Bowling for Baptisms

February 17, 2014

Hey! How´s it going?? 


This week has been pretty well. We´ve still been working a lot with the less active members, trying to get them to come to church. We have a couple coming, and we are visiting about 6. We´re trying to work more with the ward members so they can help us pump them up to come back to church. It´s hard for some of them because they live far away it takes about 30 minutes walking or spending money for a moto. 

Me & Fitz

On Friday the ward had a talent show and a ton of people went so the church was packed. The church here doesn´t have a stage. We´ve also been working with the bishop so that we can work more efficiently during ward council and with the organizations. 

Yesterday we had a Rescue in Cartagena, but the ward we

Me & My Son

My & My PBA Form

went to had a very large area to cover and we spent a long time walking around trying to figure out the addresses here. Carmen and Osvaldo came to church yesterday, they told us last week that they are trying to get the wedding set up for this week. We´re working with the Relief Society so that they can help put together a little something for them. 

Trick Shot

Today for pday we went to Cartagena and went bowling!!! Super fun! We tried to get the whole zone to go, but some people didn´t want to so we went with a group of 8 and bowled a couple of rounds. I was just racking up the strikes there. 

La Coca Game

It´s weird to think that transfers are coming up again. In 9 days we´ll find out who stays and who goes. I don´t really want to leave Turbaco yet, I really like it here. 

That is pretty much it for this week, I love you all! Abrazos y Besos!

I Feel - Feliz! Oh, and Hot A Lot!

February 10, 2014

How I feel every day

Hey! So this week has been better as far as the weather goes. It´s been cooler than last week! We´ve been walking a ton this week, contacting, and finding new people to teach. 

We had a really great experience giving a blessing to a sister in the ward who was feeling sick and had a really bad headache. She asked us to give her a blessing, we gave it and literally minutes later she felt better... a great example of power of the priesthood! 

Go USA!

This week we also had a zone meeting and I got some letters from Grandma and Grandpa Allred, the Garrisons, the Bangs, Granny, and the Crandalls. Thanks for all the letters! This week I had an interview with one of the sister missionarie's investigators who is a 9 year old boy and he passed pretty quickly. He´ll be getting ready for baptism this Saturday along with Carmen (if we can get everything worked out with their wedding). She is soo close! They need to take out a few more papers and have the money ready and they´ll do it! 

Feeling Patriotic for the Olympics.

We´re going to be working and praying a lot for them this week. Church was good because we had a couple of investigators come. I was stressed because at the last minute the teacher of the gospel principles class bailed. I had to put together a lesson super quickly. The lesson went well, sorta, I was just trying to use a bunch of long scriptures to take up time. 


Today was a chill p day, we just went to a Centro to walk around and print off some pictures, (I haven´t put pictures in my journal for a while), but now it´s all good. 

That´s pretty much it as far as this week goes! I love you all! Abrazos y besos!

Castle Week

February 3, 2014

Hermanas Huatuco, Thomas; Elder Gallardo, Otteson, me, Ariza

Hello! How´s it going? This week has been very hot and exhausting. We´ve been walking a ton these last few days to visit the less active ward members and other investigators.

A bit of bad news... Carmen and Osvaldo didn´t get married this week. They still need to get some papers ready and the biggest hurdle is the $$. They are hoping that they will have everything ready in 2 weeks, so we have our fingers crossed for that!

Botas Viejas

Hermanas Huatuco, Thomas; Elders Otteson, Gallardo, me, Ariza

We´ve been working with Osvaldo´s son, who is also called Osvaldo. He moved here about two weeks ago, but doesn´t have a lot of friends. We stopped by with some young men from the ward and invited him to some activities. He was super excited to do stuff with other kids in the ward and at church yesterday he was with the young men.  We´ll continue working with Osvlado (jr) this week.

This week we´ve also been leaving to work with the members, some of the young men and with the 1st consejero. When we left with the consejero we had a very long day, but had some great lessons. We were able to pass by some less active members, that weren´t really receptive to us before, but with the 1st consejero they were more willing to talk with us.

The mission has put a lot of focus on reactivating members so we´ll be doing more of that. At church yesterday we had 4 investigators come which was great! Now we just need to help them all get baptized.

Also, yesterday we went to Cartagena to have a "Rescue", basically visiting less active members, but there was also another activity going on in the stake center. Turned out to be only about 5 members who were able to go on splits with the 40 missionaries. Basically we spent a lot of time contacting in the area of the other missionaries.

Today we had a super awesome pday and the whole district went to the castillo (Castle)!! Super cool! I went there last year, but it´s still fun to walk around there in Cartagena. Really good pday. This week we´re going to be focusing our efforts with Carmen and Osvaldo.

I love you all! Abrazos y besos!

So I told a member that I really like these kind of shirts so they got me one! I know you´ll all love it!

#síseñor #sunsoutgunsout

Soccer, Pancakes & Cheap Marriages

January 27, 2014

Well this week has been pretty good. We talked with Carmen and Osvaldo and they said that they want to get married this week, so we´ll be working hard to help them get married. We found a guy in Cartagena that can marry people fast and cheap so we´re trying to get everything in order with that.
 We´ve also been contacting a lot, trying to find some new people to teach. We´ve found a couple of families and are really excited to teach them this week. This week has been super hot so we try to use that to help us get into the houses. We figure if we look like we´re dying someone will give us a chair so that we can sit down and rest. 

Typical Breakfast

Things are going great with my new comp (Elder Ariza) with studying, teaching, and contacting. It´s fun to train. 

