Alec's Mission to Colombia: Another Baptism

Hey Everyone,

Well, to start off I have a funny story. The best teaching moment of the week was not with an investigator but with myself. I was listening to a talk given at BYU on my iPod and the spirit just hit me like a bag of bricks. He talked about the Salt Lake Temple and the process of building it. In the end he quoted a non-LDS newspaper that said that “After 40 years the Salt Lake Temple has become a monument of Mormon perseverance”. The spirit then whispered “you too must become a monument of Mormon perseverance”. I cried for a good 5 minutes. The lord is preparing me here in the mission for something in my life. I don’t know what, but I know that these last 4 months have helped me become a monument of Mormon perseverance.

Continuing with the good news, Didma got baptized this week. Sadly, I didn’t have my camera so I don’t have pictures. I’m going to have to send those next week after I get the photos from Elder Rojas. It was an awesome baptism. We had two sisters play their violas for a special musical number. After 3 years of investigating the church she finally made the choice to be baptized. I am so happy for her. Now we just need to work on her husband, he is close, he just needs to be pushed into the pool a little.

P-days around here lately have involved a lot of early mornings. We have been waking up at 5:30 so we can play soccer on a big grass field. It's a lot of fun. Today we played with some members from a different part of Medellin. I almost knocked over one kid twice. He just kept running into the way of my leg as I was trying to get the ball from him, so he fell over. He was a good sport, I helped him up both times.

Wednesday we had companion exchanges with Elder Ralph. He was in my area so he could do the interview for Didma that night. We chatted a lot about Skyrim and other video games. When I told him that my mom played video games, he flipped out and asked me “Why is your mom so cool”. He say he want to hang out with my mom after he gets home to talk about video games. Pretty funny.

Seeing the picture of Dad’s sewing machine he sent me this week reminded me of a funny story that happened here. I was in the house of a member and she had a machine like Dad’s to sew shoes. I told her that my dad had a machine just like that, she asked if you were a Cobbler as well. I told her no and that you use it to sew seats for scooters and other leather things. She then asked how was the leather business? I told her that you were a graphic designer and that the seats and the scooters were a hobby. She was blown away that someone would have one of those big machines just because.

It was cool to hear that Laura Lee and Brittney are back from their missions. They only left a few weeks before me. If I was a girl I would be home.It’s cool she gave a great talk. Well, when I get back I’m going to try not to cry this time like when I left. I’m going to shoot for the voice tremble that Elder Eyring has when he speaks. Although I don’t think thats going to happen. I cry a lot in my mission. I can be talking about whatever and I just start crying in the lessons. I guess that the spirit can testify about whatever he sees fit and I have no choice in the matter than to feel it.

Oh, and here is something to make my parents feel good. When I tell everyone how old my parents are, they always respond “Oh wow, your parents are really young.” I thought you’d like that.

Well, thats all for this week.

This is Alec wishing you farewell.

Relaxing after a long day.