Week Forty One

WEEK REPORT

The week was crazy.

We helped with 3 moves this week. At one point we (six missionaries) were all in the back of a truck with blankets.

I met a woman named Gnarly.

Elder Johnstun is a new missionary from Arizona and was telling me he had his prom in Stephanie Meyer's house and she has 4 Ferraris.

Fernei and Luz Dary is a couple we visit. Pretty young. Luz Dary has 6 kids. One lives with adoptive parents in Holland and doesn't speak spanish. Kind of blew my mind and depressed me a little. Can't imagine not being able to speak with my parents in the same language. Her oldest son was 18 when heavy piping fell on his leg. It injured his leg in a way that they had to amputate it and the amputation gave him cancer and he died. That story messed me up. Legit a lot of the time I just want to give investigators money. But super awesome family.

We spent P-day today with them. We all went to Cota which is outside of Bogota and very green and mountainous. We went to an indigenous village and met the leader who everyone calls ABUELO. 100% sure he is a ghost. He said BEFORE YOU INVESTIGATE AN INDIGENOUS VILLAGE, INVESTIGATE YOURSELF. I almost passed out.

We had an open house. I was with Elder Vincent, probably my best friend in the mission right now. We were trying to get people to come in. There was one dude riding his bike. We stopped him and invited him in. He said no, he was on his way to work. I asked if I could call his boss, he gave me her number. I called her, got her permission for him to come late into work and he came in the open house. We also got a taxi in. It was awesome. Elder Vincent also kickflipped some kid's skateboard to get his family in.

Juan got baptized and the missionaries sang that "I like to look for rainbows" song. It was cool because we all sang a verse in different languages. HAD TO REP FRENCH.

This week I thought a lot about Morrisey's wisdom.

Shyness will stop you from doing all the things in life you'd like to.

Even if you're an introvert, you shouldn't be shy.

Elder Blair

Week Forty

week report


this week i don't know

Our ward had a talent show- tons of couples in the ward are really good dancers. Legit everyone here is a pro dancer.

Made banana pancakes with the Chona family for breakfast. It was sweet -- they have a grandma in Miami who sends them peanut butter. Chona family is super cool all of them super down to earth and they know good music like Janes Dddiction.

One investigator named Juan Camilo told us that he believes in God because God saved him in a knife fight after an América vs Millonarios soccer match.

I have a gambling problem (cheeky approaching sad).

One weird thing is that suddenly tons of stuff I didn't really like in Colombia, I suddenly love. I hated Vallenato music at first and I love it now. Hated agua panela and love it now. Hated Sancocho soup and love it now.

One funny thing we did this Sunday was after we had the sacrament, me and my comp left to find people on the street to come in and we contacted like 20 people until someone said yes.

Things going good. Loving Colombia a lot. One thing I like is the sheer amount of people you get to know. I always feel good running into lots of friends on the street. Part of a community.

thinking of other stuff

Elder Blair

Email from Mission President

Brother and Sister Blair,

You have a great son!  Sister Laney and I just love him!  He always has a smile that brightens the room and a positive attitude.  I wanted to share part of a weekly letter that he wrote to me on Monday:

One thing my mom would always tell me is "get in problem solving mode". 5 words which I probably took for granted but help a ton now. I realize that there is never nothing to do in the mission field. If the cita is cancelled- contact. No one to contact- Visit a member. No one home- Make calls etc etc etc. One nugget of advice my dad gave me before I left was to learn to love work. I feel like that especially rings true for me. I always feel the best when im working hard.

Well, that explains why he is such a wonderful missionary.  Thank you for sending such a great missionary to Colombia!


Robert Laney
Presidente
Misión Colombia Bogotá Norte

Week Thirty Nine

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Happy Birthday mom. Love you and miss going shopping at 11pm to get Haagen Daaz.

This week was bodacious.

