Loving General Conference

Hey Everyone,

So first off my comp is now totally fine. He got a clean bill of heath Friday night so that means now more Dengue WOOOOOOOO! We can now teach and preach and work as missionaries do. As for the president I’m not sure if he knows that we had to save his life. He knows he went to the hospital but not that he was super dehydrated, or he may know. I don’t know for sure. Just glad he is doing ok now.

I have been able to meet quite a few of the members, although almost all of them live in the other area. We have to take a bus ride almost everyday to go to lunch since they live in the town next door. I am currently in a branch right now. We had about 45 people come last week. Its super small, however all of the people are super helpful. While my comp was sick the mission leader went and visited a few of the people we have been teaching. It was great to see them helping us out. They were really worried about him.

My new area is good. It’s fairly big but its basically a really long dirt road that goes on forever, so it's not like we can get lost. It has a few paved roads but most of them are dirt and it is indeed super freaken’ hot all the time. It’s around 95-100 everyday. However the good news is I’m getting tan again. 

This week were able to teach but only two lessons. It was to a sister that they had been teaching before in the area but lost contact. We found her one night when we went to buy hamburgers, now I have to ask, was it hunger or inspiration that led us to buy food. That my friends is a good question. She is great. We were able to invite her to baptism last night and she accepted a date for the 8th of November. I’m excited that she has the desire to learn.

The best part of the week had to be General Conference. It was so awesome! My favorite talks were Elder Uchtdorf´s from priesthood, Elder Eyring´s from Sunday morning and Bednar’s from Sunday afternoon. However all of conference was awesome. Tears were flowing many a times. The spirit was super strong. I’m really sad that this will be my last conference in the mission. I have enjoyed the spiritual insights I have received. I loved how I was thinking I wish they would talk about this or that for the people we are teaching and then boom, Elder Uchtdorf comes in and (with love) cuts our or at least my, head off. So awesome. I also loved Elder Eyrings talk. I can believe how emotional he got. I always loved his talks for the quiver in his voice, but wow, he almost cried this time. I really felt the spirit. That talk is one of the biggest example of why I tell people that hearing a talk in the language it was given is the best. All that  raw emotion can be felt and the spirit flow freely. So right after I’m saying that what happens? Another boom! People giving talks in their native language at conference! I thought the talks in different language was super cool. We even watched the two in Spanish in Spanish. The rest were in English with subtitles although from the bits and pieces I heard from the gap in translation I could understand a lot of the guy from Brazil in Portuguese. It is super similar to spanish. 

Speaking of Spanish, it’s going to be great to be able to talk with Beanakins  (aka Lydia) in Spanish when she gets back from her mission. Although I don’t think I’m going to like her accent. It will be super different then mine. So excited she is going to serve the Lord and that I will get to see her in the MTC before she leaves.

Also something cool happened when I opened my email. An elder that is going to go to the Colombia Medellin mission was searching for "Good Missionary Bags for Colombia´´ in google and found my blog so he wrote me and asked what I think he should buy. It was cool. He is from Southwest Wyoming and is leaving this October for the MTC. I felt super cool being able to help someone that is going to be a member of my mission family, and who knows, I may end up training him. Only time will tell.

Well, thats all for this week. Sorry there are no pictures, we didn’t do anything so I have nothing to show.

Love you all lots.

Toodles,

Alec

P.S. I’m not so sure about Mom’s quote of the week.

"Relax, we're all crazy, it's not a competition."

I’m pretty sure I am winning the crazy competition.

P.S.S.

Oh and ya, I sent the link to the write up on Dad’s motorcycle for that online magazine to Elder Cutler. I now he will hate me for it and be so jealous but i think he will love the article

