Week 61!

Hey, Mom! You´ll really have to excuse this letter...it will probably be the lamest of them all.

We really did close to nothing this week.  We had 2 days where we were just back to back meetings with the branch leaders and stuff like that, so we didn't have much time to do some solid missionary work, and then we were both sick for 2 days so it kind of just knocked us out, haha.  Then we had Sunday to try and finish the week.  Which was still a nice fat nothing.  We had a bunch of plans fall through, so we decided to knock some doors in a neighborhood we had already tracted hoping for a miracle.  Well we knocked a door and the guy came up and started talking about the Bible with us.  We talked for like 30 seconds and then he goes, "Why don't you guys come in and sit!" and we were like...YES A MIRACLE.  So we sat down, started with prayer, and then the guy just blabbed bunch of apostate crap about the Bible he learned in "20 years of study as a pastor."  He wouldn't stop.  It was all just completely misunderstood stuff he pulled out of the Bible.  That's something that's really tough about some of these places with a lot of people who believe heavily in the Bible.  Is they study it with certain groups or other religions and it just completely messes up their belief system.  I can't tell you how many times people have told me, "God isn't in a church, God is in the trees and the plants and blah blah blah." It's horrible.  This guy thinks that the Priesthood is not something that has to be conferred upon man, or is something that only a Prophet has full access too...he thinks it's something that God released freely to everyone...so he thinks everybody on the whole planet has the priesthood, and the only thing you have to do to be saved and have faith.  JUST FAITH?  Yeah, faith is super important, but God asks for a few more things than faith to give you a dang MANSION IN THE CELESTIAL KINGDOM.  So we just listened to him blab for a sec, and then I frankly just hit him with a, "So if God tells you the Book of Mormon is true, you wouldn't follow it?" He goes "Nope."  And I gave him another chance...you always have to do that because these people are just hilarious.  So I said...."Octavio...if GOD HIMSELF told you that the Book of Mormon was true...and that THIS is the way to get salvation...you're telling us you wouldn't believe it."  And he goes "Nope." So I just said, "Alright, well we can only help until that point. Have a nice day" And we dipped.  

So other than that this week has been some good diarrhea and throwing up.  Not the best, but I'm sure it could have been worse.

Love you lots. My camera cable broke so I'll try and sends some pics in a bit.  Much love, talk to you next week.

Again...please excuse my shizzy letter. 

Week 60!

Hey, Mom!  Thanks for the letter, preesh.  

This week were the transfers, and I'm staying here with my man Elder Nielsencito. They basically changed the entire zone thing transfer too, so it's gonna fresh and everyone is gonna be full of energy and excitement to get back working.  Just today we sent out 7 missionaries from the zone.  Sadly, they had to close an area from good ol' Villao, so we were a little sad about that, but we alright.  

This week we had a kind of cool experience when we had nothing to do because we had some people cancel on us, and we were just chapped, and didn't know where to go.  Elder Nielsen and I were walking, and we  passed a house and Elder Nielsen goes "Hey let's go contact this house" and I said "No, he's rich and doesn't want anything" (it was kind of a nice house) and then I said "Okay, I kid, let's do it" and we did.  We yelled "Buenas tardes!" and the guy came out.  Elder Nielsen goes "Hey vecino, how are you" (vecino is neighbor and it's what everyone calls each other here) and the guy goes "Vecino? Ha! Two gringos saying vecino! That's something you don't see very much in Colombia." We all laughed and talked for a bit, and in the end he invited us in to teach.  Turned out he had talked to the missionaries before, and had a Book of Mormon in the house!  He had it sitting on his desk (it was all dusty and it was obvious he hadn't even touched it) but he dusted it off and we explained it to him.  He said the missionaries just gave it to him in a contact, and that they never had an actual lesson, haha.  So we got to teach him about it. He seemed real excited to read it to and learn more about Joseph Smith.  Pretty cool experience.

Today with transfers and everything, we didn't really have time to do much.  BUT, we did have time to go grab a bunch of stuff to make tacos.  It was a lot of fun.  I guess I've turned into quite the chef these days.  The tacos were real good.  We had our Peruvian friend Elder Gutierrez with us too, so we showed him how we eat like Mexicans in the states, haha.  Everyone is convinced that all we eat in the states are hamburgers and canned food, because that's just what they see in movies.  But I think we eat more Mexican food than hamburgers, hahaha.  But it was a lot of fun...but just so everybody knows IF YOU SEE A PICTURE OF ELDER NIELSEN COOKING ITS A LIE!!! I DID ALL THE COOKING AND HE SNAGGED A PIC!!! hahahaha :)

 

Other than that we have just been waiting for the rest of the missionaries to show up and then all will be chill.

Thanks for everything guys :) talk to you next week!

Week 59!

Hey, Mom!  Looks like you guys are having a killer time on a dang cruise!!!

