Chinchina, Basically Sodom and Gomorrah, Week 49

Hey homies! Not much to say, it was a quick and good week here in Chinchina.

We had a nice lesson with a daughter of a recent convert. Diana and her mom have always had problems in the house. We taught Diana about the restoration (honestly no idea if that's how it's spelled it looks SO weird!) and how families can be together forever and we invited her to pray at the end of the lesson. She did and in the middle of the prayer her and her mom broke down crying and hugged each other once Diana had finished. It was really sweet. 

This Monday, instead of PDay, we went to Pereira (WOO) and had a multizone conference thing. 4 of my old comps were there which was funny and I learned a lot! Elder Cruz had to bear his ^Final Testimony of Death^ in front of like 70 missionaries and he was freaking out! 

I think Chinchina celebrated its 500th bday or something this week but the whole week was a party with music and party. 

Not much else to say, love you homies lots! 

Me and Elder Cruz

A biiiiig ooool Catholic Church 

Elder Cruz and Elder Dawson

A Big Old Catholic Church

Usually there's water 7 days a week. just here it goes out sometimes...

Only big stores have Snickers. The thing is that they cost a dollar each! That's so expensive! So I buy lots of Gatorade to stay hydrated, but less snickers. 

Elder Piñate is a district leader in my old district in Pereira loool, He lives in my old house too. In that district I have 3 old comps. Elder Welling, Elder Saez, and Piñate. The only comp that's not in the Eje Cafetero rn is Elder Gallardo who is in the coast. It was a good meeting tho! 

I got 2 packages this week!

I got the year one and the one with tons of food!

Thanks a ton its all great!

Chinchina, Basically Sodom and Gomorrah, Week 48

There's a common joke here, What´s the difference between Sodom and Gomorrah, and Chinchina? Chinchina hasn´t been destroyed yet.

I´m alive. That´s the good part. Things are weird here. It´s like everyday is the weekend, and then the weekends are Christmas. And not normal Christmas. Colombian Christmas.

We have running water 6 days of the week which is a blessing.

Sometimes English confuses me when I try to help the Latinos. Like the difference between scratch and itch. Is there one???

I eat hotdogs and eggs everyday. 

It smells like coffee everywhere all the time because of all the coffee plants there are here in the city. 

This morning I ate a snickers bar and drank a Gatorade and it was literal freedom. 

This week a man came by our house and was looking for a direction, something that WE do a lot as missionaries. Whenever we are looking for a direction the first thing people ask for is who we are looking for, so we tell them, and the people tell us, ¨I don't know any of my neighbors¨. So Elder Cruz was helping this guy and Elder Cruz asks him, ¨Who are you looking for?¨ Even tho we don't know any of our neighbors. He has become full Colombian. 

I feel like I'm finishing the mission in 6 weeks because my comp, the district leader, and one of the zone leaders are ALL finishing. Trunk city.

One of my zone leaders, Elder Peña, had his bday this week so we went to a ¨Fancy´¨ steakhouse called Leños Gourmet! It was bomb and he bought us nice food. 

Pic 1 Lunch

Pic 2 The dead man, plus Manizales is cold as crappp so ft. sweaterplussuit

Love you homies lots 

Lunch

The dead man, plus Manizales is cold as crappp so ft. sweaterplussuit

Chinchina is good! temp is a little hotter, but rn with the hurricanes its raining all the time so its cool. 

I'm in a branch, and Manizales is a district not a stake.

Elder Cruz is super cool and nice, we work together and plan together really well, he likes English and funny memes, 

Theres a road  by us with 9 cats.

We live alone and there are only 2 missionaries for the branch.

The house is good, better than the old one in Pereira.

No fans and kinda hot but its okay, we might move houses soon to a 6th floor apartment.

Our neighbors have no problems with us, never seen or heard them.

Prostitutes all day every day.

Witches not a lot.

Not a lot of good places to eat. a wing place, but that's it. 

Yasmin didn't get baptized and idk why. Her, Juan, and Camilla have a baptismal date for the 29th, Idk why. 

We can't see the volcano from here. But from the zone leaders house in Manizales we can see the volcano.

Lol classic Madi.

Thanks for the pics haha.

I never went to the museum place no.

