7-8 Miles Per Day

Hey Everyone, 

Life is still good here in Cerete. We are walking a bit less now that we can use motto taxis. We use them for when the area is far away, or are short on time. However, we still do walk around 7-8 miles a day because we normally use the mottos to get to an area, but walk back to save money. As for my shoes they are doing awesome. They are really broken in and super comfy now that I have been wearing them for 6 months. They hardly show signs of being out on a mission at all. Really awesome. I think they just might last my whole mission. (lets hope i didn’t just jinx that).

Speaking of walking, as we were walking back from an area yesterday that was far away, we came a different way home and we passed a huge house on the main road back in to town. Low and behold what do they have in a pen near there house? Ostriches. Yes ostriches, two of them to be exact, just chillin’. I can’t imagine what they were thinking when they bought them, well other then ``I want to buy an ostrich, wait thats crazy lets buy two”.

The members are still treating us well. My favorite members would have to be one of two families. One of them is Yuly (Julie) and her mom Julia. They give us lunch every Saturday and it is always super good. Then we chat with them for a bit, great family. The other family is the Camachos. The dad is an english teacher and is pretty cool. The wife is a masseuse and likes to give the elders neck massages, and they are awesome. That family also helps the other missionaries a lot so that is awesome as well.

So hearing that my dog, Fargo, still snuggles on my bed when I’m not there makes me kinda sad : ( I miss my time at night with him, well at least when he was snuggling, and not attacking my hands or trying to stick his tongue in my mouth. Will you have Lydia scratch him for me. Also you should send me a photo of Fargo, because a lot of the kids are asking if I have a dog, and they don’t know what a pomeranian is.

Dad wrote me and sent me pictures of the Abarth. Okay, wow okay, just wow. It looks great and is just super awesome. I think the black looks better then the grey he had before. Now he does not drive a sleeper car anymore. I totally want to drive it when I get home. It is so cool that there are awesome sweet, fun and fast cars he can have while still being able to budget for all of us serving missions. I’m really grateful that we have the money for me to be able to serve. I love my mission.

Love you guys lots, 

Alec

P.S. Since my LDS mail was not working last week I have lots of letters to go through and don’t have time to upload pictures. Next week I promise.

Mission Conference - No Time To Write

Hey Everyone.

So my LDS mail account is not working this week so I did not get anyones letters or questions. I’m using my MAC account at the moment. I also do not have long to write because I am in Montaria at a conference with our President. It should be really fun. I always enjoy when he speaks to us. He always knows exactly how he can help us. He also keeps it simple. Do this this and this and you will have more success. I really like it!

I saw Dad’s Heinkel pictures on flickr when I was uploading my pictures for the week. They look awesome. His looked better than all the other Heinkels that showed up to Heinkel Fest. 

Also this week, the house across the street from us has been playing 80’s hits really loud so that is just plain awesome. Just to name a few bands, Journey, The Police, The Cranberries, Aerosmith, and much more.

Love you guys so much, sorry I just cant right any more right now.

Love 

Alec

Welcome to the world of Colombian Dinning

Meet the new guy, Elder Cutler

(kind of looks like me with those shades on huh)

The sisters made this for an activity we had with our investigators.
We put the schedule on the back.

Spoiled with Mail!!!

Hey Guys,

So let me start off by saying I am tired of everyone complaining about how hot it is back home or how rainy. We have rain here all the time. If it rains we are walking though lakes all day, its really annoying. The water is just to much for the system they have here in Cerete. As to the temperature, I have to deal with temperatures of 100+ almost every day. You guys just suck, You know that. You better enjoy that weather while you can cause I’m going to start praying for early snow for you guys.

This week I got the 3 packages, super awesomeness!  I got the one you mailed through Dear Elder, another one from you guys and one from the Hansen’s. So cool of them to send me a package! Can you thank them on Sunday for me please and I will also try to email them. It was awesome to get so many packages at once although I think that the other people in the house were a little sad. However after I started sharing the goodies with them. They were a lot more happy.

The teaching English has been going really well with my comp, Elder Gomez. He is a fast learner. He can have real conversations in English with people, its pretty cool. Its only Elder Gomez in the house now that doesn’t know english perfectly, so he is getting a lot of help from the other guys.

