Week N Stuff

Dear familiay,

I am nearly out of the CCM and it isn´t a moment too soon! Yesterday we watched a devocional by Neil L. Anderson, and as generally authorities usually do, he gave an amazing talk. While they were panning through the audience in provo, I spotted two elders I knew from school. Pretty cool!! Dad´s finally almost really oldish. Not a whole lot has happened this week. Our MTC president has been away for the last few days, so the Latino´s (and some of my district) have been extra roudy. I finished Jesus the Christ and Our Search for happiness, so I just have a few books left to go before I complete the mission library. I learn more spanish every day and I can´t wait to be in the field and do real missionary work!

Love your hijo,

Elder King

Lucas the Llama

Elder Tellez with way too much sunscreen. For the most Latino looking of all of us, he is the most easily spotted tourist. His camera is about as big as Dad´s.

Then me, majestically sitting on lucas the llama. Surprisingly enough, not aliteration  in Spanish.

So, Dear Fam,

I can´t think of a whole lot that has been going on, but today we had our tour! All the people lucky enough to be getting out of here left at three in the morning, so I didn´t get much sleep last night. Then we had the temple (in Español again) and the tour that took up the rest of the day. We went to a monastary thing that basically overlooks ninety percent of Bogota. It reminds me a lot of the Salt Lake Valley, and it´s about as big by my reckoning. However, there is no lake and it is home to about Nine million people, so anywhere the lake would have been, there are houses upon houses. I don´t feel too far from home here, despite the fact that everything is in Spanish. Unfortunately, one of the few parts of Bogota we couldn´t see from our majestic lookout was the Temple. We went to a museum about gold today, and all I could think was ¨well, the Lamanites made that. And that. Oh, and that too. So, I´ve got this cool book...¨  and so on and so forth. We went shopping and everything seems like it costs sooo much, but really, it´s like twenty dollars. I made the mistake of not bringing much of my ¨vast wealth¨ so I didn´t get to buy a cool poncho or a gourd.  The poncho would make me look like either moses or the evil Emperor. So, a missed opportunity. So, anyway I´ll send you some pictures. Mom, do you think you could send Wayne some of my church music? I know he would appreciate it a ton. Also, I´d love an English copy of Articles of Faith by James E. Talmage. I don´t know how possible that is, but it´s something I´d love to read. Peanut butter too, but that may be wishful thinking... Anyway, yeah, only two more weeks and one more P Day in the CCM! pretty stoked to get into the ¨real world¨

With amor,

Elder King

Planning

So, dear family and all that,

I don´t have much. This week has been a pretty easy week. Since the latino culture doesn´t love to plan stuff, a lot of the time we don´t know what´s going on. Meeting times get switched constantly, often at short  notice. So the lectures on planning are kind of hollow haha. But just remember, If you don´t plan, you are planning for the fail! One of my maestros wrote that on the board after he lectured us for 45 minutes, leaving us with about five of our usual thirty minutes to actually plan. I´ve spent $16000 at the distribution center so far. I got a recommend case that has a picture of the Bogota Temple on it, a little spanish hymn book, a card with the Scripture Mastery references in Spanish, a book with pretty much all of the church artwork, and a book about temples that has a bunch of pictures in it. Oh and a Proclamation to the family. All for about.... five US dollars. Next Tuesday we are going on Tour so I´ll probably spend some money there. I may get to take a picture on a llama, so I´m pretty stoked. I think I had something else, but I forgot, so I´ll email you again if I remember, but I have to respond to my man Wayne O´Monty now

Oh now I remember!. I started Jesus the Christ. I´m only about 400 pages in, but it´s pretty  much the coolest book I´ve read in a looong time. Can´t wait to see how it ends!

Dear family and friends,

So far everything is just the same thing every day.  Constant longing for peanut butter, telling my companion when there will be onions in the food an hour before dinner, and waiting for Sunday mornings when we get cereal. I have enjoyed Colombian sodas, but not Colombian eggs. I still don´t have the courage to try a granadia, which I think is a kind of passion fruit. It looks like alien brains or caviar and probably has the same texture. Learning Spanish is easy but applying it is infinitely more difficult. Then add gospel ¨complexity¨ to it and it´s a recipe for six weeks of learning. Conference in the CCM (centro de capacitación de los misioneros) was almost as good as it is up at the cabin, except without everything good about the cabin haha. Traffic is an adventure every time we venture forth from the CCM. Stop signs mean ¨slow down if you feel like it¨ and I have only seen two stoplights.  It´s essentially a giant game of chicken, all day everyday. So yeah, there is a reason I´ll be walking everywhere. Of course, Medellin could be slightly different. I won´t know for another four weeks. I can´t write letters until I am in the field, so you might get one about a year into my mission.

