Teaching In A Tienda

Hey Guys,

So everyone has been asking me if we do anything for p-days in my new area since we did like nothing in our last one. We actually do. Normally we play football (soccer) with the young men and their non member friends in the mornings. After that the sisters and us buy food to cook in the house of a member that is a chief so its always super yummy and good. His wife is the lady that washes our clothes for us so they are kind of the ma and pa of us missionaries here in Chinchina. He actually asked if he could add my parents on Facebook. I told him he could but that they don’t know any spanish so it may not work out very well. :) Sometimes we go to Manizales for district/zone meetings then just hang out in the church there for a little talking with the other Zone. 

So I’m super excited for the holidays coming up. Christmas is supposed to be a really big deal here. I’ve seen them celebrate Halloween, Valentines Day (yep, its in September here), Colombian Independence Day and a bunch of other holidays that are not very important. They seem to have a holiday here almost ever two weeks if not sooner. All of them have been pretty tame, people playing instruments in the street, fireworks and the sort but apparently Christmas blows all other holidays out of the water. I have been told that the week before and after Christmas are full of parties, fireworks from almost every direction, people passed out on the side walk form to much beer, etc. I will have to wait and see if it is as crazy as they say. I’m planning on buying a small christmas tree for our house soon, something i can put on the counter in the kitchen or above the microwave. It should be fun. 

Maybe some of our apartment building will decorate too. Our building only has three doors on our floor so we have seen many of our neighbors. The lady right next to us shares an area that is a hole from the 4th floor to the first that has bars that we can hang clothes to dry, she is always dropping clothes on the the bars below, and since the is only access is from our apartment to retrieve the fallen clothes we are always passing her blouses to her. Interesting thing is that for safety missionary rules say that we cant contact or teach people in our building so we cant ever teach her or our other neighbors.

Funny thing happened this week on Tuesday. Elder Mansilla and I were teaching one of our in investigators in the tienda she worked in (its a little food place owned by a member so its totally chill). So while we were in the middle of the lesson the sister missionaries walked in to the tienda to buy a snack. When they saw that we were in a lesson in the tienda they were shocked. The looks on their faces were priceless when they discovered we were there. They had no idea who’s tienda it was or that our investigator worked there. They were just passing by and decided to buy something. It was pretty great.

Some sad news this week is that Elder Mansilla is being transferred tomorrow. His new area is in Montaria (yep close to were my old area was) so its kind of funny. I really going to miss him even though we barely got to be together. Here’s 4 reasons I liked him:

1. He has the same sense of humor as me so we always got along.

2. He was always helping me out in a nice way in improving my spanish.

3. He would always help me out to explain complicated things in spanish in the lessons

4. He bought me pizza more then once

Love you guys lots,

Alec

My comp, Elder Mansilla and the Elders Quorum President.