Monday, September 14, 2009
1st Baptism
Ayy. What a week. Huge ups and huge downs. This week we had our first baptism, while I've been in the area. It was great, her name is Cecilia Velez, shes a rock. She was ready to baptised a month and half ago but the week of her baptism she fell and broke her arm. Adversity trying to stop her, but she stuck through it and was baptized this past saturday. She lives on the floor below us and is the nicest lady ever. She invited her family to the baptism and the confirmation. Ha, I had to do the baptism 3 times because her broken arm was fighting to stay above the water. but we got it. It was great. We started talking with her son-in-law this week, whom has been separted from her daughter for the last two months from gambling problems. We taught about repentence the first lesson and it went really well. I´m pumped. Nobody can deny the need for Another to lift the burdens and guilt of sin, and it can only be done through Christ. Sometimes we need to fall to understand how much we need Christ in our lives.
We also have some great new investagors, two of which are very close with great members so its sweet. One of them Andreli we met from our English Classes. Ha our first lesson was at her house and we walked up and I was positive that Mr. T was in her house. It was nuts. Turns out he´s a boxer here in Colombia, and he looks exactly like Mr. T. He was a character. He had this sweet huge poster of him with this mean face in the ring. it rocked. I wanted it.
So this week has been full of dealing with the marriages of Reynaldo and Nancy, Yohonny and Amanda. Elder Reynoso found Rey and Nancy from knocking doors. Turns out that Rey is a member, and after listening Nancy was super ready to baptized and Rey was reactived. It's been great. The only problem is dealing with their marriage. Rey first had to get divorced and so we´ve been dealing with the papers. He had to go to three cities outside of Bucaramanga to get it all figured out. But its all good now. They're ready to get married and to have the baptism this following week. I´m praying everything will stay in place. Ah and Yohonny. ayy. we´ve been in and out of marriage talk since I´ve been here. We had finally had it all figured out. Both of these families don´t have the money to pay for the papers and the wedding so the bishop and the ward are helping out. But one condition is that they need to be baptised in the same day as the wedding, cause the bishop has paid for weddings before where the people had him pay for the wedding, then peaced out and never came to the baptism. I don´t think this would be the case with Yohonny, but the bishop wants to do it this way. So the last two days have been rough working with Yohonny and Amanada. Yohonny is super strong and Amanda thinks she needs to wait tell December to be baptized, and also said she will only get baptised with Yohnny. So its been really rough dealing with this for the past two days. Then today she got mad, felt like we were pushing her, and called everything off, and Yohnny is going along with her, feels like he needs to wait for her. He came up to our room like two hours ago and told us what Amanda said and that we shouldn´t come by for now. Broke my heart. wow, haven´t felt like that really, just rejected. punched in the face. He told us ¨muchas gracias, but we cant do this right now¨. But I knew we could´nt just give up. We prayed, and we prayed, and I felt we really needed to talk with him and Amanda tonight. We talked with him again, and he said we can call when he´s at home. I hope he follows through. I cannot let him throw away what he knows is true. He loves the book of Mormon. He´s read through 2nd nephi in the past three weeks. He want´s to be baptized, but he just wont stick up to his girlfriend. He told us he was going to wait tell December to be baptised, but I know that if he isn´t baptized this month. it won´t happen. Its too much time for Satan to work and pick at him. He is truely one of the elect. So part of me feels like I did something or said something wrong. But like nephi said (i know in whom i have trusted). I know that he is with me and I have faith that his will will be done.
I hope all is well at home, love you all so much. And am so greatful for our family and what it is built upon. Nothing has been harder so far, and from what E. Reynoso said for him as well, then to keep families together. Families are central to God´s plan, thus Satan is attacking them with all he´s got.
sorry if this is short, this just happened, so to be honest my mind is elsewhere.
with love from colombia,
Elder Adams
We also have some great new investagors, two of which are very close with great members so its sweet. One of them Andreli we met from our English Classes. Ha our first lesson was at her house and we walked up and I was positive that Mr. T was in her house. It was nuts. Turns out he´s a boxer here in Colombia, and he looks exactly like Mr. T. He was a character. He had this sweet huge poster of him with this mean face in the ring. it rocked. I wanted it.
