Rain & Baptisms!

May 26, 2014

Hey, what`s going on! This week has been alright, but super hot. We did have the blessing of receiving a little bit of rain after months of none. Hopefully this means that more is on the way. 

A familia that we`re teaching left to right Amauri, Maria, Daniel, Lucila, Edison. They came to see the baptism and for the noche de hermanamiento

This week has been kind of tough finding new investigators. A lot of the areas where we have contacted are predominately catholic so we pretty much get rejected there but we`re still keeping at it! 

This past Sunday the ward announced that we are going to be moving back into the old church building where they met before. It will be better because it is actually located closer to a lot of families, many of which can`t go to the new building because it is too far; but the down side is that it is way smaller than the new one. This should help us have a better attendance with the investigators and the less active members. 


 This past Friday there was a baptism for the other set of elders in our area. We went to the church to support them and what not, but the problem we discovered when we arrived there was that the water pump was broken and the baptismal font only had a few inches of water in it. So we went all old-school 'Turbaco ' and busted out some buckets to fill it up! It took a while, but we filled up about 3/4s of the font and then some guy got there to fix the pump to fill the rest up.  

Noche de Hermanamiento

We`re working with some families here, teaching them the word of God and everything, but a lot of them still need to get married. That has been our biggest obstacle this past week. We`re setting up our game plan for this week to find more new investigators. 

That`s about it for this week. I`ve been thinking a lot this last week about my mission. It`s weird that I`m in my last transfer and only have 5 weeks left. I feel like the time has passed by so fast. But I feel like I have changed a lot and have learned a lot. I`m so happy that I've been here and can`t wait to see you all when I get back. Love you all! 

(Oh, I`m supposing that if we still had the plans to pick me up we would be canceling them right now for dad`s hip operation? Good thing we didn`t make the plans right?)

Abrazos y besos!

Last Transfer in La Misión

Left to right Elder Contreras, Elder Quispe, Hermana Huatuco, Elder Figueroa, Hermana , Elder White, Elder Abad, and I

May 19, 2014

This week is the Last of the Transfers for me!!!

Hey! How`s it going? This week has been pretty good but it`s getting hotter here! :( . We`ve  still been working hard to visit our investigators and people that are less active.

We`ve been able to leave more and visit with the members this week. Also, we have received some references from members to visit their friends. We've had a lot of help from the branch, especially the relief society, they visited a few of our investigators and they were really happy to be visited.

People like to bug me because I am one of the oldest in the mission

A lot of the people that we are teaching right now need to get married so that they can get baptized, so in a lot of the lessons we talk about chastity and marriage. Also this week we had some good visits with less active members, we had some charla francas with them to tell them that they needed to come to church and it worked!

We just need to help the other less actives to get to the church on Sunday`s. The only problem that some of the members have is that the church is kind of far from where they live, so they have to walk pretty far to attend.

My missionary tan matches the white wall

We`re trying to work more with the branch to see if some of the active members can help us to visit and bring them to church.  This last Sunday was pretty rough because when we got to the chapel, there wasn`t any power. We don`t know what happened or why it got cut, but we had to make it through the whole time without AC or fans :(

Today for pday we had a zone activity. We all went to a restaurant called El Corral and then we went to an aquarium. There were some pretty sweet fish there, but at the end of the tour they went all environmentalist on us and told us that us humans are killing all the sea life. Besides that it was pretty great, also we passed by some street stands and got some little souvenirs.

Good week. Doing great. I am now starting my last transfer in the mission. Crazy how time passes so fast. I am happy, but sad...the mission is coming to an end.

I love you all! Abrazos y besos!

Lunch at a restaurant called El Corral - Burgers!

The Zone Manzanares at the aquarium

The Day After Mother's Day

May 12, 2014

Happy Mother's Day!!!  It was great to talk w/ everyone yesterday - so awesome! Even though we only had 45 minutes or so, it was great to see you and hear your voices! 

Well, this past week has been similar to the one before....a lot of sun and a lot of walking. 

Last Skype call!

We`ve had better luck finding new investigators this week, however not a lot of people came to church because of the whole mother`s day thing. It seemed like everyone just peaced out to other cities to go visit their moms. The people that we found this week are pretty interested in the gospel, we just need to continue to work with them this week so that they can make it to church. 

Scripture Jeopardy

Things are going well with my comp; we`re practicing the lessons quite a bit so that he can get the hang of things. Yesterday was super awesome talking to you all; I can`t believe that it was my last call to you. It`s freaking that me out that I only have 7 weeks left. 

We`re working a lot more with the branch members to join us for lessons with our investigators and less active members. On Friday we had an activity in the church where we played a cool scripture jeopardy game. The members all loved it. Plus the questions that were worth 400 and 500 points we had a castigo if they answered wrong, which was a little cream pie in the face! 

Saturday I got my new scripture cases!! They are super awesome! I love them so much! Today we didn`t really do much for pday. We played some soccer in the morning with the other missionaries, then went to a mall to print pictures and eat. 


 I love you all! Abrazos y besos!

Life's a Beach!

Cinco de Mayo - 2014

Yo Soy Colombiano!

This week has been going pretty well overall. We`ve still been working quite a bit with the members and going on visits with them. Last Sunday in our Ward Council we talked about choosing a family to visit for the week. They chose a family less active in our area and did a lot of visits to the family and in the end they all came to church yesterday. 

 
 












One thing that has been a bummer this week is the heat. It`s been getting really hot, but hopefully this means that it is going to rain soon. A big bummer yesterday was when the power went out in a large part of the city. We were without power for a few hours, but luckily it came back on just in time to sleep at 10:30. 

We had some investigators come to church yesterday,but they need to get married so we`ll be working with them more so that they can put a ring on it. They are both reading and praying and know that the Book of Mormon is true so they are good there. 


Today we had the awesome opportunity to go to a national park called Parque Tayrona which is basically just pure jungle and beaches!!! We went with 10 missionaries from the city. The rule is that you can only go once because it`s kind of expensive and far away. It was really awesome! 

 Traveling time took about 50 minutes to get there in a bus, then another 10 minutes in a van, and lastly our 1:30 walk....soo long....but SOOO WORTH IT! I miss the beach soo much. It was fantastic, but such a bummer that we can`t go in the water. We went walking around on the beaches, napped in a hammock, played some soccer and got super burnt! It was great. 


We left at 6 in the morning and got back at 4:30 so it took up all our day...which means I haven`t had time to wash :( My feet are really sore from walking. That`s about it for this week.

Things w/ Elder Quispe are going well.  He's a little homesick at times, but he's a great kid.  I was able to see Elder Bautista at Parque Tayrona - he only has 2 weeks left in his mission!  I can't believe that I only have 2 months left - it's gone fast, but it's also been a long time too.

Elder Bautista and I

Ya, one thing that I want you to know is that I want to give up xbox as in please don`t buy me xbox games. I`ll still play with friends every once in a while, but I don`t want to waste my time in front of the tv. The Nintendo DS is fine, but help me with this?


I`m pumped to Skype with the family next Sunday!!!! I`ll be on at 3 my time!! Abrazos y besos!!