ELDER BANDY IS FAT!

The weather is the same, we had a breeze a couple days this week so that was a great blessing for us and even though I would like to have some type of tan when I leave here, I think I´ll stick to avoiding the sun for the next 2 years.  I really don´t care much for sunburn.  I find that the heat is pretty unbearable but I'm getting more used to it, so that's a blessing for me.  The streets here don´t have names so I can't tell you where I am exactly.

Me and my new friend Lulu.  The Loro spanish for parrot.

Letters from the kids of some of the investigators.

A letter from one of the investigators telling me she wants to be my friend and if I´m nice to her she´ll let me be her friend.  A letter from another daughter of an investigator that says I´m super special and that she knows I´m sent from God and she want´s to be a missionary

A really cool motorcycle in the area. A lot of people ride motorcycles here.

The area is great we have been working hard in 2 parts of the area this week since these parts tend to have more people that are willing to listen to us and are more open for us.  Our ladies are all doing great.  We have a baptism for this Saturday for Rosa Sanchez, who has been investigating for about a month now but is ready to be baptized.  We also talked with a couple other families that we have and 3 of them which still need to be married are all getting married on the 6th of December so the 7th we´re going to be having a great big baptismal service for the 3 of them, which is going to be about 8 or 9 people and that is going to be great. This week we had about 40 lessons which usually in a week we have about 30 so it was an improvement.  I still felt that we had time that could have been used doing something, so we´re working this week and planning the time better so we´re not walking as much from one side to the other but are trying to teach one house and go from one to the next closest.  We are improving the area and if we can get the members we have more active in the work they´ll be able to have a chapel in the next few months but we just need to have them help us recoger (activate)some more members.  We found a family that has a son who is having problems with drugs, but the positive is that he wants to change, so we have hope there for him.  He didn´t come on Sunday but we´re going to work on getting him to the church.  But his family is super great.  His mom, Olga is super supportive of us coming to teach him and her as well and her questions are always to help her or Audi, her son, understand better what we´re teaching.  They both have the desire to change and we´re going to be there to help them do it.  

One day Olga told Audi that "el es bien gordo."  or "Elder Bandy" is fat, but in this context it means that I have some meat on my bones and I´m not deathly skinny like some of the people here.  They´re not dying but they just don´t have any fat on them.  I was a little offended until my companion started agreeing with her, so I was a little peeved with him until he explained it and it meant that I looked healthy and then he explained to them how it's an insult in America and we all had a good laugh! I had to laugh at myself.  Different culture, different view of life.  The weird thing is that I've lost 20 lbs since being here.  If they would have seen me then... 

We had a surprise this week at church when a family that we´ve only visited once this week showed up at church.  Their daughter has been assisting for 2-3 weeks now but we´ve only been teaching her since her parents are always working so it was  a pleasant surprise for us that they came.

This is how you buy milk in Colombia!

The food here is practically the same as in Suba but its only different in that we are closer to the coast and so they have more fruits here from the coast than in Suba so that's different.  As for the fact that I am getting skinnier is the main fact that we´re walking in 90 plus degree weather all day for a good 8 hours or so, so I´m bound to lose something.  But I get plenty to eat when we have lunch it's just that we don´t really have time to eat anything after lunch so that's pretty much my meal for the day, but after the past 4 months here I´m used to only lunch.    But as for the food,  I haven´t really found anything that I haven´t liked yet.  The food is different but overall I like the food here as much as at home.  But mom will be happy since I´m going to come home and eat whatever she makes since the food here is so different and since the members make it I can´t be picky.   But I really like fish down here, don´t know why but it tastes better here than at home.  

The fish here is great!

Fruit called Totoma or something like that.  You can't eat it.  It's used to make bowls and stuff like that.

The church buildings here are different.  Still elegant as ever, but they don´t need heating or cooling in many places so there´s only fans in most of the buildings.  But my branch right now is in a house. There aren´t enough members or I should say active members to support a church building so we´re working on getting more members so they can have an actual building to meet in.  

Dog of the Orduña Family, Lupé

Dog of our Ward Mission leader, Lucy

We´ve been looking for a new house so I´ll send pictures when we figure out where we´re going to be living which will be this week or the next.  I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving.  Please email me and tell me what you are thankful for.  Please share my blog on your Facebook!