So this week has been full of dealing with the marriages of Reynaldo and Nancy, Yohonny and Amanda. Elder Reynoso found Rey and Nancy from knocking doors. Turns out that Rey is a member, and after listening Nancy was super ready to baptized and Rey was reactived. It's been great. The only problem is dealing with their marriage. Rey first had to get divorced and so we´ve been dealing with the papers. He had to go to three cities outside of Bucaramanga to get it all figured out. But its all good now. They're ready to get married and to have the baptism this following week. I´m praying everything will stay in place. Ah and Yohonny. ayy. we´ve been in and out of marriage talk since I´ve been here. We had finally had it all figured out. Both of these families don´t have the money to pay for the papers and the wedding so the bishop and the ward are helping out. But one condition is that they need to be baptised in the same day as the wedding, cause the bishop has paid for weddings before where the people had him pay for the wedding, then peaced out and never came to the baptism. I don´t think this would be the case with Yohonny, but the bishop wants to do it this way. So the last two days have been rough working with Yohonny and Amanada. Yohonny is super strong and Amanda thinks she needs to wait tell December to be baptized, and also said she will only get baptised with Yohnny. So its been really rough dealing with this for the past two days. Then today she got mad, felt like we were pushing her, and called everything off, and Yohnny is going along with her, feels like he needs to wait for her. He came up to our room like two hours ago and told us what Amanda said and that we shouldn´t come by for now. Broke my heart. wow, haven´t felt like that really, just rejected. punched in the face. He told us ¨muchas gracias, but we cant do this right now¨. But I knew we could´nt just give up. We prayed, and we prayed, and I felt we really needed to talk with him and Amanda tonight. We talked with him again, and he said we can call when he´s at home. I hope he follows through. I cannot let him throw away what he knows is true. He loves the book of Mormon. He´s read through 2nd nephi in the past three weeks. He want´s to be baptized, but he just wont stick up to his girlfriend. He told us he was going to wait tell December to be baptised, but I know that if he isn´t baptized this month. it won´t happen. Its too much time for Satan to work and pick at him. He is truely one of the elect. So part of me feels like I did something or said something wrong. But like nephi said (i know in whom i have trusted). I know that he is with me and I have faith that his will will be done.
I hope all is well at home, love you all so much. And am so greatful for our family and what it is built upon. Nothing has been harder so far, and from what E. Reynoso said for him as well, then to keep families together. Families are central to God´s plan, thus Satan is attacking them with all he´s got.
sorry if this is short, this just happened, so to be honest my mind is elsewhere.
with love from colombia,
Elder Adams
Monday, September 7, 2009
Rise and shout the cougars are out!
Best news. Ever. Ah love BYU football.
Great to here about Dan and Lauren's engagement. Sweet! It´d be sweet to have his email. And I guess while we're at it, I lost the list of emails. So if you guys could send that to me as well that would rock.
Not gonna lie makes me a Little homesick to hear about school starting, BYU football, and you guys roaming the streets of provo. But no worries, I´m incredibly happy here, wouldn´t trade a minute for anything. Well, maybe I´d trade one minute to watch that game. Haha.
What a week! Did some marriage counseling, one of our investigators with a baptismal date bailed on us and called us liers. Tons of sweet new investiagtors. Life´s nuts! I love it. I have come to realize that I don´t live the life of a normal 19 year old. One great and hard thing is that we are so deep into the lives of the people. They confide in us with some pretty grand problems and as missionaries their problems become our problems. Their griefs become our griefs. But we are able to watch the great changes the góspel makes in their lives.
So I had a very latin american experience today in the market. There is this sweet four level open market in central de Bucaramanga, which has absolutely everything. Ah so sweet. My companion was making some crazy peruvian food and he needed mint leaves? Anyways it was tasty. This building was outragous and unclean. I love feeling like im in the middle of something where I have no idea what is going on.
By the way I did tell Morgan one thing I didn´t tell you guys. I had a sweet case of diarhiea for two weeks. But its all good now. Ha I realized it was from eating the cow intestine. Haha, I had it again yesterday, it looks like your eating a cats toungue because its got Little meaty hairy things. The misión doctor said that things that have different bacteria´s can upset your system, but you adjust to them. So i´m good to eat all the cow intestine i want.
One other thing that Santanader (the state bucaramananga is in) has is these giant friend ants. I here there actually pretty good. I´ll bring some home for you all.
I'm feeling more and more at home here. I love it so much. There is no such thing as giving pedistrians the right of way. You either move. Or are moved. Ha. Bugged me but I guess it's just become normal.
We have two baptisms this week. One is Nancy, who's is this wed. We went to see her and husband to be and her just had a humoungous fight. She said she didn´t want to get married anymore, so we, I mean elder reynoso talked them through it, and the next mourning they called and said everything was chill. Such a relief, we went home that night, after having just lost one baptismal date (miran whom called us a liers and not to come back, she had already had her baptismal interview and everything, it was crazy) and thought were going to loose another.
So overall what people thought about american´s isnt bad at all. I get called gringo all the time but its not really an ofensive term. And I kept being called mono, which means monkey, but I found out here in colombia its the Word for blonde. Ha I was walking down the street the other day and this guy was screaming out of his window `yankee go home bye bye´ over and over. It was pretty funny cause I had to get my companion to help me understand what he was saying becuause his english was bad. Haha, just fueling the fire. I should have invited him to our english classes. Oh yeah, i teach english classes here. There pretty sweet. We have two new investiagtors from them.
Yohonny Moralez is my favorite person in colombia thus far. He´s so awesome. He is the security guard in our apartment complex. He was in the equivelnt of the us army rangers here in colombia and worked in the jungle dealing with the drug and gorilla forces. So nuts. We see his family throughout the week. He has crazy Money problems, so thats been the only thing holding him back because they are trying to find the Money to get married. This guy is poderoso. I love it, he is helping the other people in his household along, sharing sciptures with them. He comes to church after just working the night shift and not having slept for over 24 hours. He shares his testimony and feelings in class about what we're talking about. Elder Reynoso said he's the strongest investiagor he´s had all missión. By the way things are going great with elder reynoso. He´s a great missionary. He knows his stuff and cares allot about the investiagors.
