Caroline
Luke
Jesse
Cameryn
Monday, December 29, 2008
Christmas in Bucaramanga
Hola Familia,
Well it was a VERY good Christmas in Colombia. Ha, it never really felt like the same kind of Christmas as at home, because it was very hot the whole day, but it was a very good experience. On Christmas Eve and Christmas day our Mission President said that we were supposed to have regular days of tracting, but also they told us if we got invited we could go to visit member families. We tried at the start of the day on the 24th to do some contacts and get some lessons in but it was very clear that everyone was going to be partying all day and night. We taught a few lessons with investigators that were already confirmed and then visited member families.
On Christmas Eve night, we went to a big park called the Concha Acoustica with lots of shrubbery and trees and animals walking around. I got some pretty good pictures and it was nice to relax and just think about Christmas. After that we got invited for a Christmas dinner with a member lady. She made what they call a tamale although I think it’s different then the tamales we know. I think it had pork inside some kind of wrap. I guess it’s a Christmas specialty. Our President told us that we could stay up on Christmas Eve just as long as we turned the lights out because everyone parties and does fireworks and plays music all night. We got home and my companion was dead tired so he went to bed. I decided to stay up with the Zone leaders on the roof deck of our building and wait for the fireworks and everything at midnight for Christmas.
Before that I made some hot chocolate and the mashed potato mix you sent and decided to read in the Bible the story of the first Christmas. It was very cool to have a Christmas where I wasn’t thinking about presents or any of that and be able to think about the Lord and all the great blessings that I have. After that I went up on the roof with the Zone Leaders and we just chilled and talked etc. and waited out the fireworks that everyone does at midnight. It was definitely unlike any Christmas I have ever had, but a very good experience. My companion was awakened by the fireworks, so he came up and watched a little and we finally got to bed about 1:00.
At 6:30 A.M. we were back up and we did our study and the normal stuff. Ha I got a little gift from one of the members. It was a bottle of cologne. I opened it on Christmas morning but that was it. I had already opened your parcels last week. Christmas day was ridiculously hot. We left and tried to do contacts and found that the entire city was either dead asleep from drinking and dancing all night or else sitting on the curb still drinking. Ha we tried to do contacts for about 2 hours and no one was up and the streets were completely empty.
Here the tradition is that on Christmas Eve they have a big dinner at about 11:00 at night and at 12 midnight they open presents if they have any. Then they dance or just stay up and talk all night and listen to blaring music.
But anyway, Christmas day we ended up visiting all the members that had invited us. I've never eaten so much in my life. I think I had 5 full meals after 1:30. It was very humbling to see how they celebrated. The majority of the homes I went into didn’t have Christmas presents under the tree. For a lot of the families it isn’t even a thought that they will have presents. We visited one member sister who just had a bag of special Christmas crackers and cookies for her and her son for their Christmas. Anyway, my first Navidad away from home was very good. I am very humbled by these special people.
As far as Friday and Saturday, we were very busy trying to get everything organized for the marriage and baptism of Noira and Nelson. It was a very busy day of taking taxis all over the city to get it all done, but it was worth it. It was quite a challenge to get them ready and out the door to the Notaria (where you get married in a civil service). Ha, a lot of the people just don’t understand what “on time” is. But we got them there and they had a very humble marriage in the office with the family around and a few other missionaries. It was very nice.
After that we squeezed in a few lessons and then it was time to get ready and do the baptism. I baptized Noira and my companion baptized Nelson. It is REALLY rewarding to see how much the gospel changes people’s lives and a great feeling to see someone get baptized. Also the Zone leaders had two sisters who got baptized.
They introduced us to them one day at the chapel and the little sister (13) wanted me to baptize her so I baptized her as well. Ha I had to do it twice because her foot came out of the water. That was very cool to be able to baptize her as well.
The other day, for a Christmas present, I offered to take Elder Amador out to an Italian restaurant that is near our apartment. It was about 40 thousand pesos for "fettuccine alfredo" (although it wasn’t like Olive Gardens or moms) and lasagna for him. We had big ice creams for dessert. But 40 thousand pesos comes out to about 20 dollars, so it wasn’t bad at all.
Today on our Prep day, we have been looking around some large stores etc. and ha-ha I bought a jersey of the Colombian national soccer team for 5 dollars from some street vender. That will be a very good souvenir.
Well I hope all is well at home and that everyone had a Merry Christmas. Much love to everyone and thanks for everything.
Feliz Cumpleaños! Will
Well it was a VERY good Christmas in Colombia. Ha, it never really felt like the same kind of Christmas as at home, because it was very hot the whole day, but it was a very good experience. On Christmas Eve and Christmas day our Mission President said that we were supposed to have regular days of tracting, but also they told us if we got invited we could go to visit member families. We tried at the start of the day on the 24th to do some contacts and get some lessons in but it was very clear that everyone was going to be partying all day and night. We taught a few lessons with investigators that were already confirmed and then visited member families.
