Week 19 or Pardo 2

The mission field is where miracles happen. Its been a pretty good week. We have some solid investigators that are progressing pretty well. But before talking about that, I want to talk a little bit about my area. First off, the hills here are about 10 times worse than the hills in my last area. It is awesome. Sometimes we have to walk up like 20 streets pretty much straight up to get to a investigators house. It is so rough. We only have to do this when we dont have money to take the bus. And sometimes when we take the bus we go really really high up the mountain and it takes about an hour to get that high up in the bus. Its crazy high up and the people are really poor. Its crazy. But the people really high up there are really nice to us and its pretty easy to contact the people. And sometimes in the bus we are crammed into a bus for like 40 people max, but there are like 65 people crammed in there. Its really squishy. Its so awesome. Also the streets really high up in the mountain have no space and there are huge buses that go up there. Sometimes, the buses don't have space to fit both on the street. So one bus has to back up and make just enough space for the other to slip by. It is like less than a quarter of an inch between the two.  But yeah that is my area in a little summary, hills, poor people, and jam packed buses.

So many pretty views.

Another pretty view. I mean... look at me. I'm gorgeous. ;)

Contemplating my handsomeness.

Beautiful city.

Hills for days.

Building calves for days.

More views.

:)

Super pretty.

Alright about the new investigators. They are pretty cool, we are running into the problem with a lot of them that they are not married and they want to be baptized, but they cant because they live with each other and are not married. And then they don't have enough money to get married. And it is 60 dollars to get married. It's really poor in this area. But they want to get baptized but they are just too poor to get married. They have really good intentions and want to follow Jesus Christ. Its really hard to see and not be able to help them more. But we have been having some luck with some new investigators. They are a mother and a son. They are really cool and having a really big desire to follow Christ. We went to their house because we got the referral from a member. And we showed up planning to teach a little bit about prayer. We got there and felt that we should teach something about the Book of Mormon. So we taught that and it was a really good lesson. They really liked that Jesucristo came to the Americas and that he visited the people here. We extended a baptismal date for the 28 of April and they accepted it. They are really cool and really want to be baptized. She has a problem with the word of wisdom that she told us about, but she wants to stop those things. But this is a little input in our investigators. Also we had the baptism of Isabela Calderon Gomez this week. It was really cool and after she came up out of the water, her parents started clapping. It was pretty funny but they were really excited about their daughter getting baptized. Also they have a baptismal date the 28th of April.

Happy Family!

Baptism. :)

Also, a little update on Spanish. This week really was like a week of miracles. This was the first week where I have spoken pretty much Spanish without any English. During lessons I would be talking and just keep talking without even having to think about what to say. And words would just come to my head and it would actually make sense. Usually in the past I would really have to think about what to say before I talked, but this week somehow I could just talk and it came out. But then later when my comp wanted to talk to me after the lesson about something, he would ask me and I would really struggle to say something back to him to respond to his question. But during the lessons my Spanish would just flow. But yeah, there is my Spanish update.

Cooking some Columbian panackes.

Master Chef.

Yum!

Me and my cop Elder Barazorda

Elder Barazorda taking a turn.

Happy for pancakes.

Coming at ya!

Elder Barazorda getting comfy in my hammock. 

Besides these things. I am loving the new area. Its been a good week and my companion Elder Barazorda is awesome. We are having a good time in the area Prado 2. Also the food has been pretty good in this area as well, we get rice every day. Some more rice and then after that more rice. Oh quick story, one day I was given 3 lunches a dinner and I ate a big breakfast. At the end of the day, I thought I was going to die. I literally thought I was going to explode. Well, love you all have a great week.

Elder Goudie