Week 26- The Good and The Bad

Hey Mom Hey Dad,

I'm having a nice day, I am really tired though.

I'm really happy that everyone Venezuela loved everything you sent them. Especially the pictures of me. Dad you're crazy I don't look a thing like you.

This week was nice, we prayed about how many baptisms or what goal we should make for this transfer. After the prayer my companion asked me how many baptisms I thought we're going to have. I told him he wasn't going to like it, I think we will have 10. Then he looked at me and said why on earth did I not feel that? I feel like we would have four he said. We have set a goal of 10, and to be able to meet that, we need to follow the rules with exactitude. Even the rules That are really hard, like being right next to  my companion always. Like sometimes we walk into a store and then we get the little separated. As well as leaving the apartment on time. So we are really trying to work on those things.

Thanks for the scripture reference from the talks you guys heard on Sunday. I will read Heleman chapter 5 today, hopefully it will help with some of our investigators.

We had a baptism today! Julio César Mora, and well I did not perform the baptism. He asked my companion to do that, but he asked me to confirm him and give him the gift of the Holy Ghost.
It was really cool actually to do that, I feel like my Spanish is improving. And because of that my blessings are also improving.

Tell mom I love her and that I will never not love her. Ha ha. Thanks dad for the comments on the bowling pictures last week. Yes,you should've taught me to bowl better. And yes I do look very stylish in those bowling shoes. When I looked at those shoes I thought of Nacho Libre and his white boots.

It's really cool that the Bishop is working with three of the young man in the ward to get the papers going for the missions. That is really cool.

Yes I did look at those pictures you sent me of you and mom in the mission. They are really great. I'm going to download them and put them on my flash drive.

Here are the Pictures we sent Dallin.
Yes, I am and have always been that good looking.

Things going good, working good with my companion. My companion has a year in the mission, and he is younger than me so sometimes I feel like he doesn't understand me but he does and just some little things we need to work on together.

I do have some bad news for you though, yesterday I got really sick. I feel little sick today just to my stomach. I ate some yogurt and well I didn't sit good it wasn't pretty. I felt like I was going to die and never wake up. So that was a new thing. I really hope that doesn't happen to me again. Ever ever ever ever ever. It was not good being sick I do not like being sick on the mission. It's not fun. We had a lot of people lined up to talk to yesterday and we had to cancel them all and that was not good. All new contacts. And we promised we would be there. Sunday was the only day we could go and visit with them. We will see what we can do.

We have to send pictures of our apartment to Sister Pricoli every week.  Since I'm the only one with a camera I'm in charge of that. Trying to figure out how to upload different things and send to her. Oh, speaking of my camera guess what? The other elders had a baptism this week and they wanted to use my camera. I said that was fine they could get it to me the next day since we meet in the same Chapel. It was really funny we went to the baptism and what happened was the Elder entered the font, but forgot to take the camera out of his pocket. So you know, my camera is broken. No, not really, the camera seems to be fine the only thing is the screen is a little weird but it still takes pictures so it's almost normal.

Thanks mom for talking about having patience and faith. Those are great things to work on.  And for your prayers for myself and my companion. Love you guys a lot, tell Jarrett I love him too.

Don't worry I'm not that sick anymore, and I will never ever ever eat yogurt again. I think the worst part is that we were trying to help a couple get married so they can be baptized.  Members from the other ward in our chapel were selling the yogurt to help them have money to get married.

Love you guys very much, hope you have a great week.

Elder Pead

Week 25- First week in Pasto

Answers to Dad's 20 questions.

