Robledo, Medellin, Life in a Beautiful Place Week 24

Welcome to the beautiful city of Medellin! Full of beautiful trees, beautiful people, beautiful parks, beautiful weather, beautiful people, a beautiful accent, and more beautiful people, its the best! I really need a thesaurus tho, jeez :/

But for reals, this city is perfect! The weather here actually allows us to leave the house and not die of a heat stroke immediately. 

The city of Medellin, of which my mission is named after, is broken up into different communities. I am currently in the community of Robledo. The topography of Robledo can be described simply as a 45 degree angle. My area just goes straight up the mountains. Medellin is built directly inbetween two mountains so as it expands, it has no where to go but up the sides of these mountains. It's good though! My butt has gone from like a 6 to like an 8 in the past week! Im excited to see if I can get up to a 10 before I leave!

My new companion, Elder Welling, is a great guy! Out of my 4 companions in the mission so far, I have had two from Florida, one from Alaska, and finally one from Utah! Excited to have another gringo companion!

The work in this area is very slow. There hasn't been a baptism here in over a year, but I'm excited to see what we can do together! 

This week we met a man on the street who spoke English perfectly. He walked up to me, shook my hand, and goes, "Wassup, what's your name." Without thinking I immediately say,"Jayden, what's yours?" All in English. It was a little weird. At this point I realized that Ive never actually introduced myself as Elder Dawson in English. 

Today is my companions birthday so we went to Krispy Kreme in downtown Medellin which was a well deserved trip! We also went to a nerd restaurant where they sold all sorts of Game of Thrones things! So much nerd hype! 

We saw a guy on a bike run a red light this week and he got SMASHED by a taxi! He flew like 20 feet, but then got up and said sorry to the taxi. Friggin Colombians. 

My first night here I wore SWEAT PANTS AND A JACKET TO BED! I was SO COLD! 

Pic 1: Welling and I at Krispy Kreme (They sell a bunch of weird Colombian stuff too)

Pic 2: The view from Robledo

Welling and I at Krispy Kreme (They sell a bunch of weird Colombian stuff too)

The view from Robledo

Lorica, Life with Another Gringo Week 23

Ayo homies! Yesterday we got the transfer calls about where we will be going and I will be heading to the city of Medellin, in an community called Robledo. I'm very excited. Lorica was cool, and I met some awesome people, but I feel like it's time for something new, ya know? My new companion will be ANOTHER gringo with the same amount of time as my current companion. 

I'm glad for the opportunity that I had to be comps with Elder Pinate for this one transfer. I learned a lot from him.

This was a good week! On Tuesday we had the opportunity to meet as a zone to watch the day of conference that we all missed. While there the zone leaders gave my companion the keys to the chapel on a BIG keychain. I said it was a mistake when I saw him holding the 200 keys on this keychain as he jokingly said, "This is more keys than were restored to Joseph Smith." But the zone leaders trusted him. About two minutes later the keychain was broken and we were all struggling to fix it. Classic.

I have so many Jet Stickers and now I just need to find a sticker book! AH! 

We had a baptism this week too! We baptized a 9 year old kid named Luis Jose. I love this kid. He's the little bro I never had. His family are all members, but they went inactive for a year and so he never got baptized. We are working with the family a lot to help them go to church so that one day they can be sealed in the temple :) When Luis had his interview with Elder Escribano he came out crying and I was like, SHOOT maybe he didn't pass! But he did and was just super emotional that he can finally get baptized. His family is awesome. I love them all. 

Not much else to share, hope you all are being homies, love you all lots!

Pic 1: The Baptism!

Pic 2: The restoration of the Keys!

The Baptism! Luis Jose

The Restoration of the Keys

Lorica, Life with Another Gringo Week 22

Don't really have a lot of time to write so I'll try to keep this email short. The week was good as always homies.

No rebels this week! That's always a good sign. 

The word for to marry (casarse) and to hunt (cazar) are basically the same, and I don't think it's a coincidence. 

The past 2 months we've been working a lot with a young lady named Edubijes, and she has never wanted to get baptized. She told us she had a testimony and loved the church and everything, but didn't want to commit to a baptismal date. This week in a visit, she sat us down and said "Chicos, I gotta tell you guys something..." And immediately I was so scared, like I thought she was gonna tell us that she didn't want us to come by anymore! She continued,"I've been praying a lot recently with a lot of faith about baptism, and I decided that I want to be baptized as soon as possible, I know I need to." It was an awesome feeling. She has a baptismal date for the 23rd of this month and I'm so excited for her. 

