MY CHRISTMAS GIFT TO YOU!

My Christmas gift to you!  (Click)
My Christmas gift in Spanish (Click)


Well, I´ve been in the office now for 5 3/4 months. On the 25 I hit the 6 month mark.  But I had my interview with President on Monday, so he let me know that I´ll be here until the 23-24 of January so that I can train the new office couple when they get here.  So I´ll have another transfer here in the offices before going out for a transfer to finish. But as for where I´ll be going, I would like to go to Cucuta or Bucaramanga.  Two parts of the mission that I haven´t really gotten to know yet.  But anywhere that President sends me will be great.  I just want to have a great companion that is going to help me work for the whole last transfer. 

The week was really hectic for me and my companion,  we had to get all the stuff ready for the transfers, for the missionaries that went home, and we still are getting the last things done for the Christmas conferences along with the new missionaries that are arriving on Tuesday.  So it´s been a super hectic week.  But I think that by the end of this week I´ll have the majority done and I can relax a little bit, but we´ll see what happens with the finances since I have to revise and close all the accounts of the mission for the year.  That´s going to be fun. 
 

SERVICE PROJECT

We had a service project this week helping to clean a field and there were a lot of horses, it was cool. Please send me Christmas pictures of your family at justin.bandy@myldsmail.net.  Merry Christmas.  

PARROT NAMED ELDER BANDY, OVALTINE, HIPPOS, TAJ MAHAL

ELDER FLORES AND I FOUND OVALTINE!

PARROT THAT A CONVERT NAMED AFTER ME.

We had a Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday and it was really good because we had turkey, stuffing, corn bread, mashed potatoes, salad and some other good stuff, I made a pumpkin pie and it came out good.  I had to make the crust out of Oreos and it was all eaten so it 
wasn´t that much of a letdown. 

As for tracting we don´t tract in our area, it doesn´t work, and it´s dangerous to do it. So we just go off of references or people that start up conversations with us in the street or the bus or the train or the taxi…..  But lessons, we had 1 this week and it was good.  But all the others fell through, so that was sad.   I had to travel a lot this week, so that wasn´t a good thing.  But today we got to enjoy ourselves a little bit, by going to an amusement park (not with rollercoasters), it was more of an exhibition park, it was really big, but I have a lot of photos from it.

As for the fast Sundays, you only have 3 left, I come home on the 6^th of March due to the transfer scheduling and because president needs to get rid of all the missionaries from my group to make room for the next one.  I  have my return date already set, going to be coming home with about 30 other missionaries (my group is the biggest that the mission has seen) so that´ll be great.  But the time is going by fast.  We live within walking distance to the office, it´s about 5-10 minutes walking depending on how fast we want to get there.  But here in the office I have to use my english more than normal so it probably won´t be that big of a problem when I have to talk to you all. 

FYI:  But also it´s Col(o)mbia and Monterrey.  People here get angry if you spell the name of the country wrong, actually I found a mug that said "It´s Colombia not Columbia."  It was kind of funny.   It would be like when people say Illinois with the "S" on the end.  

AREPA

BATTLESHIP

ANOTHER GREAT FIND.

A SUPRISING FIND!

ELDER SHUMWAY AND I DONG THE TITANIC.

THIS WAY TO CHICAGO

VELOCIRAPTOR

EVERYTHING MADE FROM SCRATCH.,

HUNGRY HIPPO

WEIGHT OF THE WORLD IN MY HANDS.

ME AND THE PONY

LION AND LIONESS

MAGNETIC SPICE RACK

LOTS OF MONKEYS

PIZZA I MADE FOR UNDER $4.

PUMPKIN PIE WITH OREO CRUST.

DRIVING 10 AND 2 HAND POSITION.

IN FRONT OF THE TAJ MAHAL REPLICA

TAJ MAHAL

THINGS I MADE FOR THANKSGIVING

THANKSGIVING...YUMMMM!

BEAUTIFUL FOUNTAIN

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

The office

Hola, Elder Alzamora left 2 days ago to go to Yopal, it´s  a city in another department of Colombia,   it´s hot but not as much as Barranca. My district now is different because the other companionship got transferred out and new ones put in.  I also am not district leader anymore, my companion Elder Flores is, and I´m okay with that. Elder Flores is doing fine, he´s in my group of missionaries so we´ll see if I go home with him or stay for another transfer.  He knows Monterrey and says that it´s pretty safe.

There are postal services but not like what we have in the states.  There is no such thing as a mail box, the mail gets delivered to the person by hand, with signature.  So the services are different. But somehow someone got a hold of my credit card.   Luckily my credit card company didn't make me pay for the charges not used by me. 

Random tree.

I´m thinking of what food to cook for Thanksgiving, I told my comp that if he makes enchiladas that   I´ll make cheese-sticks and pumpkin pie.  Since you gave me that recipe for a pumpkin pie cake that came out really good, now I know how to make pumpkin pie, so pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving in the mission, OH YEAH.   

Cheese sticks that I made.

I have interviews with President this week and am going to decide if I want to extend my mission or not.  Any thoughts?  

Have a great week and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

Elder Grover with his burrito.

Elder Gale eating Churos

Sipotle like Chipotle.

Elder Gale, me and Sanahuano they both went home.

Messed up jaguar face.

Gold shell from museum,

There really is a golden conch.

This is for Jamie, Jayvin, Bryce, and Ikey.

Annoying orange.

LOTS OF PICTURES!

3 Amigos

My old district from Duitama

Sunset in Bogota

I did get my package, and I shared everything except the popcorn and the pumpkin stuff.  My companion has never had a cow tail before.   I liked all the goodies but I think it´s because as Americans we enjoy our sweets.   The weather here is beautiful and so are the sunsets.  The weeks are the same in the office.  Nothing really changes.  But I will post a bunch of pictures for you to enjoy.  Please email me at justin.bandy@ldsmail.net.  I would love to see everyone's costumes for Halloween.  

Spanish dinner

Elder Munoz birthday

Flautas

We love our pop!

Complete rubix cube

Different rubix cube

Sucker from Brazil

My zone in Duitama

Elder Alzamora signing off.  Goodbye Comp!