A New Epoch

Dear family and friends,

Here´s the update

Tuesday

I spent the day with the zone leader as we are both waiting for our companions. They are both coming from the coast so they will get here on wednesday. We ran a bunch of errands and I spent some time with the missionaries of Alhambra. We only had one lesson in four hours but it was a good lesson.

Wednesday

My companion didn´t arrive until about 5 in the afternoon, so I just ran more errands and looked for a new house again. Then we had more errands with the zone leaders that night.

Thursday

First day with the Elder Pino. He is from chile and only has four months left of his mission. He´s pretty cool and has been studying english a lot. His first companion was British. He was a zone leader in the coast right before he came to Manizales and before that he was the financial secretary for nine months. He´s very obedient and I can be normal around him. We tried to get an appointment with Tatiana and ended up setting it for Saturday. We visited Katherine and a few other things I don´t quite remember

Friday

Again, lots of our appointments fell through and we had to run some errands as well, so not much to report. We spent a good deal of time practicing for the multi zone Christmas Conference in Pereira.

Saturday

Was crazy. We spent the first half of the day in La Linda and then we went to our appointment with Tatiana, which are quite literally on opposite ends of our area. She didn´t answer her phone and didn´t show up, but that´s a pretty normal thing, so we ended searching for a costume for the Christmas activity for an hour. At six until the day was over we had the Night in Bethlehem at the chapel and it was pretty cool. They had me be a roman centurion because I´m gigantic (comparatively) but the costume was tiny that we found. If I can find a picture I´ll send it.

Sunday

It was the primary program in church and they probably sang better than the congregation usually does. We spent some time with the Castro family and tracted the rest of the time. Nothing to report there either.

Monday

Multi zone conference in Pereira and the reason I´m writing to you all on a tuesday. I love spending time with the President and he is really funny and just awesome overall. I talked to some of the other new guys from my group and one of them has been in the hospital three times. Yikes! Thankfully I haven´t been sick at all really. Our zone won all the competitions  and I got packages today and I hear tomorrow we get pouch mail but it could just be a rumor. Our new zone leader is cool, but I´m going to miss the one that left.

So yeah! This next week will be even crazier and I really don´t have much information on the whole skype thing. I´ll try to figure it out as best I can, and I´m still planning for Christmas day.

Anyway, talk to you later this week

Élder King

P.S. Si tienen algunas preguntas, dudas, chistes, chismes, o chiclets, let me know

(if you have any questions, concerns , jokes , gossip , or chewing gum)

Cambios (Changes)

Good news for the future, but the week was mas o menos

Tuesday

We contacted some people in a street store after taking the whole morning to ditch our old armoir. We visited Cristian the barber´s house and met with his family. They´re pretty cool, hopefully we can get them the gospel

Wednesday

After spending the night at the house of the Elders of Alhambra, we went to grab a new armoir that didn't even fit up the stairs. My companion didn´t get dressed for the mission until after lunch. We used up most of our money on transportation for ourselves and for the dresser thing. I don´t know why we are moving it now, because we don´t even have our new apartment yet, but whatever. We had a lesson with Katerine.

Thursday

We had a lesson with Adrian today and he really wants to change his life. The problem is, he is too lazy to do anything so he doesn´t progress. He doesn´t want to get up for church and he doesn´t seem to understand that the gospel will help him with his drug problems. Oh, a cool miracle too. So, I had lost my wallet about a week ago and turned the apartment upside down looking for it. Not enough to be sure it wasn´t there, but quite thoroughly. I looked in the pockets of all my pants at least three times. Well, when I put my pants on in the morning, there was my wallet, in the pocket that I had searched multiple times. And both me and my comp were about out of money too.

Friday

We had a lesson with a less active family, The Rosas, and their blind friend. It was pretty cool and afterwords the blind guy (I don´t remember his name) played the guitar and sang for us. He´s crazy good and plays classical spanish music. We had a lesson with Carol. She´s new but she´s going out of town until next year. I almost got her a Book of Mormon as some travel reading material, but neither me nor my companion had one. Some scout I am! I left my book for giving on my desk, so shame shame.