Sunday we had a family come to church that a recent convert invited. What was cool is they drove their car! No one here really comes to church with a car. It was awesome. They also seemed to really like church. But the best part is that he has the best mustache ever. It just so bushy and thick.

So its been 2 weeks now that we have been able to ride the motorcycle taxis now and they have not been that scary. Normally the people are not crazy mad men bent on driving the razors edge of life and death. Most of the time its a guy who has a wife and a kid at home and he is just trying to bring home money for his family.

Things are going good. We are doing well teaching and tracting and the spirit can be pretty strong sometimes. I really like being on my mission. I know the church is true!

Love you guys lots

Alec

Hey dad

P.S. So me (and elder Cutler) think Dad should go with the black rims for the cafe bike he is building. It looks more aggressive, and awesome.

Pouring Milk from the Bag.

Found a bat in the sink when we came home today

so we checked out the attic situation.

Card from my friend Nick!

Opening a letter my parents sent me in the MTC but didn’t get till now.

The office really needs really pick it up on the mail.

All my packages.

So, when I say we go to the store by our house, this is what I’m talking about.

You just ask for what you want and the people will pass it through the gate to you.

Testing Motorcycle Taxis

Hello Everyone,

Well this week for p-day we are going in search of a ´´leg bag´´. Elder Cutler (the new american elder)  had one when he came to our area. They are awesome. Its normally used for riding motorcycles in the desert but works awesome for missionaries. You can fit the Book of Mormon for the investigator, the pamphlets about different lessons, and a few other essentials. No need to carry around the big back pack all the time. I still plan to use the back pack when I need to haul big things but for the days like today it would be so much better to not be carrying the entire library of congress on your back.

We had our first motorcycle taxi ride Friday after them getting approved just last week. It was fairly uncomfortable. Elder Cisneros and I were on exchanges and it was late so we wanted to use a motorcycle taxi to get back to the house. The only problem was there was only one guy there to take us home. He ´´graciously´´ offered to take us both at the same time. We really had no choice since it was so late. Elder Cisneros and I climbed on. Him first then I got on after. Three dudes on a motorcycle isn’t very comfortable, physically or mentally. Three men should never be that close. When its just me and the driver I can space myself from him and sit on the very back of the seat but with the 3 of us we were creepily close. I try to use the stake dances rule from back home. If you can put a Book of Mormon between you, you are doing okay.

Some thing funny this week was that Elder Cutler and I got accused of being trunky by the other elders. We were just chatting after a lunch about all the wacky stores we had from before our missions. We were laughing so hard we were crying. The other elders, since they don’t understand english 100% of the time, thought we were crying about how we missed our homes and our families, and how we wanted to go back. The reality was we were just sharing ´´Bro Stories´´ from the past. Good times!

So good news. I was told by our Zone leader that I have 3 packages and 4 letters waiting for me. I don’t know what they are but my guess is that at least one or two of the packages are the leather cases for the scriptures I bought. As for the other package and the letters I have no idea. It’s all a part of the mystery and I’m really excited. It’s been almost 6 months I have only gotten 1 package.

I’m still craving Dr. Pepper. Its just the fact that it doesn't exist, that taunts me all the time. Its like hey we can swing buy the store and buy a drink. Wait, what was the point its not like ´´The nectar of the gods´´ is going to be there. Sad faces always :´(

The CX500 pictures Dad sent me are looking pretty snazzy. I told the new american elder that you were building a cafe racer, he freaked out, then when I told him it was using the CX500 as a base it blew his mind. He said that that is the exact thing he wants to do after his mission. He built old jeeps and broncos, and would rebuild motors just for fun. Its been great talking with some one that understands what I grew up with.

Love you guys lots,

Alec 

P.S. Sorry, no new pictures this week but I’ll try for next time.

Learning New Stuff

Hey Everyone,

So its the first of the month so we are off to get our hair cut. We usually get our hair cut the first pday of the month, so that would be today. There are 100’s of tiny little hair cutting places. You can be in the middle of nowhere and there will be a place to have your hair cut. Its about 5 thousand pesos to get your hair cut nicely in Colombia. They are not as talented as LeAnne but hey you can’t complain about every part of the mission.

As of this Transfers, 3 of the 4 people in the house know English now. We have all decided we need to teach Elder Gomez english.One of the new elders we got that knows English is Elder Cisneros. He is my first American and is from Arizona. He is super chill. I talked with him last night about the vintage jeeps that he restored before his mission. He also had pictures. I talked to him about all the time I spent with Dad before my mission in the shop watching and helping him restore scooters. He thought it was pretty awesome.

