January 18, 2010

Hey there good old fam.
It’s been another week here in Barrancabermeja, Santander, Colombia. Just when I thought I was getting used to the heat I think we got struck with the hottest week yet. So we have drenched shirts every day but that’s life.

If you noticed I am writing from a different email address. The church changed the whole system and now instead of dinky novell email with 50 mb inbox, we have myldsmail thru gmail with 7400 mb inbox. So that means all my contacts and organization stuff is much better and now I have room for all the pictures and letters in the world (whereas before I had to delete anything big) so that’s cool. the addresses were automatically generated so they stuck me with William instead of Will but oh well. They have it set up so that all the mail that gets sent to the old one will be automatically forwarded to this one at least for a while, but you might as well just start writing here. But no worries I got all the letters from this week.

Now as far as the work in this neck of the woods. We had another hot week of work. Lots of time looking for new investigators and lots of time preparing for the branch activity. We used an idea my comp got from a young men’s thing. We spent the whole week inviting people etc. and on Friday we had "Noche de los talentos". First we gathered everyone together in the chapel and told them we had gathered together ppl from all over the world to teach us their international talents. We invited the other Elders to help us. We then made copies of monopoly type money and gave everyone 10 pesos. In each classroom of the church we had different activates set up to spend your "talents" on. We set it up so that there was productive activities (in which you gain more talents) and unproductive activities (which cost talents to participate in) Elder Williams from Las Vegas had a "casino" with dice and checkers that you had to pay to get in and play. Elder Jimenez from Argentina had a tattoo shop (you pay and he draws something on your arm). And Elder Mura from Chile had a Chilean bar (pay for cups of pop). Then we set up Elder Zari from Peru (studied medicine) to teach some first aid and Sister Serrano (from the branch) to teach how to make little craft things. Those who participated in the productive ones gained money at the end. So we gave them 20 minutes to go wild. In the end all the little kids went crazy and wasted their money while the adults did the productive things and got more talents at the end. Haha it was supposed to work out so that at the end we could compare it to the parable but Elder Williams started gambling with the little kids and some left with like 200 pesos. Ha but anyway everyone really enjoyed it and it was a good time to raise unity with the members. After we watched a little ces video and had refreshments (potato chip mix, little sandwiches and juice) that we bought and the relief society helped us prepare. So at the end of the day there was a good turnout and it was a good opportunity to get together and have a good time as a branch.

Things were also going well with Marisa until our last lesson... we arrived to the dramatic moment, invited her to be baptized on the 23d and she accepted, but then said she wanted to clear up one thing first. She really isn’t married to her "husband", they just live together. Basically he works away from home 2 out of 3 weeks and is not very good to her. She wants to separate from him but it’s tough economically etc. so she said she would think about what she was going to do and have a decision the next time we meet. Obviously she can’t get baptized if she lives with a guy she isn’t married to so hopefully she will leave him but we have to just wait and see what she says. We just gotta keep looking and doing our best to help the investigators we have.

Sunday was another very good day in church. We had 54 people come which is less than last week but the drop off was very small and every week the enthusiasm seems to go up. We figured out that last year the average was 39 and in the last 4 weeks we have now had 50, 42, 60 and 54 so there are definitely more people encouraged and remembering their testimony. Usually the counselor in the district is there but yesterday he wasn’t so it was the first time I presided over a church meeting in my life. I gave a talk about the book of Mormon and why it’s so important and why I know it’s true. It went very well. Also we continue fixing up the organizations and finding assignments and giving attention to everyone possible. So on that side of the work I am very excited to see how far we can go. We are doing the best we can to help prepare Brother B and he seems to have come a long way also.

Another crazy thing on Sunday was that we had to rush and get tithing settlement done. They had told us about it a while ago but just barely explained to us how to do it with the computer system etc. So I used the advice President Hacking gave me about it and used what was in the manual and it went through well. It’s amazing how much some people just want to be listened to. It’s like a magic button when you invite someone into the office or shut the door or visit their house. People just need to talk to someone and tell them what’s going on, or what they’re lacking or what they need. It’s been really an experience to see the trust people put in you when you sit down with them and how much the spirit guides you to say what they need to hear and help them. That’s not just a Branch President thing, it's a missionary thing or a friend thing also. But having the chance to interview people has made me realize just how important it is to really listen to people. Just let them talk and take a load off their shoulders and then follow what the Spirit says to help them. So this is a big testimony builder, I can see how much the Spirit really can guide when you look to help and how it literally just puts words in your mouth.

The normal transfers will be announced next Sunday but they told us yesterday that because some of the new Elders are getting here early, about half of the transfers will be announced tonight. Traveling will be on Thursday.

In other news we found a member who is renting a little house finally in our area. We have wasted so much time looking for somewhere to live and there is NOTHING. So it looks like we will finally have a house. The last weeks we have been on the other side of the city with the Elders Zari and Jimenez in their house. At first we were in a hot room upstairs with a noisy fan. But now we found a way to get our mattresses into a little room downstairs that has air conditioning, so we have enjoyed that. It’s possible that we could be in the new house this week. We’ll have to see.

Today was a good pday. We went to the banks of the river here (like a dock thing) where you can see the river and they have fish restaurants all along the side. So we ate some good Rio Magdalena fish and got some good pics and then went and saw the big bridges that crosses the river. The other side is another area so we were on the very edge of the mission, and could even see the Colombia cali mission.

Well I don’t think I have anymore news or comments about this week. I hope we can have success here and I’m interested to see what happens in the next week with transfers and the new house etc. Thanks for everything fam, I love ya much and have a good week. Love Elder Barnard