Monkey Business

Dear everyone,

After a wonderful chat with President Calderon this last Tuesday, I have been feeling pretty good this week. Lots to improve (like always) but once you get it down to specifics, it doesn't seem so hard.

Everyone in Colombia is currently on a month long vacation from school and as such, we are having some difficulty finding people in their houses these days. Daniel Calao has been especially difficult to pin down, which worries me. Brother Toro decided he doesn't want to work with us anymore as far as commitments. It's unfortunate, but we wouldn't have been able to work with him much anyway, since he is going to work in Medellin until December. We talked to Neris and talked to her about what things we need to accomplish before she can get baptized, namely convincing Rafael to tie the knot. I think he is a bit confused about why we want them to get married, but we really haven't been able to talk about it with him a whole lot. Erika is giving a bunch of references, but I'm not convinced if they will go anywhere. She has some stiffnecked friends. We were also able to talk to her less active brother. He seems more like the type to progress to me, but we will see with time.

We taught Cheris lesson 1 and despite not having time to come to church this week, she ought to progress quite nicely with the great desire for the truth that she has. John Dairon had some friends over, so we got some references for the other area when we went out to visit him. Saturday it rained really hard and Elder Peterson and I went knee deep in the streets going back to our house to get the balcony doors shut so water wouldn't ruin everything. It was kind of like swimming, so I enjoyed the deluge. However, when we arrived at the apartment, we realized because of the direction of the wind, everything was completely dry and that we had brought more water in with us than had come in from the downpour. Elder Peterson wasn't too happy about that, but we still laughed about it. Eogenio came to church again, which made me sooo happy. We went and visited him again that night and had a nice chat with him. He really is one of my favorite members here and it makes me super happy to see him returning to church after so much time. Unfortunately, we have this annoying thing called "chisme" that makes progress with less actives difficult.

As far as monkey business, we found a monkey! My companion was in a hurry, so I didn't get many good pictures of him, but I did get some! Technically, monkeys are not forbidden to touch, so I really wanted to play with it, but sometimes there are sticks in the mud... Also, I bought a travel version of Clue and we played that in the house a lot this week, especially when Elder Centeno came for intercambios. Clue gets a lot less heated than Risk, so I figured it would be a good alternative.

So yeah, that's the life here in Colombia!

Love you all,

Élder King

Dear everyone,

As I now find myself working a lot, I may skip the day to day droll and just talk about new people and people that show some progress. Also, just whatever fun stuff comes to mind. Sound good? Good. 

The ward has gotten better at trying to help out, which is great. Unfortunately, all the references we get are for little pueblos that are a few hours out, if you leave from Montería. The mission has been putting a lot of focus on the area plan, which keeps us busy reminding all the ward counsel members what their responsibilities are. Sigh... paperwork. We will be losing some of our best help as the Elder's quorom president will be moving to Montería this week.

We spent five hours on thursday contacting in the very hot heat. As stressful as contacting can be, it does bring some of the funnest experiences. We found a lot of people that didn't really want to talk to us, a few crazy people and even fewer people that actually really wanted to talk to us. Knocking on doors, we found one woman that told us that she had recieved the missionaries before, many times actually and that a singer had taught her all the lessons. Both me and my companion almost asked her if it had been a certain Elder Archuleta, but decided not to. Then there´s Cherys. Cherys is a Catholic woman who actually reads the bible and is extremely curious about other religions. She is my personal favorite kind of investigator, not because she is gold or anything, but she has tons of questions about different doctrines and is very open about the answers. We should be going back this week, I can only hope she progresses. People here have stickers on their door that say things like "here, We´re Catholic and we ain´t gonna change". I try to avoid doors like that, but it´s sometimes whole blocks. also, sincerity makes life a lot easier when tracting, because it´s frustrating when people just try to avoid you.

I had an exchange with Elder Peterson and we both enjoyed a day away from our respective companions, with english and sarcasm to boot. His area is extremely fascinated with white people, and two white guys doubles the fascination. We met some friends of members that just wanted to ask questions about the United States. We get lots of questions like "why does Trump hate Latinos?" and "why are people constantly killing each other?" Usually the explanations are wasted.

Manuel and Edison both have Baptismal dates, but the don´t make it to church, so we will see how that goes. Referrences are still really low despite our best efforts.

Did I mention it's hot? However the chemistry nut just goes wild with the effects of humidity coupled with extreme heat and greater air pressure. It´s almost more fun than watching bubbles form in soda.

The United States, despite losing the first game against colombia is in the Semifinals of the Copa America. Tuesday they play against Argentina, and despite not being a huge fan of soccer, I'm hoping it comes down to the United States and Colombia in the finals. But both my teams have got tough opponents, being Chile and Argentina. All this information comes from our buildings guard (a generous term for door-opener)

Anyway, Love you all! I´ll get you some more pictures next time.

Love,

Élder King

Pioneer Children

(this looks like home to his mom)

Missionary Life

Dear everybody,

We didn't sing, but we sure walked and walked and walked. Aaaand Waaaaaalked.

Tuesday

We went out and talked to Duvan because nobody else was home. Afterwards we visited the Espitia family and listened to the Hermana talk for an hour about how she can't walk. We dropped by Leidy's and chatted for a bit, she still hasn't found her Book of Mormon. Then we went to Daniel's house and finished up the message of the restoration. Then we dropped by the Toro family and chatted with them for a bit. We are not sure if Hermano Toro is going to progress because he doesn't really want to.