This week was pretty interesting.  We were pretty discouraged because we were like most of the way through the week and we had zero new investigators, so we were feelin' pretty low.  But we did what we could to find "news", and we ended up getting our goal for the week! It felt good.  It always feels good to have your goal in mind and then do everything you can to get there.  We've been doing pretty good with that lately so it's been fun.

For the zone meeting we did a game kind of thing where we took a list of "Creative ways to find new investigators," and put all the ideas in a bag, and everyone had to pic out of the bag and try the idea.  We drew the idea of "Buy bread and share it with people while showing them the video of I am the Bread of Life from the Bible."  Honestly, we thought it was kind of stupid, but we figured we had to apply it any follow through commitments we leave with the zone, so we did it.  We knocked one door, and the lady said no before we even said one word...then we knocked a few doors and no one was home.  Then we got to a house where the door was open, and we asked if we could share a video about Jesus, and share some bread and accepted without even a second thought. Now I don't know if anyone has seen the video of the Bread of Life, but it's super confusing.  So it's not like its a real good one to open peoples hearts.  Luckily, we just kind of cut the video off half way through and share the message of the Restoration.  And...two of them were straight out of Venezuela!!! Freaking chosen ones!!! Haha, there aren't too many Venezuelans here in Villavo because they all arrive in Bogota, but the Lord blessed us and we were able to teach them and give them a Book of Mormon, so I guess we'll see where they go from there. :)

Also, we have decided that we are just straight Llaneros. We are going to start learning the dance and dressing like them so we can really just call ourselves llaneros (that's what they call the people from Villavo).  Llano means  plain, and other than our area which is the start of the llanos, it's aaaaalll flat.  You can kind of see it behind us in the picture of Elder Nielsen and me.

Other than that, we've just been working and doing what we can to complete our missionary purpose out here in the devil's crotch.

Thanks a ton, love you guys a lot.  I hope you have a good week!

Week 58!

Hey, Mom! Thanks for the awesome letter!  I'm glad to hear you guys are having so much fun! It sounds like the trip was awesome.  

This week was pretty nuts for us too, haha.  We had to go to Bogotá for the training with Elder Gonzalez, which was pretty cool.  But DANG it turned into a huge mess.  I explained it a little better in the voice recording, but I can give you a quick run down of it.  So they were building a bridge between Villavo and Bogota, and it fell down.  It was pretty tragic, 15 people died.  So, right after Elder Nielsen and I left, they shut down the whole way, so the whole zone was stuck, and wasn't going to be able to make it to the training.  So they had to wait, and they opened up another way to Bogotá, but it was a 12 hour ride, in a smaller, more cramped bus. So they FINALLY got to Bogotá after 12 hours, then they had to get on another 3 or 4 hour bus ride to the next place they were going to do the training (Girardot).  So luckily Elder Nielsencito and I didn't have to deal with that, but the rest of the zone did.  Then we ended up getting totally stuck in Bogotá the next day and we had NOTHING to do. Luckily the area we were in was full of cool malls to go to, but we didn't really have any money so we just kinda looked...I guess I bought some shampoo for like 3 dollars...but yeah.  Missionary life...super interesting.  Haha, but in the end we got home and all is well.  Sorry, in the recording I sound exhausted, it's because I was, haha.

This week we found some really cool new investigators.  We found a guy named Pedro who is a member's uncle who is living with them and he's been coming to church for a bit. He was really excited to hear our message, and told us about how he is excited to keep coming to church and keep learning.  He has a  lot of support at home too.  His nephew that he lives with says he will make sure he reads the WHOLE Book of Mormon before he gets baptized, haha, so I guess we'll see.  

We also started teaching a lady named Amparo.  She talked about how she never got baptized in any church before because she was nervous.  She understands that it is a promise we make with God and she didn't want to mess it up.  She is really excited to start coming to church with her son Camilo and be able to get an assurance that it is the decision she should make.  She says she is open to listen to the spirit to help her make her decision.  

So i got the packeeg this week :) thanks so much Mom.  It was awesome.  The zone was pretty excited to get some Skittles too, haha.  Plus I'm loving the Brooks Brothers gear, haha, I've worn the shirt to sleep every night this week, hahaha.  Also, here are some pictures of us eating some brownies, and the Asian chicken you guys sent :) KILLER  Thanks so much you guys are awesome!! 

Love you a ton!  Thanks for everything.  Talk to you next week.

Week 57!

Hey mom!  Thanks for the letter :) Even if nothing really happens I still love hearing about it.  You guys are just s'dang far away, hahaha. 