Saturday

We went to La Linda in the morning and taught a family that we met earlier. They are all pretty cool, but so far only two of them are very receptive, and mostly just the mom. One of the sons of the house is receptive, but he is also bisexual, so that complicates things a bit. But they all have potential. They gave us lunch too. first time eating fish here, and everything smells like tuna. They´re probably the richest family we´ve come across. They have a car and two motorscooters and a pretty nice house. Mauricio, the son, is a world traveler and speaks Mandarin and French. We also had a lesson with Tatiana and she still thinks she needs to be perfect to be baptized, but she has goals of things she wants to change so hopefully she will be in these next 6 weeks

Sunday

Church was church. In priesthood they talked about becoming a stake and what the members need to do. Apparently the men of the area have a hard time paying tithing and that´s what´s keeping them from becoming a stake. I heard they will be breaking ground for a temple in Baranquilla in February and that´s exciting for everyone around here. We visited a less active member/retired Mormon and his wife and talked with them for something like five hours, so our plans were shot.

And today, we found out about transfers! "drumroll" I´m staying here and my companion is going to the coast! whooooooo and all that. My new companion is Elder Pina. I haven´t seen him yet and probably won´t until Wednesday or Thursday. Apparently he is short, some say he is strict, he has been a zone leader and in the office so I´m sure he has discipline sufficient to actually help me out. I´m pretty stoked. It really doesn´t feel like Christmas around here despite all the lights. As far as skyping, according to the email I just got we can do it any day from the 15th to the first of January. For now, let´s plan for Christmas day, but I´ll have to talk to my new companion about it when he gets here. I´ll let you know by the 21st hopefully.

Love ya´ll peoples, have fun in the cold

Élder King

Tuesday

Our plans were completely shot, so we just contacted the whole day with no success. We went to the park of the founders and met a guy there who is basically a golden investigator, were it not for the fact that he basically works 24/7. We gave him a Book of Mormon, so with any luck he´ll find some time to make it.

Wednesday

The usual problems with our plans. We had a lesson with Tatiana though, and it was pretty awesome. She accepted tithing and fast offerings characteristically well. She basically accepts everything really quick because she just feels it´s true. She has the spirit pretty strong with her. We met the same dude from the park AGAIN. He read the fast and tithing pamphlet while we stood talking to him and he kept saying how wonderful and beautiful our message is. He asked us what time church was, and we told him. He was pretty disappointed that he couldn´t come to any of the meetings and asked us if there was any other time we had church. Yet my companion didn´t seem to want to give him the time of day. sigh... I hope we can meet him again and try and set an appointment. 

Thursday

We had a lesson with Adrian, but everything else was lame. We never plan for travel time so we´re late to lots of stuff. Not that it matters for my companion since most of our plans fall through. Started an interchange with the zone leaders and we stayed up late talking. He´s a twenty-six year old Argentinian and he´s pretty sweet.

Friday

We had high hopes for today, but none of the four potential investigators could make it to their appointments and we had to move the plans around a bit so we could teach Tatiana the Law of Chastity. It was a great lesson, accepted without a doubt and now we just have to get her some confidence so she can be baptized. She knows all she needs to, but she lives far from the church and she has a neighbor who got baptized and went inactive really quick, so she is afraid of that. We had a lesson with Katherine and her family. She´s less active, don´t know if I´ve told you about her. She has a little chunky baby that´s pretty much adorable, so yeah. Also, on a sad note, we found out that Gladys Ramirez died this last Wednesday. That was pretty hard for me.