Ah i made a sweet list of stuff that happened this week but i left it in the house. Bummer. Oh well next time.
So the president had a rule that we couldn´t listen to music. At all. It was werid, but president Hacking said we can in this last zone conference. Its been so nice. Couldn´t figure out why they had that rule. Music is such a great tool to invite the spirit.
Oh and mom, another update. A family asked if you're my girlfriend in my picture. Ha was kind of awkward, but i thought it was great that they thought you were that young. Nice catch Dad!
Love you all! So greatful for everyone of you.
Elder Adams
p.s. please send updates of byu football. Don´t really care about any other sports. But i NEED to know.
Great to here about Dan and Lauren's engagement. Sweet! It´d be sweet to have his email. And I guess while we're at it, I lost the list of emails. So if you guys could send that to me as well that would rock.
Not gonna lie makes me a Little homesick to hear about school starting, BYU football, and you guys roaming the streets of provo. But no worries, I´m incredibly happy here, wouldn´t trade a minute for anything. Well, maybe I´d trade one minute to watch that game. Haha.
What a week! Did some marriage counseling, one of our investigators with a baptismal date bailed on us and called us liers. Tons of sweet new investiagtors. Life´s nuts! I love it. I have come to realize that I don´t live the life of a normal 19 year old. One great and hard thing is that we are so deep into the lives of the people. They confide in us with some pretty grand problems and as missionaries their problems become our problems. Their griefs become our griefs. But we are able to watch the great changes the góspel makes in their lives.
So I had a very latin american experience today in the market. There is this sweet four level open market in central de Bucaramanga, which has absolutely everything. Ah so sweet. My companion was making some crazy peruvian food and he needed mint leaves? Anyways it was tasty. This building was outragous and unclean. I love feeling like im in the middle of something where I have no idea what is going on.
By the way I did tell Morgan one thing I didn´t tell you guys. I had a sweet case of diarhiea for two weeks. But its all good now. Ha I realized it was from eating the cow intestine. Haha, I had it again yesterday, it looks like your eating a cats toungue because its got Little meaty hairy things. The misión doctor said that things that have different bacteria´s can upset your system, but you adjust to them. So i´m good to eat all the cow intestine i want.
One other thing that Santanader (the state bucaramananga is in) has is these giant friend ants. I here there actually pretty good. I´ll bring some home for you all.
I'm feeling more and more at home here. I love it so much. There is no such thing as giving pedistrians the right of way. You either move. Or are moved. Ha. Bugged me but I guess it's just become normal.
We have two baptisms this week. One is Nancy, who's is this wed. We went to see her and husband to be and her just had a humoungous fight. She said she didn´t want to get married anymore, so we, I mean elder reynoso talked them through it, and the next mourning they called and said everything was chill. Such a relief, we went home that night, after having just lost one baptismal date (miran whom called us a liers and not to come back, she had already had her baptismal interview and everything, it was crazy) and thought were going to loose another.
So overall what people thought about american´s isnt bad at all. I get called gringo all the time but its not really an ofensive term. And I kept being called mono, which means monkey, but I found out here in colombia its the Word for blonde. Ha I was walking down the street the other day and this guy was screaming out of his window `yankee go home bye bye´ over and over. It was pretty funny cause I had to get my companion to help me understand what he was saying becuause his english was bad. Haha, just fueling the fire. I should have invited him to our english classes. Oh yeah, i teach english classes here. There pretty sweet. We have two new investiagtors from them.
Yohonny Moralez is my favorite person in colombia thus far. He´s so awesome. He is the security guard in our apartment complex. He was in the equivelnt of the us army rangers here in colombia and worked in the jungle dealing with the drug and gorilla forces. So nuts. We see his family throughout the week. He has crazy Money problems, so thats been the only thing holding him back because they are trying to find the Money to get married. This guy is poderoso. I love it, he is helping the other people in his household along, sharing sciptures with them. He comes to church after just working the night shift and not having slept for over 24 hours. He shares his testimony and feelings in class about what we're talking about. Elder Reynoso said he's the strongest investiagor he´s had all missión. By the way things are going great with elder reynoso. He´s a great missionary. He knows his stuff and cares allot about the investiagors.
Ah i made a sweet list of stuff that happened this week but i left it in the house. Bummer. Oh well next time.
So the president had a rule that we couldn´t listen to music. At all. It was werid, but president Hacking said we can in this last zone conference. Its been so nice. Couldn´t figure out why they had that rule. Music is such a great tool to invite the spirit.
Oh and mom, another update. A family asked if you're my girlfriend in my picture. Ha was kind of awkward, but i thought it was great that they thought you were that young. Nice catch Dad!
Love you all! So greatful for everyone of you.
