Robledo, Medellin, Life in a Beautiful Place Week 29

Wassup peeps, this week was a slow but good one. We got the news last night, on my birthday, that the area I am in right now will be being closed which means that my companion and I are both leaving and no new missionaries will be coming in to replace us. As much as I love being in Medellin, these last 6 weeks have been very hard. We have not had success in anything here. The area has never been a very good one even for the most adept missionaries so it's finally being shut down. 

My new area will be in Pereira, a city about 4 hours away. Idk who my new companion will be but I think his name sounded Latino, let's hope. 

I learned a lot here in Robledo. I learned how to deal with failure. I had a lot of success working with the youth of the ward and animating them, but in terms of investigators, nothing. I'm glad for the opportunity that God gave me to come to this area. I know that God gives us the things that we need to improve. 

I played soccer today with the 10 other homies in my zone and it was the first game of soccer I've played on the mission! Now that I think about it the last time I played a soccer game was when I was like 10 and I had a Mexican coach who always told us,"I wanna weeeeen!" During the soccer game I realized that my spanish vocabulary isn't too good in terms of soccer. I felt completely lost and was basically just a 1 man team. I felt like I was Piglet playing for Team Liquid at the beginning of Spring 2015. Including the part where I'm a world champion. There's a nerd reference that like 2 of you will understand lel. 

I know this Church is true. I don't bear my testimony a lot in my letters, but I feel like it's something I need to do from time to time. I know that the church has been restored in these days through a prophet. I know the Book of Mormon is  I can't deny the feeling that I've had on my mission regarding these two things. I know that the family is ordained of God and that we can receive salvation through accepting the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Like I said, this area has been hard on me. At times I've been frustrated, done, and tempted, but I can never deny that this church is true. It's pretty great. 

Love you all, thanks for all the bday letters :)

Pictures will never load on this computer rip, sorry to everyone who misses my cute face

Robledo, Medellin, Life in a Beautiful Place Week 28

Wassup homies, hope you had a good week! Congrats to all the homies who are done with school for a while, those kind of breaks don't happen as missionaries, we just work.

My Bday is this Sunday the 29th (just in case you want to write me a nice email). 

Something dangerous, and surprisingly legal, or maybe not, is that none of the Taxis here have seat belts. They all drive at least 3x the speed limit and swerve in and out of traffic. Good for being punctual. Bad for the chance of being killed by a flaming car accident #rippaulwalker

We don't have a lot of work here, but we work a lot with the families and youth to help them out which is tons of fun!  

We had an Area 70, the Mission President, and Stake President surprise us in our Ward Council meeting (Which is famous for doing nothing) so it was funny to watch all the adults be try hards to impress all the people. It was good though because we learned a lot from them on how to be efficient as a ward! 

Its been a HOT week here in Medellin with no rain :( Not as hot as the coast in my old area or some of the girls here, but you understand. 

We gave a youth in our ward a blessing and he not only felt better, but was able to come to church on Sunday! It was awesome because his dad is a preacher for another church and doesn't let his wife or son go to church ever, but they both came and it was awesome to see them there :)

Love all you homies lots and hope you have a good week <3

Robledo, Medellin, Life in a Beautiful Place Week 27

Wassup homies, hope you're all doing good in the hood as always. Short letter cus ya.

Another young woman I taught in Lorica, Laura, the one who drew the picture of me, got baptized this week! 

The fashion here in Medellin is shirts showing off your belly.

I took the Medellin Metro for the first time today which was pretty neat! Basically you can go anywhere in Medellin for 75 cents on a tram or skii lift.

The food here is actually not as good as it was in Lorica! Mostly becasue there are SO MANY soups. Elder Welling likes soups though so he gladly eats mine. 

Spiritual message this week is about Alma the Younger. Most people know the story of him. Step 1: Be a r00d d00d. Step 2: See an Angel. Step 3: ??? Step 4: Prophet. 

Alma 36 reads:

6 For I went about with the sons of Mosiah, seeking to^adestroy the church of God; but behold, God sent his holy angel to stop us by the way.

 7 And behold, he spake unto us, as it were the voice of thunder, and the whole earth did ^atremble beneath our feet; and we all fell to the earth, for the ^bfear of the Lord came upon us.

 8 But behold, the voice said unto me: Arise. And I arose and stood up, and beheld the angel.

9 And he said unto me: If thou wilt of thyself be destroyed, seek no more to destroy the church of God.

My questions to you is, what have been your Angels in your life to help you become a better person? If you haven't had any metaphorical Angels in your life, I can testify that they are real, that they will come to us when we need them. I love you all and hope that we can all continue to find Angels to grow our testimonies even more.

Picture 1: A normal selfie with the grave of Pablo Escobar. Just normal stuff.