Saturday

Today we spent the whole day in La Linda contacting. It´s part of our area that´s way far out, so they don´t see the missionaries much. We got a ton of contacts, so hopefully some new investigators there. About halfway through the day we went to contact a house and the lady who lived there was asleep on her couch. She woke up and immediately went and started throwing up. She was in a ton of pain, so we stuck around and tried to help as best we could. My companion was kind of freaking out. Her daughters called their older sister and she showed up and helped out too. We went and got her some medicine for gastritis, so hopefully it helps. Good news, we got another family to contact, bad news, it shook my companion and he didn´t want to do anything for the rest of the day. It wasn´t even that bad, but I guess he´s never been in a situation where he had to do stuff like that. 

La Linda

A little friend in La Linda

Sunday

Church was church, testimony meeting has its fair share of long winded people, but hey, can´t complain. The Vargas family showed up again and that was nice. We talked with them after church and they´re kind of weird, but in a good way. They celebrate Christmas but don´t like the idea that there is just one day to give gifts to people and be together in a family. And he´s kind of right, but he kind of ignored the whole "birth of Christ" part of Christmas, so he´s missing the point just a bit. We talked with a new investigator Carol and shared our Christmas message. Then we didn´t really do anything until the devotional. 

So this week was a bit of a flop, but I guess as long as I learned from it it wasn´t completely wasted.

Love ya´ll

Élder King

Breakfast-not at Tiffany's

Well, it was a lame/crazy week.

Tuesday

Well, we made plans and then nothing happened all day. Our first appointment wasn´t there and on our way to the second appointment, the zone leaders changed the time of our apartment inspection, so the rest of our plans were shot. So yeah, kinda lame.

Wednesday

We finally contacted an ancient investigater named Jhon Eder. He´s pretty cool, and we´ll probably teach him a bit more in the coming weeks. We had an appointment with Kevin, and he´s doing alright. It´s hard for him to make it to church because his parents are divorced and he is only in the neighborhood every other week. Our plans were frustrated once again as the zone leaders told us to go to the city center and buy cleaning chemicals and a new shower. So I carried a shower up a hill, that was cool. Well, it sounds cool, but the whole shower mechanism is in the showerhead, so I carried that. Then elder Ampuño locked the keys in the apartment, so we had to find a ladder and spiderman to get them back. Then on our way to what was left of our plans, his glasses broke, so we went to the Zamora´s house to fix them. They have a bunch of little tools for that kind of thing. I think we ended up watching star wars, but I can´t remember.

Thursday

We had interviews with the President today. He basically told me that I will be training my trainer in the fine arts of punctuality and planning. My "forte" most definitely. Again all our plans fell through. Big surprise. But hey, the President is really cool.

Friday

We had a lesson with Tatiana today, and as we were starting, my companion told everyone I would be teaching. Well, it was news to me, so we had a lesson on the Word of Wisdom instead of the Law of Chastity. Mostly because I was just trying to teach lesson four. She thankfully doesn´t have any problems with it. We had a lesson with Adrian too, and he is progressing somewhat. He has been reading a bunch and says the book of mormon is changing his life. We are going to help him this week with his addictions. Everything else was shot that day.

Saturday

Well, my companion locked the keys in the apartment again, and the Vargas Family wasn´t home, so we contacted the whole day with Juan Pablo Zamora. He is the spiderman that gets our keys for us when my companion locks them in. But hey, cool experience. Earlier that morning I thought I should leave the window open, so it was a lot easier to get in once we found a ladder. After we got our key, we went and made 4 copies. Mostly because I told my companion I would take his key priveliges if we didn´t haha. But for 4 hours of contacting, we were "extremely successful" Three people decided they would listen to us for longer than a few seconds, and two of those three agreed to let us come back. So, you know, not a super discouraging day haha

Sunday

Church first. I kind of let my mind wander, so I got nothing out of the meetings. But Tatiana came today, and as far as I can tell, we didn´t even invite her. Later we had a family home evening with the Galvis family. I´m pretty sure he is the mission leader for the branch. Felt the spirit pretty strong when I was sharing stuff in spanish, and then we talked with Tatiana afterwards about baptism. More spirit, and hopefully she will be baptized this coming week.