Emergency Transfer Part 2 or My New Life in Montaria

Hey Everyone,

I know all of you have been waiting for the details of my emergency transfer so here is my story. My zone leaders me Monday and told me I needed to head back to our fat and pack up my bags for an emergency transfer to Montaria on the coast. I got no details just that I needed to get to the airport. I packed up all my stuff and got everything ready to leave. My flight was at 2 in the afternoon. I got there with my comp and checked in and paid for my over weight bags. He then sat and waited with me for our zone leaders to show up. They barely made it in time to send me off and they actually had money to reimburse me for the bags I had just paid for. I was the only Elder on the plane, it felt weird to be alone. I had a plan to talk with the person next to me and share the gospel but she fell asleep instantly and the lady across the aisle kept blessing herself with the cross so I didn’t feel like I could talk to her. I think she was afraid to fly. The flight was short and boring and I was in the coast super fast. At first I was unsure about coming back to the coast for the heat but after the first day being here again, it brought back all the fond memories. I was also able to have my first baptism interview as District Leader the day that I arrived. I’m pretty excited to have that responsibility. Apparently the Zone Leaders thought that I had already been a district leader before and didn't even think about if I knew how to do the interview. Luckily, I have almost always had district leaders for my companions so I knew the whole process. I’m super excited to be district leader, I know I’m going to do a good job or die trying.

As for my new house I came to, it was terrible. The elders before never cleaned it. Elder Conti, my new comp,had only been there for 2 weeks. He had tried to clean up a bit but it was a mess. He actually has not been feeling good, details on that further down. I was able to do a deep cleaning of the house right after I got there though. It is now spotless. You could even eat off the floor if you wanted, although I don’t recommended it. Its nice to have a clean house now. I had to buy heavy chemicals to get everything clean, then disinfected every thing with bleach so that we wouldn’t get sick from the nastiness that was there before. I now just need to buy a few things that the house needs to finish the job.

My new comp Elder Conti is an awesome guy. We have been able to bond this week chatting about stuff as we hung out in the house since he couldn’t leave. My comp and I were so blessed that you guys sent me the money for the bags and then I got repaid right before my flight left. The money that you were able to send me may have saved my companions life. Wednesday night my comp was taken to the ER for possible dengue fever. The Zone Leaders were going to just make him a doctors appointment but I knew he was in serious trouble so I decided not to wait for them and took him to the hospital myself. He was given 4 bags of saline because he was so dehydrated. I was only able to take him because I had the money that you sent me. He is okay now, just super tired and his joints hurt but thats life with dengue. He just needs to rest now. It can’t be passed from person to person so nobody needs to panic. Since he has been on bed rest we have been ably to get to really know each other these last few days. It’s been nice. I think that being here to help him was one of the big reasons I was transferred so fast. He would have been in serious trouble without me.

The actual reason for my transfer was that the Elder before me was having a problem with a sister in the area. She was in love with him and stalking him and he wanted nothing to do with that so he called the President before it became a problem. So it’s not like he was being a bad missionary or anything. He just didn’t want to be the man candy of someone in the coast. He was smart to call for help.

Well, something funny that happened this week is that I got scared by a little toad. I was taking pictures of the house one night and went to take a photo of the patio when something jumped out at me from out of the darkness. It scared the crap out of me. When I saw that it was just a toad I felt really stupid. Since he had no way of getting out of our patio (I don’t know how he got here in the first place with our high walls), I trapped him in a box then carried him to the front door then let him free. 

Well, thats been my week of coast adventures. I hope all goes well back in the states, for me I’m doing good here.

Toodles, 

Alec

Our toad visitor and the patio we have.

Pics of my new house. Like our fancy beds?

Farewell Medellin.

Emergency Transfer

Hey Everyone,

This week was a good week. We in fact were able to contact four new people. One of them has a date for baptism for the 18 of December. We are planing to invite the other three this week. As for working with the new guy. He is great we are working well together. There are a few things that need work, the biggest being he doesn’t respect the rule change that the president made on music. He has a lot of disney, and japanese rock songs on the piano. It not that they are bad, its just that they are not approved by the president. I’ve found if I obey ALL the rules I am blessed so that is what we need to do.

I also noticed this week that I am the oldest Elder in the house. I have the most time on the mission (the others have 8, 4 , and 2 months). I am not just the oldest by age but also have been in this area the longest. The difference really shows, I don’t know if its time in the mission or I’m just more serious about everything. They look to me to be in charge and I kind of like it.