On Friday we had interviews with the president and as always they were running late. We lost a lot of time that day, but the interview was good - Well we mostly just talked about how my comp was doing and he always asks how my best convert is (aka myself). President tells me that he has a lot of confidence in me so that makes me feel really good. We talk about the family sometimes, studies...a little bit of everything.  We also talked more about the end of the mission more than anything this time. I also mentioned Kurt too, so hopefully we can be in the same district or zone. 

This morning we played soccer again with some young men and the first consejero (still can´t spell that), it was really fun. I miss playing soccer a lot! :(. 

Fútbol Gang

Hey,  I´m kinda realizing that my letters are getting shorter, so this next week I´ll write down everything that has been happening so that my letters are more interesting. 

Apartment "Art"

Today during p-day we didn´t do much.We just hit up the streets of Turbaco seeing what it has to offer. I bought some little Dragon balls figures for a buck so that was a complete score.  I also bought this artwork for our apartment.  Each poster was 50 cents! I think that next Monday we´re going to do a big district pday and go to the Popa (fingers crossed for that). 

More "Art"

Hey! I love you all!                                                         Abrazos y besos!

Call Me Papi!! New Companion

January 20, 2014

My New Son - Elder Ariza from Bogota, Colombia

What is up everyone?! This week has been pretty great. It started Monday night when I called to verify with the zone leaders and they told me that I needed to go to Barranquilla on Tuesday because I needed to pick up my new comp to train! 

We left in the morning and I got in a van crammed in the back seat with Elder Anderson (Arizona) and Elder White. We arrived in Barranquilla, ate lunch, listened to the assistants and the president, then we got our new companions. 

How we Roll!

My new comp is Elder Ariza. He is from Bogota and is 18 years old. We´ve only had a few days together, but it´s been good working with him. I´m happy to be training and glad that he wants to work. 

After we left Barranquilla we arrived in Cartagena late so we had to sleep on the floor of some other missionaries, then leave early in the morning Wednesday to get back to Turbaco. I don´t like sleeping on floors. The rest of the week we've  been contacting, introducing Elder Ariza to the members and investigators. 

This week we´ve also been working a lot with Carmen and Osvaldo so that they can get married. Turns out that she needs to go get a copy of her divorce paper. She´s going to get that today so they can get married.  Osvaldo´s son just came to live with them so now we´re teaching him too. Hopefully everything works out well so that we can baptize the rest of the family! 

Soccer with some members and investigators

This morning we went to the church and played soccer with some young men and investigators. That was super fun, but I´m really tired. I haven´t done that much running for a while. 

Today for p-day, we´re not going to do much. My comp knows how to cook so he wants to cook lunch... I´m glad he likes to cook because I´m getting tired of fried / scrambled eggs and pancakes.  That´s kinda sums it up for this past week. 

I love you soo much! Shout out to Jon Lemaire for getting baptized! Abrazos y Besos!

Working for a Living!

January 13, 2014

Hey everyone! This week has been pretty good! We´ve been working hard to find new people to teach and work more with the members. Yesterday we had 4 investigators that came to church and two of them were new this week so we´re really happy with that. 

We have bikes now?? Just kidding

We have also been working a lot with Carmen (Investigator) and Osvaldo (Less Active) so that they can get married and Carmen can be baptized. They have already sent their papers to get processed in the system, now they just have to wait and see how much it costs for the marriage. They should find out this week so we are anxious to get things going with them. 

Elder Gallardo, Otteson, Me, Centon in a little Moto car

This week I also had two baptismal interviews, they both went really well, and the missionaries are working hard to help them get baptized. Also, yesterday we had a Rescue for a ward in Cartagena. Basically it was visiting less active members so that they can come back to church. It went pretty well we were able to talk to a young man and another´s dad about going to church. 

SIMBA!!! Carlos´ dog!

Today for pday we had a service project. We helped Carlos, an investigator of the elders, move to his new house which is super sweet. So we were moving stuff all afternoon, but it was fun working with the other missionaries. After they bought us lunch so that was awesome :) . 

Elder Gallardo, I, and some dude driving the truck

Tomorrow we will receive transfers, I am thinking that my comp will be leaving because he has about 7 months here, so we´ll see what happens. That is kind of it for this week. I love you all! Abrazos y besos!

Say Hello, to my Little Friend!

Cat Rescue!

Little Mufasa.

Feliz Año Nuevo!

January 7, 2014

What is up everyone?? Happy New year!! I can´t believe it´s 2014 already! Makes me sad because it means my mission is coming to an end this year.  :( 

Elder Anderson with his Bat Friend.

This week has been pretty interesting. There has been something going on called La Corraleja, basically bull fighting in the wooden stadium, and anyone can go inside with the bulls. Almost everyone in Turbaco goes there to watch and party, so it has been a little difficult to find people in their houses. 

Mr. Bat

We have had some good lessons, especially with Carmen. We´ve been working hard with her so that she can get married. This week she put in the papers to be  processed so that they (she and Osvaldo (soon to

Vampire??

be husband) can get married. Which means that Carmen and her son can get baptized! Super pumped for that.  Also, all three of them came to church yesterday. 

We´re also working with some other people  trying to have them come to church, but it´s kinda hard with holidays and what not. We are being persistent! 

Today we went to a less active member's house for lunch. He made us fried fish, patacones, and of course rice. It was really good. I love the fish here. Then after lunch we just bought some stuff at the store, cut our hair and chilled in the house. 

It´s a festival today so there aren´t a lot of places open and there isn´t much to do. That is pretty much it for this week. Really slow with all the parties and stuff like that. 

Thanks for all the support. I love you all!
Abrazos y besos