The two districts you saw in the pictures are my ¨generation¨ of missionaries. There were a few districts of Latinos that left today, and we are getting 30 more, 8 of which will be in my new room. I went from the smallest room in the MTC to the biggest. Talk about an upgrade! I enjoyed conference but forgot to bring my notes here. Priesthood session was great and I enjoyed Elder Eyering´s talk in the Sunday session I think? There was a district of nortes that left this morning  and I think there are two others still here in their last two weeks. I think we are getting ten or so new nortes. Hope Ethan gets better and I hope the Barton´s are doing alright.

Umm... I went through imigration today, had a temple session in total Spanish (pretty confusing) played some basketball, studied Spanish, went proselyting two Fridays ago, don´t remember if I told you that. It was pretty cool. Just about everyone is Catholic, we got out two BofMs and met a guy in the airforce that spoke English. I weigh something like 106 kilos, so if my calculations are correct I´ve lost 6 or so pounds.

Katelyn asked me my scripture to “Ponderize” and how my week was.
Don´t give a latino a twinkie. And if you hear ¨¿que significa...¨ expect to hear some foul language afterwords. Latinos don´t quite understand ¨malo frase¨ very well, so yeah. My ponderize scripture is 2 Nephi 8:7  ¨Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, people on whose heart I have written my law; fear not the reproach of men, neither be afraid of their reproach¨

What about the twinkies?  I had a bunch of the chocolate twinkies and I got them out to celebrate the one week mark. I gave one to everyone in my room, including the two Latinos. For the next week all I hear before bed is ¨toowinkie, toowinkie!¨ in a purposefully high pitched and obnoxious voice. Good ol´Elder Chunga. He left for guaiaqil (or however you spell that) at 3:30 this morning. Soon I´ll have 8 more just like him in my room.

Week One

So the first real email from Elder King was actually several because I had to keep asking him questions so my questions(Amy) will be in blue and Elder King's answers will be in black.

How was the flight and getting to the MTC.  Any funny stories or scary moments?Flight was cool, no incidents, luggage made it.

 Give us the name of your companion and where he is from. My companion is Elder Parker from central Utah. 

How many new missionaries arrived with you? 17 missionaries came with me

Have you been to the temple? temple is crazy in spanish,

 Do you feel tall?, I feel pretty tall, but not with the other ¨nortes¨

 What do you get to do on P-days? Pdays include temple and sports.

 How is the weather? weather is nice, rained for the first time today.

 What surprises you the most about the MTC?  About Colombia?Not many surprises.

 What have you been eating for breakfast?  Lunch?  Dinners? rice, rice rice. actually there is pretty good variety, too many to list.

About my week, I gave my first blessing, got called as district leader, have learned the most Spanish, and watched a devotional by Elder Bednar that has changed my life a little. I think it is called The Doctrine is the Answer.

Tell us more about the blessing and what it means to be a district leader.  Blessing was coolish. one of the hermanas in my district was sick and having a hard time, so we gave her a blessing. I´m in charge of half the missionaries in my batch. I conduct meetings and keep everyone in line.

 These pictures are of me and my roommates and a café that I saw. (We kept teasing Elder King that he needs a picture with Juan Valdez.)

Well, I have to go pretty quick here. Talk to you on Tuesday. probably the same time, but I don´t know, so yeah.

That picture was from the airport. Everyone got panda express but me. the guy sitting next to me is Elder Parker, my current companion. Elder crist is next to him, the district leader of the other district of our generation.

The Parkers.  The Parker in the right of the picture is my Companion

Elder Medina (not in my room) Elder Chunga from Peru, Elder Roney from DC area, Elder Purtill from Nevada, and Elder Brand from Venezuela

The other district. Elder Hillam, Elder Dean, Elder Harris, Elder Hansen, Hermana Ashby, Hermana Church, Elder Delis, Elder Jenkins, Elder Crist.