The best part of my week was I got to make brownies again but this time I got to use the electric oven in the church so they came out a lot better. I made them for some of our investigators in the church for a noche de hermanamento or night of fellowship. We invited the recently baptized Sister to help us out and we also had another sister help bake. She had an electric mixer and she let us use it which was awesome. We watched the movie The Testaments with them while we ate. It was one of the videos they had playing on temple square a few years ago. Its about a family living before the coming of christ in the americas. I always cry at the end when the Savior visits the people and heals them.

I found out this week that my companion doesn’t want to hear any of the things I have learned about the gospel from some of the awesome conference talks I have on my iPod. Just so everyone knows, I play them through my speaker and they are mission approved. All the cool things I am learning he wants nothing to do with. He told me that he just wants to know the bare minimum. I think its hard for him to remember the basic stuff sometimes so he is worried that having extra might be really confusing. He has asked me to not share any of that with him any more. What was funny is the day right after that an investigator asked about the 4 letter hebrew name for god in her bible, and what it meant. I was able to explain that it was translated as ´´I am´´, and then she asked if that was why that when Jesus said ´´before Abraham was I am´´. I was able to tell her yes and talk about it. It just goes to show that the more you know the more you can help people when they have questions but I understand it might be hard for my comp.

Also I am officially missing home with news that my Dad is making a cafe racer. I so want to ride it when I get home. Other then the Vintage scooters, that is my favorite type of bike. Cafe racers are the bees knees. In related news about motorcycles, as of last Monday in our Zone we can now use motto taxis now. Not sure how I feel about climbing on the back of some random Colombian guys bike. If he drives well, its pretty great we wont have to walk as far to the parts of area that are super far away. The downside is it might be a bit sketchy.

Thats all, 

Love you guys lots,

Alec

I don't know what happened.

 one moment he was normal, I turn around for like a minute 

and Elder Cisneros has a bag on his head.

A Triple Baptism!

Hola Everyone,

So sorry about not writing last week. It really was not my fault. We were on our way to write when we got a phone call from a family that we needed to come back to the house. It turns out their calling is to clean all of the mission houses in our mission. It was a gift sent from heaven. They had heavy duty chemicals to clean everything. The house has never been so clean. We started cleaning with them at 11:30 am and finish at 7:00 pm, the house needed a lot of work. No word yet on us possibly moving and now that our place is deep cleaned its awesome which is actually good since transfers came and went again and I’m still here. I’m still not going any here, and I’m still not changing companions. This will be the 4th transfer with him. I don’t know who God wants us to find in this area, but we had better find them this transfer. It would be nice to see some other areas. That or the president has a weird sense of humor.

Last Saturday was pretty cool. We had 3 baptisms and it was awesome. It was a mother and her 8 year old son and the last one was a sister of a recent convert. She wanted to follow the example of her sister and be baptized. I baptized the boy and the sister of the member. It was the very first time I was in the font baptizing since I did it in the temple before I left. It felt amazing. I used one of the special tie knots that I can’t usually wear here on the mission to be fancy and celebrate for them. We bought a big cake for everyone that showed up too.

Oh and as far as food goes, the member are still feeding us. It is normally the same people each month/week. The people are finally understanding that I don't eat mountains of food so the amount they try to give me is a lot better now. I felt bad wasting their limited food. It’s still the same rice meat and soup not very exciting but its nice they want to help us. Although the other day the other elders and I bought pizza for 28million pesos. I know its only like 14 dollars but thats a lot for us here in Colombia.

I am learning a new skill now too. I have started learning card tricks from the free time we have in the morning and the night. Its been pretty fun. I use it to keep the attention of children in the lessons when it does not distract from the lesson so that has been pretty fun.

Also this week I repaired the motorcycle for a investigator. The front and rear brakes were not working, like at all. I had told him that I helped my dad back home restore vintage scooters, so he thought he would see if he could have the american elder fix it for him for FREE instead of paying some one to do it. It wasn’t that hard. After all I had watched dad do the brakes on then Heinkle and the Rally. I had to disassemble the rear hub to get to the braking mechanism. It had both of its two springs lose so it was just banging around in side the hub. I reset the springs. and tightened everything down. After that it was really easy to adjust the screw and the brake lever.