We have 3 other investigators who have baptismal dates for the upcoming 2 weeks, so hopefully everything goes well with them!

Something that Idk if I have mentioned before about this branch in Lorica, is that there are no families. There isn't a single family who is sealed in the temple, have children, and live in their own home. There are families who have some of these characteristics, but none that have all 3. These kinds of families are very common in the US and my home ward in particular. Before coming here I didn't understand the importance of having real families in wards to help them out, but now it's clear how essential they are. It's not Thanksgiving season, but it's always time to remember how blessed we are. 

Love you all, have a good week. 

Picture is of me and a picture of me that an investigator, Laura, drew!

Lorica, Life with Another Gringo Week 21

HI GUYS! I'm alive! This was a pretty sketchy week here in Colombia. 

There was a situation here this week in the coast of Colombia which forced all of the coastal missionaries, in our mission at least, to stay home on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. We were unable to leave the house for any reason. Baaaaaaasically, in Colombia, there is a lot of military groups that want power. One of these military groups is based in the coast of Colombia. This group works against the Colombian Government and kills police and stuff like that. So an important leader of this military group was killed by police this week! In retaliation, this group basically took over our whole department (state) and made sure that all the stores in all of Lorica, except one, were closed, and they apparently partrolled around and idk murdered people! This is basically just word on the street, but it's all we know! So ya, the rebel group was being all rebel group-y. So we had to stay inside to not be murded nbd.

Soooo because of that we unfortunately could not watch conference on Saturday, not that anyone even left there house on that day or  even opened up the chapel. Imma get caught up this week though, which I'm excited about!

We had some good lessons in the days where we were't playing connect 4 in our house! With Yorleidis and Laura, they came to conference and their excitement for their baptism in 3 weeks is continuing because of their reading of the book of Mormon! Love it. 

Conference here is in Spanish, obvi, so I couldnt understand everything. Something I liked from Linda K Burton, I think she was, is the message that I got that: The Church is not only a good thing, it is also true. I love the simplicity of this statement. We need to focus on these two things about the church, that it can bless our lives, but also that it is literally the church of Jesus Christ restored on the Earth. Love it. 

Not much more happened this week since I mostly just ate chocolate bars and collected stickers in my house while losing tan. Hope you all enjoyed more sessions of conference than me, love you all lots! 

Picture 1: Pinate, Laura, Yorleidis, and me at conference on Sunday!

Picture 2: The chapel where we watched conference! 

Pinate, Laura, Yorleidis, and me at conference on Sunday!

The chapel where we watched conference! 

Lorica, Life with Another Gringo Week 20

Wassup homies hope everyone had a good Easter. Here in Colombia everyone is Catholic so everyone celebrates the Holy Week, which basically means get drunk, just like every other Holiday.

We had a drunk guy almost attack me and Elder Piñate this week. He was talking ABSOLUTE nonsense to us about random things. So we just kept walking away from him, but he kept following us! He was so drunk he could barely stand up. He had to hold on to us to keep from falling over. We tried to cross the only big road in Lorica to get away from him, but somehow he stumbled his way through traffic and found us again. He wouldn't leave us alone. Elder Piñate was about to punch the guy cus he was pushing him around and stuff, but eventually we just ran home lol. 

Out of 4 talks on Sunday, only my companion talked about Jesus. The rest talked about sabbath day observance, and the Branch President talked about keeping the chapel clean. Kinda weird. 

There's this thing here that a lot of Elders in my Zone have started to do and it's collect stickers! There is this type of chocolate here called Jet, and every bar comes with a sticker of a nature thing, like a plant or bug or mammal, or idk biodiversity stuff. My friend Elder Robison will buy a 24 pack of this chocolate every week to get these stickers. He has a sticker book (!!!) to collect all the stickers that they have. All the gringos talk about stickers all the time, there's so much sticker hype, its unreal. 

I was talking to this 15 year old member and she says that she and her group of friends make up "The Combo". I thought that was pretty neat. 

We went to the beach last Monday and chilled as a District which was fun! 

We didn't have water in our house for like 2 days which was funny. 

Today alone I broke 2 things which has been fun. I broke a pipe in our house which is a long story, and a computer that I was on in this Internet cafe FELL off the table, idk how, maybe I'm just dumb. Probably. 