Elder Adams
p.s. please send updates of byu football. Don´t really care about any other sports. But i NEED to know.
Monday, August 31, 2009
So crazzzy! 85 degrees with a sweet breeze
112 in Phoenix! Ouch. If you were trying to make me jealous it didn´t work. Thats rough. In case you were wondering its a sunny 85 degrees here in Bucaramanga with a sweet breeze. We don´t have AC but don´t need it, we sleep with a sheet and its perfect. Elder Larson is finishing his first area (you stay no longer than 6 months, mostly, so he´ll be headed to a new area soon) and was talking about how he feels like Bucaramanga is home. He´s been here in this area, he´s a killer missionary. Love going on splits with him.
So crazy that byu is starting tomorrow. Can´t believe it. Surreal. That was year ago. Time goes by too fast. Especially here. Altough it suppose to be really slow your first two months (which i´m sure they will still speed up), but for me its gone by unbelievably fast. I´m half way though with my first change. Scares me a bit. I´ve quickly learned that there is too little time to waste any of it. Elder Reynoso is finishing up the change after this so were just going to make sure he finishes strong and I start strong. I´m super excited.
Quick answers to your Q´s.
Giron is a separate city that is close to Bucaramanga, it might boarder it I think.
There are two stakes in Bucaramanga, which have three wards I believe.
Soo I guess the only thing bad about when everything is going perfect, is that you know its going to change sometimes. Ha. Things are still going great but just had some rough series of events. Life is rough. Especially for some people, Yohonny and Orlando both have money problems, both super strong but its just hard to hear about there problems and how they really don´t have very many options. Its hard to find jobs here. Yohonny has a debt he owes and he just can´t find a way to pay it. He´s 26 and he has a kid a wife and is supporting his mother and law and his sister in law. He gets overloaded and starts to smoke and doesn´t want to come to church, but he always finds away. I know that he just needs to take the step of faith and get baptized. He has to get married first, which they are planning on doing. It just comes down to money again. We had a baptism fall though with this woman named Miran Diaz. What a week it was this week with Miran. She had here baptismal interview on Tuesday and was fine, met her on Thursday and she went off about how Joseph Smith is a false prophet and that she doesn’t agree with the nature of God. Then while I was on splits elder reynoso saw her again on Friday and straightened everything out and she was ready to be baptized. Then we stopped by on Saturday, and she had a ¨head ache¨ so she couldn´t be baptized. Pretty frustrating. We´ll see how things go this week. Defiantly one of the hardest commitments for us is to get people to keep going or coming to church. Its hard for people to put away there normal Sundays and come. But its so necessary for there conversions.
On Friday we went on interchanges with the zone leaders. I went to their area. It was defiantly different than any day in my area. The people for some reason. Not really a different social class, were just not interested. They have 3 investigators and no new members so we spent ALL day contacting, except for the last hour we had a sweet lesson with this lady. But we had like 5 other appts set up and everyone of them fell though. I´m quickly learning that people kind of just tell us what we want to here. Ha we came back to this one house, for an appt and we saw her in the corner but her dad told us she wasn´t home. I think I felt a little bit what it was like for mike to go everyday with out any lessons. I thought about how different our missions are-were, but they are both sooo great. Because this is the Lord´s work and there isn´t anything more important for me than this. It’s the best!
This Saturday we had a mini MTC in our ward. It was great, the youth came at 7 and we had a devotional and lessons and they went and visted the new members and had lunch at a members house and taught them a lesson. I hope it impacted them.
Tell grandma happy birthday!
Can´t believe about preston. I remember kindgergarden so clearly. Can´t believe he is at that age.
OH and mom, concerning your age. I have a laminated picture of our family to show to people. And all the women always call you a joven, which means youth ´que bonita´. It’s the truth.
Love you all! Pray for you all everynight! Thanks for everything!
Love Always,
Elder Adams
Monday, August 24, 2009
Colombian Fallacies -Poor people live in the mountains
1- you ride the bus to Bucaramanga alone, how did that go, I assume you got some sleep during the 9-hour ride, but sounds like you have not slept since?
The bus ride was nuts, up huge winding canyon roads that are in rough shape so i didnt sleep much, maybe an hour , then woke up and had a whole day of work ahead of me. It was crazy. I want to take the bus ride during the day (which will probably be in like 6 months) to see what it was like. Oh and i took the bus ride with elder seaton and furmanski. Theyre here in Bucaramanga.
2-Is your comp getting trunky, with only three months left? Will you most likely be in Bucaramanga until he leaves?
The bus ride was nuts, up huge winding canyon roads that are in rough shape so i didnt sleep much, maybe an hour , then woke up and had a whole day of work ahead of me. It was crazy. I want to take the bus ride during the day (which will probably be in like 6 months) to see what it was like. Oh and i took the bus ride with elder seaton and furmanski. Theyre here in Bucaramanga.
2-Is your comp getting trunky, with only three months left? Will you most likely be in Bucaramanga until he leaves?
