Tuesday, December 5, 2023

I love it

 HEY EVERYONE heres a reminder that im still alive


I've been doing good here in my area, it's called Gaira ๐Ÿ˜Ž Gaira is this pueblo and i LOVE it. Its such a cool place and a nice break from the big city in Barranquilla.
The little branch here is awesome- we've been trying to really work harder with the members here ๐Ÿ’ช
These past few weeks have been good, we found this super awesome family, the Blanco family. They're from Venezuela and to get baptized the parents gotta get married ๐Ÿค  its not easy but definitely worth helping them, they really look forward to progressing in the gospel. We were about to stop teaching them a couple weeks ago then the mom told us she got a couple dreams with her being dressed in all white and some guy in a church telling her to get baptized on the 16th of December ๐Ÿ˜ถ we kinda sat there in awe for a sec and then set the date for her- so far she can still get baptized that day!!
Plz pray for them!!

here in the Colombian coast its especially hot right now so it doesnt feel like christmas apart from everyone painting all the trees white. ๐Ÿ˜ yup.  I guess when your country is incapable of producing snow you just PAINT THE TREES WHITE to imagine that it might actually seem like snow or something. Looks cool i guess๐Ÿคท‍♂️

Anyways, hope everyone is doing alright- love you all!!!

chou pescau' ๐ŸŸ๐Ÿ 

also i hit 17/18 months (cant remeber) this month 






Sunday, June 18, 2023

Jesus loves you!

 HEY! I had a good few weeks!

This last week was pretty busy but good๐Ÿ˜Ž we've been looking at houses for seรฑor misioneries! It'll be fun to get to know them!! 

This last week we contacted like CRAZY and plowed through some inactive member lists. While contacting we talked to this lady named Ruth and she's really interested! We also put a couple people on date for baptism but they then proceeded not to go to church so that's an L....

We had an exchange with our LZ's and I went with Elder Del Sero from Argentina ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡ท(shoutout a los gauchos allรก) he talks goofy BUT he's super sick and it felt good to be able to work on the normal schedule. 

It's rainy season right now so we've been absolutely DUMPED ON by the rain this last week๐Ÿค—๐Ÿ˜Š the roads turn into rivers its kinda sick

Jesus loves you! If you wanna know if the church is true then just ask God in prayer and you'll receive an answer! 
Love you all Chau Chau




Thursday, May 25, 2023

Gonna start teaching them!

 Hey guys I had a good week i met some super cool people, we found a lot more people to teach because of a challenge our mission President gave us, and I finished up a video


On tuesday it was SO stressful trying to get everything ready to record ๐Ÿ˜ต‍๐Ÿ’ซ๐Ÿ˜ต‍๐Ÿ’ซ We ended up getting everything done and the rest of the week I was in a HUGE rush trying to get it all done by sunday- fun stuff๐Ÿค 

Our mission Presidente told us to start talking to every person we're able to, and it's helped us find a lot more people. It's fun to get to know people and joke around with them. I started talking to this one guy and told him I'm from Africa (totally believed me๐Ÿ‘€) as I I left I gave him a handshake and he grabbed my thumb and then started twisting it- he started laughing and i totally thought he was gonna break it ๐Ÿฅด

One day we were walking and this random house just kinda called my attention so I walked up and asked if they know us. They said they thought their grandma sent us because she's a member of the church and they had just recently moved in. We're gonna start teaching them- they seem pretty interested!

Hope everyone has a good week! Love you all! 

Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Lord's hand in the work

 hey its been a few weeks so I figured I'd send an email ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿค 


Ive been really good this last week! We encountered an ... interesting... guy, we got some new missionaries, I'm working on a new vid and broke my toe๐Ÿฅณ

Our area doesn't have a lot of people so one day we just went straight contacting and ran into a jdub, I wanted to talk for so long but It wouldn't really do anything we decided to move on- then we found this dude who was super nice and told us to come back! 