Pic2: Some homies 

A normal selfie with the grave of Pablo Escobar. Just normal stuff.

Some homies

Robledo, Medellin, Life in a Beautiful Place Week 26

Wassup homies, hope everyone had a good week and all the mothers got spoiled and all that jazz. My Mom got to talk to ME on Mothers Day so of course she got spoiled. But for reals it was great to talk to my mom and brother about dank memes. My bro will actually be home in 3 months so it was the last time I got to talk to him while he's not with my family. It also feels weird that I have 6 months in the mission and only 2 calls left :/

My companion Elder Welling lost about 100 pounds when he was in the coast of Colombia and got sick, but his clothes are still the same size and everyone comments about how big they are lol. Kinda frustrating for me but whatevs. 

All day yesterday we had a capication with the President of the Mission which was awesome! For that reason I couldn't email yesterday, sorry that you all missed me SO MUCH! I learned a lot and got to see some old homies. Me and Bigelow were reunited after 9 weeks of not seeing each other. My reaction: "Is this how God and Jesus felt after not seeing each other for so long?!"

This week was a slow one for sure. We have been working a lot without much success. 

Something fun that happened this week was a weekly missionary activity that we have on Wednesday nights! People from the ward and investigators come to hear a spiritual message, and play some games. I gave a spiritual message this week about the importance of mothers and used the example of the Army of Helaman. Verses 47 and 48 of Alma 56 read:

 ⁴⁷ Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.

⁴⁸ And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it.

Verses 55 and 56 go on to explain what these brave young men did because of the things their mothers had taught them:

⁵⁵ And now it came to pass that when they had surrendered themselves up unto us, behold, I numbered those young men who had fought with me, fearing lest there were many of them slain.

⁵⁶ But behold, to my great joy, there had not one soul of them fallen to the earth; yea, and they had fought as if with the strength of God; yea, never were men known to have fought with such miraculous strength;

I love mothers, they're pretty great. 

Picture 1: My trainer Elder Bigelow and all of his children. Left to right, me, Bigelow, Wadley, and Fajardo.

Picture 2: Me on the roof in a sweater cus its cold

My trainer Elder Bigelow and all of his children. Left to right, me, Bigelow, Wadley, and Fajardo.

Me on the roof in a sweater cus its cold.

President Calderon Tour de Medellin

Mother's Day Skype

Three things people have in Robledo 2:

1. Cell Phone
2. Plasma TV
3. BIG speakers

American food/restaurants they have here:

1. Krispy Kreme
2. Hard Rock Cafe
2. Hooters

Three things I need:

1. Plan of Salvation cards in Spanish
2. Whiteboard to use in discussions
3. Flip Flops

3 MIL = $1

Love from the mission

Robledo, Medellin, Life in a Beautiful Place Week 25

Heyo homies! Hope everyone is doing good! Things here in Robledo are going. The work here is still really slow, but Elder Welling and I are finding things to do to keep us busy. We teach a lot of members here "freaking english" which is a lot of fun! 

My ward here actually has a white couple from Maryland! Susanne is a recent convert and her husband has been a member his whole life. After I spoke and introduced myself my first Sunday here they came up to me and started speaking to me in English which was a pleasant surprise. This Wednesday I was with Elder Garcia in the other Robledo area and we went to their house to eat and chat. We spoke in English and talked about weird things Colombians do. They made us CHEESE CRISPS (quesadillas for all you non Arizona weirdos) which were 10/10 would kidnap. I hadn't eaten cheese crisps in 6 months. The couple teach English in a Baptist Bible Seminary here in Medellin. They also teach an English class at the chapel on Wednesday nights which people seem to enjoy. They're awesome people and Im glad they're in my ward! 

It rains here in Medellin just about every day. Its nice, but it also means that we can't put our clothes outside to dry. Something I took advantage of in Lorica is that I could put my clothes outside and the sun would dry it immediately. The sun in Lorica destroys everything, water, fun, lives, etc. 

Apparently the word that smoking is bad hasn't reached this place because its like 10 cents for 20 cigs and everyone and their mom smokes. It's bad.

My house is the only house in the mission that has a bath tub.

Someone who I taught in Lorica before I left, Edubijes, was baptized this last week! It's an awesome feeling to know that I helped someone on their way to baptism even if I couldn't be there for the baptism.

I was talking to my District Leader, Elder Garcia, a lot this week about fears that I have as a missionary. While we were talking he simply asked me at one point, "So you think that fear is a bad thing?" And it really made me think. It made me think of the conversation between Ned Stark and his son Bran Stark. "Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?" Bran asked his father. "That is the only time a man can be brave." His father answered. I find a lot of peace in this. Don't let fear control you, rather, let it motivate you to be better.

I hope everyone has a great week :)