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!
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