After that there was a couple guys from Boston but somehow had broken English (no clue how that works) and he was in a biker gang for some time. He got super excited when I told him my mom and dad have bikes and he explained how he never wrecked because he put a poster of jesus on his chest when he rode ๐Ÿ‘ mom and dad please start wearing a Jesus poster when you're riding; I've heard Utah traffic is only getting worse ๐Ÿค 

Another day we met this lady who's jdub BUT she has memory problems and can't Bible bash with us because she doesn't remember the scripture references. So naturally we started teaching her and her family. She has two grandkids that are our age and are super cool- they asked for the church address and said they were interested ๐Ÿ˜

Later that day we asked a guy for a dirrection and he asked about the church! We asked if he's religious and he then explained to us his .. beliefs....? I was informed that all of us are actually offspring of reptilian humanoids and homosapiens- called scraps. ๐Ÿฆง๐ŸฆŽ๐Ÿฆง๐ŸฆŽ he proceeded to enlighten us in saying that every 100 years there's a major disease in the world, obviously caused from the two galaxies colliding and becoming "crossable" (our galaxy is the holographic one, which is why we're apparently holographs) he asked if I understood him and told him "even though I understood your Spanish just fine, I've never been more confused" when he shook our hand to go I gave him a pamphlet hoping that maybe he'd read it. He told us to read numbers 11:11 and look up his religion on YouTube.๐Ÿคฏ  he didn't even sound drunk either

Other than that it's been good! I've seen the Lord's hand in the work and I want to share my testimony that the church is true! I know that God- a perfect being- loves YOU, an imperfect being. That means that you have divine potential and God's perfect vision of you gives you purpose in this life! I know were not a weird reptilian/homosapien mix but RATHER children of a loving Heavenly Father, and we are capable of becoming like Him through his Son Jesus Christ




Monday, May 1, 2023

we stood where it should have been


 Hey everyone! these past few weeks have great we had to do more house audits and traveled ALL DAY on tuesday and wednesday, we saw some miracles, and I feel like I've spiritually grown a lot!


sometimes we will plan lessons with inactive members to help them come back to church. a couple weeks ago I was looking through a list of the members in our ward, theres about 500 of them. I was scrolling through and was writing down addresses to contact, and I felt the Spirit SO strong telling me to go to a specific house. We went there that night and the address was so old that the house didn't exist anymore. As we stood where it should have been, a neighbor came out and started talking to us. We're now teaching him because of is interest in the gospel! I know that the gift of the Holy Ghost is a divine help given to us from God to serve as a guide in our earthly lives! 

I have been able to study more recently, and it has really been such a blessing for me. I love reading the Book of Mormon and seeing the powerful examples and people that are found in it. I want to testify of the Restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ, and the love and happiness that can really be achieved through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Other than that, its been pretty normal. Ill keep the updates coming every week (month)!!

This pics a tarde Blanca- our zone had some baptisms on Saturday!

Monday, April 3, 2023

peace amidst stress and trials

 Ey que mรกs!

This week was good! Tons of super sick stuff
Pday we had sushi! It was some pretty yummy stuff ๐Ÿ˜‹๐Ÿค“
This week I've been SUPER busy because it was the beginning of a new transfer, so I was figuring out a bunch of broken phones that all the missionaries magically got in the last three days...๐Ÿ˜ต‍๐Ÿ’ซ We also picked up some new missionaries from the airport and gave them a little presentation on the mish

We went to a Latino area- where only Latinos are allowed cuz of safety reasons- because my comp had to audit like 20 houses. Wednesday through Fridaywas straight traveling ๐Ÿ˜ฎ‍๐Ÿ’จ it was cool seeing it all though! I used the bus trips to edit videos for a general conference invite and music video

Friday night we got back and had just enough time to contact a couple inactive members who are SWEET! They had this dog that literally looked like a balloon. Like no joke it didn't have a tail and it's body was a cylinder. It was like 17 years old and it's 18 year old blind dog-friend named precious... pretty sure it was a stuffed animal....

Yesterday was the anniversary of our mission President and his wife! They asked if I could take pictures for them and they talked to us about stories during their 30 years on Sunday. I'm grateful to be able to know them more recently and I've found how humble and forgiving they are.

Saturday and Sunday were AWESOME because of general conference! I loved Elder Eyrings talk about how peace is a gift from God. Life's really hard, but thats ok! God is watching over us because we're his children, and he wants us to become something better than we can imagine! This week I was able to find peace amidst stress and trials because I could feel God's love for me through prayer.


Pics:
Sushi ๐Ÿฅ
That one Latino area- that white guy is me
Some Peruvians from the new group of missionaries 
Our mission facebook page:
follow it porfa 



Tuesday, March 28, 2023

spiritual experience he had the previous night!

 Hey guys this week was good! I've  been working on a couple videos, got alfredo baptized and we got transfer news yesterday


During this last week we were preparing a guy named alfredo for baptism,  but he didn't feel ready. We thought he eventually wouldn't accept, but the day before his baptism he accepted because of a spiritual experience he had the previous night! It was pretty awesome to see!

