No Letter :(

No letter from Alec this week. Some one better have a really good excuse.

Throwing Rocks

Hey Everyone,

So first off, thanks to my Mom for the money to buy delicious food and stuff for my 20th birthday this Thursday, you know me to well. We will eat good for my big day. My presents are not here yet from the mail but maybe by Thursday. I’ll let ya know next week.

Second off I don't have time to put pictures up so I'm really sorry. I'll do better.

Wednesday we got to teach an old man that lived in Chicago for 20 years and wanted to talk to Americans. It was a nice lesson and we are going to visit him again this week. Hopefully it goes well. Its nice to get new people to teach.

American football on p-day last week was awesome. Actually it was only awesome until one of the elders slipped on the wet grass (it was raining) and pulled the ligaments in his shoulder : ( so other then that it was awesome. We had to stop and help him. I felt bad but was kind of bummed our game was over too. He is doing fine.

One sad thing this week was I got hit in the side of the head with a rock. A group of pot heads wanted us to come talk to them, we did not do that, so they got mad and called us names in spanish. We just keep walking away, then one of them thought it would be great to throw a rock. It hit me in the ear and I lost hearing in it for about 10-15 minutes. It hurt a lot. My companion, Elder Price, was really mad and wanted to punch the guy in the face for me (this was not the first time they said rude things to us). I told him it was not the best thing to do since we are missionaries and we just needed to let it go and not walk by them anymore. He agreed but was still mad so we just kept walking away. Pretty rude of them. 

One fun thing happened this week. The zone leaders came back from Meddelin with all the stuff I asked for from the office. I now have like all the movies from the church in our apartment, our family home evenings are going to be awesome with the members. I also got the gospel art book after asking for it for 6 months, so that is nice. I also got letters. Yeah letters. Its so nice to hear from home and get packages. A lot of my friends have totally slacked off and have not been writing. It was really nice to hear from a few but the others need to step it up I think.

Also, I just passed my 10 month mark on the mission. Crazy I have been out that long. Its going pretty fast most of the time except when you get hit with rocks.

Stay Classy,

Alec

P.S. Below is a quiz for everyone. I really liked it. See how well you all do answering and writing the scripture reference where you found the answer.

IF YOU TAKE IT LET ME KNOW HOW YOU DID:

1. Which Nephite leader had two sons named Lehi and Nephi?

2. What does Rameumpton mean?

3. What is Deseret?

4. In the Book of Mormon what are the names of every person who had either the large or small plates of Nephi at one time or another?

How many are there? (remember a scripture for each one.) 

5. Read 3 Nephi 7: 23-26 & 11:21. Why did the lord give Nephi to baptize if he was baptizing people before?

6. Where does it say Reckoning in the Book of Mormon.

7. Corianton, son of Alma is famous for committing sins when he was a missionary. It does not talk much about him in the history afterwards, but it does say what happened to him spiritually in the end. Did he repent or no?

8. What does ´´the more sure word of prophecy´´ mean?

9. We know baptism is a symbol of death and resurrection, but where is it written?

10. A lot of people have doubts because Joseph was called to be a prophet when he was very young, but what are two examples of when god called other prophet at a similar age?

11. Normally the people use weapons of war, but were dose it say the had weapons of peace?

12. How old was Alma the older when he led his people from the Waters of Mormon to the land of Zarahemla?

13. From Alma 11: 5-19. If you have 2 senums, 2 ezroms, 1 onti, 1 shiblon, 1 shiblum, and 2 leahs how many Antions of gold would you have?

14 Where does it say the name of the brother of Jared in the Book of Mormon?

Family Home Evenings

Hola Everyone,

Its nice to hear that everything back home has stayed the same and is as organized as always. I’ll be excited to enjoy you new laundry cabinets when I get home cause you know life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop to look around once in awhile you might miss something.

