Week Twenty Eight

week report

This week was taerg

One memory:

We were teaching a girl named Natalia and like 5 other people in her house. These 2 tiny dogs were going crazy. They knocked down a huge mirror off the wall and it shattered. Natalia stood up, saw what happened and LOST IT. she shouted IF YOU DONT WANT SEVEN YEARS OF BAD LUCK SWEEP UP THE MIRROR PIECES AND PUT THEM IN THE BATHTUB ASAP!!!! Then she rolled up a newspaper and smacked the dogs. They were still going crazy. This was all during a lesson. Elder Guerra and I were both like whoaaa everybody just settle down...

We have been working hard in Barbosa. Have 5 investigators w baptism dates. Things are looking good.

We had comp. exchanges with the elders from Tunja. I was with Elder Crandell (from Arizona). We went far into the jungle to find cool houses to contact. After a grueling hike we found a little farm. We contacted them

us: Hello excuse us. We are the missionaries here in Barbosa. Maybe you've seen us before?
them: No.
us: ahh. Well we have a message we'd like to share with you sometime. Or if you have time now?
them: Come by tomorrow at 11 am. You guys are Catholic right?
us: Alright, and no.. the Church of Jesus Christ.
them: Catholic?
us: Christian
them: Alright

yeah thats how a ton of contacts go.

On our way back we got way lost in the jungle, but we found these caves and filmed a crocodile hunter-esque video

Week Twenty Seven

week report

Hey guys i got the christmas card, you guys look so good.

First things first: getting SCARILY good at recorder. Thinking I might have to go pro.

This week was Santa Virgen Maria de Guadelupe. Crazy.

We met this dude Diego at the Babrosa library. Engineer learning English. Now every morning we go on hikes with him and practice English. It's dope, fresh and sweet.

He lives in front of a mountain. One morning we hiked up the mountain and then to a little farm village called "amarillo" -yellow. Then we hiked further to a village called Cite. We went inside a Catholic church and paid for a candle. It was electric- you dropped a coin in and the candle lit up. Then we hiked back to Barbosa through these tomato fields. It was emosewa.

That night me and Elder Guerra bought a watermelon and were walking home and saw two gringos sitting on the curb in front of our apartment. They motioned us over.

In broken Spanish they told us they needed a place to sleep. I heard French accent so I asked if they spoke French -oui. I told them I lived in Normandy- they were from Normandy. It was cray cray. They are two hippies making a documentary about nature villages or some burning man type stuff - one of them went to HS in Argentan. I almost pissed my pants. I called up Hermana Pardo from the Barbosa branch because they always have like 20 people at their house. She told me they could sleep there. I invited the Normands to hike with us and Diego the next morning.

The next morning we picked up the Normands then went for Diego. It was crazy we talked about Domfront, Caen, Rouen, La Mie Caline, juctice, la haine, jambon buerres, TOUT. We were hiking toward Velez and stopped at Tejo courts.

Tejo is a huge street sport in Colombia. It's like Petanques. You throw these
stones at wet clay and try to get these paper triangles to explode. IT'S SICKKKKK. We played that for awhile. It was weird speaking in French. At first it was hard because Spanish words kept coming out but then it got easy again and speaking Spanish was hard because French came out so I guess there's no glory on these dark roads.

The Normands - Baptiste and Morgan - could not understand all the missionary rules. They kept trying to get me to come out w them that night. "When are you gonna see two Normands again. This is your chance." It made me depressed.

And then Sunday we ate fish spaghetti with members which tasted good. Then an hour later me and my comp realized we both pretty much had gotten poisoned. It felt like a snake was wrapping around my intestines holy crap. We had a couple lessons anyway that we barely got through and then we went home at 8:30 that night. It was bad. I immediately crashed on the bed and then got up like 5 times to puke. I was scared I was gonna throw up all my insides.

But still dope week and next pday we are going to Villa Leyva - very old Colombian village with dinosaur bones.

Week Twenty Six

Week was good.

We drove around with Hermano Severro Pardo and his granddaughter Luciana (Lucianita) in his bumblebee covered Renault. We were looking for our friends Mariluz y Miguel (who I thought fled Santander, but Severro told me he spotted them on another side of Barbosa). The Renault started growling like a dinosaur and then stopped working.

Severro got out, banged some part of the engine, blew on some other part, got back in and back in business. Everyone calls him Severito Lindo. He has a fading cross tattoo on his shoulder.

Luciana is maybe 6 or 7 years old. She told me: "I can do black magic, white magic, red magic-all the colors." I told her you have to study magic for at least 20 years to learn all the colors. She told me, "Well, I know them all."

We found their house but they weren't home.

Week Twenty Five

Happy 18 Maude. Miss Maude a ton. Not many people have a heart as good as Maude's.

My new comp is Elder Guerra (War). He is from Panama. He's a blackbelt, a chef, and has a scar on the knuckle of his middle finger from an encounter with a sea urchin while surfing.

Barbosa is cool with him. He already made someone cry over the phone. A lot of bible bashing.

We saw a dude steal a motorcycle. It happened so fast and it was really loud. Mostly, I remember that he had a huge grin.

8 of our investigators came to Church. 5 were from Ana's family. I like visiting them. They always ask us to sing them hymns.

Weather change in Barbosa. There are huge downpours everyday now.

I saw a ton of bats flying around a lamp post.

Forgot to share this last week- We were about to have a district meeting. Two of the hermanas were really late. Then one of them finally walked in-- alone. She had abandoned her comp on the bus. Mission Pres had to come and there was a lot of crying.

Elder Guerra told me that there are foot long rats that swim between islands in Panama.

We made crepes because I'm true to my Normand past.