The american Elders leaving tomorrow so it's just me and Elder Hernandez now! This upcoming week I'll be traveling a lot to audit houses with my comp. We're gonna eventually hit up every house in the mission 

Pics:
Elder hernandez and my $2 watch ๐Ÿค‘๐Ÿค‘๐Ÿค‘
She makes good popcorn ๐Ÿ˜‹๐Ÿ˜‹๐Ÿฟ 
Our good friend alfredo and some members ๐Ÿค—๐Ÿ‘





Saturday, February 11, 2023

Lastly we became a branch officially!!!

 


Uh sorry It's been a while but here's my email for the last like 2 1/2 months ๐Ÿ‘
Honestly so much has happened I'll touch on some main stuff that happened pretty recently


December in Colombia is the hottest month there is because it doesn't rain during that time... basically there's two seasons: hot with rain, or REALLY hot without rain. Luckily they sell little bags of water for like 1/5 of a penny so those were life savers.

During December we celebrated Christmas, met the first lady of Colombia, found the phone I lost in the last email, we were strangely happy to find out someone wasn't married, I got a violin, transfer news said I'm gonna be in my baby area for 7 months, we saw a bull fight, our area 70 spoke to us, and WE'RE A BRANCH NOW BABY

๐Ÿค I found the phone I lost like 3 months ago on a bus when some dude (he was like 5 feet tall) walked up to us and said he had it! That was a nice miracle because we would've had to pay for it... I think that's the first time anyone has ever gotten a lost phone back in Colombia๐Ÿคฉ 

The first lady actually pretty nice! We represented the church at some event because tons of supplies were donated to people that had pretty much nothing. We went with some members from the big city and it was super fun! 

I bought a violin because it's fun ๐ŸŽป I need more ideas for songs like if you got any ๐Ÿ‘

A member family in our area is working on getting baptized so the guy can be worthy of tye priesthood and his wife can be baptized- but like every other fetching person in Colombia- they're not married ๐Ÿ˜€ the guy said he had a previous marriage and they went to check the legal documents and they never got legally married - only in the catholic church. Basically this means they don't have to get divorced which is SO much easier. Love seeing the Lord progress the work and lifting burdens!

There was a cool "bull fight" were a bunch of guys hop in a stadium and chase around a bull that's trying to stab em ๐Ÿฆฌ fortunately no one died this time but some dudes did find bull horn where it shouldn't be

Our area 70,- Elder Becerra- and his wife spoke to us and it was incredible!! I truly felt the spirit so strongly and he gave awesome thoughts on Jacob's ladder in Genesis and the temple covenants- and how the baptism and marriage (first and last covenants made in the temple) have the Son, The Father, and the Holy Ghost. 

Lastly we became a branch officially!!! We've been a family group for someone's and the application to be a branch was submitted- meaning we'll get a bigger meeting place and some leadership! Super excited to stay for 7 months and see the progress!!

Shout-outs:

mom for teaching me about Jacob's ladder and being the scriptorian she is

My comp Elder Silva for not getting too trunky on his last transfer๐Ÿ’€๐Ÿ’€

bleach for being invented

Elder Zavaleta and Rendon for leaving on the iron for three days ๐Ÿคฆ







Pics:

We killed a tarantula and told an elder it's a toy - I didn't feel that bad until he realized it...

Nap-time on the bus!


Iguana eggs: taste weird but the iguana tasted like BBQ chicken ๐Ÿ” ๐ŸฆŽ

Church! 

Some quick dips in the local pool with white clothing and *real* priesthood authority! 
(Just a baptism don't worry President)

Tuesday, January 10, 2023

Medical People

 Johnny went with an elder from the other companionship in his apartment to go feed the starving dogs in this elders area. While going Johnny felt prompted to take his journal. While out they saw a crippled man in a wheelchair. They wheeled him up the hill to his home, to find he needed help. They noticed all the filth. His bed was crawling with bugs. They changed his sheets then scrubbed his clothes in a bucket of water. The Man watched them work. He kept saying your medical people. No the elders would respond were elders missionaries for the church of Jesus Christ. How the world will ever have is the truthfulness of the gospel and the greatest healer the world will ever know is Jesus Christ our. The Man watched them work. He kept saying your medical people. No the elders would respond were elders missionaries for the church of Jesus Christ. How true the man’s words were. The greatest medicine in the world will ever have is the truthfulness of the gospel and the greatest healer the world will ever know is Jesus Christ our savior and redeemer .