We have had more of our awesome grilling events this week. We are planing to grill up some steak today. Everyone is going to buy their own steak so I’m going to be able to buy a big old slab of steaky goodness. Elder Rtojas hated the thicker steak. He likes his well done and charred on the outside, NASTY. It’s better to have the sweet juicy pink center (photos next week), And yes we have our ghetto grill rigged on our balcony because we are just smart enough to not have the smoke inside. It’s been nice to have other food when we are cooking our own dinners.

Friday was kind of fun. We were chatting with a recently returned missionary of the ward. He wants to present his family to the missionaries. We also chatted about his mission and funny things that happened in Ecuador. He is going to be the young mens Counselor focusing on missionary work. He is going to be a great help to the ward.

Sadly we have been unable to find more service lately, people her just don’t want to be helped by us. It is super sad  cause we are awesome : (

Well, I hope you guys are staying strong with out my lovely smile.

Toodles,

Alec

P.S.

This emergency update just in. Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, your my only help. I need $150 NOW. I just got off the phone with the office and I am being emergency transferred  to the coast. I have to go home right now and pack up my stuff and get to the airport. Usually we go by 2 day bus ride but they need me to fly there today and they can’t get me cash that fast so I need money to bring my two bags with me otherwise I would be without clothes and stuff. They are going to charge me for bags and being over the weight. The office says they will try to get money back to me. I guess My new comp is on his own to obey the music rules. Not sure what happened to the Elder on the coast but I’m leaving this afternoon and they are putting me in charge. I guess I’ll have big updates next week. Gotta run so I have no time to post pics, bye.

Love My New Comp!!!

Hello My Amigos,

So transfers were last week and I have now been with the new guy almost a week and he is super cool. We are getting along really well. He is super animated to be in Medellin and out of the coast. He has 7 almost 8 months in the mission so that makes me the old man in the house ( the other companionship have less time than him). They make me feel old kind of, sometimes they don’t understand things that I learned a year ago. It all comes with time I guess. Crazy I’m down to less than 6 months left on my mission.

This was a good week in the field. The best part I would have to say was getting all the loose ends tied up that were in my area ie: dropping people we needed to drop, contacting people we need to, teaching with more unity. It has been a great change. We have so many people lined up for this week its crazy. I am so happy to be able to get back to work again.

Also second best part of the week was grilling up steaks on our Ghetto Grill. They tasted awesome. It was nice to eat something different for a change than beans & rice. We are planing to grill again real soon.

We had a good lesson on Thursday. We were teaching a lesson to an investigator named Diego. We also had a member that came with us named Estéban. He Is super shy but his testimony is powerful. He helped us out a lot. Like I said before its just so good to be able to teach and work and really do what I’m supposed too. Having a new companion has just been awesome!

So I hear Lydia got dropped off at BYUI last weekend. I’m glad she is doing alright. I think being by herself will help her out for her mission. She wont be so home sick when she leaves. She is going to be such an amazing missionary!!! The lord is watching over her. She just needs to watch out for the ``BYU I DO´´ until after she gets back. Gotta find those people she promised to before she got here. She is going to learn a lot of things in collage, more about herself then the subjects she will be studying. Although she did break the family chain of the U of U but BYUI isn’t our rival so its totally kosher. She looks so happy in the pics and her desk is huge. I wish I had a desk like that in the mission. I could have all of my stuff more organized. 

Also speaking of Lydia, I’m wanting to buy her some cool stuff for her mission. I just need to know where she is going. I’m so excited to hear where she is going. I think it will be awesome for her to have something from her big bro for her mission. 

So I’ve been thinking, what are my parents going to do now that every one is leaving the house? It’s like they are almost childless. I guess they will have money to play. I hope everything in their lives gets less strange real soon. It will be weird for me as well when I get home and no one but my parents are in the house.

Well love ya all,

Alec

Bought the jersey stuff from Germany winning the World Cup for a screaming deal.

Our “Man Food” dinner and ghetto grill.

Transfers Are Finally Here!

Hey Everyone,

So transfers did in fact come this week. I am staying in the same area and my new comp is going to be from Bolivia. His name is De La Torre which means of the tower so it's going to be super great having Elder “Swamp” and Elder “Tower”. I am so excited to finally get a new companion. This last week was the most painful yet. He just does not want to work anymore at all. I have tried to be patient but I have not always been good at it. I am supper happy that I can move on with my mission now. Now that I am being released from Liberty Jail, I can now become the missionary that I’m supposed to be again. This is going to be such an awesome, big change. He left today and I’m hanging with the other Elders until my new comp gets here from his old area on either Tuesday or Wednesday.

