Week 95!

Hey mom! Things have been cool here.  I have to confess.  I pulled a BUNCH of money out today.  Some of it, the church will pay me back for...but a lot of it...I bought some cool clothes with.  The clothes are cheap here so I was kind of just buying my Christmas clothes here.  Like, a real nice pair of jeans or khaks for like 15 bucks, or t-shirts for like 8-10 bucks.  So if I take it too far, just tell me.  I'll have to send some pics, because I got some pretty cool stuff. :)  Preparing myself to be a "YSA," hahaha.

This week was tough, we had very little time in our own  are to work because we were all over the zone doing interviews and exchanges and stuff but it was okay.  

Out of nowhere on Saturday, President Nelson had a surprise transmission for all the missionaries from our area, South America Northwest  (Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela). We all thought he was gonna rip us a new one or something, but he and and Elder Stevensen and some of the area presidency just gave some really cool talks.  Pres Nelson analyzed a bit about Christ´s ministry in the Americas and compared it with the Bible. Super cool.  Lots of interesting stuff.

Sunday we were super worried that no one was going to come to church, but God saw our efforts and helped some miracle investigators come to church, and even some members brought friends to church that we got to teach. LOVIN' THE BLESSINGS.  I'm really hopin' that this week (AFTER the 6 hour bus ride back to Neiva) we get some time to work.  I need to really just take advantage of the time I have left.  

Love you guys like crazy! Keep it real.

1. Clothes hunting, trying to help Elder Stearns find his style

2. I didn't have a baptism, but the sisters´ convert asked me to baptize her, haha

3. I don't know if I already sent this one, but the other day we walked by a house and the lady had a big ol' turtle, so we asked if we could take a pic with it and she said yea.  Classic.

Week 94!

Hey guys! Sounds like pretty good week for you guys!  This week was pretty good too.  We had our interviews with president and a training with the presidente which was pretty cool.  The interview was pretty wack.  He thanked me for my hard work in my mission.   It felt pretty weird because the next interview I have with him will be in my last transfer.  FREEAK.

We had kind of a surprise baptism.  A member's stepson hadn't been baptized yet because he doesn't really live at home until Saturday night (he lives in a little city outside of Neiva) but he had a week off of school so he got baptized.  It was pretty cool.  Now the goal is to help the parents get married so that they can all come to church together.  It'll be good I hope. :)

We went to this place called the Tatacoa Desert today.  It was fun.  Real hot but what's new.  There was a big techno concert this weekend so there were a lot of foreign people.  Pretty fun to see people from all over the place.  We also ate goat meat...weird as weird, but actually pretty good, haha.

We are about to head down to a place called Pitalito to do exchanges with some missionaries from the zone.  They say the weather there is perfect so I'm pretty pumped. :) I'll let you know how it goes!

Love you guys! Hope you have a good week <3

Week 93!

Hey mom!  Things are pretty good around here.  Not really much going on really...it wasn't a very good week in the mission work in our area this week, haha, so I really don't have much to say.  

Some kind of cool things though:

1.  We went and taught the colonel of the national police here is Neiva.  I'm sure you saw the photo. It was pretty funny because we had to get special permission to go into his office, and then a policeman escorted us to the office, and two goofy gringos, and a sister from the ward, walkin' around like we freaking own the place. So they show us to the office, and we walk in and he is in a conference with  a bunch of other people, and he sees us and goes, "Alright, lets take five," and everyone left while he listened to our message, haha. I'm surprised he took the time to listen because they were planning a meeting with the president of Colombia for the next day.  CRAY.  

2.  Today we found Dr Pepper.  They also had cherry flavored. #blessings

Yep.  That's about it really.  The tims are grat, and the grats are tims.  Love you guys, have a good week.

P.S.  I'm sorrry, I forgot to take pics this week and well the last time I plugged my camera in I got a virus and I think I permanently lost like 2 or 3 months of photos. So I'm not too motivated to plug anything into anything these days.

(thanks to Darrelyn Stearns for this pic!)

Week 92!

Hey mom! This week was cool.  I've been dying the whole week of the heat (It's been about 98-99 degrees during our workin' hours all week) so I'm literally exhausted.  Hopefully I'll get home nice and skinny, hahaha.  It's like living in a sauna and never being able to leave.  Even our room is this tiny little thing with no windows so we just sweat all night. Greaat.  

We had a fun week with the work too.  The members here are really strong so we get a lot of referrals. It's real nice.  Last night we had a member invite us over to teach a friend and he had another buddy there that he invited to join the lesson.  We invited them to be baptized if they found out that these things were true and they were like "Of course!" So it was cool.  I was pumped.  

Time is doing the opposite of flying.  Its walking...very slowly.  Haha, I can tell this last stretch is gonna be a long one.  Ya casi.

Love you guys!  I hope you have a good week.  Keep it real!

Week 91!

Hey mom! All is well, I'm sorry, we kind of went shopping today in downtown Bogota and ran out of time.  That's why I pulled out some cash.  I was thinking it would be good to buy myself some clothes because they are cheap here, and I'm less fat than when I left.  So  figured we could count it as hristmas stuff. 

This week was weird.  SUUPER hot, but I'll be alright. I'm hopin' it sweats a few pounds off, haha.  Not really a lot went down this week. I'm still figuring out the area.  The ward is really strong which is awesome.  Members give a lot of references which is great.  Lovin' life. Things with Elder Stearns are going real well.  Haha, we just talk about nerd crap all day.  He is even willing to listen to me talk magic for a bit so its all good.  

Sorry, not a very interesting week. I'm hoping next week is better.  PS.  This photo is from my bday- it's the bday lunch Grammy bought us.

Week 90!

Hey mom! Transfers:  I'm in a new zone called Neiva, my new comp is Elder Stearns from Idaho.  The area is Granjas.  Pretty cool transfer.  So I actually used to make fun of Neiva.  It's considered one of the most successful zones in the mission so I'm happy to be finishing up the mish here.  I'm still a zone leader, which I'm slightly sad about, but Jeran says that means that I'm a good zone leader, because I don't want to be one. I was just kind of hoping to rest in peace as junior comp, haha.  It's gonna be fun though. I've known Elder Stearns for a while now so I know we are gonna have fun.  

Saying bye to Ibague was pretty sad.  I made a lot of friends there and had a lot of fun.  It was bitter sweet leaving, because I wasn't there for very long, but I didn't really want to end my mission there, so yeah. 

 Good times, and the tims are even grahter {Tanner lingo, for those of you who don't speak "Tanner"}. 

Love you guys, have a killer week.

#last12weeks

Week 89!

Hey mom! This was a good week! We got 3 baptisms which was rad.  They are a semi active family.  They were all real active in the church like 10 years ago but for some reason just quit going, but they all got pretty motivated when we invited the kids to get baptized.  So slowly but surely they are all coming back to church. :) It was cool though.  They were a reference from another family that we baptized one of their kids a few weeks back (Santiago) so we're getting a lot of work done.  Good stuff.  Also, I  would send pics, but the computer gave my camera a virus #dope.

Today we made tacos for lunch.  Real good.  Thanks for the taco packets.  It made for a real good pday.  

Sorry for the uninteresting letter, I don't really have much to say these days.  I think the mission coming to an end has just made everything look so normal.  YAY.

Love you guys, thanks for the letter.  Have a good week.