Thursday, July 02, 2009

June 29, 2009

I'm a few days late in posting this - we have been super busy.

Will in front of the Bogota Temple

Will with some friends


Hola Familia,
Well it’s been another good week. After my awesome week traveling in the field we have spent a ton of time in the office in preparation for the arrival of Pres Hacking. We have spent almost every day preparing forms, having the office cleaned and getting every last detail ready. Sooo it has been hectic around here (I am in the office right now) but about an hour ago we finally got everything done and the place is looking pretty good and everything is ready.

This week we had all the zones get together and send in videos saying bienvenidos (welcome) to Pres and Sis hacking. It was a good chance to use what I learned in my video production class.

Also, I got the idea to make little goal cards that say "como mejorare hoy" (how will I improve today) with goals like a scripture to memorize, things to read, new Spanish words, an attribute to work on and goals of service acts. It has worked out really well so that I always have something I am working for. I really can’t wait to get this switch over so we can get back to normal mission life. But we know that we have everything ready and are just waiting.

Tonight President and Hermana Hacking will get here at about 10 o clock. We will go to the airport (me and Elder Corro) with Pres and Sis Camargo and a church driver to pick them up. I guess the way it works is once Pres Hacking touches Colombian Ground, he is the Mission Pres. We will take them to the mission home for tonight and have a short meeting tomorrow. President Camargo will give him the keys to the office and the mission car and he will head out. It’s kind of sad to see the time of President Camargo go because he is amazing and has done so much good but it will also be exciting to start a new period with the revelation and ideas that President Hacking has.

My goal is to be able to take everything he says and make sure it is accomplished. I have had some ideas like making a notebook to put just the stuff that Pres Hacking says and see that it gets done no matter what it is. I'm going to do the best I can.

Here is some info about the office and Bogotá etc. There are 4 of us that live in our apartment, Elder Corro, Zari and Amador. Zari and Amador are the financial and mission secretaries and are both great. The apartment is pretty small for 4 missionaries but it’s nice and we all get along great. Every few days we have pizza or something delivered to the house and these last few Sundays we have been making lunch for ourselves because the Camargos are now moved out of town. The mission office is about a ten minute walk from where we live. Bogotá is lined up against a big mountain and the tendency is the closer to the mountain the richer the people and the taller the buildings. The office is on the tenth floor of a building called Liberty Seguros (Liberty Insurance). It is in a really nice commercial sector with some fancy tall buildings and malls. The missionaries who are secretaries or APS get little security cards because you have to pass by a checkpoint to get in, so we just put our wallet over the sensors and it reads our cards and opens.
The office consists of a small waiting room which has little plaques that say Elder Barnard and Elder Corro Assistente al presidente. Inside there is the office room which has 3 computers and scanners and printer etc with another side room that locks where the safe and the financial office is. There is also a conference room that holds about 30 people and a great view of Bogotá, a room with all the materials and equipment and the presidents office. Also on the 3d floor there is a big section of the floor that is the general offices of the church for the South America north area. We always run errands down there etc so I have gotten to see a lot of how the church works etc which is really cool. Also in our area is downtown that has the skyscrapers and the gold museum etc. There are some pretty impressive big buildings, I think a few that are over 40 stories.

Elder Corro my comp is awesome. He is from Santiago Chile, his dad is a stake pres and his whole family are members. He is an awesome singer and like I said speaks great English. He has 20 months in the mission so we may only have 1 or 2 transfers left together, but then again you never know what the new pres will do.

Earlier this week I sent 2 cds full of pictures thru FedEx which I think is pretty safe and they should get there this week. They have all my pictures from the last time I sent cds up to last week so you will have them all.

I don’t know what else to write but all is going great, thanks for everything, I can’t believe it’s already almost the 4th of July. Hope everyone is going well.

I thought of a good idea the other day, if you could send some spiritual experiences that you have had or personal stories etc, things I could use in lessons to back up commandments or stuff like that it would be great.

Once again I love you all, happy birthday to Cameryn and have a good 4th. Love Elder B

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