No he's not really trunky, he's actually pretty obedient. Some times I feel like he wants to go home. And one problem is that I guess for most of his missión he has had comps that didnt really want to work so he has just done it all by himself. So he kind of keeps me out of the loop a lot. He is a really good teacher but sometimes he just thinks that the way he does it is Best.
3-How about the money factor, what is the dollar worth in buying power?
The dollar is about two to one value. Its pretty sweet. Im paying like 50 cents to use this computer for the next hour, and taxis are like 3 bucks for 15 minute drive. Its the best.
4 -How is the internet café computers can you send any pics during your stay?
Yeah I tried to send some last week, but it didnt send, and I thought we were going to the same one which had card readers in them, so I didnt bring my card reader this time. So I guess it'll have to wait until next time. Sorry!
5- Do you walk or can you ride bikes?
We walk. Walk and walk. Ocasionally we'll take a taxi. But the streets are nuts so its too dangerous to take a taxi.
6-How many elders are in your apartment?
It was just us two, but tomorrow elder ovurson and elder larson are moving in. They are in our district, I guess the sisters are moving into theirs. Our district is actually half gringo-atized. Before this change only elder larsen was the only gringo in the area for 6 months. Im the first gringo in my Ward for 7 years. They say that by time time I'm done the misión will be half gringo. I guess I'm the very begining of phase 2 of flushing in the gringos. Before my district there were only 20.
7-Do you have a siesta during the day or is it a normal schedule?
I wish. Lunch is the big meal here and we have that with a member. Not much if at all for dinner. Ha I can already feel the spanish getting to me, was struggling for the words for the meals.
As for food, I guess I just had liver today. Ha at least I find out what I ate after I eat it. The food is pretty good. Kind getting a Little old already ha. But I just went to the store today and bought some cereal so life is good.
3-How about the money factor, what is the dollar worth in buying power?
The dollar is about two to one value. Its pretty sweet. Im paying like 50 cents to use this computer for the next hour, and taxis are like 3 bucks for 15 minute drive. Its the best.
4 -How is the internet café computers can you send any pics during your stay?
Yeah I tried to send some last week, but it didnt send, and I thought we were going to the same one which had card readers in them, so I didnt bring my card reader this time. So I guess it'll have to wait until next time. Sorry!
5- Do you walk or can you ride bikes?
We walk. Walk and walk. Ocasionally we'll take a taxi. But the streets are nuts so its too dangerous to take a taxi.
6-How many elders are in your apartment?
It was just us two, but tomorrow elder ovurson and elder larson are moving in. They are in our district, I guess the sisters are moving into theirs. Our district is actually half gringo-atized. Before this change only elder larsen was the only gringo in the area for 6 months. Im the first gringo in my Ward for 7 years. They say that by time time I'm done the misión will be half gringo. I guess I'm the very begining of phase 2 of flushing in the gringos. Before my district there were only 20.
7-Do you have a siesta during the day or is it a normal schedule?
I wish. Lunch is the big meal here and we have that with a member. Not much if at all for dinner. Ha I can already feel the spanish getting to me, was struggling for the words for the meals.
As for food, I guess I just had liver today. Ha at least I find out what I ate after I eat it. The food is pretty good. Kind getting a Little old already ha. But I just went to the store today and bought some cereal so life is good.
Its crazy how fast the time is going. Ive been hearing how much the first two months blow, but so far im really diggin em. Probably because we have such a sweet area and Ward. Our bishop really knows his stuff its great. We meet with him once a week to talk about the needs of our investigators. He really seems to care. He has this sweet program based of elder Erying's talk in confrence called [man down], so every week he takes tabs of what families weren't at church and he hands out slips to the men in priesthood to go visit those familes to let them konw they were missed this Sunday. Also he gives us these happy birthday cards to give to the members, so on their birthdays we go to their house and drop it by and share a quick message. From what I understand its had some pretty good success.
So I've already learned that one of the biggest problems here is working at getting people married. A couple of the families we have lined up for baptism, their dates keep getting pushed back because of their papers. I went on exchanges with elder Larson and taught a lady in his area that her only problem is getting married, the guy she is living with doesn’t want to (because she cant have kids, pretty sad!). she really wants to be baptized but that is her only problem. Bummer!
Elder Larsen’s area is crazy. They go up on the mountain and there are just houses built upon houses. And there is a whole mountain with no roads just stairs. Its nuts. I'll have to take a picture. Its slightly ironic that the poorest people here are pushed into the mountains while it is a desirable thing to live in the mountains in the states.
So yeah, I'm beginning to find out many fallacies concerning what I was told about Colombia. I live in central Bucaramanga and its pretty much just as dangerous and downtown phoenix. There are defiantly some spots we don’t want to go late at night, but overall its pretty safe, there are cops every where and my apartment complex has a couple armed guards. We do have running water, showers, washing machine, fridge, plumbing. Its pretty much just like the states but not hot water or a-c. both of which we don't really need.
