Very prepared for us

 Hey! It's been awesome here in El Carmen! These last few weeks have felt exciting; we witnessed the Lord's hand SO much, some drunk guy sat on me, we got in some newspaper articles, we impersonated a cop, I lost our phone, and we witnessed a little 3 year-old kill a baby chick. 

We see the Lords hand so much, especially with our members and traveling. A member was remembering when they saw us and he said he felt impressed to walk over and talk to us. He'd been inactive for a while and he is a huge part of our future branch now!

The Lord won't break the "law of the land" but fortunately he has his Colombian disciples to do it for him: On one of our bus rides home, there was a LOT of traffic, so much that we would've gotten home super late. I was getting worried when the bus driver flicked on his red & blue flashing lights with his siren and he started speeding up... we were all laughing at the long line of angry cars we had just passed and we made it home in time!

We met a former mayor of our city who did the local newspaper. He was SO excited to see us and invited us in. He'd been asking for missionaries for a long time and found us. He said we can put anything we want in the newspaper; he's an amazing guy who was very prepared for us. 

One bus ride we were sitting next to some drunk guys, one was asking me what his tequila was called in English so I told him he was drinking weenie juice. They had to throw up so they just sat on me on their way out of the bus...

We're teaching some people that sell chicks after they dye them and as they were roaming around the floor, this little 3 year old accidentally stepped on one and when we showed her its broken foot and neck she started laughing... we're debating between plan of salvation or the "don't murder" commandment for the next lesson haha

There's a long update! Appreciate you all!

after he was baptized he started swimming around..

 Buenas! These last couple weeks have been suuuper sweet! We had some interesting bus rides, I bought a ukelele and we had a baptism!

Last week we were on our daily bus and the police stopped us for an I.D. check- just to limit gang activity between cities. Because I'm new and don't have an I.D.... I just gave them my temple recommend (I have no clue what i expected) and I was kinda worried because we had a busy day that day. The police just saw it and probably thought no way this dumb American's in a gang and just let us go.. super cool blessing!

We had a baptism Saturday!! His name is Sebastian! He's a funny kid that wanted to get baptized so we rented a pool place and after he was baptized he started swimming around.. I'm so glad I was able to help give Seb the amazing gift of the Holy Ghost and I know that the gospel will bless him!! 

Yesterday in sacrament we hit a new record!! We got 22 people and we had current investigadors come!! I'm so glad that the church is growing here and we're on track to be a branch by January!

Pics:

some cool turtle bread

SEBAS

Chruch😎

motocarros are lit

teach him how to write

 Hey! This last week has been super awesome! We traveled a whole bunch this last week... and I'm traveling as a write this right now... 

we will have traveled on the bus for about 14 or 15 hours by the end of this week😎 we were only able to work in our city a few days but we got in a couple dates and did plenty of contacting! We got 9 people in church yesterday and expect 15 or more in a couple weeks! 

We also had our English class and I love it every time! There's a couple people on that class that are super cool- one named Alejandro and the other named Cesar. Alejandro has very good English, and he wants to work in a call center. Hes AMAZING at guitar and we relly look forward to lessons with him because we usually end up listening to him play. Cesar is someone we found online, and we started lessons with him but it felt kinda weird because he NEVER spoke to us. We would ask him stuff and he just smiled, but the next time we asked if he read the Book of Mormón, and he read like 14 ir 15 chapters In a couple days. Super cool dude, I noticed learning englisb was hard for him and then saw that all he knew to write was his name... I'm gonna try to teach him how to write.

When we were in a Barranquilla, it was 5 of us new missionaries trying to get around to the different visa places. By the evening we headed to the bus station and just COULDNT find a taxi anywhere. After a couple hours we found a funny guy. We stacked all of us in the back and it felt like we were in a car chase. This man was swerving in and out of lanes and it was so sweet- once we made it to the bus we got a call to stay in Barranquilla because it was too late... I felt kinda disappointed but that feeling disappeared when we got to the zone leaders house. We had a good night and im so glad I met them before we left! 

Anyways, if you made it thus far then congrats go make yourself a sandwich 👍

-Élder Seffker

people dedicated to what

 WOAH- my church login didn't work for a second but IM IN MY MISSION NOW! These last 3 weeks have been pretty crazy and awesome! The people here haven't failed to humble daily. After getting off the plane in Barranquilla, we stayed in some hotel that had hot water! I got my companion- Elder Brown- from this weird city in Utah called Syracuse or something. 

We were assigned to a pueblo called El Carmen de Bolivar. It's amazing here and we have been trying to get a branch started up in El Carmen! I live with a couple other Elders, Elder Bryan and Elder Patiño. Theyre super sweet and they all help me practice my Spanish 💪

We live in a pueblo called San Juan and then just travel to get to El Carmen. There's complications with living there, but hopefully by January we'll be able to live in El Carmen. One thing that I've learned to love is our English classes on saturdays! It's one of the only times in the week when i fully understand everything, and can really help people learn English. Learning english seems to be a really big deal here because if you know it, you have a chance to go to America and live there. I feel so blessed to have grown up knowing English, and the 

 they want gives me motivation. 

A couple families we're teaching have touched my heart so much! One family, which is also half of our members, remind me of some of my siblings and I love teaching them and mostly talking with the kids. The kids here are SO funny because they practice their English with us, but can really only quote movies and swear words. Talking with them is easier anyways because they talk slow and have a smaller vocabulary for me to understand. 

also about the subject crunchy pancakes; I figured out, if you ever want to try it, to make one, you get normal batter with pancakes, maybe a little extra milk, and leave it on the stove for about 20-30 minutes. It tastes really good never.