This week we had a couple of spiritual experiences. One of them was finding a man named Carlos. Carlos actually found us. He called over to us as we were walking down the street and we set up a time to come visit with him again. We come back to visit him and he tells us that he was an investigator 3 years ago, but he moved and didnt tell the missionaries, but he kept his Book of Mormon and read it for a long time until someone stole it. He told us that he wants nothing more in his life than to be a part of this Church. Something we don{t get a lot. He told us that he was not married to the woman he lived with so we informed him that he would need to get married to get baptized. He told us straist up: I'm going to get baptized this next Sunday. Maybe he was just drunk, but maybe he felt the spirit so strongly with us in out meeting after not meeting with the missionaries for a long time that he really felt this desire to do all the things he told us he would do. So that was pretty neat. 

Another simple thing that happened is that weve been working with a Lady named Edubijes a lot. We have been praying for her to feel the spirit in our lessons and when she reads. This week when we met with her she told us that she has been feeling the spirit so strongly and that this has been the best Holy Week of her life.

Love the mish, love life. Hope you homies are staying homies! Love you all

Lorica, Life with Another Gringo Week 19

Wassup peeps we're back with another week in Colombia.

This week has been a little difficult getting used to a new companion and all the little things they do and don't do.

This week we started teaching 2 young adult girls, Yorleidis and Laura Flores. They both work with this 50 year old man in our ward who introduced us to them. Idk what kinda work they do. They're both really cool tho. Laura is in LOVE with Justin Beiber! She was so mad at me when she found out I lived in the US for 18 years and NEVER went to go meet Justin Beiber. Like it's just so easy to go meet him. The US isn't a huge place or anything according to all the people here. So ya, the old guy is in our lessons with them and they're pretty rad. 

We started "teaching" a recently reactivated man named Manuel this week. He's like 40 but looks like he's 60. He's got 3 kids and is recently separated from his wife. The guy has been a member for 15 years, but was not active a year back up until now. The guy has lived his whole life with nothing. He lives in a lot with cinderblocks surrounding it. His house has no roof, a mango tree, some chickens, no bathroom, and a little place to lock up to sleep. So me and my comp went over to his house twice this week to teach a little, but both times, Manuel literally teaches us. Theres nothing we can figure out to say to him, that he doesn't know already. Its really quite humbling to talk to this man who has lived his whole life in this same house, he works 12 hours a day scraping fish remains out of containers by the river, has no money to feed his children, but yet he loves this church with all of his heart. He has nothing, yet he feels like he has everything. 

A while ago my family/homies tried some maracuyá (passion fruit) suckers that they bought from a Colombian store and they told me that they tasted a little funky and weren't very good. So I bought one this week and I thought it was GREAT, like the best sucker I've had in a long time. 

Hope you all have a great week and remember how blessed we are.

To Grandma:

Thanks for the update, I don't have much time tho, so I gotta be quick. Things here are a little hard, but still good I guess. In a package I like little gadgets and gizmos usually to show little kids. My mom sent me a strawberry plant that I liked. Idk. I like any kind of american candy. Usually chocolate melts, so like peach rings and starbursts and things like that. Love you lots thanks for the update!

Just about sums up our companionship so far. Elder Piñate on the phone saying, "No we can't understand your directions."

Me being a hood rat swag daddy at our weekly branch fellowshipping night thing.

Lorica, Life with Another Gringo Week 18

Epaaa homies! Its been a long week without my BFF Bigelow, but my new Comp is here, Elder Piñate! Yes he is white. He is from Miami, Florida and has 11.5 months in the mission. I don't really know a lot about him, but he's pretty quiet and funny sometimes. The best way I can think of to describe his personality is that one time we were eating Lunch and I watched him take 3 spoon fulls of nothing in a row and he acted like nothing happened. Things are good tho, I think I'm his first white companion so he likes talking in English to me. We both need to improve in Spanish.

Bigelow will call me to tell me how cold it is in his new area so I hate him. He also says that the roads in his area are like walking up a line with an undefined slope. Benefits of being in the coast, everything is flaaaat (Stanley). 

Both of my roommates stayed, Escribano and Bravo, so that's still the same. 

We have picked up the amount of work being done in our area and are trying to work a lot more with the members to capacitate them so that they know more about the church and how they can help us as missionaries. 

I don't really talk about Investigators a lot because things are just normal with them. We are going to try to start working with this part member family to get the rest of them baptized, obvi if they want to. The rest of our investigators are slowly progressing so there's not much to say. There usually aren't any crazy lessons where I just blow their mind with some next level spiritual action. But needless to say things are going well!

Nothing weird happened this week with food which is suspicious. We're still waiting on the Stake President to choose someone to be the 'mom' of Lorica to give us food. 

Didn't take any pictures this week oops.

Hope all of your weeks are Next Level and that you all floss your teeth.