4 pairs of garments would be nice just to keep replacing old ones.

I haven't got any packages in a while.

I can't think of anything lol.

  

We're just gonna go eat I think rn and go get our haircuts. it's like Lorica here there isn't much to do. 

Pereira, A Whole New Wooooooooooooorld, Week 47

Transfer calls came in and I am currently in the city of Chinchiná with Elder Cruz who finishes the mission in 6 weeks. 

Chinchina is famous for its prostitution and witches from what I have heard. 

Of course I enjoyed conference (watching it in English with the other Gringos in Pereira) and it was good to have Yasmin and her family come with us both days to the Stake Center. She should be getting baptized this Saturday. I´m sad that I got transferred, but I feel good about the way that I left my area for other missionaries. 

It was an interesting trip to get here to my new area. I basically got off the bus and no one was waiting for me. We normally take buses alone here if we have to for the transfers. I had no phone and had no idea where I was. It was an interesting 3 hour trip  that would have taken 1 hour. 

I don't have my conference notes here with me rn, but I remember enjoying President Uchtdorf´s talk about the Plan of Salvation. It really is amazing. 

Our neighbors have a cat and last night the cat decided to come into our house. 

We learned how to play an Argentinian card game this week called Truco which basically consists of throwing cards and screaming, like most card games, like Yugioh. 

Love you homies lot, thanks for the love and support 

1. Juan Pablo and me (He cried when I left :((((((() (Yasmin´s son)

2. The District

To Mom:

Ya I left Pereira which is sad. Yasmin should be getting baptized this Saturday. I'm gonna ask permission to go to it since I'm only a 40 minute bus ride away. 

Chinchina is not the best place. Its well knows for its prostitutes and witchery. 

I traveled alone last night to Chinchina without a companion and it was nuts. They dropped me off at a gas station and I had to get in a guys truck for him to take me to Chinchina. Then I got there and nobody was waiting for me... So I had to call someone to ask what was up. But I didn't have the number of any missionaries. So I called the Relief Society Pres from Pereira and she gave me Elder Bagley's number. I didn't know where I was but he told me to go wait in front of a supermarket. A member showed up and took me to the terminal of Chinchina to go to Manizales. I got there finally where the missionaries were waiting for me. lol all with my three suitcases. pretty sketch. Chinchina at night is a scary place.

To Dad:

Colombia's pretty cool. The church is just really small. I was talking to Tyson and mom about how its because of the war and how we can't enter half of the cities in our mission because of the war. I found a lot of comfort in Eyring's talk because he talked about how much the US has grown. I really do love Colombia even if their food is gross and their people are mean. The church will be strong here some day. 

Love you lots have a good week!

To Mom:

Hey I didn't write much so I'm back on for a sec. 

I'm all good. We got to Chinchina all good. It's like 40 minutes from Manizales. Basically half way between Pereira and Manizales. Things are good. My comp is super cool. He's from Mexico and was in the office when I got to the mission.

Here are 2 pictures of SMALL DOORS! lol Colombia is weird. Or maybe I'm tall. Things were good with conference. Glad you had a good week, Thanks for the update! I hope you have a REALLY HAPPY B DAY ON FRIDAY!! Love you so much mom you're the bestest! 

To Grandma:

We watch conference in the stake centers. It's really cool. But the gringos always watch conference in the clerk's office on his computer in English. It's fun. 

The talks are mostly translated to Spanish before hand, but the apostles and prophet can change it according to the spirit so those ones are translated. But even those ones they give a script of what they will say to the translators before hand. It's really well done. 

I liked all the talks about missionary work haha.

I'm about 40 minutes from Pereira rn in Chinchina.

Salento was about an hour and a half away towards the south. not too far. 

We eat Domino's a lot. I can't remember what pizza I said I ate in my letter haha so I honestly don't remember! 

Love you lots!

Juan Pablo and me (He cried when I left :((((((() (Yasmin´s son)

The District

Pereira, A Whole New Wooooorld, Week 46

Tensions are getting high around here as elections are coming to Colombia to end a civil war thing that has been going on for a very long time here. Most people are very devout in their way of thinking about the new peace treaty. We try to stay out of it as missionaries. 

Things are good here in Pereira! We had a really successful week in finding, helping, and retaining investigators! 

