MARACUYA YAYA YAYA

Maracuya Fruit

A couple of pointers regarding mail and packages.  In Colombia there is no national mail system.  Most of our correspondence is through email. Keep in mind if you are mailing packages from the USA the flat rate package boxes are the most economical way. Please keep it under 4 lbs. Packages weighing less than 4 lbs are delivered directly to our office. If the package weighs more than 4 lbs it is held up in customs at the airport and there is an extra fee that must be paid to get the package out of customs.  One of the questions I get in letters is about sending me a gift card or money.  So, here is what the mission president advised:  If your missionary needs money from home there are several options.  1.  A debit card from home. The family may place money into that account when needed for the missionary for his personal use. People can give funds directly to the parents to put in his account.   2. Send a cashier's check or traveler's check via Federal Express to the mission office in the missionary's name.  3.  Western Union. 

City of Suba behind me.

Isabel is getting baptized on Saturday hopefully but we need to work on her reading her scriptures more and praying so she can really gain a testimony of the church.   As for the family we haven´t had great success in having lessons with them.  They are always home but are super busy so we can never have a full lesson with them.  We´ll see what we can do with them.  As for the mail it can take anywhere from 1 month to never for me to receive packages or mail here.  If the package is more than 5 pounds it can take forever to get through customs.  They have McDonald's and Subway but only in Bogota, outside of Bogota...nothing.  We had a super great lesson with a new investigator called William the other day.  He has a problem with drugs we think.  We gave him a lesson on the  Word of Wisdom (click on that word if you want to know what that means) which went over great.  We are hoping that if we can help him to overcome his problem that we can get him to recognize the blessings of the gospel and have him increase his faith enough to be baptized.  

New foods that I get to try.  

Also I get to teach an English class, not sure if I told you that or not, but its a great way to have people come to the church and learn about our beliefs.  We´ve met at least 4-5 people to have lessons with from the classes and most of the time they are more solid than the people that we meet when contacting in the street.  I had an intercambio (missionary exchange) with Elder Zamorano and he´s really cool.  He's a Chilean who is about as tall as Michael Jordan, not that tall, but tall ( a little taller than Elder Pututau from my district in the MTC).   We got to go through his area and meet his investigators and I got to learn how to teach in a different way than from my companion and what I noticed the most was the animation.  Both him and my companion are super animated when teaching which is the best thing for the investigators.  That was pretty much my week here.  

Oh, by the way, I got robbed my first week here but didn't want my mom to freak out.  She still freaked!   As for food I got to have a real hamburger for lunch today which was great.  I haven´t had a hamburger in probably 3-4 months.  My shoes are holding up okay and if I need to fix them there is a guy right next to our apartment complex that fixes them.  As for weight, I lost about 15 pounds or so so far, but I gained some back the past few days.  As for this week we need to start having the chapel open for people to come have tours, in the past 2 weeks we´ve had at least 10 people walk in to see what the chapel and the building is like and to learn more about us.  Otherwise the weeks are going by it´s almost been 6 months since I left.

I GOT ROBBED! AND I GOT A NEW HAIR STYLE!

MY NEW MISSIONARY HAIR!

This past week was pretty good.  Isabel still has a baptismal date for the end of the month.  Miguel had some complication with his heart so we haven´t seen him for a while.  We found a family, Jacquelyn and Reuben who are really awesome and have so many questions for us.   We had interviews with the President this week but since I've only been here for like 3 weeks it was a really short interview.  My companion and I afterwards were tested on our English, I´m happy to say that I passed.  We had about 5 investigators at the church this Sunday which is great because it means they have interest in progressing.  As for the English classes every week we have a very charming lady come in and we get to teach her  a lesson every week.  She is super interested in the church and I´m hoping that the missionaries in her area can help her to be baptized.  As for Jacquelyn and Reuben after teaching them about the mandate of the apostles she keeps calling us that.  In her prayers that we have had with her, she keeps saying "thank you for sending these apostles to guide us" its something we need to work on, but for now its pretty funny.  We had the opportunity today to go play soccer with our zone and had a couple of our investigators come with us. I got to meet Cesar who is an investigator of the other elders,  he is super cool and he brought a friend in the hopes that we can start teaching him as well.  The best part for us this week was that we got to meet this really cool taxi driver who showed us how to fix the suspension on the taxis down here.  The engines down here look really weird compared to the ones at home.  But he was super chill. Well the plus side is that there is a golf course right next to the apartment so next P-day we get to go and play golf, so super excited for that.

