Not much time today....

I realized right after leaving last week that I hadn't mentioned E. They decided that they would for sure be baptized, and it happened this week! She feels really happy. In this foto she's there with her sons L. and J.J., and the little baby A. (who yes, is very adorable. She's about 7 months old, almost the same age as me in the mission). I was not asked to participate in this confirmation, thankfully. It was a  very good day, but I'm a little bit worried about what comes next. We have some investigators with potential, but none who are for sure going to get baptized this next month. So we´ll have to work hard and see what happens.

Sorry, the internet left and now I don't have a ton of time. It's been a good week, a bit more rain this week, which makes it really humid. But it's all good. It's werid, it's almost hotter here when it's cloudy because all of the humidity gets trapped, and I start sweating buckets after being outside 2 minutes. A bit different from home.

Sorry, the computer doesn't want to recognize my camera, so no pictures this week after all. Sorry, the time flew especially when we lost about 20 minutes. I love you all, have a great week!

An Interesting Week

N.'s baptism

As you can read from this title, this week was interesting. We had a zone conference and interviews on Tuesday. It made for a long, interesting day. We went to the chapel at 8 am, and left a little after 8 pm. But it was pretty great, we learned quite a lot. It's always good to hear from President and the Assistants. They did it a little bit differently this time. We did the interviews in the companionships. So I can't say that I could talk about maybe some of the more personal things that I would like to talk about, but it still went really well. We learned a lot about redoubling our efforts. We are doing a whole lot better than the past year, but there's still room for more growth.

One thing that was interesting in these interviews is that President Gallego emphasized the necessity of a study and personal journal. I've learned a lot now about the need for that. I'll be the first to admit that before the mission I was terrible at writing in my journal. At the mission I've improved a lot. And even though I need to do better at reviewing it to see how I've progressed, it's helped me a lot. I'd advise everyone to keep a personal journal, as well as a study journal. When we write down the impressions and the experiences that we've had, we are opening ourselves up to receive more.

Today for P-day we went to a small town called Menaure, and I felt the most beautiful thing. We went up a really high mountain, and when the sun was covered, it felt cool. It felt like a nice cool day in the end of April or beginning of May. It was incredible. I never thought that I'd miss something like that, but you'd be surprised. When you literally spend every day sweating through your shirt after walking for 10 minutes, you really start to miss the cold.

But back to the point. Yes, N. got baptized this week, and her dad came to the baptism! The first time he's come into the chapel in quite a while. But I was disappointed when he didn't come to the confirmation. But I guess little by little we'll go. Speaking of the confirmation, it was an interesting experience. I was sitting on the stand, because I was going to give a talk, and the bishop called me over to help in the confirmacion. I walked over there, then he told me to do it. So basically I confirmed my first person by surprise this week. So that was pretty fun.

But yeah, that was my week. I love you all, have a great week. Love you all!

A little rain....

These are some people that we are working with right now. This morning we did service with them.

Those holes and that pile of dirt? That was us.

An interesting week. Sorry if my spelling is pretty terrible this week, this keyboard doesn't want to cooperate. I can't really say that my week was too interesting, just some interesting things happened near the end.

We are only going to have one baptism this weekend. Her name is N., her parents were less active, and now she's 9, so she passes to us. E. still just needs to make the decision of when to get baptized. She was finally able to get in contact with her boyfriend. He basically told her that he doesn't want to marry her. But she wants to call him again to be able to explain why she wants to do it, and if he still doesn't, to tell him that he can't come back and expect to live with her. So that, and the fact that we aren't completely sure that her two sons know everything they need to know means that we will be pushing those three back at least another week. We'll hope that this all works out.

Tomorrow ought to be an interesting day: we have a zone conference, and then interviews with President. So that'll be interesting. Then we'll have to go home and do weekly planning. All day sitting down...

Oh yeah, yesterday we had a huge rainstorm.  And knowing that it would rain, I brought my umbrella. What I didn't count on was the literal river that the street would become. So my brown shoes ended up getting completely soaked. Along with the bottom part of my pants. And my socks. So that was an interesting day. We've learned by now that any time there's an extreme in the weather (wind, rain, etc), power goes out. So we spent the whole night in candlelight. And we walked to dinner in our flip flops so we didn't have to put on our shoes. But what I've learned here is that although the rain is refreshing, the days after are literally an infierno. All the humidity comes, and it is ridiculously hot.

But yeah, that was basically my week. Maybe not the best numbers, but still working hard. I'm glad to be out here. I love you all, I hope you have a great week, and remember that you're all in my prayers. Ciao!

I Love the Colombian People!

As for transfers, absolutely nothing changed. I'm still here in Garupal with Elder Benites. So I'll be here at least until April.

I've really come to appreciate how incredibly friendly and kind the Colombian people are. You really can't find anyone like the Costeños (the Atlantic coast of Colombia.) I'll give two examples to prove my point. A few weeks ago we took a taxi, and like normal we started talking to the driver. Nothing unusual, completely normal. He was very friendly. But we left, and I can say that I hadn't thought  much of him since. But last week, two times we were waiting for a taxi near our house (not many pass by, it can be hard). And we wave one down, and it's this same guy. He tells us "Hey, I'm headed to my house, but if you want I'll bring you to a spot where more taxis pass by." He did it twice, for free. It was amazing. It saved us a ton of time. Now to number 2. We went to a richer part of our area, pretty far from everything. We were contacting, talking to a bunch of people. We found a family who accepted us, let us in. We started presenting ourselves, talking about how much we like Colombia, the fruit and all that. And they asked us what our favorite fruit is. Elder Benites and I both like guayaba (which just this last week I learned is guava. who knew?). And as we were talking, they sent one of the family to go BUY guayaba, and made juice for us. We were fasting, but how could we say no? But that's not all. We were just about to start, and the husband says, "Just a second, I'd like to do something first." He pulls out a rag and starts to clean our shoes. Like normal, they are covered in dust (normal when 3/4 of the roads are dirt roads). I started apologizing if they didn't like that we'd brought dust onto their floor, and they just said "No, no. It's not that. It's an act of service for a servant of the Lord." The craziest thing is, this isn't even anything out of the ordinary. (Ok, cleaning our shoes, yes. But people always say stuff like that to us.) Even if they don't want to listen to us or accept an invitation, they want the blessings that come from talking to a servant of the Lord.

So that was the interesting part of this week. Other than that, we have 4 baptisms planned for the 18th! One is W.'s cousin, E., and her two sons, L. and J.J. We are working really hard with her. She really wants to be baptized and is really looking forward to this day. Also, the D. family finally attended church again, even if it was only for sacrament meeting. But we'll keep working on that.

That was pretty much my week. Thank you for all of your prayers and support, they help me a lot. I love you all, and you're always in my prayers. Have a great week!