The other missionaries in our ward had 3 baptisms this week which is always fun! We had an exchange with one of the assistants of the mission which was a really fun day. Basically if Preach my Gospel were to be personified, it would be him. 

Today we went to a city called Salento for PDay with our zone! It is a really touristy place with lots of nick nacks and paddy wacks. We ate pizza, walked around, bought nick nacks, and took Jeep tours. 

Love you homies lots! Ive been thinking about a scripture in the book of Enos this week a lot. After Enos receives a remission of his sins he begins to worry about his brothers, or people.

10 And while I was thus struggling in the spirit, behold, the voice of the Lord came into my mind again, saying: I will visit thy brethren according to their diligence in keeping my commandments.

I like this a lot because the Lord doesn't say he might visit us if we keep the commandments. He says that he will. If we feel like the Lord has not visited us in our lives, it may be because we aren't letting him.

Love you homies lots! 

Video: Spanish names are funny sometimes.

A selfie in my area.

Pereira. A Whole New Woooorld. Week 45

I'm actually in the same city. So it's not that new. It just rains here everyday. And what people do is they just take their garbage outside and leave it on a hill so that when it rains all the garbage goes to the river. NATURE! 

Restaurants here are funny. The name of them all is just ¨Restaurant¨ and they sell ¨Lunch¨ for 2 dollas. You walk in and there is no menu. You sit down. Someone comes over to you and asks what you want. You say lunch. They say lunch comes with rice meat salad and your choice of a soup. We have veggie soup and cow stomach soup. That´ll be 2 dollas pls. 

And they're only open from 11-4.

This week was a good one! 

Not a lot to say but we are working hard. 

Yesterday it started HAILING! I'm in Colombia and it was hailing. It was nuts. All the kids in the streets were FREAKING OUT! They had never seen anything like it before. 

Love you guys lots have a good week! 

Pereira, Week 44

Hello hello hope everyone is doing gr8 m8. 

In our mission we all started to read the Book of Mormon from the beginning and mark a few things in it, including all the times it mentions Christ. I'm still in 1st Nephi, but it's already a really neat experience! 

Elder Murillo kills me with his League of Legends references, saying things like Bronzodia and Rito Pls.

We have been teaching a lady named Yasmin Linares for the past couple weeks. She's married and a mother of two and is super chill. We're working with her and her kids a lot. This week they came with us to a Stake talent show put on by the youth in the stake who did traditional dances from Colombia. I learned a lot and her family had a bunch of fun laughing at the silly kids. 

We started playing Yugioh again in our free time! Elder Bagley and Elder Murillo are both duel masters.

I'm really loving the mission and my area here! Love you all  

 Looking for baptisms in the jungle (Ft. glowing white shirt touched by the finger of The Lord)

Its a selfie

A bowl of gross soup that I finished like a champ. 

Rainy day selfie

Pereira, Week 43

A pretty normal week here in Colombia. Hot afternoons and random thunderstorms.

I went on exchanges (I think that's the right English word) with my District Leader Elder Larroza, from Argentina, this week! He's probably the funniest person I've ever met. Here are some experiences from our day together:

Hopping in a Taxi and saying "Alrighty take us to Martha's house for lunch." 

Calling everyone a "Milk moustache" or "Hotdog" to insult them.

Eating at a bakery and then realizing that he had no money to pay for it (He was the milk moustache in this situation)

Literally keeping us up all night with his shenanigins.

We had a couple days that went perfect where everyone was home and we had tons of lessons. But we also had a couple days where nobody was home and we had no lessons. 

The work here is good! We have multiple less actives that have desires to come back to church and a couple good families we are working with! 

Something we taught to a lot of people this week is the idea of sacrifice. 

When Lehi and his family arrive at the ocean after pretty long time in the wilderness, the Lord commands Nephi
8 Thou shalt construct a ship, after the manner which I shall show thee, that I may carry thy people across these waters.

The Lord does not say, construct a ship so that the ship can carry you across the waters. The Lord himself works through us after all that we can do. He will carry us across the waters of affliction if we do all that we can to construct our ships and sacrifice all our time, energy, and talents to the Lord.

Love you guys lots 

My Comp with the dank memes 

Could it be Jose Smith?