 and do personal study and stuff like that until 11 or 12, then we head out.  Lunch is usually at one, then we walk around and do mission stuff until 9, then we head home and it's whatever we want until we go to bed.  They changed the schedule to that about 2 weeks ago, and it's awesome.  We get 2 extra hours on P Day to get stuff done, and we get more time to sleep because we can plan in the morning.  

5.  Do you do your own grocery shopping, cooking and laundry?  Or does somebody do that for you?

We do it all.  They give us 160,000 pesos for our assignment, which we get every 15 days.  It's about 60 bucks.  Which really doesn't last very long, haha.  Stuff is pretty cheap though so it's all good.  Except for hygiene stuff, it's super expensive.  Chapstick is like 4 or 5 bucks each, shaving cream is like 6 bucks for the cheap stuff. Luckily you and mom hooked it up pretty well so I haven't had to buy any yet.  But we also have to pay to use the computers here because we just use the computers in these little shops that have computers in the back, hahaha.

6.  How is the weather there?  Does the air smell?  You know like does it stink there? Is it tropical where you are with Palm trees and stuff?

Weather here is pretty good.  Sometimes it smells pretty bad, like when we get near the river here because its super dirty, or when a bus drives by and coal rolls us.  But other than that it's like perfect temperature most of the time.  It rains sometimes, and it's pretty windy (and super dusty) but since I'm used to Utah weather, it's pretty great.  My comp is always freezing though, hahaha.

7.  Do Colombians work all day or do they do the afternoon siesta thing and then work into the evening.  Tell me some things about the culture of Colombians.

I'm kind of convinced they don't work at all, haha.  They are always sleeping or just chilling in their house, haha. It's hard because there aren't a lot of good jobs here, so everyone sells like ice cream, or phone cases in the street, or they own a little shop that sells food.  But if they aren't doing that, then I don't know what they are doing.  

8.  Now that you have been in the mission field for a couple of weeks what do you think of the food?  Do members feed you a lot or are you mostly on your own for food?

The food is pretty good here.  I imagine in the nicer areas its better.  I've had a few arepas and they are pretty good.  But the empanadas you buy in the streets are MONEY.  They are way good man, and they cost only about 30 cents each so we get em like every day, haha.  We have lunch with members almost every day, but some days (like P Day) we are on our own.  They eat mostly chicken here for meat, which is kind of funny because they're shizzy at making it, haha.  I miss my dad's cooking.

And I know that my whole life you were worried about my table manners on my mission, but fear not.   I have the best table manners these people have ever seen, hahaha.  If they are eating, and a piece of steak is too tough to cut, they just pick it up with their hands and eat it like jerky, hahaha, it's awesome. 

 

I love you guys and miss you like crazy.  I just wish you could all be here with me to experience this.  It's seriously crazy.  We even saw a real life coke head the other day and we saw him again today.  He hangs out around the church we have meeting at and just yells gibberish and it's pretty sad...but also kinda funny.  I think of you guys every day and hope things are good man.  Sorry I don't write very much.  I can never remember what to write once I'm finally in the moment. So the questions things was perf.

Elder Sotoski and Elder Leishman