For awhile now I've noticed that kids haven't been in school even though it's not summer vacation yet. We were visiting the Castellanos Family and we asked the kids why they weren't in school. They said PARO. Teachers in Colombia get paid super poorly and theyr'e asking for 50% more. Teachers haven't been showing up for a month. NATIONWIDE. I asked them what they did all day and the kids were like, "i dunno watch movies". So we dropped everything and started teaching times tables and now they have 1-7 memorized.
#paro2017


We visited the Tobon family. They are awesome- used to live in NY. Theyre from Medellin which means they are PAISAS. The dad's job is driving an ambulance and 50% of his job is fight with corrupt police who don't want him to take injured people to the hospital. But he has these super sweet BLOOD PROOF pants with like 80 pockets. I asked him to hook me up-----70K PESOS.

Also some new investigators we have are the Rodriguez family. Alberto Rodriguez is the dad and he was in the military 20 years. He was stationed in Afghanistan and had to get a work visa in Dubai- but has tons of insane stories of seeing drones blow up enemy bases and other stuff. He has a collection of army helmets including an original Nazi helmet. We also shot his guns. Camila is his wife she speaks French and has Anne Franks diary in French- it was sweet.


I'M ALSO NEWLY ADDICTED TO BILLIARDS. We took Castellanos family to play for an fhe and now its my obsession. Also I'm realizing that you can do about anything with an FHE label.

PS -- converted my district to feminism.

PSPS -- ICI C'EST PARIS yep thats right the chona family hooked me up with a Paris saint Germain uniform via their grandma in florida

WE LOVE OUR BREAD
WE LOVE OUR BUTTER
BUT MOST OF ALL
WE LOVE EACH OTHER

in the name of Jesus Christ AMEN

Week Thirty Eight

WEEK REPORT

This week was insane

We were contacting in Villa Hermosa (Pretty Village) which is called the neighborhood of 2 lies because it's not a village and it's not pretty (i.e. last week we saw about 30 cops shut down a bar for sending girls to Venezuela selling "goods"). All the members are scared of going there but it's actually sweet.

Anyway we were walking to check if an investigator Luis was home. He wasn't but two girls called us over. There were tons of kids playing soccer in the street. So we were talking with the two girls and their brother or neighbor. I think they were all family. And some neighbor kid brought out 2 pairs of boxing gloves and I put on 1 and one of the girls put on the other pair and told me, "lets go" and then clocked me IN THE FACE. So I recovered from shock and told her to hit me harder and then she hit me way harder again IN THE FACE. That's how i got punched by a 15 year old girl.

Old Venezuelan woman told me, "I would die for Chavez."

Elder Teijeira and I made Milanessa — it was so good. Its just bread crumbed steak but it changed me. I LOVE COOKING WITH MY INVESTIGATORS and tonight I'm pumped we are gonna play tejo with the Castellanos fam (which is like petanque but w explosions) for a "fhe".

I lost 5 dollars in another fhe playing Parques which is the best boardgame in Colombia. I'm bringing one back. Everyone here is so good I lose every time.

My favorite way to end prayers now is "we love our bread we love our butter but most of all we love each other."

I don't know- this transfer is sweet. My comp is down for anything so I feel like I have way more freedom. We meet up with other elders to make breakfast or do crazy contacts. Elder Teijeira is a sweet comp. He works hard too which is good because it sucks when your comp doesn't want to do anything. We get back exhausted every night.

We also had an activity where we were put with 2 missionaries from the MTC for the day to show them what missionary life is like. Each missionary got 2. I got put with a Peruvian and an Ecuatoriano. It was crazy, they didn't know anything. I told them to invite people on the street to baptism and they almost passed out. But it was a super fun day.

Trying to think of other stuff.

Oh yeah every girl in Colombia decided to wear red lipstick this week so that was really throwing me off.

But WHATEVER HURRAH FOR SYRIA.

ELDER BLAIR

PS — LEGIT LIKE 3 OF OUR KEY INVESTIGATORS DISAPPEARED AND NONE OF THE NEIGHBORS OR ANYBODY KNOWS WHERE THEY ARE