This week was a little tougher.  We tried really hard and didn't have a lot go down.  We've just been doin' what we can though.  There are a few parts of our area that are a little more dangerous and we aren't supposed to go in there, but the hard part is that other than those areas, there are very few houses in our area.  So we have to look pretty hard to find places to contact, haha.  I've only been here 3 weeks, and we are already knocking the same streets again, hahaha.  Oh well.  We've decided to get a little creative.  We will hopefully be trying some more interesting things this week to find new investigators, so we'll see how it works out.  The mission has been really big on finding new investigators lately, so the assistants and the President released a sheet of creative ways to find new investigators.  For example, some missionaries went out and bought some bread, and offered it to people on their doorstep, and while they ate they showed a bible video called "The Bread of Life" haha.  I'd like to try that one...we'll see.  

Amidst our dang boredom of having nowhere to contact, we hit the area book.  We found an old investigator named Amparo.  We set up an appointment, but she wasn't there.  But her son Camilo was.  We asked if we could share a message with him, and he accepted.  Hes 20 years old, so I guess it kind of makes it easier to relate to him.  He told us he really wants to come closer to God.  He goes, "a lot of crazy things have happened to me this week, and after all of it, you guys come to my door."  The spirit was really strong in the lesson, and he even came to church yesterday.  So far so good.  He felt really good at church.  We talked to his mom, and she says she wants to come too so good things should be happening in the future.

Today we went for a short hike called El Carmen.  It was pretty fun.  It was like 30 or 40 minutes of walking up a mountain to get to another dang Virgin Mary statue, haha, but it was cool to hang out with the zone so it was fun.

This week we gotta head into Bogotá for a big conference with a general authority.  His name is Elder Gonzalez.  It should be fun.  

Love you guys! Thanks for everything.  You guys are #1.  

Week 56!

Hey, Mom! Thanks for the letter.  I'm so glad you guys got to have an awesome 117 Day!  

This week was pretty cool.  We are still just trying to find a ton of investigators because we are running pretty low on investigators to come  to church and stuff, but we have been doing pretty well at it.  Preach my gospel says that nothing can happen in missionary work until we find people to teach.  So we have been trying really hard to find more people to be able to work with.  This week we worked like "Berracos" as they say here, and found 7 new investigators.  They are all really good too.  We are hoping to start having a lot more success in the near future because of all our work, haha.

This week with "La Zona Villavicencio" was really good.  Last week we had it pretty tough with only 10 people at church, but everyone put forth an effort and this week we had 30 investigators at church.  The whole zone...not just us, haha.  We were pretty happy with the results from this week.  We also had a training with President Baquerizo and he talked about how to help people come to church and it worked out really well.

Today as a zone we went and played some frisbee and soccer at the church and then went bowling after.  Bowling is always a good time.  The frisbee and soccer was fun but since we are in "hot lands" I nearly freaking died.  Oh well, it was still a good time.  

Sorry, I feel like my emails are so lame these days, the whole mission just kind of becomes really routine and I feel like I don't have anything cool to say.  I'll try and keep my eyes out for cool things this week to write about.  Love you a ton, thanks for the email.

With Love,

Elder Leishmancito.

Week 55!

Hey Mom! 

This week was a bunch of fun.  First off, coming all the way out to Villavicencio on a bus.  Freaking 4 hour bus ride all by myself, haha.  I survived though.  I got here and have been hanging out with my man Elder Nielsen from Parma, Idaho since then.  It's been really cool.  It was weird teaching with him again.  We just already knew how to work together and how to teach together so it didn't take us long before we were back in the old routine again, haha. 

So a little about Villavo (that's what they call it for short and they pronounce it like Villao).  It's like a giant city in the middle of the dang jungle.  They call it the "llanos" which I'm pretty sure means plains because its just a ton of flat lands, but a big part of my area is mountainous which is pretty rad.  We get some good exercise climbing the mountains on foot.  Some of the typical food here is "Carne a la llanera" which is a food I think I might have told you guys about a while back.  It's meat they put on a think they call the "llanera"  and they let it rotate over a fire for a while.  It's like their own smoked meat. Real good though.  Dad would like it.  The music is pretty much normal Colombian stuff, but there is a style called LLANO that is pretty awful.  It's just really fast and made for drinking, haha.  The heat is a ton of fun to try and survive.   Today as a zone we went to a place called Cosechas, which is like Jamba Juice down here.  Its a dang missionary's best friend in hot lands.  It's the best way to escape the heat for a bit.   Today we also went to the zoo as a district (and some other elders from the zone) which was a grat tim [Tanner lingo for "great time"].  We just kinda walked around and saw some fun animals.  Nothing too crazy, except for the DOPE FREAKING FILTHY JOHNS PICS WE TOOK [Filthy Johns are the Dollar Store kid's sunglasses that Tanner loves].  Haha, the zone thought it was pretty funny, so everyone walked outta there with a good ol' filthy johns pic.

Other than that we've just been working like crazy.  I'm still getting used to the area and the people so I don't have a ton to say about the work.  But I'll tell you guys when we have more to talk abouty :) Love you all!  See ya.