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

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.