New Area - New Companion!

June 24, 2013

This week has been pretty interesting. Started out with transfers! I was transferred to Modelo here in Barranquilla. My new comp is Elder Ramirez from Mexico! My new apartment is so much bigger than in Cevillar!! I love it! In the house there are 4 elders in total. Elder Ramirez (my comp), Elder Juarez, Elder Davidson, and me.

The area is really nice (has a little more money than my last areas) but it´s a great ward. Everything had been going well this week, working in the new area, getting to know the investigators and members, working with my comp, and then Thursday hit and my toes started hurting again....yes....my same toes....I have issues.

Also on Thursday we had a meeting with President Gaviria on how to have a ward council...the same meeting that I had in my old area. Then Saturday we found out about the leadership broadcast on Sunday.We had to be at the Stake Center at 5:00 to watch the broadcast. Because of the broadcast, our church time was changed from the original time of 2-5 to 9-12. When we got to the chapel and it was absolutely packed!

There are two wards, Modelo and Paraiso, that were both there and during sacrament meeting they told us that they are fusing the two wards. Now my area/ward isn´t Modelo, it´s Paraiso, I think. And the best part of all is that there are 14 missionaries in the ward right now. 6 Sister missionaries and 8 elders! Pretty insane! So now we have to figure out the new boundaries and everything, which is going to be lame because with the ward changes we lost almost all of our investigators.

The leadership broadcast was super awesome! I think the missionaries are more excited about the possibilty of having a tablet or computer in the house. Today for pday we didn´t do much because another elder in the house had to go to the clinic and I had to go too because my toes are hurting me and basically the old-man doctor stuck my toes with anesthesia again, then rammed cotton under my toe nail to help it grow straight or something...so tomorrow I might not work depending on how my toe is doing.

So that´s about it for me...just living the life down here with my toe problems.

Bought these weights right before I left Cevillar - gonna get my burn on!

Love you all! Abrazos y besos!

Liseth!!!

June 16, 2013

How´s everyone doing?? This week has been pretty great and a little crazy! Tuesday was the soccer game, Colombia vs Peru, and oh my gosh it was absolutely crazy! The main street/highway that leads to the stadium goes through our area, so it was absolutely nuts!

Then there was a warning out because 3 people were killed, so Tuesday we only went out working from about 7 to 9. This week has been raining a lot, and that means that we have more mosquitos.... which sucks. I wish I had Lolo´s (Lauren Zaharis') super anti- mosquito power because these things are eating my feet off!

This week we had the baptism of Liseth!!! It was great! It´s awesome to see her be baptized and how quickly she has progressed and how much the gospel has changed her life!

Also, Sunday I gave a talk in church. It was all going awesome, I was talking about Agency, but then I looked at the clock on the wall and it said 9:55 and I freaked out and ended quickly because there was still one more person that needed to talk after me. Once I sat down, I looked at my watch and it was only 9:48. The people didn´t get the full message...kinda bummer.

This Wednesday we have transfers so we are all kinda freaking out and guessing who is going to be leaving. I´m pretty sure that I am going to leave and also either Elder Webb or Alvarez too. We´re going to find out tomorrow night so next week I´ll let you know what happened!

On Thursday we had our last conference with President Gaviria and his family. He talked a lot about marriage and also how we can know Jesus better. For example, what kind of things we can do to bring ourselves closer to Him and learn more about Him. It was a great conference and I was able to see a lot of buddies there because it was all of the Barranquilla missionaries!



This pday was pretty much a bust. We wanted to go bowling, so we told the taxi guy where the place was. He got lost and we got to the building late, only to find out that it wasn´t open. We decided to go to McDonalds to eat our pain away. Next we printed some pictures and came back home. So thank you so much Dad and Grampy for your donations for pday, but it looks like that money will be going to another pday in the future (I haven´t taken the money out yet).

So that´s about it! Love you all!! This week should be pretty crazy with transfers! By the way, this picture is like a "normal" Newspaper in Colombia.

Love you all! Abrazos y besos!!

What a Great Weekend!

June 10, 2013

What´s up?¡ This week was super awesome and kinda lame at the same time. Super awesome because Reyla and Leslie got baptized¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡ So happy¡¡¡¡

Me, Reyla, Leslie, Elder Briceño

I ended up baptizing the two sisters and then Elder Briceño confirmed Reyla and Carlos (Leslie´s dad) confirmed Leslie. The baptisms were really great! Reyla and Leslie were kinda nervous before, but after they were baptized they were soo happy! Leslie started talking about how she was feeling and that she was super happy and Reyla kept saying that she felt soo good. Seeing them be so happy about their baptism made me feel really happy that I could help them in this process.