Well dad. the internet crashed here, and my draft was not saved... so really quick
1. good. How was your first transfer?
2. good. Everything go okay?
3. good compañero. How is your companion?
4. Bolivia, but I swear when I saw him, he was from the Philippines or something. Where's he from?
5. yes, church is EARLY. Does your church really start at 8 o'clock in the morning?
6. yes the internet NEVER LIES. Like LDS.org says?
7. yes, yes it is. Is the chapel as quaint and cute as it looks like on Google maps?
8. yes, yes it is. Is it a two-story building?
9. yes, I'm really happy here. Are you as happy as you look in the all the pictures?
10. yes, I think I do need sweaters, but I'll just buy them here, no te preocupes. Is it cold? Do you need sweaters?
11. no I do not need to buy new shoes. Do you need to buy you a new pair of shoes?(gym shoes)
12. the bus ride sucked. like, 13 hours because all the roads were destroyed. for realz. Was it a nice bus you traveled on?
13. no chickens, just a big bus, so questions 13, and 14 are skipped. but if there were to be any, I would imagine them to be cafe. Where there any chickens on the bus? If there were chickens, did they lay any eggs during the six hour bus ride? What color were the chickens, if there were any?
14. very big and lots and lots of people haha. How is Barrio(ward) Miraflores?
15. yes. Is it just you and your companion in the apartment?
16. it is very... nice. very low roof and nobody ever cleaned it soooo... yeah. What is your apartment like?
17. I do not have slugs. Do you have problems with slugs in your apartment like Elder Skinner does in his?(yes I found his blog, and try to read it every week.)(so if you do have slugs, ask him how to deal with them. He seems to have it figured out)


Well Pasto is really cool and really cold. But you know, that's the life of a missionary. My area is sooo much larger then my last area, so I have a lot to take in.

The last few days in Jamundi were hard, saying good bye and crying a bit. But I loved it. Now, I'm going to love the People of Pasto, their accent has already got me good haha.

As well, my compañero es Elder Coca, he has about a year on the mission and also is younger than me. He looks like Christian Te, weird haha. He is very different, but hey, so am I. haha.

We have 3 investigators lined up to be baptized, but we need to need to NEED TO work hard with them to get them to the date.

Other than that, my zone is cool! we went bowling today, and I sucked, but hey, I haven't practiced in a long time.

As well, There are 4 people in my group here! Myself, Elder Skinner, Elder Jeffery, and Elder Chunga! So that's cool! My district leader just got done with his capacitacion, y ahora es lider del distrito!(training and is now district leader) El es(he is) Elder Lyon. Really cool elder.

Other than that, nothing new.  Oh, lots of hills, Lots.

Well I love you guys, lots.

Hope you have a good week. love you.

Elder Pead

Elders from the MTC Group in Pasto

Yummy Empanadas

Saying goodbye to Members in Jamundi

Last Day with Elder Bautista

On the Road to Pasto

New desk in Pasto

Elder Coca

Week 24- Guess what?

Well, this has been a really difficult week. This week we got the call from Sister Pricoli, to look for a new apartment.

We searched  for about three days looking for an apartment in our area. The four missionaries will no longer live together in the same apartment. To help us focus on more things like studying together in the mornings. Found a great apartment. It's an apartment above some members. The bottom floor is where the members live, the second floor is another family and we will be on the third floor. We found a great apartment and we were cleaning everything getting ready to move there. And I was really happy new apartment, yeah everything new and clean. Really nice it would be just me and my companion, but today in the morning we got the news about the transfers. I'm being transferred to Pasto, The Miraflores ward. I don't know how I feel about it but yeah I'm going to Pasto.  Apparently it's really cold there so I will be wearing sweaters, and a jacket.  I will let you know mom, if I need you to send me sweaters don't worry.(He knows his mom will worry about that) So that's the big news.

My new companion will be Elder Coca. I have heard a little bit about him and kind of nervous about everything, but I will tell you how everything goes next week hopefully everything will be just great.

It's been really fun this week. This week was really hard to have lessons with members present. The members who always help us out a lot were not able to go with us this week so it didn't help that we had lots of people to visit. I'm really happy about everything, this week is been a little weird. I said my goodbyes yesterday to quite a few members. Didn't know for sure if I would be leaving. But the other elders were telling me that it was my turn to leave.

My Spanish has been improving. Yes dad, I do need to continue to study more. A lot more. There's a lot I need to learn but I am working on using the future tense. Practicing it every time we teach. Practicing on how to conjugate the verb and I am using it! I am learning a lot of vocabulary as well, but I need to write the new words down.  As I hear a new word I use it and say it, but I need to write it down and study it to remember it. Need to focus on that.