This week we went to yohnny's birthday party. It was great, we're now teaching his sister in law and they all came to church this Sunday. Yohnny is so powerful. He had so many great in sights that he had during priesthood and shared them with the class, and one time I walked a while and was listening to him teach his sister in law it was the best! He's getting married next week then baptized that Saturday. Poderoso!
So the language is still a barrier, but I'm learning so much so fast. Its great. one great blessing of my weakness In the language is that I've learned to use the scriptures really effectively. One example of this week was when we were recommitting this sister to be baptized, I couldn’t think of how to say what I wanted to say, but then I remembered a scripture that said exactly what I wanted to say. I have learned the spirit has its own ways of working and it was sufficient right there for it to remind me of that scripture, rather than have me spit out wards I didn’t know. It has given the gift of utterance new meaning.
i miss you all so much and am more and more greatful for you all everday!
love,
elder adams
p.s. send me pictures!
So I've already learned that one of the biggest problems here is working at getting people married. A couple of the families we have lined up for baptism, their dates keep getting pushed back because of their papers. I went on exchanges with elder Larson and taught a lady in his area that her only problem is getting married, the guy she is living with doesn’t want to (because she cant have kids, pretty sad!). she really wants to be baptized but that is her only problem. Bummer!
Elder Larsen’s area is crazy. They go up on the mountain and there are just houses built upon houses. And there is a whole mountain with no roads just stairs. Its nuts. I'll have to take a picture. Its slightly ironic that the poorest people here are pushed into the mountains while it is a desirable thing to live in the mountains in the states.
So yeah, I'm beginning to find out many fallacies concerning what I was told about Colombia. I live in central Bucaramanga and its pretty much just as dangerous and downtown phoenix. There are defiantly some spots we don’t want to go late at night, but overall its pretty safe, there are cops every where and my apartment complex has a couple armed guards. We do have running water, showers, washing machine, fridge, plumbing. Its pretty much just like the states but not hot water or a-c. both of which we don't really need.
This week we went to yohnny's birthday party. It was great, we're now teaching his sister in law and they all came to church this Sunday. Yohnny is so powerful. He had so many great in sights that he had during priesthood and shared them with the class, and one time I walked a while and was listening to him teach his sister in law it was the best! He's getting married next week then baptized that Saturday. Poderoso!
So the language is still a barrier, but I'm learning so much so fast. Its great. one great blessing of my weakness In the language is that I've learned to use the scriptures really effectively. One example of this week was when we were recommitting this sister to be baptized, I couldn’t think of how to say what I wanted to say, but then I remembered a scripture that said exactly what I wanted to say. I have learned the spirit has its own ways of working and it was sufficient right there for it to remind me of that scripture, rather than have me spit out wards I didn’t know. It has given the gift of utterance new meaning.
i miss you all so much and am more and more greatful for you all everday!
love,
elder adams
p.s. send me pictures!
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
1st letter from Bucaramanga!
Is the language barrier as bad as you
feared? Ha, honestly, its worse than I thought it would be, It was defiantly humbling for me. Listening is probably the hardest part. Because we have been listening to gringos speak Spanish for the last two months, its very different. Ha, we had a stake conference this past Sunday and the only people I could understand where the Americans (hma. Hacking, pres. Hacking, elder nash). Haha and i´ll even say things I know are right but sometimes they won´t even understand me. This has defiantly been the hardest part: the language. Because I really just want to be able to talk to people so I can help better help invite them to Christ.
What is your area like? I´m in Bucaramanga, which is about a 9 hour bus ride north of bogota. Tuesday night we left for here at 9. My district came and picked me up. All the missionaries I talked to in bogota said Bucaramanga is el mayor(the best). Sweet weather, it’s a little hot but not unbarable, especially for someone from Arizona. And because it´s warm the people are always out in the streets. So we have a lot of opportunites to contact and meet people. The people here are vey receptive. We have a baptism this week, and 4 baptisms the following week! We have 9 new investigators this week, a bunch of which are saweeet. It´s also the biggest area in Bucaramanga, so a lot of walking! We either walk take the bus or taxi.
Your comp? my comp is great. His name is elder Reynoso, he is from a coastal city in peru. He´s a little 26 years old convert, who barely was able to serve (you can only be twenty five, he turns 27 in December) because you also have to be baptized for a year until you can come on a mission (I´m pretty sure about all this I might be wrong. We speak different languages). He studied English for three years and taught it, so his english is pretty good. Probably about where I am now in Spanish. So he has three months left, and president said in my interview we were going to stay together until he leaves. Luckily he´s not a trunkie and is obedient and loves to work, but he´s not a pharise so its sweet. He is really concentrated on teaching me so i´m learning a lot about missionary work and Spanish. Life´s sooo good.
Are you doing charades to
communicate or is it just understanding that is difficult? Yeah I defiantly have to work my way around it. I´ll listen for key words that I know and then base what I say off that. Ha I make my responses very basic because one, I don´t know how to say that much, and two, i´m not sure if its right, it gives be a bigger target to hit.
I bet they
talk really fast. Yes. Haha, yes they do.