Tuesday I actually did get to work a little bit because we had exchanges. Yeah!!! I got to go out with Elder Rojas for half the day and then with Elder Cate. Elder Cate worked our tails off, we taught 6 lessons that day. It was great. Elder Rojas taught him well. I am so excited to get out there again. These past 2 transfers have been killing me.

Well, fun story this week. On Sunday I ate at a members house. She made a bunch of food from the coast, patcones, coconut rice and fish. But this was not a normal fish, it was bagre or catfish. It tasted really good, she cooked it in an onion sauce, super yummy. A thought it was still weird to eat catfish. I didn’t think that any one ate catfish. It actually was really good but I guess you just need to know how to cook it.

We also had a baptism this week, it was great. She just told us that she wanted to be baptized on Sunday. She planed everything out for herself. She ended up being so organized that she was baptized on Thursday but that was fine. It was amazing to see the change she had. She went from being super shy, to praying in front of the gospel principles class, awesome. She is going to be a great sister in the ward. I know it.

Oh, I also sen the cafe racer pictures Dad sent me to Elder Cutler again. He was very upset and said I was torturing him and making him suffer. He totally loves your bike.

I liked seeing your same tie Sunday pic this month. There are getting to be not many left of them. Speaking of the tie, a member here wanted to buy my tie. I told him that I couldn’t sell it because its special. He still tried to give me money. I explained to him why it was special and he backed down, supper funny.

Well, I hope you all have a fun week.

Toodles,

Alec

Quote of the week:

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss something.”

Our Baptism This Week

Monte Cristo Sandwiches, Enough Said

My broken shoelace, I fixed it with a knot and glue until I can buy a new one.

Painting Service

Hola Amigos,

Well, we had a miracle, we actually did service this week. Saturday morning we got up early and took a tiny little bus to the top of the mountain. When we got there we painted two classrooms of a tiny school. It was so cool. All the kids were thanking us when we left. It made me feel super good inside to help them out. I really wish we had more service opportunities here. It would help us meet so many more people.

Well, the foot doctor things isn’t over yet it turns out. They keep having me come in for check ups every three weeks which is a good thing since when I went in on Wednesday it was inflamed slightly so they took care of that. I normally have enough money from the mission to go for the check ups but some times it doesn’t work out like that. As for the mission insurance. the hospital that takes our insurance is super posh and nice but they would have just cut the nail and sent me home to never see me again. Thats why Sister Pitarch sent me where I’m going so we can be sure that it doesn’t come back. I can’t say I mind the foot massage and pedicure either.

One of the best parts of the week was the Talent show that we had on Saturday with our ward. I sang Someone Like You by Adele. The missionaries also preformed a skit of the fastest mugging ever. It was a super fun time. All the members enjoyed it. They also participated a lot too and we got a really good turn out.

Another amazing thing that happened this week was that a sister that we have been teaching finally accepted a date for baptism, well in reality she flat out told us on Sunday “I’m going to get baptized on Friday, so I would like it if you guys could get everything taken care of.” It was super cool to see that all of our work is paying off.

Well, I'm going to try and keep my spirits. I only have one more week on death watch. I’m hoping I can get My comp to stay motivated, if not I do have the Presidents permission to frag him so that should be fun if I get the chance. Thanks so much for helping me though all his trunkiness, by reinforcing the reason I came out here. Thanks so much. Next weeks transfers can’t come soon enough.

Also,  the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is 42. I really thought it out, it is also why I put it on the jersey I had made.

I love you guys lots, have a great week.

Toodles,

Alec

Walking the paint up the hill and to the school. 

I was the tallest so they made me paint the ceiling.

Here is the baptism picture for this week. Love it when they progress.

Here is our award for participating in the talent show and extra pic of me

 because my Mom has been complaining she does not get enough pictures with me in them.

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.

Getting to use my fancy pen made of wood from the Draper Temple.

Brother West made it for me when I served there.