  

BONITO IN BARRANCABEMEJA

 

HOUSES IN BARRANCABEMEJA

Siempre (Always) it's hot like the desert here but its pretty good.   I´m in Barranca-bermeja which is about 10 hours by bus from Bogota.  The people are super friendly and here apparently someone that has skin like mine is considered "bonito"  which is rather flattering but I´m on a mission and its usually only the old ladies that say it so......   But as for the church I´m in a branch.   As for the mail it still gets sent to the office so that the president can send it out to us when we have conferences.  The church is about the same distance but there really isn´t transportation out here so we get to hoof it all week.  As for our area its about the 4 times bigger than my last area, hotter, and hillier, but I'm starting to love it here.  (Not the heat, never going to love the heat, but everything else, sí).  We didn´t get hardly any rain this week, it only rains at night and for about 15 minutes so no help there.
 

Lets see this week we did a lot of walking....A lot.   Out area is super, super big, it takes almost 40 minutes to walk from an investigators house to ours so every night we get home pretty late.  Also here the roads are like Memaws and Papas so all dirt and rocks which means my shoes are dirty everyday.  But the people here are super open and we can talk with just about everyone.  Not everyone wants to take discussions but it's a step up that I can talk with the people about the gospel and not have them just walk away without saying anything.

We finally got to perform service this week as well.  We helped move a member to another house and then we helped a less active member start to take down a house.  Yes, we are dismantling a house to make room for another one.  Hopefully the new one will be better because the other was ewww.   But its nice to do service.



LADY WE ARE HELPING AND MY COMPANION

BEFORE TAKING HOUSE DOWN

HALFWAY DONE

ALL DONE

We found a few new people to teach 2-3 families which it's always better to teach families since they can support one another and it's just better to have a family in the church.  We have one family Orduña that is super ready to be baptized they just  need to get married so we´re working on that.  We are teaching a lady named Rosa.  She is super sweet and she really wants to be baptized as well, we just need another week or 2 to teach her all the lessons and she´ll be ready to go on in the gospel.

We didn´t find any other monkeys or anything this week so no new photos of the wildlife but I´m going to try and get a picture of one of the lizards here, they are huge.  We had a couple family home evenings this week and its always nice to have one of those with the members especially on a Monday night to finish the day strong.  Here the members have the family home evening in the home of the investigator so maybe that's something that you can suggest to the missionaries that perhaps some members can go the home of an investigator to have a family home evening.  It's always more interesting than a lesson from the missionaries and it helps to build friendships in the church.  Otherwise that's about it this week.
 

DINNER AFTER A HARD DAY OF WORK

NEW HOT AREA...I'VE MOVED!

Me and some random Monkey

 

I got transferred  on Thursday so I am not in Bogota anymore, I am in Barranca which is the hottest part of the country,  I'm going to be dying for the next 3-4 months while I¨m here. Pray that the Lord will put a cloud over me the whole time.    


Colleges here apparently are cheap.  It's like $6,000 for a good one.  I know random thought.

The city behind me.

 So I am now the Senior Companion so I have to learn how to do that.  I also need to figure out this area.  It's crazy hot here and I need to learn  how to get around. The accent here is different and the people have different customs but I should get the hang of it pretty quickly.  I feel that the English is going away but it could just be this keyboard.  Elder Coronel and I found a family the other night that are super awesome and while they weren't  super excited when we started talking to them they opened up and said they would love to have us visit them.  We found another couple an hour later that told us the same thing and I could understand them so I knew they weren´t making up stories but were truly interested in talking to us.  We found a  lady mas tarde que nos queria to teach  a class to her and some friends that have a Bible study class.  We had a really great beginning of the week.  And then I got transferred and we have to start from practically scratch. but if we have success it will be  because we are working hard and if the Lord wants to give us the success that we deserve we will be thankful. 

I´m with Elder Guajardo now and he is a recent convert to the church as well.  He´s from Chile and has 4 months in the mission but he understands the lessons very well so I don´t have to teach him much. Just how to be obedient and how to be a missionary of success.  We have a few families that were given us by the last group of missionaries that are progressing. We just need to help them with the matrimony problem.  But that's a problem with a lot here as well as at home, so I'm not too perturbed by that anymore.  Its practically standard at this point when we find a couple.

I taught a lesson in Gospel Principles on Sunday.  I need to keep improving on my Spanish. I received mail from a lot of people and I have pictures of some of it.  Thanks everyone for the pictures and letters.  I'm so far from home and that brings you closer to me!  Below is a picture of my study area and wonderful letters from kids at home.   

DID YOU KNOW?

DID YOU KNOW THAT On the first Thursday of February every year, Bogotá has a "Day without Cars" where no private cars are allowed on the streets of the city between 6.30am and 7.30pm. Public transport and taxis are still available on that day.