Things I love about the mission so far:

All the dope geckos EVERYWHERE

the AC unit in our room 

The random flash floods

The insane drivers

The bread shops on every corner

Some dude named lucho: "fighter" in english

Another guy named Nestey (smart guy) who was supposed to be named Einstein

Finding peanut butter at the store

Random dogs with a random amount of limbs

here's some pictures

our english class

my favorite section of the store?

Ya 

Uh huh

Pictures

 

sang praises unto God

 sorry I skipped my email last week- [*insert excuse here*] but anyways, the last couple weeks have been super awesome!

I'm getting so excited to head into barranquilla and start teaching- I've heard some sweet things and wanna spread the GOSPEL! Today we went to the temple and bumped into a bikes back tire- we were merging into traffic and we just bumped him a little bit, i just thought that was kind of funny (hes fine)

It's also been so fun to learn more Spanish and talking to the latinos. I love trying to talk to them and translating between languages is sort of fun- I'm excited to become better at Spanish and to learn more from the Spirit. 

A couple things that happened, we saw this big moth in our hallway a couple weeks ago and one Elder (Élder Smith) was courageous enough to smack it off a light and we ended up not dying- I'm pretty sure it would've killed us- he also got 10,000 pesos ($2.33) from it

I wanted to end with a message about the apostle Paul: when Paul was in Thyatira preaching with his companion Silas, he was fasly accused and thrown into prison by magistrates. After being beaten and getting locked up in the most secure part of the prison, Acts 16: 25 says: "And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them." Shortly after they were freed with an earthquake and converted their jailor. 

We will feel abandoned or treated unfairly at times, but I know that those experiences tell us who we are and what we can be. I know that our Savior can pull us out of the hardest trials and can free us from any spiritual prison we feel we might be in. En el nombre de Jesucristo amen

Thank you guys!!

Élder Seffker

good teachers dont care about mistakes if there's learning involved.

 This week has been amazing! We've all been studying Spanish a TON and I've been able to study the gospel so much as well! About 70% of the people left the MTC for their missions last night, including the latinos in our room 😭😭 we knew they'd leave but I didn't realize how fast it would be- I'll throw in some pics of them- I know they'll do amazing on their missions!! 

This last Sunday, me and another Elder were able to play the piano for a musical number after the meetings! The night before, we were just playing around on the piano there (I played the left hand and he played the right) and our mission president said something like, "wow elders that'll be perfect for our devotional tomorrow." He gave us the music and we played the crap out of it for Sunday. The hard parts of the song we just made up and simplified so it turned out well thanks to the other elder whos literally a musical genius. I felt the spirit so strongly and it was way fun to play music again! I wanted to share that because when we were practicing, I messed up a TON and he was so patient. He was a big example to me that

good teachers dont care about mistakes if there's learning involved. 

Quierro mi testimonio que yo say nos Padre Celestial y Jesucristo tengé amoroso por nosotros. Yo sé que Jesucristo vivé in vida que gue perfecto.

Thanks Everyone! 

Élder Seffker

Going away party

 

Exactly what I needed

 This week has been amazing! (by the way, i'm gonna call it my mission log from now on because it sounds like buzz lightyear) I'm absolutely loving the MTC here in Colombia, and because its such a small MTC, we're all really close to each other! We went to the temple again today and got some pictures of the city on the way there! It's crazy how fast time has flown by, i could've sworn that yesterday i just got off the plane but it's already week 2!! I'm loving all the latino Elders that room with us because they are always super happy and funny. When they try to make fun of us in English, they directly translate certain phrases so they end up "teasing" us by telling us to get a "blood transfusion" . It's so amazing here in the MTC though because the spirit is always so strong! I am so glad that I chose to go on a mission because I never realized how powerful it is to be able to experience this. Learning Spanish has been incredible too- and I owe it all to the Lord. I know that the gift of the holy ghost is truly real and we really do receive answers to our prayers. I wanted to testify of an experience i had recently with one of my teachers. first off, hes such a funny guy and can teach by the spirit so well and simply. One morning i was just feeling unhappy and unmotivated to learn or participate. That morning, i prayed that i would have a productive day. about half an hour or so into our first class, our teacher started teaching the class with such a happy attitude and he was simply being himself, which was exactly what i needed. I started to tear up just being so grateful that my prayer was answered and how my bad mood INSTANTLY disappeared. I know that the Gospel is for everyone to learn and grow. En el nombre de Jesucristo, Amen.

 

Arrival first mission letter

 QUE PASA!!

I'm loving my mission so far!! We got here about a week ago after going through Colombia's extensive customs check (they checked our id) it's so amazing here in Colombia, Bogata- the MTC is pretty high up at 9,000 feet! The food is also great here, TONS of rice and plantains! Salt and hot sauce have become our best friends as well. Half of us are the "Americanos" with the other half the "latinos" they're so funny and VERY good at soccer. A couple days ago they helped us barter for a mango and pineapple through our fence. We got it down to about 9,000 colombian pesos (like $2.50) and apparently they still doubled the price for us. I've seen so many miracles and have been so blessed here! I'll end with a story about one of the Latinos- Elder Alijos- he had a difficult lifestyle previously and has been through a lot. He has such a love for the Book of Mormón and has so much faith. His example is a witness to me that Heavenly Father has a deep love for each one of us despite our mistakes. En el nombre de Jesucristo amén 

Élder Seffker