Week 83!

Hey mom!  Yeah so everything is good! We got another baptism of a young kid. :) Haha, and there are still a few more to come.  We are baptizing the whole primary. :) It's okay though, part member families are a good way to work.  WE´RE BAPTIZING THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH!  His name is Jaider. He's a good kid.  His mom has been a member for a few years, and kid dad is getting ready to get baptized one of these days so we're doing good. ;)

So we just got to Bogota today for  a meeting tomorrow.  I got to the offices and got my packages .:) I haven't opened them yet so I don't know what I got, but thanks a ton! You guys are awesome.

Sorry, I really don't have much to write.  I'm a little short on time, and nothing that crazy happened this week. We've just been running around like crazy, and I'm 100% tired 100% of the time.  WOOH.  

Love you like crazy mom, thanks for everything.

Week 82!

Hey mom!  This week was really good! We got a baptism. Her name is Dana.  She's only 9, but she's a little cutie, haha.  She kills me.  Her grandparents are members, and she lives with them so we had to get her baptized ASAP!  Haha.  

We also were able to find a lot of cool new investigators to work with! We've found a few more part member families to work with so you know we are hopefully about to have some baptisms. 

I'm a little short on time, but yeah, life's good.

Also, I know you probably saw the money I blew through.  Lemme explain.  First, 150,000 on food.  I got a super good lunch for my comp and the boys.  Thanks.  Then, kind of miraculously right when you put the money on my card, a sister from my zone had to go to the hospital and she didn't have the money for it, so I had to help her out.  The mission is going to pay me back soon, and then a little bit of money I pulled out just to survive.  I'm doing alright though I swear. Thanks for everything.  Love you a ton.

Week 81!

Hey mom! It was a pretty good week leading up to the birthday. :) Just lots of hard work, and doing what we can :)  It was a pretty cool week and we are hoping to have lots of success in the coming weeks because of it.

First off, we found some part member families...yes, more than one.  For those of you that don't know, that's missionary GOLD.  It's the easiest and quickest way to get someone baptized.  So we found a lady who has a grandson named Juan-David who hasn't been baptized yet and so now hes getting ready to get baptized in the next few weeks.  He is a really cool kid, and when we invited him to be baptized he was like "Yeah, sounds sweet, when can I do it?" So we are happy.

We were walking by the church the other day, and a little girl came running out and goes "Elders! My grandpa´s keys got stuck in the door, can you help us out?" and so we did.  My comp was talking to the little girl, and she told him that she was turning 9 today, and that she hadn't been baptized yet....CONVERT BAPTISM. Haha, little miracle but pretty cool.  She comes to church every week so she can pretty much get baptized real soon.

Also, a new member showed up to church yesterday.  We didn't recognize him, so we talked to him to see when we could visit him.  He goes "You guys can visit me whenever you want, but talk to him, he's the investigator" and pointed to his friend.  Turns out they just moved to Ibagué, and he is married to a member, but he just hasn't been baptized yet.  The whole family was really cool too, so he has a lot of support to help him get to baptism.  

Yesterday in the morning the branch President called me and asked if I could give a talk in sacrament meeting.  So real quick I threw something together about missionary work.  I think it went pretty well, considering I had like 20 minutes to prepare it, haha.  Not bad at all. 

 

But yeah, loving the work.  Loving being tired all the time.  Love the heat.  Loving life.  Thanks for everything mom.  Love you :) Talk to you next week.

Week 80!

Hey mom! Sorry, I'm a little short on time, so the letter might be short.

This week was pretty good.  We went back to teach Adriana and her dad, super great people.  The only problem is, Julio (the dad) isn't all too excited about marrying his girlfriend (of 32 yrs), haha.  BUT! He really wants to learn more and come to church.  Sadly, he wasn't able to come to church because when he was getting ready and heading over, his job called him in and he had to leave.  DARN.  Oh well, next week.  Even better news, Adriana has a son who´s 13 and hasn't been baptized yet. WOO!  That's what we look for. :) 

Haha super cool you got to meet Wyatt Thompson, for real, that guy is my hero.  I love him to death.  Also super cool you got to meet other people from the mish like Elder Ostler.  Small world. 

Today I'm in Bogota for a leadership meeting tomorrow, wish me luck! Love you. :) Talk to you next week.

Week 79!

Hey mom, to start off, I need to ask forgiveness...I can't send photos. I know you'll be mad, but it's better this way, haha.  I sent you guys photos last week and nearly lost 1200 pics, haha, so I'm probably gonna be a little less on the photos for a bit.  I'm still a little worried that I lost some photos, but we´ll see.  

So, the new area is real cool!  Its been a ton of fun.  Ibagué is a real nice city, and it's really green.  It's funny you mention that Colombia is playing in the world cup because the big "star" from, the Colombian team actually lives in my area :) Too bad he is in Russia so I haven't seen him yet.  JAMES RODRIGUEZ is his name.  Pretty cool stuff.  It is pretty crazy for sure because everyone goes NUTS for the game.  Our apartment building puts on a big screen and watches it together...sadly...missionaries don't watch the world cup, haha.  But since everyone has it blasting, we have a pretty good idea about whats going on. :)   

My new comp is Elder Araujo from Brazil.  He is from a state called Sergepe.  Hes got about 20 months in the mission so he's pretty closed to done.  We´ve been getting along real well and we're pumped to get the Ibagué zone to be the best zone in the whole mission. :)

So this week was pretty good.  We got to Sunday and we were pretty short on new investigators, so we tried to work hard on that and get some news, and we only found a few, but we found some good ones. :) We had a contact from about a week ago named Adriana, who said that she got baptized about 10 years ago, but hasn't really come to church since then, but she accepted a visit.  So we came by, and she wasn't home, but her dad was.  And we asked if we could share something with him and he goes "uhhh....weeeelll....errr....sure.  Come on in." And so we came in and started talking with him.  About 10 minutes into the lesson he goes "Guys, I want you to come to my house every day. I need you to come and pray with me and read the scriptures with me so I can get closer to God." And we were like cool man sounds good.  Then a bit later he goes "I'm not gonna lie...I drank a beer a little bit ago, and I'm a little woosy...but I need you guys to come over every day to help me stop" and we were like, you got it man.  Then after a bit more, he goes "I know this is the true church, a few years ago, some other missionaries were coming to the house, and we read the Book of Mormon, and I know it's true."  So now all we gotta do is get him to come to church and he's HITTIN' THE WATER! Haha, cool experience ;) plus his daughter got there half way through the lesson (the less active one) and said she would go to church with him too. :) WOO

So yeah, pretty good week.  Cool area, new mission president (President and Hermana Palhua from Perú)  we´ll be meeting them this week so I'll let you know how it goes.  Lovin' life.  Talk to you soon. PEACE 

PS:  P Day was a sweet 4th of July party.  We tried to grill burgers and hot dogs but the grill didn't really work.  We figured it out in the end though.  Awesome times.  It's kind of sad because I can't eat american food like I used to.  I'm just not used to it anymore. I didn't even eat that much today and I was dying haha.  BUT IT WAS WORTH IT.