A Marvelous Work and Wonder: SECRETARY BANDY

Me and my twin Mannequin.

The memorial for the battle that Colombia won for its independence from Spain.

Memorial from a distance

The district.

So I am no longer in Duitama, I´m in Bogota in the offices of the church for the mission. This time I'm in the actual city of Bogota, not like last time when I was in Suba, which is more of a suburb than the actual city. I am working for President Andelin as the Financial Secretary. It means that I´m in charge of all finances for the mission. I have to take care of all the missionaries funds as far as receiving reimbursements and their normal allotments are concerned, but I also have to pay the bills every month for the houses and all the bills that come in for the houses such as water, electricity and gas... But I like it. It´s different and it´ll be fun once I get the hang of it. My new companion is Elder Alzamora. He´s from Peru, but he speaks somewhat fluent English, he understands a lot more than he says but it´s okay that´s how I was when I was learning more at the beginning. I work more with the mission president, but I only see him maybe 2-3 times during the week. I think I´ll like it once I figure out how to do everything. But the last 2 weeks have been a blur, the time in the office goes by super fast and I´m happy to be here, even though the work is different. Ï´ll be here for at least 4-5 months but I have a new assignment so it´s fine, I just go with the flow when it comes to getting an emergency transfer. I've already had 5 in the mission, which means that I haven´t had a single normal transfer in all my mission, and when I leave from this assignment it´ll be an emergency transfer as well, so I´m sure I´ll have at least 6 in the mission, and I think that´s probably a record. We don´t go tracting because 1) it doesn't work in the capital, and 2) because there is no time to go out and do it, we have about 3 hours in the night at times to go out and do regular work. But I´m happy that I can see how the mission works from a financial standpoint. My new companion is Elder Alzamora, I forgot to get a picture with him but I´ll have it before next week. I sent the pictures of the apartment and the office, at least the parts that I use. Elder Ccanccappa stayed in Duitama, I came to Bogota with Elder Balzer.

I didn't get to say goodbye to anyone in Duitama and I was super sad, I at least wanted to say goodbye to Nelson, after what we've been through together with his friends all accepting the talks and his mom dying, I didn't want to leave him alone, but I didn't have the time to say anything. And yes, yes it was super sudden. The baptism for Diana was great, and I was super happy that we were able to help her get to that point, but with the death of Nelson´s mom, that was a blow for him and was a testimony builder for Ccanccapa and I about the truthfulness of the gospel. It was a hard thing for Nelson since she had lived with him for more than 8 years and because it was his mom. But he was with us for the next few days all the time, making visits, joining us in Ward council, everything to just throw himself into the missionary work so that he wasn't alone in the house. I was planning to do some more service with him this week to help him out. Just keep praying for Nelson and his friends, we were teaching probably 7-9 of them. I´m a little sad to have left so suddenly that I also didn't have time to say goodbye to a few members and investigators that I had been close too in Duitama, but I´ll be able to visit them sooner or later. Oscar got married today to Jessica, I have to call my companion in Duitama to ask how it went but I hope that he got past the temptation that his family may have presented him. I know that the work will continue to go on and that the wonderful people of Duitama will make some great changes in that area. I already miss them.

I got the boxes for my birthday and Easter, and I got the Western Union today. I´m going to buy some ingredients and I found the recipe to make some good pizza crust so I think in the next 2 weeks or so I´m going to buy the real ingredients to make a pizza or patty melts, we´ll see which one is better.