Yeah, that was this week. Pretty lame, but next week will be better. My companion and I are already getting better. We had a late weekly planning last night and it was probably the best planning session we have had so far. So with luck, we´ll have more success this next week. I guess luck and work.

Festivities for Christmas here are tremendous. I feel like it will be a month long celebration. I probably could see the big dipper, but my area of Manizales is pretty much the inner city, so I generally  don´t see any stars. If you think 60 degrees is cold, then, yeah, that´s the coldest it gets. It´s cold when it rains and hot when there is sun, so that´s the seasons here. People always ask me if it is cold where I´m from. I just have to say, well, it depends. Transfers will be on the 14th, and my companion says you generally stay in your first area for six months, so yeah, we shall see. The whole town gets decorated, and it´s almost all nativity stuff. They´re really into the Virgin Mary down here, so yup. They started decorating last week and I see more and more lights every day.

So adios and all that

Elder King

View of Manizales

Well, I don´t remember everything that happened this week, but here goes

Tuesday

Most of our stuff fell through, I went on splits with Jacobo. We talked with some less active members in the center of town. My comp went and talked to Tatiana with some other members. I bought some apple juice and I´m slowly finding all I need to make tacos

Wednesday

Another day of messed up plans. I don´t even remember who we visited

Thursday

I had an interchange with Elder Pacaya. He´s pretty trunky, so he isn´t much help. We contacted most of the day and gave a blessing to Gladys. She is a less active lady/recent convert. She called us out of the blue and asked us to come over. She´s practically an empty nester and is home alone most of the day. She recently had surgery and is in a lot of pain. I was glad to visit her. Elder Pacaya then used up all the minutes on our phone by calling every person in our area book. He found a few people willing to talk to the missionaries again, some who haven´t for two years now. We haven´t contacted any of them yet, but I have hope

Friday

We had fried ice cream with the zamora family and visited Cristian, a new investigater. He seems genuinely interested, but we were kind of just getting to know him this time.

Saturday

We visited Kevin, a recent convert/less active. He is an eleven year old kid living in the scary part of town. We went to a talent show in alta suiza and us elders formed a makeshift table for a skit. Great workout. Tatiana came with us. The power was out so the president of the branch (actually they are branches here, sorry about that miscommunication) had to keep fixing a generater they had.

Sunday

None of the people we were working with showed up to church, but we had a pleasant surprise of Hermano Vargas and his kids showing up. They attended all the meetings and we visited them later that day. We had to explain to him a bit about family history and temple work as the lesson in gospel doctrine was the last lesson Exaltation. The teacher focused it on temple work because this last week the members travelled to Bogota to go to the temple. Everybody was pretty grateful today during church. We visited Gladys to see how she was doing. We contacted for a bit and found three different homes that would like to hear about the gospel. One of them invited us in and we taught a brief lesson to them and to their visitors. The lady offered us some coffee so we had to quickly give a brief overview of the word of Wisdom. They seemed pretty interested and I hope that we will have some success with them. Everyone thinks it´s cool that I have blond hair and some refer to blondes cordially as mono´s or capuchi. Which means monkey, and I don´t quite get that, because I didn´t think many monkeys were blonde, but apparently here they are

Amy-"I can see the resemblance"

So yeah, yesterday was eventful, but other than that, We´ve got some improving to do! I´m hoping to buy a cool looking guitar I found. Travel size, green with a leaf pattern, and it´s about $35 US Dollars. Gonna do some touring today if I can move my companion

Bogota from the air

First glimpse of Medellin. It´s basically like what you would get if you mixed Utah and Florida

My companion and apartment

Love you all family!

Elder King 

Amy needs to figure out how to place the pictures better.  Anyone have some blogging tips?

Monday Again

Elder King was emailing near this place

Here are some google images of Manizales 

Soooo, I don´t actually remember what happened last Tuesday, this week has been a bit crazy.

My bet is we visited some families, but I´m not so sure.

