Twas the Week Before Cambios (Changes)

Dear everyone,

Hi.

Tuesday

We went looking for some less actives in La Francia, a part of the area I hadn´t yet seen. It´s kind of far and it´s basically the rich part of my area. All the addresses we had were nonexistent or they didn´t live there, but we did find one guy who at least was open to hear our message. We looked for other less actives as well as an old investigater, with no luck.

Wednesday

There was a worldwide conference for missionaries. Unfortunately, the chapel didn´t have internet. So we listened to it in AM radio quality. It probably would have been cool, but AM spanish isn´t a whole lot of fun to figure out. The branch moved counsel to saturday, so we went on exchanges to help the zone leaders out

Thursday

Lunch fell through, and a basically all our other appointments too. Israel is sick and John is still in Pereira, Zulma was busy and yeah. I met a texan though. He didn´t want to talk for too long because I figure he knew who we are, but it was still nice to speak good English in the street. I figured out which made from coffee, that´s good for the future.

(I have no idea what this means, either Elder King's auto correct is bad or he is beginning to think in Spanish)

Friday

We looked for old investigaters again, with no luck. All our other plans slowly withered. Our phone is dying so people can´t hear us very well. I think it´s a facter but I don´t know.

Saturday

We went to La Linda and had a lesson with John Edison Giraldo. I think the family has potential, especially him and his siblings. They are very nice and have taken the lessons quite well. We´ll see though, they always have a lot of questions but seem satisfied with our answers. We had branch counsel and we set goals and made plans for the year.

Sunday

Church and then exchanges with the Zone Leaders again. We went to district counsel and then to an interview with a sister missionary that went super super long. It is always pretty cool being with the leaders, and I´m learning a lot about what it takes.

Concerning transfers, I´m staying here and Elder Pino is going to the coast in Sincelejo. My new comp is Elder Gerber. He is taller and larger than me, and I think this will be the only time in the mission that this kind of companionship will happen. At least for me. He trained one of the guys in my group. Also, I´m the "English Leader" of the zone. Super important. Basically I get to bother all the latinos about learning English because they never do it. But they´ll be fluent by the time I´m out of here, that´s for sure.

So yeah, we´ll see how the future of chipre is with two Northies.

Love you all,

Élder King

Another Crazy One

Hi yall

So Tuesday

My comp spent the day prepping for the conference and we helped the zone leaders out with some errands. It took the whole day really, kinda lame

Wednesday

We started the companionship interchanges and the apartment in Alhambra is really cold in the morning and really hot any time after that. The weather has actually been really hot lately and  some people are saying we are in "el niño. All but one of the appointments we had fell through and we walked from one end of the area to the other and back again. Almost twice. Lunch made me feel nauseas the whole day and the elders in this area are a tad racist. Kind of annoying, but whatever.

Thursday

We spent most of the day in my area and contacted some new people. Kind of exciting, I guess we´ll see how they turn out. We had a lesson with the vargas family and as usual brother nelson has some weird ideas about how things work. Elder M talks way too much, which is good for contacting but not for teaching, especially people like Nelson Vargas. We had planned to talk about tithing but Elder M decided we would talk about the temple. I learned Bro Nelson doesn´t understand ordinances, and because he hasn´t read the jst, thinks we don´t have agency. Lots of explaining to do...

Friday

We didn´t have lunch with any members, so we ended up buying fried chicken from the local store. They bought two half-chickens, leaving only a full fried chicken left to buy. It was cheap so I bought it. Fried chicken makes you sick anywhere, turns out. But when I say sick I just mean walking around an unfamiliar area becomes very dull very quickly. But, since their appointments fell through (again) We went to a members house and had really, really bitter lemonade until around four when my companion got back. Me and my companion cleaned up our house because him and the other district leaders basically had a party at our house before they left. They used all my butter and vegetable oil, which bothered me. They obviously didn´t read the scripture I have posted on the fridge (Col 2: 21)

Saturday

 We talked with Jason (Marina´s son) and he is a bit lost in his life. He knows more or less what he wants to do, but he seems scared of commitment. We contacted unsuccessfully for a good while and then tried to find a less active lady. We had the wrong address, but we did call her and we have an appointment for next week.

Sunday

We had church, and as usual, no one showed up. We had a lesson with John Eder, an old investigater that we rediscovered. He seems excited and receptive, so we´ll see how things go. I went with Elder Crandall (zone leader) to a disembark activity (I don´t really know what you´d call it in English) while Elder Pino and Cañumil taught a reference in our area. Then, at the activity, Elder Crandall left me with  Elder L, who is really annoying and still doesn´t know how to be a missionary, much less follow directions to a less active´s house. But anyway. When Elder Crandall and I got back from the activity, our companions were teaching a new investigater in the middle of nowhere. They had to walk back because they were so far out that they couldn´t find taxis nor buses. They walked for a bit over two hours, poor guys.

So Yeah, that was the week. Transfers next week, and I figure either me or my companion will be transferred, but we will see. I will officially have completed my training by then and I will also have been out just over four months. Time flies when you have a bunch of people pretending to want to get baptized haha.

Love you all,

Élder King

Las Ferias

Dear everyone,

Surprisingly enough, we had some progress this week Haha.

