I'm going into my last 12 weeks. At the beginning of the mission, all the new missionaries have to do a program called First 12 weeks — you read through a manual with your trainer and practice teaching lessons —things like that.
So now I'm going into my last 12 weeks.
It has been an insane week. President Laney gave me the choice of staying as AP or finishing in the field and I told it him I was ready for whatever. I'll head out on a 12-hour bus ride this Wednesday to my final area: Pie de Cuesta (Foothills) Zona Bucaramanga.
I'll be training and opening the area. I'm stoked out of my mind. I've really missed having all the time in the world to make my area sweet. I've never trained a new missionary and its gonna be awesome.
Things that happened this week:
I went on splits 5 of the 7 days.
Tuesday
I went out with an Elder in a super rough patch. We had a sweet day and then a good inventory in his house.
Wednesday
I worked in my area with Elder Hernandez from Peru. We had a good day. I have become bffs with this recent convert grandma in our ward named Maria Mercedes Portilla. With Elder Hernandez, we took her to do Family History at Brother Trujillos house.
Bro. Trujillo was mission president of the Cali Colombia Mission in 2003-2005. He told us, "Out of the 5 people who know the most about family history in Colombia, I'm #1." Whenever Bro. Trujillo gives a talk at church, he prints out copies of it and gives them out afterwards haha.
Maria Mercedes Portilla and Bro Trujillo.
Later Elder Hernandez and I surprised our mission leader at his work and we brought him donuts.
Thursday
I spent the day with Elder Leon also from Peru. We had a good lesson with Janet, a single mom from Venezuela. She lives in my area with her son Jesus. We visited her with our mission leader, Nephi. She used to repair furniture back in Venezuela and had a good business and now she can't get work anywhere. And some hooligans stole her phone last week. Just going through hard times. There's a lot of Venezuelans in our ward so yesterday at church we got Janet set up with friends. Forgot to take a pic with Janet and will probably never see her again. A lot of Venezuelans just need a support system because Colombia can be a cruel place.
At the end of the day I took Elder Leon to a Peruvian restaurant and we got leche de tigre (tiger milk) and Inca Cola. Peruvian food is super strong flavored. Really sour and spicy. But I dug it.
Friday
I was with Elder Maldonado from Argentina.
I can only remember visiting super cool siblings in our ward — Sebastian and Laura. We just shared Enos 1 with them and somehow tied it to missionary work, and then we asked them about less actives and people who need help in the ward, and people they know to invite to an FHE. Went well.
Saturday
My replacement came. Elder Heninger — super good mission friend. He makes movies too.
Saturday was crazy. We helped the Buitrago family move houses for the whole first half of the day. Then we went to mission offices and I taught the new APs how to do transfers and multi-zone conferences.
So we wrapped up the week this Sunday. Brought some goodbye cards for Bishop Rojas and Victoria Correa. Then all afternoon we did transfers. Mostly I just supervised. I went to the terminal with the secretaries to buy all the bus tickets needed for transfers. We finished the transfers and were all starving so we waited till midnight to go out and buy some food (to not break Sabbath). I bought bread and this camembert cream I found. It was nasty haha.
We forgot the house keys and slept in the mission offices.
I'll miss my companion, Elder Dias. We got along awesome. AP was super fun seeing all the missionaries and changing anything that didn't work well. My area was hardest area I've had so far.
Anyways, really good week. Elder Stevenson the Apostle is coming to visit the mission in Bucaramanga in 2 weeks and the entire mission is coming out so it will be sweet to see everyone one last time.
I'm ready to go hard these last two transfers. I'll never be a missionary again in a really short amount of time. I'll have to deal with school and work and rent. I don't realize how much freedom I have here. But I'm ready to go hard, make hard lives better.
Love and miss you guys.
Elder Blair