 

This week we found a few families and got a few baptismal dates so I´m not going to complain about this week.  Also, this week has been an experience for all of us.  We did a lot of contacting this week and we tried to get the members more involved with the investigators that we have.  The biggest thing right now that we are working on is to have more lessons with members.  It's the biggest disappointment for us when we talk to members about investigators that have been attending Sundays and they don´t know who our investigators are.  So we´re going to work on getting them more engaged with them as they attend.   Its hard to find opportunities to perform service. But we keep on looking for ways to help everyone.

Message to my Papa:  Oh papa, what are we going to do with you.  I can't drive either and I know it's frustrating but you will get to drive before I will.  Be patient.

EVEN IF YOU ARE ON THE RIGHT TRACK, YOU WILL GET RUN OVER IF YOU JUST SIT THERE!

Tracking with my comp

 Today we had a super personal day (P-day) with over 100 missionaries.  I got to play football and volleyball.  We then had a devotional from President Andelin. That was pretty great.  The week has been difficult but we have had success with our ability to find people.  We have been knocking 20 or more doors every day and with that it helps us to find more people.  The people here are ready but it's a matter of introducing them to the gospel in a way that makes them want to learn about it.

The weather in this part of Colombia is the same year  round. They golf whenever they want.  But it is expensive.   I saw someone practicing in the park next to our apartment and I wanted to steal the wedge from her but that wouldn't be very missionary like so I didn't but I feel like whenever I see a club or a course I go through the withdrawals all over again.

There is a food called Mazamorra, don't know if I spelled it right but its made with corn, milk and you can add cheese and sugar.  Its super delicious.  But otherwise nothing new for the week.

 

 

OVER 3,000 HITS!!!!

Yummy Dinner!


 Wow!  I’ve had over 3,000 hits on my blog!!!!  Thanks for reading about my journey and all of your support and prayers.  On Sundays we have meetings at 7 in the morning.  So every Sunday we take a taxi from the house to the church because otherwise we wouldn’t arrive there in time for the meetings.  It’s probably about 3-4 miles from the house so on days that we don’t take a taxi we have a bus that we can use or we walk.   Isabel (the lady that said “Yes, to the dress) is doing great, she enjoyed her first conference and we are going to have a visit with her tonight to talk about her time at conference.

There were a lot of good speakers this conference (conference is where our Prophet speaks to all the members of our church via internet, satellite, T.V….) but I particularly enjoyed the talk given by Elder Perry about the mission work, it was a scolding for both members and missionaries but it was also a great promise to all of us that if we are willing to put the Lord first we will be blessed to have many missionary experiences as well as many memories that we will cherish for the rest of our lives.  Remember that sharing the gospel isn’t like me or any other missionary for members, it’s finding the God-given openings to share a brief testimony or story about something in the church, it doesn’t have to be a full blown invitation to meet missionaries or be baptized but simply over time helping others to see the joy and blessings of the gospel in the lives of those who live it.  I was also deeply impressed with the talk given by Elders Oaks and Cook. They both spoke about very similar but diverse topics and it was a great strength for us missionaries as I’m sure it was an answered prayer for many others. 

 

Me and the Gringos

The Lord is blessing me to be better at sharing the gospel.  Because I truly believe that if a missionary can learn or develop the love for the people he serves and be an excellent contactor he/she will be a super successful missionary because as PMG (preach my gospel) says, if we don’t have anyone to teach, the work cannot and will not progress.  So we found about 6-8 people to visit this week, which is great.  Have a great week!!!!

My companions!

RECEIVED ALL MY MAIL FROM JULY AND AUGUST!

Plantanos and Grenadines are two of the fruits that I love here!

Soccer is most definitely the most played sport here and I do not play it very often.  First because  I still hate running and second because the field that we play at with the other missionaries is super far away.   

As for this week we had our zone conference which was great.  We found a new family Edison and his kids are the nephew of one of our members and he is wanting to change his life. He saw the change in his uncle and so he wants the same.  Also really cool was that Sunday a member from another zone came to visit some friends and brought them to church and they were like we love this church, can you come visit us this week so we can learn more.  I was silent for a good 15-20 seconds because I had to wrap my head around what they said.  I almost didn't understand since Elder Coronel was talking with another investigator so it was me by my lonesome  but I heard right and we have a cita (visit) this week with them.  I'm hoping that we have greater success this week and that we can soften the hearts of the people here so that they can recognize us and this gospel as being sent from our  loving Heavenly Father.  

I finally got a whole lot of letters when we had our Zone conference,  So I got to feel all the love from the letters you all sent back in July and August.  All the letters that I received I opened only 1 every night so that they would last for more than minutes.  But still they are all opened now.
I love being a missionary.  I love what I teach! 


Some of our basic beliefs.