Also Elder Alvarez and Webb had a baptism too. So the ward had three baptisms in all¡

We´ve also been working really hard with Liseth. She´s progressed really quickly and now she´s going to get baptized this Saturday¡¡¡ We´ve had some really awesome lessons with her. She always reads the Book of Mormon, understands what she reads, marks the scriptures, and prays... it´s awesome¡ And Liseth came to church yesterday so now she ready to go for this Saturday¡¡

Denice (mom of Reyla), Leslie, Reyla, Jenice (mom of Leslie)

Alright,  now for the lame part of this week. I started working again, but I´ve been wearing sandals and everyone looks at me weird. I can't wear shoes yet because they are a little constricting on my toes. The problem gets worse because I have another, yes another ingrown toenail, on the other side of the nail. I'm so not happy about this! I called the secretary and he told me he is going to send me some pills, but I don´t know how much that´ll really help.

My spanish speaking is doing really well. I'm still working to work on a bigger vocabulary, but I feel really comfortable.  I feel like I can basically say what I want to and don´t have to struggle to think of what to say. It kinda just flows. One of my teachers in the MTC told us that if we think in Spanish, then it´ll be easier to speak in Spanish, so I´ve been really trying to think in Spanish.

The ´dryer´

I´m getting excited for the new mission president in July. Not sure what to expect, but excited.

Washing set up

That´s it for this week¡ Super great and this weekend should be super awesome too¡¡ For pday day we just went to the centro to print some pictures of the baptisms and walked around.

 Love you all¡¡ Abrazos y besos¡¡

Basically just spins the water and my clothes...doesn´t do much to actually wash.

The Toes Knows

June 4, 2013

 I'm sorry, but this is going to be the lamest weekly update ever! Basically last Monday after we finished writing families, the power went out. When the power goes out, it´s kinda sketchy so we had to go back home and it didn´t come back on until about 1 in the morning.

 Tuesday we had an intercambio and I was with Elder Webb and we worked in his area. Then on Wednesday we went to the Clinic and that was a horrible experience! The doctor there was this old man just in regular clothes, (didn't look very official) and he kept on telling me over and over that the reason I had ingrown toenails is because I was cutting my nails poorly. I didn´t register for him when I tried to explain that in Cartagena they took off my nails. All of the other nurses

kept asking me why I had my toenails taken off because that´s kinda the worst thing to do with toenails. So I got my toenails cut and I´ve been stuck in the house every since.

That has been the rest of my week... just sitting in the house doing nothing. Laying in my bed. We didn't have baptisms last week either because Leslie´s dad couldn´t baptize her.  The baptism got pushed to this coming Saturday.

I still can´t do anything today, so no pday for me. Ya... That´s about it! This week has been insanely boring, but love you all!

Abrazos y besos!

Missing Hali

May 27, 2013

That´s really sad about Hali, she was an absolutely amazing dog and I´m going to miss her a lot. I was thinking about her a lot and a quote came into my head.  Someone was talking to the prophet Joseph Smith a little bit after one of his favorite horses died. The man asked something along the lines of whether or not his horse would be in heaven and Joseph responded ´I can´t imagine heaven without him´. Just something that I remembered and gives me a happy thought.

Nug the day he left home for his Mission with Hali.

So this past week was good and kinda rough. Rough because we spent a lot of time contacting, but didn´t get much out of it. We were really tired at the end of the days and a little discouraged, but we got over it and we´re ready to take on this week.

Last Monday we had a family night with the Bishop, his family, and Reyla. It was really fun!! I made hamburgers and the others played pass the pigs.

Family Night - Armando, Nug, Reyla, Bishop, Ester, Brian, Elders Alvarez, Briceño & Webb

Also last Monday I called the health secratary about my toes.....ya, I´m having problems again. The nails that the doctor took off are growing back, but ingrown.. so they hurt and are pussing. Today when I go the office to pick up my package, I´m going to have him look at my toes so we can figure out what to do.

Elder Molina, Elder Norberg & Elder Mañuico

This week it has been raining quite a bit which makes it hotter and more humid :( The worst was Tuesday night, because it was raining so much that the power went out.  I was sweating, and trying to sleep when I remembered that Mom sent me the most amazing gift!!... A mini fan!! So I took that out of my bag and it saved my life!! ( Thank you mom).