Ha ha, it was so funny to hear that Braden is driving a malibo while his car was getting repaired after that guy hit him. I bet he just hates it. I know how much he hates American cars. This must be worse then him getting hit. Also just seeing your photo of the accident makes me realize how much I miss snow. Rain just sucks, you just get soaked and sad. But hey there is the saying that for every drop of rain that hits you on your mission your wife gets more attractive. I am getting rained on all the time,  so at least that is one benefit.

So this week was pretty rad. We had Family Home Evening in the house of a member and she invited a bunch of people. It was awesome. We received so many references from her. We now have two new families to teach because of that one night. I used the plan of salvation drawings Braden sent me (I changed them to Spanish so I could use them here) and had a great lesson. One of the dads was asking a bunch of questions, which helped lead the lesson along. For example, we had just finished talking about life on earth and then he asks ´´So what happens when we die, and how is it fair that the people who didn’t know about the church never get to have that knowledge.´´ It was almost as if he knew what he was doing, as if we planted him to ask questions. It was amazing. We will see how these families do in the long run but I think they are ready to hear the gospel.

As for service, we have not had many chances lately. I have been cooking my comp food at night, so I guess that could count. I decided that I was no longer happy with eating bread after we get back to the house so I started cooking things. We still have the members feeding us huge meals for lunch. They are awesome!

We had exchanges this week so an another missionary came to my area to work with me. He has only about 8 months left but got nervous when we were teaching and instead of saying that Jesus died for us he said that Jesus killed for us. He quickly corrected himself but it was still super funny. The investigator laughed so it was all good.

Oh yeah, and the old man, Jesus, that we baptized recently came to church this week in a suit! It was so amazing. He said that he went out and bought it because he wanted to wear his best to church. It was so touching. By the end of the day he said that he was super hot and that he is only going to wear it on fast Sunday from now on but it was still awesome.

Also, thanks Dad for writing me about you primary lesson Sunday and sharing the new stuff it made you think about. Its cool to think about if the third of the hosts of Heaven that followed Satan still have their agency since thats what he wanted to take in the first place. I don’t think he can take it away because agency is a right we have that has existed for eternity. We had agency when we were intelligences, so not even God could take it away from us. I learned that in my personal studies in the morning. I love having so much time to figure things out. I also would bet that a lot of them regret their choice. Living everyday knowing what you did and threw everything out the window would be terrible. Is that not the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth it talks about for people that go to the lowest kingdom, how much more so if you knew that you would never be able to have any glory even of the lowest king. It’s just so sad.

Well I hope that you all are doing well in you snowy lives.

Thats all I got for today, love you lots.

Alec

I Have a gift for someone. To bad they will have to wait until next year 

to get it since its kinda sketchy to buy plates here.

I rode my first cable car in Colombia, so I had to take a photo.

Happy New Year 2014

Hey Everyone,

So this week we kind of celebrated New Years. It was a lot like Christmas in that we had to be inside by 6 pm before everyone started partying. We went to Manizales again and spent the night with our Zone Leaders. We had a projector and watched a few church movies, we also got a great show of the drunk guys blowing things up in front of our house. They were using gasoline and explosives from like 11 to 2 in the morning. It was really funny to watch them be stupid from our window. One guy almost set his arm on fire. It was great. I can’t believe how dumb people can be when they drink.

As far as teaching goes, we had to drop almost all of our investigators this week since none of our people were progressing at all.  It was sad but if they are not ready maybe they will be for some other missionaries and we planted the seed. We have been concentrating on a lot of part member families lately and it seems to be going well. We now have quite a few families to teach from now on. Hopefully the can feel the spirit.

Ok, I need to go. Sorry it is so super short. We are going to play american football with the other zone so I need to go.

Love,

Alec

I made an egg white omelette with chicken and melted cheeses for our breakfast.

I caved. I just had to buy it after seeing it in stores for almost 10 months I just had to buy it. It was pricey but worth it.

Here are the New Years neighbors, YES that is a couch in fire

Our New Years Movies, and all mission approved fear not:

Emma Smith

Forever Strong

1/4 of Saints and Soldiers

Singles Ward

Singles Ward 2