Wednesday

We went to visit Carmen Causil, who lives on the other side of the Bugre river. Then we went looking for the Chuchurubi plaza. Turns out plaza in little neighborhoods like this means soccer field. So, Chuchurubi isn't even on the map of our area and it's about an hour and twenty minutes out, walking that is. So we had ourselves a nice little adventure trying to find John Dairon and his significant other. Good news is we found them! We got to know them a bit. John is less active and his girlfriend is going to be an investigator. Then we had a lesson with Edison, teaching him for the second time about the restoration. Afterwards, we had a visit with the Renal family and worked to get references from them.

Thursday

We finally had a lesson with Nelson's Stepfather. He seems open to listening to us, but not to making any commitments. Which kind of makes listening to us kind of useless, but oh well. Then a bunch of people avoided us, which is frustrating. Much later, we visited Daniel and his niece with Hermana Erika and got permission from Daniel's aunt to teach and eventually baptize her daughter.

Friday

We taught Draisy a quick lesson about scriptures, congratulated her about her birthday and made small talk. Her older sister didn't have any plans to turn off her soap opera just so we could feel the spirit, so that made teaching a full length lesson next to impossible. Then we dropped a book off for Nelson to read. We visited Eogenio and found a new investigator, Carlos at their house. I wish these people lived closer though... Carlos lives farther north than any other person we have visited so far, which makes things a bit more difficult.

Saturday

We weren't able to do a whole lot during the day, but night comes and we go back to teach Edison the plan of Salvation. He still can't read but at least he can leave his house now. He had an operation for cateracts a while back and as such he can't put a whole lot of stress on his eyes.

Sunday

Only Alejandra, Daniel's Niece was able to come to church for our investigators. Carmen and Eogenio's wife, Radeth came which made me happy. Elder Peterson and I taught an impromptu lesson to the youth about counsels and the priesthood. Weird topic in and of itself, even weirder when you didn't plan to teach it. Fun fun fun, as I like to say. Then after church we had correlation and Ward Counsel. We visited Rosa and Nober Durango, figured out their needs and we are ready to go and teach them what they need to hear this week.

I'm still getting used to Elder Fernandez, but we are getting better at teaching together. We should have interviews with President the week after this one.

I'm beginning to forget English, which is good and bad. The food is still bad, but I'm pretty good about eating it all now. I think I have to turn off my brain, because they bring the food and then it's just gone and I'm stuffed. It's still hot and I think we have hit rainy season. It rained about four nights this week, and every time it rains for a sustained period of time, the electricity goes out, which is lame when you depend on a fan to be able to sleep. It makes for some fun midnight excursions to get water though!

So, that's the news from Cereté! Love you all,

Élder King

Patience and Work

Dear everybody,

With a new companion comes lots of new experiences, good, bad, and ugly. It also gives you a chance to reexamine yourself, because as your companion learns about you, you learn about yourself.

Tuesday

Elder Fernandez arrived in the morning and my excursion with the zone leader Elder Centeno ends. We went and visited, but I don't remember who...

Wednesday

We visited Carmen Causil. She doesn't seem to like my new companion too much. She hasn't been to church in a bit more than a month now, and she says that things just come up on Sunday. We stopped by the Toro family's place and got to know them a bit. Then we had a nice long walk to Nelson's house. He was home alone and we were looking to see Duvan and his mom, so we got directions to the Grandma's house. I saw a few repeats of Dora the Explorer as he drew a map for us. It started raining super hard as we walked even farther to this new house, so we waited under a tree for about twenty minutes then went on our merry way. We got a few new people to teach and finally found the famed grandma's house. We got rained on a bit more and found our way home eventually.

Thursday

We went looking for the house where Nelson's Uncle (who we met Wednesday) and successfully found it, but he was not there. So, we went to see the Acosta family to see how leydi was doing. Turns out Jacob is going to join the national gaurd in Bogota, so once again he is leaving his pregnant girlfriend to fend for herself. We plan on working with her again in hopes that she will get baptized, since she feels she has recieved her answer and that the church is true. We found two new less active families to work with, Jesus Daniel Calao and his nieces as well as the Durango family. Daniel is 18 and has gone a year or two without going to church since his parents divorced. He is pretty excited to get back into the church and even took his niece Alejandra to the Face to Face with Elder Rasband

Friday

Zone meeting in the morning. We dropped by Draisy's house. She still can't walk very well, and she's getting pretty big, being pregnant and all. We visited Nelson and read a chapter of the book of mormon with him. Then we stopped by and taught Daniel and his niece about the restoration. We are in dire need of copies of the book of mormon. We ran out about a month ago and now we can't do a whole lot with new investigators. Colombia played against the US in the Copa America, so I tried to get inside before everyone got drunk. We lost apparently.

Saturday

We went looking for more less actives and found a lot of people that Don't want to come back to church, for one excuse or another thousand or so. We went and made some cookies for a little gathering of old ladies and watched the restoration. So, finding ingredients like shortening and chocolate chips is just about impossible here, learned that the hard way.

Sunday

We had a great day at church. Daniel and his two nieces came to church and stayed the whole time. Hermana Ivon Toro as well. Nelson and Duvan both got the priesthood. After church we had ward council. Then we visited the Durango family and heard their story. They have been members for a long time, but I think somebody offended them somehow, I'm not really sure. The sister was just kind of rambling about events that happened over the course of twelve years or so. We met Daniel's Mom, who is also less active. She doesn't have as much time as daniel, so we will see how this works out. We stopped by the Toro family and met a friend of theirs, Darwin, who seems receptive as well.

So, we are working a lot harder here in Cereté, now that Élder Hurtado has flown the coop. My new companion Elder Fernandez is a bit of a workaholic, which is great in comparison to last transfer. I'm learning to deal with the quirks that come with new companions and that is taking some patience on my part. But overall, things are going great! The work is going forward, and little miracles happen every day. It's really kind of crazy.

Anyway, I love you all,

Élder King