As for Colombia,  its pretty good, I've only been robbed once which means I got that out of the way for the rest of my mission.  Its fine he only took 2 mil, which is like a dollar in the states.  As for food, one of our investigators made us a meal of soup, salad, tres leches cake and.....Fish.  And not fish from home, this fish still had the head.  I didn't want to offend her so I had to eat it.  It was probably the best fish I've ever had in my life.  I didn't eat the head (sorry but there is a line for what I will eat after only being here for 3 weeks) and I would definitely eat the fish again.  I don´t know what was different about this one and the ones at home but it was delicious. I 
don't have a picture unfortunately but it was great (it was Tilapia).  My companion is good.  We are working on finding more people to teach.  Seems to be a never ending cycle of the mission work.  Find someone teach them a lesson or two and go find someone else.  I can understand most of what my companions say, but they have to talk in very slow and spaced words for me to understand everything. The same for my investigators, I can usually piece together what they are saying but it takes me a little while.  Right now we have maybe 5-6 solid investigators 2 of which are families which is great, but of course we can always use more.  As for the Spanish I don´t really have a choice in whether I improve it or not.  It´s going to be a thing of habit.  But its good because it gets me out of my shell.  By the time I come back you won´t be able to shut me up.

THE SOCCER TEAM

THE CHAPEL

TAKING A BREAK!

EL GRINGO IN COLOMBIA!

Brother and Sister Andelin

Katy, Alberto and Kimberly

Minon and me!

The city has been a beautiful 65-72 degrees all week, with only sporadic sprinkling.  I did get 2nd degree burns the first day because of the sun.  I didn't even feel the heat all day, but got home at night and bam,  burns on my face.  But its fine now,  everything is peeling already.  My feet were killing me the first few days since we walk everywhere or take a bus.  We don´t have cars or bikes which is fine, since I´m sure we would all die if we had either, drivers down here are crazy.  As President Andelin said (somewhat quoting Pirates of the Caribbean , "Traffic Rules down here are more guidelines than an actual rule."  Which I have seen to be very true.  Also here I get to be called Gringo,  which is fine, for now I find it to be super funny, but I´m sure in the next 2-3 months I'm going to get annoyed with it.  But for now its hilarious when people ride by on their bikes and yell to their friends "OY, Mira, mira, Gringo"  (hey, look, look, a white boy).

My new companion is great.  He is a native from Calle, Colombia and is about 27 years old.  He is a recent convert to the church of about 3 years and is very knowledgeable of the scriptures and doesn't have any problems asking people to be baptized in our first lessons.  The language is a little frustrating because it feels as though members and others give up talking to me because they have to repeat everything twice or more for me to get the full sentence and then another minute or so to translate it and answer.   I know that within the next 2 transfers I´ll be able to speak the language well enough to not have to worry about that as much.

Also Elder Zamorano, my companion, and I got to open a new area.  So we started pretty much from scratch.  We get lost in our area probably every night.  but its good, we get to work it all out and we live with some elders in the other part of our area.  We got to open the Jordan 2 area, which is in Suba, just outside of Bogota.  The area we cover is probably about 10 square miles or so.  But the buses here are free for the most part so if we need to get to the other side we just jump on a bus.  My companion and I  did a lot of walking this week and we had our first English class on Saturday, I didn't know it at the time but apparently I will be teaching the English class on my own without anyone to help me translate, so when I come home I´ll be a pro at teaching English.  We had about 10 people come so it was pretty good, we met a new investigator from it named Christian, we actually have a family home evening with him tonight with a members family.

This week we set 2 more baptisms for the end of the month with Isabel and Miguel.  Both are super solid investigators and we are super excited to have found them.  Isabel is a contact from a member that we got about a week ago.  And Miguel is an investigator that the other Elders met on the bus.  He´s already referring to himself as Elder Miguel.  It's pretty funny.  The members out here are great.  We have a member with us almost every night of the week to help us in our lessons and to go teach less-active members.  With the members the lessons go a lot smoother because people listen to them a little more closely than they do to us.    Also on Thursday while we were waiting for our Ward mission leader a random guy that owns a tienda (store) across the street from the church came over and sat on the little wall in front of the church and was staring at it.  Me and Elder Zamorano (my first Colombia companion/roommate) went over and started talking to him and took him into the church and had a long discussion with him  about the church,  I don't  know if it's going to go anywhere but many people here would be more than willing to come into our chapel but they think it's always locked.    The language is coming along slowly, but i know that within the next 3-5 months I´ll be able to speak fluently enough  to not need my companion to "dumb it down" for me.  The food so far hasn't been weird thank goodness, and we get fed everyday. But even with that I've lost about 15 pounds since I've been here. We walk somewhere between 15-25 miles a day depending on where all our appointments are so I guess that isn't a surprise, but once I get to an area where its hot all day every day I´ll probably lose more, but we´ll see.  I only have one hour to write letters.  So hopefully many of your answers are in here.  