On Christmas Eve night, we went to a big park called the Concha Acoustica with lots of shrubbery and trees and animals walking around. I got some pretty good pictures and it was nice to relax and just think about Christmas. After that we got invited for a Christmas dinner with a member lady. She made what they call a tamale although I think it’s different then the tamales we know. I think it had pork inside some kind of wrap. I guess it’s a Christmas specialty. Our President told us that we could stay up on Christmas Eve just as long as we turned the lights out because everyone parties and does fireworks and plays music all night. We got home and my companion was dead tired so he went to bed. I decided to stay up with the Zone leaders on the roof deck of our building and wait for the fireworks and everything at midnight for Christmas.
Before that I made some hot chocolate and the mashed potato mix you sent and decided to read in the Bible the story of the first Christmas. It was very cool to have a Christmas where I wasn’t thinking about presents or any of that and be able to think about the Lord and all the great blessings that I have. After that I went up on the roof with the Zone Leaders and we just chilled and talked etc. and waited out the fireworks that everyone does at midnight. It was definitely unlike any Christmas I have ever had, but a very good experience. My companion was awakened by the fireworks, so he came up and watched a little and we finally got to bed about 1:00.
At 6:30 A.M. we were back up and we did our study and the normal stuff. Ha I got a little gift from one of the members. It was a bottle of cologne. I opened it on Christmas morning but that was it. I had already opened your parcels last week. Christmas day was ridiculously hot. We left and tried to do contacts and found that the entire city was either dead asleep from drinking and dancing all night or else sitting on the curb still drinking. Ha we tried to do contacts for about 2 hours and no one was up and the streets were completely empty.
Here the tradition is that on Christmas Eve they have a big dinner at about 11:00 at night and at 12 midnight they open presents if they have any. Then they dance or just stay up and talk all night and listen to blaring music.
But anyway, Christmas day we ended up visiting all the members that had invited us. I've never eaten so much in my life. I think I had 5 full meals after 1:30. It was very humbling to see how they celebrated. The majority of the homes I went into didn’t have Christmas presents under the tree. For a lot of the families it isn’t even a thought that they will have presents. We visited one member sister who just had a bag of special Christmas crackers and cookies for her and her son for their Christmas. Anyway, my first Navidad away from home was very good. I am very humbled by these special people.
As far as Friday and Saturday, we were very busy trying to get everything organized for the marriage and baptism of Noira and Nelson. It was a very busy day of taking taxis all over the city to get it all done, but it was worth it. It was quite a challenge to get them ready and out the door to the Notaria (where you get married in a civil service). Ha, a lot of the people just don’t understand what “on time” is. But we got them there and they had a very humble marriage in the office with the family around and a few other missionaries. It was very nice.
After that we squeezed in a few lessons and then it was time to get ready and do the baptism. I baptized Noira and my companion baptized Nelson. It is REALLY rewarding to see how much the gospel changes people’s lives and a great feeling to see someone get baptized. Also the Zone leaders had two sisters who got baptized.
They introduced us to them one day at the chapel and the little sister (13) wanted me to baptize her so I baptized her as well. Ha I had to do it twice because her foot came out of the water. That was very cool to be able to baptize her as well.
The other day, for a Christmas present, I offered to take Elder Amador out to an Italian restaurant that is near our apartment. It was about 40 thousand pesos for "fettuccine alfredo" (although it wasn’t like Olive Gardens or moms) and lasagna for him. We had big ice creams for dessert. But 40 thousand pesos comes out to about 20 dollars, so it wasn’t bad at all.
Today on our Prep day, we have been looking around some large stores etc. and ha-ha I bought a jersey of the Colombian national soccer team for 5 dollars from some street vender. That will be a very good souvenir.
Well I hope all is well at home and that everyone had a Merry Christmas. Much love to everyone and thanks for everything.
Feliz Cumpleaños! Will
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
More Pictures
This is a picture of the Elders eating at their Zone Conference.
This is a picture taken at the Zone Conference. Will, an A.P. from Bogota, a missionary couple and Elder Lee.We just got off the phone from talking with Will. We were able to talk for about an hour. The connection was pretty good but there was a bit of a lag. We could understand most of the things he said. He called from a little Internet Cafe near their apartment. We had a hundred questions to ask and it was so cool to hear his answers in person. It is interesting, both Bruce and I noticed right away that he is beginning to think in Spanish. His speech and answers reflected that. He is happy and healthy and loving everything about his mission.
Merry Christmas
Will said that this picture was taken from a large store downtown in Bucaramanga. It looks like it could have been taken in SLC except for the palm trees and all the little cars parked backwards.
