Week Ninety Eight

Querida familia

This week was so much fun. Finally have all my energy back.

The minimum wage in Colombia is 780,000 Colombian pesos monthly, i.e. 270 usd monthly.

San Francisco minimum wage right now is 15 usd per hour (holy crap).

And all the Venezuelans that have come to Colombia in the past 3 years work for waaayyyy less. Like 200k or 150k which is about $50 a month...for a family. Super poor. Good thing is that food is super cheap.

Empanadas you can find easily for 1000 pesos. That's 30 cents. And 2 empanadas fill you up for lunch.

By the way, I can buy a stolen motorcycle here in Piedecuesta for $85 usd. (I wouldn't be able to ride it anywhere outside of Piedecuesta.) Or a legal one with papers for $175.

I'm seriously considering shipping a mecedora home. Its the best chair that exists.

THANKS FOR THE HI CHEWS we have been giving them out to all the neighboorhood kids and blowing their minds.

Here are pics:

2 years later STILL USING THE ZIPTIES best gift ever

Elder Lucaila with the new mission president VALLADARES

Today we woke up at 4:30 to go on a hike with the Stake Patriarch to this place called the Ermintaños. It's a lugar on the crest of the mountain over the valley of Piedecuesta. It's where all these Catholic monks live. It was closed today... but the door was open. Nobody was there. And then we saw a tiny room with 50 monks in a monk meeting or something.

Cristancho family. I told you guys about them last week.

It's super fun. I do this secret handshake with all the kids in my area and now we just walk around and kids will come up to me and do the handshake.

We found this dude named Brian who looks like Jesus. All his friends call him Jesucristo. We have had some awesome charlas with him I'll send a pic.

I could for sure imagine living in Colombia or at least South America. I really want to visit the coastal cities of Colombia. Lots of people say the food is the best part about Colombia but the food is OK — the coolest part of Colombia are the Colombians.

We are working to make the ward better here. Mostly members and kids just want to have a good time, and parents just want their kids to have a good time without using drugs. That's mostly how we've been going about working the area. Going on hikes in the morning with young men, having huge FHEs. It's super fun.

I also spent a day in another area with Elder Baker. We had an FHE with a less active Venezuelan family and I told them my name was Elder Chavez and they thought it was the funniest thing ever.


LOVE YOU GUYS, GOODBYE

P.S. — This is Brian (Jesucristo) from my letter:

And more pics:

Week Ninety Seven

Hey family. How are you guys?

Thanks for the love during my sickness.

This week was cool getting back into the swing of things.

I made a call to Chile. My ex companion Elder Jaque has his dad in a coma. It was super good talking with Jaque. He finished his mission 6 months ago.

I remember Pres. Rains warning me that rejection would be hard, and I remember thinking, "There's no way that can be that hard..." But it just gets to you.

Like there is no way for me to start a normal conversation because of the baggage that comes automatically when people see us dressed as missionaries. We have to put an effort in how we talk during every time we make a phone call so people will think we are friendly.

At the same time people here are so awesome and way more open than I imagine it to be in the USA. People always give us lemonade.

This week was Colombia Independence day — July 20. Our mission leader invited us to see his son play trumpet in a parade, so we showed up. The parade was HUGE. Like 50 marching bands. All of Piedecuesta was there. I immediately told my comp to follow me to a paper store. We bought a huge poster board and markers from this grandma. We wrote on the board:

"HAPPY JULY 20TH LONG LIVE COLOMBIA CALL 3154624117 IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE"

Then we got the grandma to loan us 2 sombreros and 2 ponchos, so we dressed up like Colombians and snuck into the parade.

This is how we dressed:

It was so funny. Tons of members were there and they got so excited when they saw us.

We had an open house in our chapel. We cleaned the chapel with some families in the morning. The chapel here is tiny with lizards running all over the walls.

Elder Lucaila is a really good teacher now. I am really hard on him during teaching practices in companionship study, and he probably hates it, but he has improved so much. He asks good questions.

Our investigator pool changes all the time. People move a lot here. Or investigators will get new jobs and have no more time.

The most constant dude we have been teaching is named Oscar Saenz. He just broke up with his wife. We always have awesome lessons with him. He knows the Bible really well and if we say something that doesn't line up with what he knows, he calls us out. He loves hearing lessons and reading the Book of Mormon with us but he doesn't like coming to church haha. We are gonna take the "but the church needs your help!" route.

