LAST AREA...LAST BLOG...

Red Squirrel

My closet

  I'm now in Bucaramanga. The drive to get here was about 10 hours from Bogota on a bus and it was nice, we were on a Double Decker bus, but they had the air conditioner running the whole time so it was a little cold sometimes. The new area is fine, it`s hotter than Bogota, but that`s about the only thing that I don`t particularly like about the area.    It has a generous dispersion of apartments and houses but they all are surrounded by gates or fences making it hard to meet people.  Just working out those kinks from not being in the field for so long.  Other than that it`s fine.  My companion and I get along fine.  His name is Elder Briceño and he's from Chile.  He has about 16-17 months in the mission.   My Spanish is doing fine. I find myself mixing my Spanish with English now that I`m required to speak only Spanish in the area again. That will hopefully pass in the next week or so.   I was trying to hide the fact that I`m leaving in a few weeks but somehow the members found out that I only have 3 weeks left in Terrazzos and I don`t know how.  


The biggest challenge this week has been to find investigators and especially to be able to find those that are willing to listen to the gospel.

My biggest concern right now is that I`ll get lazy for going home soon and not finish the mission strong so that I can come home with little or no regrets.

My biggest success this past week....I have been doing my daily exercises, and I`m not chowing down on everything in sight anymore.  But in the work,  we had a few good contacts this week and we`ll be visiting them today or later this week.

My favorite person this week would be Hno. Hector Alias.  Because he always invites us over to his house for Family Home Evenings and there`s always a non member to contact or something to do so that we can fulfill our calling.

What are you looking forward to this coming week? We have our zone conference tomorrow and I believe that we have some good lessons planned.

Do you have a goal set for this coming week? I plan on memorizing a scripture a day since I`ve been forgetting to do it in the office.  But that`s just because I like doing it and it`s easy to do so.

Happy Birthday to my mom!  

P.S. Sister Martinez I will try to  bring bocadillo and arequipe back.

Guama

Sign in city

Bowling with Hermanas

Bowling shoes

TRANSFERRING TO....

Made fettuccine for the house.

I am being transferred to.....  I have no idea yet but I will let you know on Monday.  Transfers are on Monday, but I¨ll be leaving Tuesday or Wednesday with Elder Flores, to where, no idea.   It´s nice to be leaving. It will be a change of pace since I've been in the office for seven months.   But I want to finish strong and be able to say that I was obedient and served the Lord and the people of Colombia.

Alzamora did write me and it was nice to hear from him.  Thanks ex-comp!

Not a lot to write because I need to pack and get ready to go somewhere.  I will write more on Monday.

Fettuccine

The lock on the center is to be able to open that latch and then take the padlocks off the inside of the door so that you can actually open the door.  It´s really secure, but kind of overkill

MIGHT BE LEAVING BOGOTA SOON?

The week is going good,  My replacements are arriving on Saturday so that´ll be great and  I´ll be training them the following week.  I believe that I´ll be leaving from the office the 26-27 of January depending on what president wants me to do before I leave.  So that´ll be nice, get out in the field and do normal missionary work.

The other missionaries aren´t calling me a short timer, just an old timer.  I´m now officialLy the "oldest" missionary in the field with those of my group and the oldest gringo in the group.  So that´s kind of sad.  

I went to the Larson´s in the afternoon to eat lunch, which was chili dogs, so no complaining there.  President Andelin invited us to go to breakfast at his house and we ate bacon with pancakes, so also no complaining.  Hmmmm. Bacon.  

HAPPY NEW YEAR

ELDER ROBERTSON

PANORAMA OF CONFERENCE

ELDER LITLER

MY COMP AFTER PLANKING

The week has to have been one of the most stressful that I´ve had here in the offices.  We had all the conferences this week as well as transfers, new arrivals and having to finish all the payments for the mission accounts to close them all by next week.  So with all of it I haven’t left the office all week for any reason other than to eat and sleep.  We also got to take two sisters to the airport so that they could end their missions.  But they were both really good sisters.  One is sister Muñoz  and the other was sister Mancillas.  

We had our Christmas conference today, it was pretty good, unlike last year I was actually involved in the logistics of the conference so that made it a lot more interesting as I didn´t just enjoy myself, I had to actually do things to make sure it all went somewhat smoothly.  But as for Elder Rogers he lives in Utah, so not that far away (only a short 20 hour drive in car, practically nothing), but he´s a cool guy, got along great with him in the offices when he was assistant.  It was great that he was able to send the stuff home!  The Larson´s are a family from Arizona who are here because Brother Larson works for the embassy.  They gave me the pop tarts, I kind of miss eating them but with the one box I think I´m good until I go home.

At our last service project, we were cleaning it of all the sticks, rocks and other things as well as the horse manure that accumulated in the area.  But he was happy for the help, don´t really remember if we got a whole lot done, but it was a good service.  Don´t know if he is still investigating but it´s fine just helping out.  I didn´t take any horse pictures because I didn´t think about it at the time, but the horses here in Colombia are small things, not very big in the chest.

President told me that I´ll be leaving for the field in January so I´ll have a few weeks in the field before I come back so we´ll see how it goes. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!  

CHRISTMAS PACKAGE FROM MEMA AND PAPA

CHRISTMAS FROM PARENTS

CHRISTMAS PACKAGE FROM HOME

DINNER

DINNER AT CONFERENCE

GREAT GIFT!!!!

OVERCOOKED MOZZERELLA STICKS

NICE LOOKING SALAD