Tuesday

We had a great lesson with Marina again. She accepted a date to be baptized and told us about more crazy dreams she has had. We decided she is either crazy or super spiritual. Possibly both, but I figure with proper interpretation they could have significance in her life. Well, more so. Honestly, I felt like she just needs someone to talk to about this kind of stuff. The festivals get crazier and crazier

Wednesday

More unsuccessful contacting. Never much fun, but hey. A lesson with the Vargas family. They aren´t really progressing too much, but we´ll see after the festivals. That was their excuse not to come to church, so I don´t know. Brother Nelson challenged me to a game of chess. I won. I hope their family will realize the importance of coming to church and respecting the sabbath

Thursday

The zone has a killer cold going around and it basically wiped us out today. Didn´t help much that we didn´t plan and everyone of our investigaters went to the festivals. The festivals were crazy so we ended up in the house the whole day

Friday

We had a lesson with Marina and her son Jason was visiting again. We found out he is actually a member and was baptized in Spain some fifteen years ago. It was a big surprise. He lives far away in a tiny town, but he is working on getting a new job and living somewhere else, so we´re hoping he´ll come back. The lesson went very well, no doubts as of yet, but always lots of good questions.

Saturday

Our whole day was spent in and preparing for an activity for the institute and seminary people. We had a cultural activity where everyone made typical food. We made peanut butter sandwiches with some faky peanut butter the zone leader found, but everyone really liked it. Glad I didn´t offer my Jiff, or we would have a bunch of addicted Colombians haha.

Sunday

Marina and Jason came to church!!! Wooot! So yeah, they came, and enjoyed it quite thoroughly. Jason is leaving again on Monday, so I probably won´t see the guy again, but there is always faith that we´ve set him back on track. We did some indexing today and I read up on my ancestry a bit. Always fun.

The festivals end today, but unfortunately work will not return to normal this week. The Zone and District leaders are  going to training this week, so I will be in a different area for 3 or 4 days this week. Lame, but the Zone leaders are putting me with a companionship that is a couple of goofballs. It feels good to be trusted, as I´ll basically be there to see what it is they´re doing instead of work, but I don´t think I´ll enjoy it too much. A bunch of Pitiadores as we say here.

Anyway, Thanks for all the emails,

Élder King

The New Year

Tuesday

I was in an intercambio with Elder Apaza, and all but one of our appointments fell through, so we did some contacting and had a mini lesson with Horacio. He is cool and has a lot of respect for religion and studies them a lot. He is obviously confused on points of doctrine. He is a funny but respectful guy. Later we had a lesson with the Vargas family about the plan of salvation. Brother Nelson Vargas basically told us that he knows everything and we are only there to teach his kids. His kids need it a lot, but mostly because He doesn´t know it well enough to teach it. But whatever, pride and all that fun stuff.

Wednesday

We contacted for most of the day and had zero success. We went to ward council and afterwards went and looked at a new house with the zone leaders. We slept at their house.

Thursday

We spent the whole day with the zone leaders. A lot of errands and preparation for the night. I learned that Colombian food tastes worse when you are tasting it for the second time that day... anyway we had tacos and Elder Crandall made it spicy so none of the latinos could handle it. The new year was fun. We stayed up too late, mostly because the streets outside were exploding the whole night and everyone had their music up super high.

Friday

The streets were full of drunk and hungover people so we spent the day at the district center chapel setting goals for the new year and stuff like that.

Saturday

The festivals started so we helped the branch president clean the chapel. I honestly can´t remember what else happened.

Sunday

None of the investigaters or less actives came to church but we had another lesson with Marina and her family. She doesn´t come because she is sick a lot and so we gave her a blessing and had a spiritual lesson with her. We went back to the house early and studied because the streets were getting crazy. They have a bunch of tent things set up that are basically mobile party rooms where people just go get drunk and dance to crazy music. The air is filled with smoke from all the street vendors cooking and cars can´t move because everyone is in the streets. Just a brief description.

Anyway, hopefully we can have some success even with the constant partying for the next two weeks. I may not respond to everyone, but I do read everything, so don´t let anybody get discouraged by me not responding. Love you all

Elder King

Christmas

Wednesday

We went to La Linda and had two lessons. Hermana Estella and Hermana Marina. They both had almost all their families there, so we got to teach a good deal of people. We also had a lesson with the Vargas family.

Thursday

The day of Christmas eve and we had a ton of errands to run. They took longer than we thought and were far from our house, so we didn´t get any lessons in. We had to be in the house by 6 so we went and partied a bit at the zone leaders house with the rest of our zone. It was pretty fun, and fireworks started going off at midnight as well as our neighbors music, so We didn´t get much sleep

Friday

In the morning, my companion and I as well as two other missionaries helped the Vargas family move. Made me super tired the rest of the day. Got to chat with the fam (not without interruptions). Some of the hermanas are annoying. Everyone else is super trunky and it bothers me.

Saturday

Tatiana wasn´t answering her phone so we missed out on our lesson with her. Later we found out she has a different number, so we are trying to find her again. We had another lesson with Marina and we gave her a book of Mormon. She´s more or less progressing  but didn´t come to church. The lesson was super spiritual and my companion got choked up. We waited for a few hours for the branch council, but I think everyone forgot, because no one showed up.

Sunday

The Vargas family came to church, but no one else that we were working with. Lunch ran really late, but it always does with this lady. My companion talked to his family today and he went for almost two hours and the connection was bad. The power actually went out at one point for about 3 minutes. He was freaking out a bit. Then we had a "lesson" with the Zamora family, but at this point they barely give us the time of day. We probably won´t visit them again unless they show up to church.

So, yeah, that was this week. Holiday weeks are really hard because colombians like to party. We won´t be able to work in our area for almost all of January because the bull fights are starting and those parties are craaaazy. So not sure what we´ll end up doing.

Any questions or anything for me?

So, I found out quite by accident yesterday that they actually have a meal called Elevensies in Chile. I just about choked on my avocado and tomato juice.

Anyway, Love you all

Élder King