December 22, 2008
Hola and Feliz Navidad,
All is very well here. I’m going to try and send some pictures but it takes forever to download them on the computer I work on so I may not have as much time to write to you. We have lost a few investigators that we thought were going to progress, but we have found some others that are very interested so it is still going well.
This week we had Zone Conference, so the Mission President came and talked to us. We had a lunch with him. It was only the third time I have seen him. He was really pleased with how well our Spanish is coming along, (Elder Lee and I). I have really noticed the improvements. I can understand basically everything that is said in church and with the other missionaries. Presidente Camargo is very friendly and has a good sense of humor. It was good to talk to him and see all the other Elders.
Last night was the Ward Christmas party so we went to that. They had 6 of us sing a few hymns for it. It was basically the same as one of our Ward parties would be, just with a smaller ward. We have kind of a little run down chapel so they are going to tear it down starting tomorrow and rebuild a new one. It’s going to make things a little difficult because we are going to have to take people to another chapel farther away but I think it will be just fine.
This morning we got up at 5:30 and took a couple named Noira and Nelson to finish their papers so they can get married and baptized this week on Saturday. The other members of Noiras family are members but they had this baby and they have been living in union libre for over a year now. She has always wanted to get baptized but the missionaries never could get them to get married. So I am very happy that we were able to help them. They will be married this Saturday at noon and baptized Saturday night so I’m going to get to participate in some more baptisms :)
Also, we found a young man named Marlon who is very interested and immediately seemed to believe the Book of Mormon. Hopefully things will work out well with him.
Today is of course our Prep Day. We took Noira and Nelson into the centro (downtown) to get their papers done. We then went and looked around at a few of the stores etc. We got a few good pictures. I also took out some money with my debit card. It’s pretty amazing that I can go into an atm here and take money out of a bank account from Evanston and get pesos.
Ha, it’s very different to be getting so close to Christmas when it is so hot. They had Frank Sinatra singing "I’ll be home for Christmas" playing in the mall and it really reminded me of home, but I am so glad to be here in Colombia.
Usually the missionaries don’t go out on the 24th or 25th but at Zone Conference,the Presidente said that we are going to work as normal. He said that not many may want to listen to anything on those two holidays, so if members invite us, we can go to their homes and spend a little time and talk with them. We have already been invited to 3 or 4 houses so part of my Christmas will be spent in member’s homes.
I got another package the other day. Thanks a ton for everything. It was nice to have some ramen noodles for the first time in forever. I know the little kids will love all the little toys you sent.
As far as the call, I think tomorrow would be the best day to do it. There are little places here where you can go to call, so I am thinking tomorrow at 8 pm my time I can call and then we can head to the apartment right after. That would make it 6 o’clock there.
A lot of the Elders here have little albums of their families and friends etc. Everyone asks to see my family so could you send maybe a little album with pics of my family, friends, and Evanston or whatever.
Ha, sorry my writing is all over the place but we’ve been up since 5:30. Well I’m not sure what more to say but thanks a ton for everything again. As of now, the plan is to call at 8 here or 6 there tomorrow night.
Much love to all of you and Feliz Navidad!
Friday, December 05, 2008
Noah Barnard Heaven
Happy Birthday Noah
Noah playing on the beach at Bear Lake this summer."A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains the original form."
Uncle Will and Noah this summer just before Will left on his mission."Being an uncle is better than being a super hero."
Noah Barnard Heaven was born December 5, 2001. He is the third son of Bill and Amy. I remember thinking what a cute little baby he was, when we travelled up to Calgary to see him. He has strawberry blonde hair and big blue eyes. He is sweet, loving and kind.
Noah loves everything boyish. Lately, his passion has been for the Megatron Transformer. He has been researching the Megatron for several months now. He has gone on-line and literally searched the world over to see what he could find out.
On his birthday, he awoke at 4 A.M. but of course was sent back to bed. He got up at 5 A.M. and was sooo excited to open his new Megatron Transformer. His family and a friend, all went to Chuck -e-Cheese and then to the movie "Bolt." He had a great time.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Prep Day News
Elders Lee and Barnard - I think that they are the only gringo Elders in that neck of the woods.
The people in Colombia are so receptive and excited when they hear the full and complete Gospel truths from the Bible and Book of Mormon. They recognize it because of their humility and innate goodness.
A wonderful group of Elders enjoying Prep Day. We are so proud of young men who have the courage to stand up and face others directly with their testimonies and the truth.We are so excited every Monday because that is the Prep Day for Will and the other Elders in the Bucamaranga area. We get a new e-mail updating us on everything. Will says that this has been a really good week. He loves everything about being on a mission, even the hard work. He knows that the Lord is really blessing them all.
A special thanks to Elder Lee for the pictures this week. His mom kindly e-mailed them to me. Will loves to be able to get together with him. They are the ONLY ones who speak any English in their district.
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