Week 41!

OH.  MY.  GOSH.  You guys won't believe the kind of day we had today.  Haha, I know everyone wants crazy spiritual experiences, but when you live in the rainforest, sometimes you gotta throw in the crazy other experiences.  So, a super nice bishop from Texas named Lucas came down with his daughter to visit for the week.  A while back he called us to let us know he was coming down so see if we needed anything.  The guy used an entire bag just to bring us beef jerky, Junior Mints and ROOT BEER!!! I know it sounds weird...but that's the kind of random crap you miss when you come down to Colombia, hahaha.   So he had a whole bag full of that stuff, and other stuff (markers, colored pencils, etc.) just to give people.  He also wanted us to set up a service project for him when he got here, so we got to go help a recent convert paint their house.  Wow.  I just couldn't believe that he was down here for vacation, and he wanted to offer service to people he didn't even know, and make sure the Elders had anything they needed.  He is just an awesome guy.

So, last night we get a call from him inviting us to go down the river with him and his daughter.  He said he was going to rent a boat and wanted to see if we could go with him to check out some cool (and super remote) villages.  Well, to start off, riding in boats is a COMPLETE no go in the mission.  It even says in the mission manual that we cant get in boats...but it also says the mission president has the right to change these rules according to the place we work.  So we cast lots to see who had to call the president...and guess who had to call... ME.  So I gave the president a call last night and said "Hey, this guy from Texas wants to take us out to an island tomorrow" and he goes "Do you need to go out on a boat?" and I said yeah.  He goes, "Uhhhh..." and I thought he was gonna say no and then he goes, "Alright, go ahead, just be as careful as you can."  And we all flipped, hahaha.  We were all in our apartment doing happy dances.

So today we met up with our good friend Lucas, and he took us to the guy we were going to head out with.  Unfortunately, his daughter was really sick.  But she is a real trooper and wasn't going to miss out on the adventure so she still came with.  So we are out on the water about 15 minutes and she just doubles over and puked right in the boat.  Poor girl puked quite a bit.  Her dad was on the front of the boat, and couldn't get back to her, so he asked us to give her a priesthood blessing.  What a dang experience.  Elder Pond and I gave a priesthood blessing...in the back of a boat...on the Amazon River. What the heck???  Haha, it was pretty crazy, but a really cool experience.

So our first stop was a place called Puerto Alegría.  Its part Colombian part Peruvian.  But it was crazy cool.  Its just a little village off the coast of the Amazon, but they had all kinds of cool animals.  We got to hang out with sloths....SLOTHS!!  It was super cool.  They are just really slow, but they just rap their arms around you and it just feels like its giving you a hug and they just hang on.  Haha, it's so cool.  Then we got to hold a crocodile, a big ol' snake, and even a porcupine! It was a ton of fun.  Then after that we jumped back in the boat, and went to a place called "Isla de los Micos" or Monkey Island.  It's just a little place where they hand you a little piece of banana and all these cute little monkeys come climb all over you and eat it out of your hand.  It was crazy cool.  After that awesome experience, we got back in the boat and went to a little village.  It was real cool.  Obviously they've just changed all of these little villages to be super touristy, but the people still just live out there in the dang middle of nowhere.  So I bought these bags (I don't know why, I just think the whole Colombian hand bag is like the coolest thing ever) made of a material called Chambira.  I don't know how true this is, but they say that they make chambira by taking this tree bark from some Amazonian tree, and they roll it on their leg into a twine.  Then the weave sweet baskets and bags out of them.  Of course I couldn't pass up the opportunity.  These people literally make them from scratch.  Super cool.   Then after a few good hours of seeing villages and playing with cool animals we headed back to Leticia and are now writing to you guys.

Super cool day.  Super blessed that Lucas came down here and was willing to let us hang out with him.  Really cool guy.

Thanks for the email mom.  I'm glad to hear everything is going well at home!  Ill try and send pics.  Love you, see ya!

Elder Leishman

(no pics from Elder Leishman, but thank you to the wonderful Mercedes for sending these to me!  So fun to see Tanner learning to cook!  I hope to see pics of his amazing day on the Amazon River . . . someday! But I did google the places he visited.  Incredible!)