What is the best way
for people to send letters? Is the pouch better than dear elder? They actually cancelled the pouch service soo, everything is email. Sweet! So go ahead let people they can email, I only have one hour to email, which I need to email you guys and the president, so I wont have much time, but I´m sure i´ll be able to send out a quick email within a month or to. As for packages, ha, I think you´ll have to straight up load it with the virgin Mary and Christ stickers, and write ministries (find the Spanish translation though) all over it. I heard of one elder having three or so of his packages never came, but nothing was on them, i´ve heard the sticker thing works pretty good. And yes send it to the mission home. As for letters , if someone wants to send those usually arrive. Fun fact: it cost about 50 to 100 dollars here to send a LETTER to the state so probably not going to happen. I just heard this from other missionaries, i´ll find out more.
• Yeah Mom, the relationships formed while on a mission are unbelievable. You never have any surface level – small talk relationships, we have incredible lifechanging moments together , it is really something great, we talk about questions in our souls and our relationship with God, and watch and help people change there live´s, there is nothing better for me to do on this earth. I think it was Joseph Fielding Smith who said ¨when it comes down to it, our greatest duty is to preach the Gospel¨. What a blessing it has been in my life. I can tell you that I have never been tireder, but I have never been happier! I have already in a week (feels so long but so fast), met such great people that I love so much. Ha I can´t even even understand what there saying most the time but, we already have such a great connections. One of these people is named Yohonny. So yohonny, looks more gringo than me, one of his birth parents were scandanavian, but he was raised here in Bucaramanga, by a Colombian couple, so he is full blown Colombian. He is a security guard at our building (by the way my apartment, and all the apartments in the mission are nice, I have some sweet photos, but i´ll probably only have time to send a couple of them! We live on the 7th floor out of 13, its nuts) Antonces, elder Reynoso said he has the most fervent love for the gospel out of all the investigators he has had. He is the best! We saw him this morning and he had just started reading 1st Nephi, and then when we saw him at like two he was close to finishing it. We´ve had such great lessons with him. AH I love this! Love him! We stopped by his booth (to let cars in to the garage) and talk with him. Another investigator we have that I already feel way close with is Orlando. Ha so he was the cab driver that picked me up from the bus ride from bogota, we contacted him on the way back and he happens to live right above us. We played soccer with him today and we see teach him and his family about everyday.
So my first legitimate Colombian experience was in the taxi Tuesday morning. (by the way the flight was awesome too, me and elder Burns talked with this guy for the WHOLE time about the gospel, he was great. HA my neck hurt really bad from looking over the whole time). But yeah, they are absolutely nuts! It was a literal videogame. Oh gosh, it was the best, weaving in and out of traffic, going in to the other lane. But the thing is they rock at driving. I trusted him the whole time. They have this crazy system of honking here that they use. Love it! The food its great, we get fed really well everyday. As for having crazy things already, ha I guess I have, I found out yesterday that I had cow intestines in my soup on Sunday. Haha, I guess it wasn´t to bad because I ate it all. It just tasted like really fatty meat. The streets here are the best, there is seriously one street that is three blocks long of just shoes, every store. Shoes. There is literally a store for everything, and most likely that exact same store is going to be across the street, cause they are all run by families so they just start up businesses out of their garages! Ha there are two stores by my apartment that just sell cardboard boxes. Across the street from each other. I love this country! So we had elder Nash here in Bucaramanga. He talked in stake conference then spoke in our zone conference. He was great. I wish I knew what he was saying the whole time but it’s the same spirit no matter what language! He´s in the 1st quorum of the seventy. Ha during the conference we did practiced teaching, and they made me teach cause I was new (my district who are all soo sweet) and elder nash came and listened to me and my broken Spanish, made me a bit nervous.
In closing, I pretty much spend the entire time writing this so my emails defiantly won´t be this long usually.
LOVE YOU ALL. MISS YOU. SO THANKFUL FOR YOU ALL. LIFE COULD NOT BE BETTER!
Yours truly,
Elder Adams
feared? Ha, honestly, its worse than I thought it would be, It was defiantly humbling for me. Listening is probably the hardest part. Because we have been listening to gringos speak Spanish for the last two months, its very different. Ha, we had a stake conference this past Sunday and the only people I could understand where the Americans (hma. Hacking, pres. Hacking, elder nash). Haha and i´ll even say things I know are right but sometimes they won´t even understand me. This has defiantly been the hardest part: the language. Because I really just want to be able to talk to people so I can help better help invite them to Christ.
What is your area like? I´m in Bucaramanga, which is about a 9 hour bus ride north of bogota. Tuesday night we left for here at 9. My district came and picked me up. All the missionaries I talked to in bogota said Bucaramanga is el mayor(the best). Sweet weather, it’s a little hot but not unbarable, especially for someone from Arizona. And because it´s warm the people are always out in the streets. So we have a lot of opportunites to contact and meet people. The people here are vey receptive. We have a baptism this week, and 4 baptisms the following week! We have 9 new investigators this week, a bunch of which are saweeet. It´s also the biggest area in Bucaramanga, so a lot of walking! We either walk take the bus or taxi.