We also teach the Cristancho family. They were less actives for years, but have been coming to church for the past month. Their daughter, Lorena, wants to get baptized. Brother Cristancho has the 1st verse of "I am a Child of God" tatted on his forearm hahaha. Such an awesome family. Most of the charlas are just listening to them. Brother Cristancho ran away when he was like 7 or 8, and snuck on a coal train to the coast of Colombia. People have really gnarly life stories here.

I have about a month left and I hope to make the most of my time, because I'm never gonna be a full time missionary again.

Thanks for all the help and support.
I love you guys!

Week Ninety Six

[ Ralph's report came via messaging this week ]

sweet!!! dudes 6 more weeks

dudes i almost died this week
had the most gnarly virus
sickest i've been so far
imagine your entire body hurts, you have a cold, its really hot and your are abnormally exhausted 24/7
but i think it's finally coming to an end
haha

ps -- i broke my pinky and got an x-ray

the health secretary told me to drink a lot and sleep and ask my comp for a blessing

today we took a chill day
played guitar with members
the best guitarist i've ever seen was this dude from argentina i met in barbosa
there's one good member
but most don't know how to play

i connected with charles about the world cup
dudes france must be a party right now
dude everyone here was for croatia
why? the underdogs
i was for france — bah oui

i finally received divine revelation for my nyc movie idea
i just have the title
OLD YORK

dudes we saw 2 gangstas carrying a drugged out girl to a house, our investigator found out joseph smith had a 14 year old wife, we found 2 new families to teach, i made friends with a dude with a man-bun at the hospital

Week Ninety Five

[ Ralph's report came via messaging this week ]

just finished playing basketball with the kids in the ward.
colombia is depressed about losing in world cup
holy. crap.
legit thousands of lonely grandpas drinking beer alone in bars listening to vallenato
that was the whole day

holy. crap. week 95!

the new mission president. he's...cool. no one will reach laney's level
i'm pretty sure laney will be hitting general conference soon

i'm getting so tight with the members here

we need to live on a river

i want to see charles again

my district is just 4 other missionaries who live far and we never see them and they are super obedient so they never want to hang out
hahaha

we've had like 2 district meetings
i wish there were other missionaries but whatevs
i went from seeing tons of elders every day to being with 1 comp 24/7 again
but my comp is awesome

Week Ninety Four

[ Ralph's report came via messaging this week ]

dudes
whoa the rally looks cray
holy crap!
this was not a normal thing when i left

big game tomorrow
we are about to DESTROY england
i was just talking w chris southcott about it haha
he and charles are watching the world cup
dudes you have no idea
my area is a 24/7 party during the world cup
all these old dudes inviting us to come drink beer with them haha


today i had some members take us on a roadtrip to this cave 3 hours away
tons of bats it was insane
THERE WAS A PACK OF LIKE 50 ALL HUDDLED TOGETHER THEY ALL STARTED FLYING
it was dope i invited my converts from my last bucaramanga area and this dope member family and we went w this member who has this huge van
made me trunky!
i'm not wasting any of my pdays till the end


wednesday i meet my new pres
4 of july
i'm gonna bring him a burger


got my last email from pres laney
so weird that he's gone
i called the aps and they told me he was crying and sister laney HUGGED all the office elders
hermana laney was a super diff misson mom
she would swear super sarcastic super funny
for sure you should write them


dudes i am so stoked
less than 60 days
just being in the presence of my fam
i think i just want to enjoy a couple weeks before it hits me that my life starts
and it will be good to see what everybody's doing and make plans


there's a member mom here who lives right by us who loves your blog haha
she doesn't speak english
maybe a bit
she gave me the news about your hair
and my convert told me about the rally this morning
tons follow your ig
so funny
yeah everyone hooks it up here
it's crazy


our area has tons of kids
so many
they stay playing out in the street till 10-11
all of them know us now. whenever we walk by they shout CALIFORNIA CALIFORNIA
everytime i see any kids i say #hey how are you what's ur name good morning brother" in THICK colombian accent and they all stare SHOCKED and then the next time we pass they all shout the same thing
it gets dark super early 7:00

i have invites from chris and charles to live w them
idk what i should do
weird having so many options


any advice on being a good comp to elder lucaila?
i say ecuatorian swear words because his reaction is super funny
we eat lots of ecuatorian food
rice tuna tomato onion salad
chicken thigh w rice tomato onion pepper


this week i cleaned dried vomit out of a glue addicts sink
so thats why i need good pdays
haha

love you guys!

p.s. -- here are pics:

roadtrip to stake conference

stake conference, last pic w laneys

bats, the cave was not lit at all just flash

we made jugo de tamarindo

roadtrip

the first vision

cueva