  

Other note is that the Members and Leaders here are awesome.  Our Bishop and Ward mission leader are both super excited to have 4 missionaries in the ward.  Our mission leader was a Stake president for a while before and so he is super super faithful and he tells us that it is a great great blessing to have 4 missionaries in their ward and he is super excited to be able to help us.  The bishop as well made it clear that he is willing to have himself and the members help us in any way they can.  In testimony meeting I almost didn't get to bear my testimony because it felt as though the entire ward wanted to go up on the stand.  It was a great experience to see.

MY OWN MTC! Don't miss it!

So I have my own MTC...okay Mallycat Tabernacle Choir hence MTC.  These cute kids put this video together and emailed it to me.  It made my week that they would take the time to do this and really uplift me.  I wonder how many times they had to sing this to get it so great.  I love to watch each of their faces.  You can see the testimony they have of this!  This is an example of why I love what I am doing.  

  

THE MALLEY CATS!

So as you know, I am heading to Colombia tomorrow (Monday).  I don't have much to say this week as I am trying to repack my suitcases and send a bunch of stuff home because I will be leaving Tallahassee.  I am excited for Tallahassee.  We have a lot of new investigators and wished that I could have finished in that area at least through transfers.  However, I am heading to where I am suppose to be.  Notice the change in my address to the right side.  As always, you can email me at justin.bandy@myldsmail.net.  Adios!

COLOMBIA BOUND ---VISA IS IN!

Hola Familia and Amigos,

I'm hoping this video works.  I have a special video to share with you next week but I'm not sure with my limited internet access if I can download a video. 

So this week first a bit of exciting news, I have my Visa.  My buddy Elder Peterson is going to Colombia as well and he found out that he had received his so I called to see about mine and voila it was in the office as well, so I will be leaving with him on Monday to go to Colombia.  We are both super excited to be able to get out and go to the country.  On Sunday we met a friend of Hma. Tu and her friend's husband is from Colombia and after talking to him we both were super excited for when we would be able to go down and start partaking in the culture and furthering the work.  I was hoping that I would be able to finish the transfer here before going down there but I guess that it just isn't going to be that way. 

This week in Tallahassee we have been a little high on miles on the car this month so we've been riding bikes a lot which I am not very enthused about, since I despise riding bikes, but it's a good thing for me.  Gets me in shape for when I get to Colombia. We did about 20-25 miles on Friday, which I did not thoroughly enjoy at all.  Mostly because the streets we took felt as though it was one giant hill after another.  We met a few new people this week thanks to being on our bikes and hopefully we'll be able to find some hidden gems this week as well. Our one family that is super solid (Katy, Alberto, and Kimberly) are all super excited about the church and Alberto is already talking about going and serving on a mission.  We haven't even finished teaching all the lessons yet!  But we have a lesson with them on Tuesday and we're going to be setting a baptism date with them at that time.  We also found out that Katy's husband, Alex, has been eavesdropping on our lessons without us knowing, so he's getting really interested in the church as well.  Minon had surgery on her foot and leg on Wednesday so we went over to her house on Tuesday and gave her a blessing.  She was really appreciative and we even let her know that we would be setting a baptism date with her this week, which she said would be great.  So that's another investigator that we're really having high hopes for. 

WE ALL GOT CALLED TO SERVE TALLAHASSEE T-SHIRTS!

I LIVE OUT THERE TO THE RIGHT OF THE BIG ROAD.

So does our ward have 2 sets of missionaries now?

We're seeing some great strides being made in the area now and I'm hoping that once I leave that the work will keep getting better and better. So to all my Amigos, miembros de mi distrito en el CCM y sudamerica.  aqui vengo.

WAFFLE HOUSE

Suber Family

We had the baptism on Saturday which was great, the Suber's are going to be great addition to the Quincy branch and their 3 children are just awesome to be around.  It's Alan, Theresa, Sylvia, Winton, and Angelica.  We will have dinner with them on Wednesday so I'll have a better chance to get to know them.  Our mission president also came to the baptism which made the Suber's and the branch members in Quincy feel really good, and was a great bolster to our confidence.  We had a great lesson on Thursday with one of our old time investigators, Minon who is a lovely 75 year old lady from Cuba. We had a member come with us, Hma. Macia, who is also from Cuba. So we found out that when you get 2 Cuban ladies in a room together for the first time, they will talk about everything under the sun until the end of time unless you somehow get them to focus. :)    But having her there gave us a reason to invite Minon's son Alvarro to join us. He said he had the best time with us in that lesson and invited us to come back and teach them again this coming week.  Minon also came to church yesterday and really enjoyed it.  We set a baptism with another of our old time investigators, Walter, who is from Honduras.   He is a super great guy, and is very prepared to follow through on the commitment.  This week we had to do a lot of finding, but it was fun.  We have a lot of return appointments for this week so it's going to be pretty good.  We still need to find more people to teach, but the work is going a whole lot better for us than last transfer so I probably have to thank all the prayers coming from home, the temples, and the many missionaries that pray for us as we pray for them. 