Your comp? my comp is great. His name is elder Reynoso, he is from a coastal city in peru. He´s a little 26 years old convert, who barely was able to serve (you can only be twenty five, he turns 27 in December) because you also have to be baptized for a year until you can come on a mission (I´m pretty sure about all this I might be wrong. We speak different languages). He studied English for three years and taught it, so his english is pretty good. Probably about where I am now in Spanish. So he has three months left, and president said in my interview we were going to stay together until he leaves. Luckily he´s not a trunkie and is obedient and loves to work, but he´s not a pharise so its sweet. He is really concentrated on teaching me so i´m learning a lot about missionary work and Spanish. Life´s sooo good.
Are you doing charades to
communicate or is it just understanding that is difficult? Yeah I defiantly have to work my way around it. I´ll listen for key words that I know and then base what I say off that. Ha I make my responses very basic because one, I don´t know how to say that much, and two, i´m not sure if its right, it gives be a bigger target to hit.
I bet they
talk really fast. Yes. Haha, yes they do.
What is the best way
for people to send letters? Is the pouch better than dear elder? They actually cancelled the pouch service soo, everything is email. Sweet! So go ahead let people they can email, I only have one hour to email, which I need to email you guys and the president, so I wont have much time, but I´m sure i´ll be able to send out a quick email within a month or to. As for packages, ha, I think you´ll have to straight up load it with the virgin Mary and Christ stickers, and write ministries (find the Spanish translation though) all over it. I heard of one elder having three or so of his packages never came, but nothing was on them, i´ve heard the sticker thing works pretty good. And yes send it to the mission home. As for letters , if someone wants to send those usually arrive. Fun fact: it cost about 50 to 100 dollars here to send a LETTER to the state so probably not going to happen. I just heard this from other missionaries, i´ll find out more.
• Yeah Mom, the relationships formed while on a mission are unbelievable. You never have any surface level – small talk relationships, we have incredible lifechanging moments together , it is really something great, we talk about questions in our souls and our relationship with God, and watch and help people change there live´s, there is nothing better for me to do on this earth. I think it was Joseph Fielding Smith who said ¨when it comes down to it, our greatest duty is to preach the Gospel¨. What a blessing it has been in my life. I can tell you that I have never been tireder, but I have never been happier! I have already in a week (feels so long but so fast), met such great people that I love so much. Ha I can´t even even understand what there saying most the time but, we already have such a great connections. One of these people is named Yohonny. So yohonny, looks more gringo than me, one of his birth parents were scandanavian, but he was raised here in Bucaramanga, by a Colombian couple, so he is full blown Colombian. He is a security guard at our building (by the way my apartment, and all the apartments in the mission are nice, I have some sweet photos, but i´ll probably only have time to send a couple of them! We live on the 7th floor out of 13, its nuts) Antonces, elder Reynoso said he has the most fervent love for the gospel out of all the investigators he has had. He is the best! We saw him this morning and he had just started reading 1st Nephi, and then when we saw him at like two he was close to finishing it. We´ve had such great lessons with him. AH I love this! Love him! We stopped by his booth (to let cars in to the garage) and talk with him. Another investigator we have that I already feel way close with is Orlando. Ha so he was the cab driver that picked me up from the bus ride from bogota, we contacted him on the way back and he happens to live right above us. We played soccer with him today and we see teach him and his family about everyday.
So my first legitimate Colombian experience was in the taxi Tuesday morning. (by the way the flight was awesome too, me and elder Burns talked with this guy for the WHOLE time about the gospel, he was great. HA my neck hurt really bad from looking over the whole time). But yeah, they are absolutely nuts! It was a literal videogame. Oh gosh, it was the best, weaving in and out of traffic, going in to the other lane. But the thing is they rock at driving. I trusted him the whole time. They have this crazy system of honking here that they use. Love it! The food its great, we get fed really well everyday. As for having crazy things already, ha I guess I have, I found out yesterday that I had cow intestines in my soup on Sunday. Haha, I guess it wasn´t to bad because I ate it all. It just tasted like really fatty meat. The streets here are the best, there is seriously one street that is three blocks long of just shoes, every store. Shoes. There is literally a store for everything, and most likely that exact same store is going to be across the street, cause they are all run by families so they just start up businesses out of their garages! Ha there are two stores by my apartment that just sell cardboard boxes. Across the street from each other. I love this country! So we had elder Nash here in Bucaramanga. He talked in stake conference then spoke in our zone conference. He was great. I wish I knew what he was saying the whole time but it’s the same spirit no matter what language! He´s in the 1st quorum of the seventy. Ha during the conference we did practiced teaching, and they made me teach cause I was new (my district who are all soo sweet) and elder nash came and listened to me and my broken Spanish, made me a bit nervous.
In closing, I pretty much spend the entire time writing this so my emails defiantly won´t be this long usually.
LOVE YOU ALL. MISS YOU. SO THANKFUL FOR YOU ALL. LIFE COULD NOT BE BETTER!
Yours truly,
Elder Adams
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