I also liked hearing about the families trip this week too and it did not really make me sad or homesick. It looked like a lot of fun like all the stuff we did last year. Nice Braden got to do it this time. That sucks that Braden dropped his phone off the ship though. He was using the 4S I using before my mission right? Its pretty cool that you guys celebrated your 24th Wedding Anniversary on the ship. 

Love you guys,

Alec

Jesus and I in the font.

The three people being baptized: Yoana (Joana) the mom, 

Jesus her son and Marta the sister of our convert.

Gomez and I before the baptism.

I Got A Package!!!

Hi Everyone.

Awesome news, I finally got my first package you sent in May. Packages can make it from the US it turns out, it just takes 3 months.  Every one at the zone conference wanted me to open it right then and there. I knew that there was candy inside so wasn’t about to open it up and share with every one in my zone. After we returned to the house I opened it up and was nice and shared the goodies inside with my housemates. I also received the letter Lydia sent to me in the MTC. It had been in the office for like 2 months, and never gave it to me. Super lame. Just happy that I finally got some love from home.

We also had some more service this week. We cleaned the ``patio`` of an investigators house. We picked up and organized all the wood they had lying around and cleaned up all the trash, and the leaves strewn about. However, the biggest part was removing a huge tree stump and all the roots. We had to work all morning Tuesday and Wednesday  to remove it. The other elders were thinking that they needed to dig perfectly around the tree to get it removed. It took almost all of Tuesday morning for them to just dig. On Wednesday when they thought that they were going to continue to dig slowly and make us come back a third day I told them to step aside, grabbed on to the limbs that had been cut off from the pile we made the day before and used it as a lever and pried loose the stump from the ground. I then had Elder Trujillo (who weighs like 250lbs) help me lift the stump out of the hole. It took like 5-10 minutes, so much better then the entire morning again.

On thursday we had exchanges with our zone leader in Lorica. So I went and worked with Elder Perez in Lorica for a day. It was really nice to see how other elders taught their investigators. One thing I learned is how to have short but sweet lessons with everyone. If you are leaving and they are thinking ``NO, why do you have to leave now`` you know that you are doing a good job teaching them. We really need to use this in Cerete.

I am loving the new bunk beds. It is super sturdy and doesn’t creak at all. Elder Gomez is on the top because he had one with his brother when he was younger and he was always on the top. Which is fine since I like the bottom. If you have to get up in the middle of the night to get a drink or what ever its super easy and you don’t have to fall like 5 feet just to get out of bed.

We haven’t really been cooking much lately. We really don’t have time to do any thing like that. I offer like every P-day to cook dinner for everyone but they didn’t like that idea, because it wasn’t free. If they don’t really want me took cook that is fine. Its their loss since I am an awesome chef. Although I did cook brownies for a part member family to convince the dad that ``Mormons`` are cool people. What was funny is their daughter who is super thin ate like half the pan. I guess she thought it was like the best thing ever. The rest of the family also enjoyed the brownies as well.

Oh and don’t worry about making me feel homesick when you write me about the trip the family is taking right now, I really don’t feel home sick here in Colombia. I feel more grateful for what I do have in the US. I also laugh a lot at the way people do things here. A lot of them don’t understand the ``Work smarter, not harder`` they fix things with Machetes and bailing wire when if they would think about it they could fix it correctly and it would last. They make fun of Americans because when something breaks we buy a new one. I can see that for a few things but like when they have a fan that has live wires sticking out and no longer has its case near small children, I don’t think that ``Fixing`` it really helps them. We were in a house this week and one of the members little ones walked in to a fan. Smacked him pretty good on the head. I thought that that would be a clue that its dangerous to continually fix things. Its like the website you showed me of all the ghetto things people do to fix their stuff in the US. Well here that is normal, you get made fun if you have nice things. I don’t understand that thought process. It may be because they are living in a 3rd world country and don’t ever dream of more. It makes me sad.

I also don’t know why i am remembering this right now but will you punch dad for teaching me about kerning. Almost every thing isn’t spaced right and is never in straight lines. It is driving me crazy. I’m dying for someone to use Helvetica Neue. Its horrible, why did dad have to teach me about design.

Love you guys lots,

Alec

My First Package From Home

So excited!!!!!!

Googly Eyes In My Sisters Letter