Week 78!

Hey, Mom! Good stuff. . .firstly. . .TRANSFERS!  I got pulled out from Villavicencio and sent to Ibagué (E-bag-gay) which is super cool.  I was told that there are 3 "paradise" areas in the mission: Leticia, Villavicencio, and Ibagué.  And now I've hit all 3. :)  Super pumped to be here.  My comp's name is Elder Araujo, from Brazil.  He's real chill and even likes the same music as me (the metal kind).  It's a super cool zone, and my man Elder Hancock (my beloved son) is here too.  So it's gonna be great.

I was pretty sad to say by to Villao though.  I had a ton of fun there and a bit of success.  I had to leave the week that we had 4 possible baptisms planned...and I had to leave.  But its okay, I'm super excited to get workin' here and make Ibagué the best zone in the best zone in the world.  WOO!

Things have been pretty crazy because of the world cup.  And, if you didn't know, Colombia is in it.  So everyone is going nuts.  Yesterday they played and our whole apartment complex (except for us, haha) watched it together.  Everyone was going nuts.  Gotta love it. 

Also, super dang sad to say goodbye to President and Hermana Baquerizo.  Super great people heading home this week.  Gonna miss them like crazy, we got  some good pictures together to say bye. :)  

So yeah, I don't have a lot to talk about because I just got here.  But I look forward to diving into the work here and having more to talk about in the future. :) Love you guys talk to you next weekski.

Week 77!

Hey, Mom!  Not a lot going on here either.  It was a pretty boring week.  I'm pretty exhausted these days too.  Just trying to work hard and take advantage of the little time I've got.  

 

We have some really cool investigators right now.  About 2 or 3 weeks ago we found a family that also lived in the amazons.  Well, we're preparing a baptismal service for the mom and the son this weekend.  The daughter isn't quite ready to get baptized yet, but she's coming around, haha.  They've just been awesome ever since the first day we found them.  We've just been trying to fill their lives with the gospel, to try and help them progress, and it seemed to work.  We've been inviting Giovanny to lessons and stuff and have been doing family home evenings with them and some other member families and they are really excited to get baptized.  

Also, our recent convert Alexander that got baptized like 2  weeks ago is still loving being a member.  He even goes and gets the other members to go to institute with them.  He waits for people to be able to walk to church with them so he's been doing really well.  We just love seeing how excited he was to become a member of the church and he just digs in and participates in class and stuff.  Haha, I know it sounds so little, but I was just happy to see it.  

And that's really about it.  Missionary work is really just doing the same thing every week and praying for miracles and tender mercies.  Gotta love it.

Love you, Mom.  Thanks for being number 1.

Week 76!

This week was pretty cool.  We had a pretty successful time finding news.  We found 9 even new investigators.  It's been rad.  And...we don't even have to knock doors! Knocking doors is kind of what you do when you literally have nothing else to do, and you need new investigators, but we've just been planning better, and life's good.  We've been finding like crazy.  We even found this awesome family last week that's from the amazons, and they all came to church!  We are all trying to baptize like crazy so President Baquerizo can have a killer last month before he goes...and also because, that's what we do as missionaries, haha.  So we're hoping to get them baptized this month! They are really awesome and they love the Book of Mormon, so we are hoping that their faith will grow quick so they can get baptized! 

Also, we had to run to this place called "Puerto Lopez" this week to grab some marriage papers for a couple wanting to get married so they can get baptized.  It was pretty cool.  Its considered the center point of all of Colombia.  They call it the "Bellybutton" of Colombia because its the center.  There is a cool obelisk thing there that you can see that is the exact center point, but sadly it was closed.  The whole place was covered in water too.  There has been a ton of rain so they've just been living in a ton of water like it was normal.  People are just getting around it little boats, haha.  I have a video of it...but I kind of forgot my camera so I can't send it...sorry. 

So yeah, Mom, I'm kind of on the home stretch.  They still haven't told me when I get home yet, but that day isn't too far off.  They'll be calling me in the next few months to ask me when I want to get home and stuff like that. It's gonna be pretty crazy. We've been doing really well lately so I'm glad that I'm entering my last 6 months with something good.  It's been a long...but very short year and a half.

Love you like crazy, Mom! You guys are the best, thanks for everything.  Have a killer week.

Week 75!

Dang you guys had a killer week! JEALOUS! But not too jealous, I had a good week too.  Hamilton and Pie Hole is hard to beat though. :) 

Dang that's wack a kid is coming to my mission is September.  Who knows, maybe I'll train him :) Give him my email so I can help him out with prep stuff. :)

GOOD WEEK THOUGH!  We got a baptism. :) His name is Alexander.  I'm not going to lie, when I first met him, I thought, "he seems like a nice kid, but I don't think hell ever come to church." But hey, here we are a few weeks later, and he's baptized! He was really nervous, but after he got interviewed he was real pumped.  He was even talking to some members about how he wants to go on a mission.

Also, miracle of the week.  Yesterday, we needed to find 3 new investigators to be able to reach our new goal, and we had made plans to reach it, but suddenly the plans fell through.  We got a little nervous but we trusted that the Lord would bless us.  We went and visited a less active sister who loves sharing the gospel with everyone that comes by, and we just shared a little scripture, and one of her friends sat down where we were talking.  We said hi and the member sister goes, "yeah she goes to a church, but I told her that our church is better!" Haha, kind of an interesting way to share the gospel, but in the end, she invited us in to teach her and her 2 kids.  They are from Mitu Vaupez in the Amazons so we got to talk a little bit about the Amazons because I lived in the forest for a bit too, haha.  It was really cool.  They really loved hearing the message of the restoration.  They were happy to hear that God still loves us and still calls prophets in these days. They were also happy to hear about the Book of Mormon, because it was pretty much written by their ancestors.  I'm hoping we can keep teaching them and that they can come to church.

We also had our last interview with Presidente Baquerizo.  It was pretty rough.  He started off the interview explaining the importance of our work here in the mission.  He said "You can never appreciate how important you're work is here, you'll get home, and be able to say, I baptized X number of people, or I taughtt X number of people, but they might go on missions, or their kids might, and the amount of people who come to know the gospel grows every time, so you really cant ever know how much of a difference you really are making."  That really impacted me.  It's true though, we never really know how much we are helping here.  It was  a pretty intense interview.  I'm going to miss Presidente and Hermana Baquerizo a ton. They have been some really great examples to me for the last 17 months.

But yeah, that's pretty much my week. :) It's been a good one for sure. Love you guys, peace.