Also, another problem that we had this week is that my comp got an ear infection.  He can´t really hear out of his right ear and we have to put some drops in his ear every 3 hours and then he stays with his head sideways for 20-30 minutes, ... that kinda kills our schedule during the day.

Nug with Elder Fisher

We had some really good lessons with Reyla and Leslie.  We´re really working hard with them so that they can have their baptisms this Saturday. Also, Liseth and Loren are still doing great. They are reading the Book of Mormon, the pamphlets and praying! Super Awesome! That´s been kinda it for this week, nothing super big happened, but super pumped for the baptisms.

Nathan & his Trainer - Elder De Los Santos

Love you all!!! Abrazos y besos!!

Update: Since I wrote this message earlier this morning,  I've been to the office to pick up my package and it´s great!! Loved the letters and super happy to have the new dvds! Thanks family!! Also, I spoke with the health secretary and basically he told me that my toes suck and we´re going to go to the clinc on Wednesday to get them checked out.

Great Week in Barranquilla!

May 20, 2013

What´s up people¡¡¡ How´s it going?

This week has been awesome, but kinda slow with lessons. We had two big conferences this week; one on Wednesday with President Gaviria and the other on Saturday with Elder Uceda (Area 70). Both were super awesome... blew my mind too.

They talked a lot about what we can do better with our investigators, how we can help them to keep their commitments better, and different things we need to do with them. All in all they were awesome days. I learned a lot of stuff and found some way that I can improve.

One big thing that the two talked about was English. The missionaries that don´t speak English need to study, they really hammered on that. The rest of the week was pretty good. Our numbers for lessons have been down because we´ve been contacting a lot in apart of our area where the previous missionaries  didn´t really go. It´s been kinda rough there, but we had an amazing few lessons with one family.

We first got a reference for a girl ,Vera, so we went and taught her the first lessons and she loved it and wanted to learn more. We said that we would come back Thursday for another lesson, but when we got there she wasn´t there.Vera's little sister, Lora, was there and she had read the lesson 1 pamphlet and had a lot of questions so we taught her. She loved it and wanted to learn more so we said we would come back there on Saturday. We went back and Vera wasn´t there again, but Lora was and also her cousin Liseth. Turned out that Liseth was super interested in the Book of Mormon and had read all of Moroni and all of the introduction.

I had my mind blown¡¡ It was sooo awesome¡¡ She is golden¡¡ She reads everything we give her and understands it too and she really wants to know if it is all true¡ I'm soo pumped for those three¡¡

We´re also working really hard with Reyla and Leslie so that they can get baptized either this week or next week. They are just a little indecisive so we need to give them a little push.

We didn´t do anything for pday... just played pass the pigs and slept. We´re going to have a Family Night with some members and Reyla. I am making hamburgers for everyone so I get to bust out my Nielsen skills tonight¡¡

Well that´s about it¡¡ Love you all¡¡

Abrazos y besos¡¡

Skype was Awesome!

May 13, 2013

Hey!! So this weekly update is going to be kind of short because I wrote last wednesday and not much has really happened. 

This week we contacted a lot in the part of our area where the other missionaries haven`t gone to before. It was just really loooooonng contacting and it just made me more tired at the end of the day. We found some new people but not a ton, which is kind of a bummer. 

We had a really awesome lesson with Reyla the other day. We were talking about her baptism and when we would do it because she wants to get baptized. Her parents aren`t super supportive so we were talking about that and then her aunt told us that they have a plan. So I was thinking something bad was going to happened but it turned out that Leslie (cousin of Reyla and daughter of the aunt of Reyla) wants to get baptized too with Reyla!! 

So now we`re going to baptize them both on the same day, but we just have to pick a day so we`re going to talk with them tomorrow about it!!! Hopefully this Saturday or the next! Fingers crossed! 

The Skype call yesterday was super awesome! Loved talking with you guys!! It was really weird to see the house again. The place that we went to skype is the internet of Reyla, so once we finished talking with our families, her dad just looked at us, told us to shake his hand and that we didn`t have to pay!!! So we got to talk free! 

But ya, that`s about it for this week. Everything is going well with my comp, just working hard (or hardly working) just kidding. I`m going to be making some goals in these next couple weeks so I can accomplish and get to where I want to be in this coming year.

Love you all!! This week we`re going to have a zone conference and a conference with an Area 70. It should be a great week! 

Love you all!! Abrazos y besos!!