Wednesday was probably one of the lamest of my mission. All our appointments fell through, so we ate lunch at our house and my companion took a nap in prep for his impending trip to the mission home for training. I went on splits with the Alta Suiza missionaries

Thursday I had the first day of splits with Elders Wadley and Pacaya. Wadley is from Utah and we became pretty good friends. His comp. is really trunky and doesn´t really teach for the needs of the people. We visited some families way out in the boonies. Nothing too major, I fell asleep during lunch. How terrible of me! The food continues to be ridiculous, but surprisingly I look forward to the rice just because at least it has no taste instead of a terrible one. Anyway, I´ve been sleeping on the floor on a paper thin mat for a bit at this point, and Alta Suiza has the worst hills.

Friday We went to visit an investigator with a baptismal date and he was smoking while waiting for a haircut, so he´s got a bit more time before he can be baptized. There was a parrot that was making monkey sounds, that was pretty cool. We visited the Morales family, and I love those people to pieces. I didn´t catch many of their names, but the Grandpa can´t leave his bed and is always really sad because all he does is sit in bed and think about all his dead relatives and his wife. We´ve been doing our best to comfort him. Jorge is the little guy, about ten years old, and we´re best buds now.

Saturday for about half the day I was with the Altasuizans and then my comp got back from training. I guess the president is a good teacher, because he´s inspired to the work. Finally. This week we actually have a plan and we may actually start getting stuff done. I´m glad, because now the mission might actually be as difficult as they say it is. Haha anyway, the Lord has been blessing me in my Spanish, and in many many other ways.

Sunday  Church was good, We didn´t really have much else, but the members of the ward like me. One kid asked to have a picture with me because I´m three times his size, and that was cute. When the people don´t speak like lightning or use words I´ve never heard, I understand them quite well now. I´ve been missing my weekly nap in sacrament haha but no matter.

I got your package. I had forgotten that food could make a person happy, but now I know what true joy is. If you are wondering what an arepa tastes like, imagine the salted corn thingies as pancakes, without the salt or the canola oil. Haha but I´m definitely going to have to smell the jiff packages when I open em. Thanks so much! It honestly feels like Christmas. I don´t know how long it takes to get to the mission home, but we get our packages whenever there is a transfer or the zone leaders go to the mission home.

Thanks for everything fam,

Elder King

p.s. don´t send pictures of the truck. C.J. is a priest now, and I don´t want to know. :P

La Primer Semana (The First Week)

Sooooo, I finally have stuff to write about.

Tuesday

Today was the transfer day, so I flew from Bogota to Medellin. Our flight was delayed because the pilot didn´t show up to work. Latinos are like that. The flight was pretty short, but I got a cool view of the great Andes. We got to Medellin and took a bus to the mission home. Everything is super cheap here, by the way. I had an interview with the President and later his wife, and they both asked if anybody in my home had spoken spanish. They were surprised when I said no. Go figure. I learn fast  but speaking is difficult. I can understand the jist of most conversations at this point. I was assigned my companion that night, along with an area. Elder Ampuño is my trainer, as well as the district leader. He is from Guayaquil Ecuador My area is Manizales, the coldest and most mountaineous in the mission. Just my luck right? but coldest in Medellin isn´t really that cold. We slept at the apartment for transferring missionaries, including those missionaries that were finishing their missions. Pretty cool, but I fell of the bed in the middle of the night onto my companion. Not surprising though, seeing as my bed was a mattress that I threw on top of  a bunch of foam pads. Not the sturdiest thing in the world. But hey,  he chose to sleep in the hall right next to me, so it isn´t completely my fault. Nobody is hurt, and he has had his revenge by now

Wednesday

Six hour bus ride through the Andes, and we arrived in manizales! My spanish degenerated in those six hours somehow, but it is being rebuilt, slowly but surely. We visited a less active family that night after waiting out some heavy rain and thunder. It rains a lot here, but it waits until we are out of the apartment. The family zamora is pretty cool,but it seems like they just want to be friends with the elders for now. We went and met the bishop, who is twenty six or something. he´s pretty awesome. Then we stayed the night at the zone leader´s apartment, celebrating 16 months in the mission for him.