They have a really nice car museum here that we do service at once a week.  Other than that there isn't too much site seeing.  On a silly note, my cousin-in-law, (not naming names but married to Shawna) was in Nashville this week and ate at his first Waffle House.  Really?  If you have never eaten at a Waffle House or had grits, then you have to write to me a letter this week.  My address is in the upper right hand corner.  :) 

Not the Sears tower but still a great view.

Tallahassee Capital

WILL WORK FOR ....VESPA.




VESPA...SOMETHING EVERY MISSIONARY NEEDS

Well not much to report on this week.  We did a lot of finding this week, which means a lot of tracting.  The main areas that we usually would search for Hispanics have all been searched already so we have to go and try to find the "pocket" Hispanics. Which are the Hispanics that live in the middle of neighborhoods, or apartments complexes where you normally wouldn't find them.  We found a few Hispanics this week but none that were really interested in the Gospel.  The rest of the week has been mostly getting the area in order for when the new president and his wife come in. We did service on Saturday which was nice,  helped a member family get some of their possessions from their house to a storage container.  The container area was really nice, had indoor temperature control and everything, really fancy.  Then they fed us pizza, which is great because they know how we as missionaries like food. On Thursday was my first day riding my bike all day.  And the streets here have so many hills I felt that I was going to die after the first hour.  I think I'm going to see if the Mission President will authorize the missionaries to get some Vespas, I think that would be great  for us in this area. 

The first transfer my companions were OK with letting me say a prayer and bearing my testimony, but they want me to start having a more "pro-active" position in the lessons.  So this transfer is going to be me working on  interjecting my thoughts and impressions as they come instead of trying to wait for a moment to give them.  Other wise the highlight of the week would have to be Sunday.  Since coming out Sundays would have to be the best part of the week for me.  Fasting (going without foodd for 24 hours and then using the money that you would have used for food and donating it to the poor and needy) is also a lot easier since I came out on the mission too,  probably because I'm not sitting in the house half the day glaring at the refrigerator for taunting me. We have a lot coming up this week though.  I have my meet and greet with the new president and his wife on Tuesday and then we have a baptism to go too on Saturday with a family from Quincy, FL.  They are a great family.  They have been fellow-shipping in the church for years and now finally they are ready for the gospel and they are just such joys to be around.  So we get to make an excursion to Quincy on Saturday to see them get baptized.  We've also set up some appointments this week so I'm hoping that they will all go through otherwise its going to be a lot of tracting again this week, which if it keeps up I'll be a pro by the time I go to Colombia.  But there I won't have to look for someone who speaks Spanish.  Which is the hardest part right now. 

The highlight of the week is hopefully going to be when we set a BCD with Alberto and his family.  They would be such a great addition to the branch.  We had a family that we have been trying to teach all last transfer without any success, but we met them on Saturday and invited them to church (even though we haven't had a lesson with them yet and only barely know them), and they said that they would come.  So first hour of Sunday rolls around and they aren't there and so Elders Correa, Olmstead and I are all bummed out that they didn't come, until we get a call from Alberto (the 15 year old son), that they are in the church.  So me and Elder Correa go running down the hall to find them and we find Alberto and his sister, Kimberly, outside calling us and find his Mom sitting in the Chapel listening to the English Sacrament meeting.  I walk in and try to tell her to follow me but I haven't learned commands yet in Spanish so I had to pantomime following me and saying por favor a couple times.  So we take her to our Second hour meeting where the missionary lesson was.  In the lesson Elder Correa used Alberto as an example to the members that there are people that are ready for the gospel. We had given Alberto a Book or Mormon about 2-3 weeks after I got here, and he had the whole book read within a week, and then at the end of the lesson his mom, Kathy, raised her hand and told the members that they just need to smile and invite people because they have everything that they need. All the Elders and myself were very impressed with her and with our Ward mission Leader for their input and willingness to help us with the work, especially Kathy for giving a testimony the very first time she had ever been inside our church. 



MY DESK

Thanks for the emails and letters!!!!  Keep them coming!  If anyone back home wants to know more about what I'm doing, email me at justin.bandy@myldsmail.net.