Thanks for reminding me that I suffer from low self-esteem, like Nacho Libre and Ignacio. Ha ha.

Mom, this past week with the new pensionista, has been the best. We have been eating great. Love the food. Also I have learned to make Alfredo sauce so now I eat a lot of pasta with Alfredo sauce. Yeah, your son is growing up. Kind of weird right?

It's great that Zach and the other young men from the ward are making plans for after high school. Graduation is coming up soon. Tell them that from first-hand experience, the mission is very rewarding. It's really weird to think about the sacrifices, you gain more when you sacrifice all your time and effort.  You get so much more. Which is opposite of what the world tells you. Hopefully they'll do and make the right decisions.  Tell them I said hi.

I'm reading a paragraph you wrote about trying to be better every day at speaking Spanish and having more knowledge of the Gospel. I do try to become better every day.  The thing is that now that I'm going to a new area, I don't know anything about it or my new companion. It might be a little bit harder, but I am trying to write down goals every week and see what I need to do to reach those goals. Kind of hard sometimes, but I do need to strive to be better.

Today for P day we went to Cali to buy some shoes for my companion, from a member sister who works there. When we got there, she said I got some lunch for you guys. And she fed us. She talked about sacrifices, how they are not just for us and our families and future families, but they are for God.  We need to love him more than anything else. Need to put him first, and if we sacrifice everything for him we will gain so much more than we can comprehend. That is Something I'm trying to work on.

I'm really glad dad, that you finally raked up the leaves. I know that mom would get mad at me when I took a long time to rake up the leaves.(The leaves have been in two piles for about two months)

I'm really glad that you guys went to the visitor center and were able to watch the presentation on the family that Jarrett likes.

How are you doing on going to the temple once a month? There are a lot of members here who struggle, on wanting to go to the temple right now but have to wait a little bit.  They say why don't we move to Bogota and have a temple close to us.  So I want to know if you have that meta (goal) down, and how you're doing with it. I know it will help you guys immensely.

Wow time goes by fast doesn't it. Sela (one of Dallin's friends) only has 10 months left in her mission? Seriously? That means she's been out for eight months. I bet she's having fun there.

I'm glad you don't post everything on the blog and Facebook. That would be very embarrassing on some of the stuff I tell you.

Thanks for your advice on how to study Spanish and how to approach other things. It makes me realize that I do need to do better and no I don't get mad when you give me that advice.

I love you guys.

Tell Jarrett I love him.

I'll talk to you again next week from Pasto. Hopefully I won't die from the cold.

Elder Pead

Baptismal service for a new member the other elders taught

Week 23

Hey mom and dad,

Just want to tell you guys that I love you very much I'm glad you guys can't stop thinking about me.

I will be on the lookout for the package from the primary children.

I'm really glad that things are going good at home. Glad that grandma is feeling better.

I'm sending you pictures today of the clothes and things that you sent. Don't worry everything is great with the clothes you sent.

What's new with me? Yesterday we had a baptism of Diana age 9. Her dad baptized her. Because she was nine and the family was less active it was a really special. It was really great.  We organized everything, it all went perfect. There were so many people there. The funniest thing ever, the elder from Brazil who is here with us, was asked to do the confirmation. He threw in the Portuguese word for Melchizedek during the confirmation and it sounded really funny.

Thanks for all the references to the Lord's chips for the orphans in your email. Got to love Nacho Libre.

Things going fine here. Not a lot that is new. Tomorrow we will be starting to eat at the new pensionista. Also transfers will be this next Sunday, I believe. I have lost track of the weeks in this transfer. But hey, by the end of this transfer I will have six months under my belt as a missionary. Wow that's a lot take in.

I'm learning a lot of Spanish with my companion. The hardest part is learning the finer points of Spanish grammar.

I hope that everything continues to go good for you guys.
That's about it, I love you guys a lot. We had a baptism this week! Yes! Great family!

Tell everyone hello, talk to you next week.

Elder Pead

I'm Lovin it

Thanks for the shirts Mom.

Band of Brothers