Thursday

We had lunch with a member. Probably the biggest challenge on the mission. The food. To drink she gave us tomato juice, I don´t know what was in the soup, too much rice, potatoes too. Basically, they feed us like you would feed a polynesian. Eat until you are tired.We went to visit a reference and ended up talking to a recent convert that has gone less active because she thinks we use the BoM too much more than the bible. I think we will be working with her more. visited two families for noche de hogar, which I thought would be on mondays but whatever. The Castro family fed us dinner,and it was edible, though still too much. Chocolate is better than tomato juice, let me tell you. Then we went to the zamora family again. My comp likes chilling with them I think. I don´t think we did anything else that day

Friday

We had lessons with our only investigaters today. One is Adrian, and he is a drug addict that is struggling a lot. He has a great desire, and he feels the spirit when he is with us, but drugs are tough. The other is Tatiana, and she talks ten billion miles an hour. She is getting baptized next week  The missionary in this area before me was really trunky and just a bad missionary in general, so we are essentially reopening this area to the missionaries after six weeks of laziness. But hey! All the more fun for me. The members have been a big help with tatiana, as far as I understand. Apparently people around here are really gossipy, so that can´t help new members much

Saturday

We went and observed another companionship in our district work, so we just helped them with their people today. They have a big family that has committed to be baptized, and they´re pretty cool. They have a little kid jorge and he is really fun. unfortunately, he is in a different area, so I won´t get to see him much. One of the eldersin the other companionship is from Utah, so we talked in English and had a blast. His companion is really trunky, so they do a lot of work, but every other day.

Sunday

Church for a bit, then we had to go to another area to give a baptismal interview. We visited a less active family that has a bunch of young kids. The kids are being taught in a Catholic school, so we have to clarify some stuff that they have got confused, like the Godhead and other stuff. The oldest son is really good at chess. But I´m better Haha! Well, actually he beat me the first game and I won quickly in the second. but he is like ten, so I guess I just have to boast of the spirit, because I have never studied chess like he has. We had lunch with the Castros, and the ward is making a trip to the temple in this next week. We visited the zamoras again, and they were watching a movie, so we just kind of sat around for about an hour and they gave us some dinner. 

Anyway, that´s my week! Spanish, food, and my comp a bit, these are my only troubles in the mis.  Happy Birthday CJ! Don´t worry, the padres were in Hawaii for my sweet sixteen. At least you will still have dad to coddle you haha. If anything happens to the Truck, I don´t want to hear about it. But let me know everything else cool, choir songs and the like. Mom, I didn´t get any letters or packages, so if that helps you gauge time, there you go! We get to email for three or four hours, and we start after zone meetings end. Something like 11:45 or 12. So probably pretty early for you guys, but it goes for a while, so I have time to write big ol´things like this

We are in a ward, it´s a city in a valley, but we are up on the mountains. We walk most everywhere and take taxis when we go to other areas or when we need to get somewhere quickly. We saw a giant bee yesterday in our apartment trying to get out the window. I couldn´t figure out how to get the hot water going, so I´ve been taking cold showers. I only knew we had hot water because my companion took a twenty minute shower. We got food from a restaurant called the casa de arroz, meaning house of rice, so I was understandably excited.  Turned out, it´s essentially a bucket of rice. I´ll send you a picture. It has lasted us a few days now

So yeah, Love ya all

Elder King

Made It!

So, I´ve made it to Medellin safely! I´ll be staying here tonight and then finding out where I head off to tomorrow! I´ll most likely meet my new companion tonight, which is pretty exciting! I don´t know Spanish, but hey, trial by fire and all that!. I´m happy to be hearing from everybody and pretty quick here I´ll be preachin´ like a pro!

Luv ya all,

Elder King