Lorica, Life in the Hot City Week 8

Heyo pals. Hope everyone had a good and safe New Years time! Missionaries in our ward had to be inside by 6 on New Years, but I would´ve been fine staying inside all day since people were just drunk. In the words of my wise brother, nobody knows English better than a drunk man. Which is pretty true, especially with 2 white guys, we get yelled at a lot. Not a lot of work has been getting done recently just because we try to go to people's houses and they're just not there and will be on vacation for a few days. Things will be normal this week which I´m excited for! 

This week after visiting the beach Elder Bigelow and I had the greatest idea that, probably anyone in the world, has ever had. We got permission from our zone leader to work in the city of San Antero whenever we want! The city is literally right on the beach. It´s technically not in our area, but in our roommates area. But they never go there since its like a 20 minute bus ride away. But we've found a couple investigators and less actives to start to visit out there so we are planning on going twice a week. The weather is a lot better out there just because of the breeze off the ocean. We also got a new roommate/district leader named Elder Escribano because the last district leader got some kind of fungus disease and had to go back to Medellin so he didn't die or something, idk. So ya the beach is great. What a great idea by us. 

Something scary that happened this week was MORE FIREWORKS. Just kidding. There was actually this HUGE Rottweiler dog chained up in someone's yard and we went a little close to it to see how big it was. Anyways, Bigelow claps at the dog, like he always does with dogs, and the thing just charges at us breaking it's chain! We ran away super fast and some of the neighbors just giggled at us, it was cray. Somehow our lives were spared. 

New Years was nothing special really. I went to bed around 8 and when fireworks went off at midnight, I gave out a barely audible woohoo! 

The food here in Lorica is okay. At first it was super exotic, but its starting to get a little old. Every meal has rice, plantains, yuca, a random meat from I don't wanna know where, and a salad. Everyone here loves plantains, but they're just bleh. It's edible though which is good! This week when I was eating at a member's house I noticed a few ants crawling around in my food, which normally isn't a good sign, but hey it's all we got. I'm still a little sick, but I'll probably be sick for the next 2 years so I'll just get used to it haha.

Not much else has been going on here so I'll just share my thoughts about trials. Everyone in the world of Christendom knows the story of Abraham. Part of his story includes being commanded to kill his own prophesied son Isaac. I, like most of you, could never imagine being commanded to do something like that. How brave Abraham was to do what he did because of his love for God. But. How much more personal does the story become when, through the book of Abraham, we learn that Abraham himself, while a child, was almost sacrificed to the Gods of his father that he did not believe in. I'm sure that as a child at one point Abraham thought to himself, I would never do a thing like that, I will never be like my father. How scary is it to think that God has a plan specifically for each one of us. Let me rephrase that actually, how wonderful is it to know that God has a plan specifically for each one of us. It's wonderful to know that all the trials we go through in this life are meant for us. God has blessed us with trials. I know that my mission is specifically for me, I'm starting to learn that more and more each day with all the trials that I am faced with. I know too that all of your lives are specifically for you, tailor made so that you can become what God wants and needs you to become. 

I love you all and hope you have a great week.

The Beach in San Antero

To Mom:

thanks for the email love it lots. thanks for fasting for me i really needed it. theres not a lot of restaurants here, people just sit outside and cook things. like yesterday our lunch appointment guy said he was too busy to make lunch so he just dropped off like $3 for us to eat with. We went to this cool fried chicken place which was super good. Yesterday we were dying of hunger at night so we bought hotdogs and took them home. the hotdogs just had ketchup, mayo, mustard and lots of these crunchy potato things, idk how to describe them. I only ate once in monteria at a little sit down restaurant where I got a hamburger. There's places to eat everywhere. In the mall in monteria they have lots of fast food places, most latin food, some asian food, a burger place, chicken place, wing place, and a subway. The beach was great! we bought burgers, shakes, bracelets, and just walked around taking pictures. Have a good week.