SURPRISE!!!
I didn't see an email from you so I'm guessing you were going to write tonight since I'm supposed to be writing tomorrow. But Está bien. Anyway I want to first say, sorry for my emails being really random and having no order to them, but I just have to get everything out as quickly as possible.
Anyway, so my new room has 16 elders living in it including me. There are 4 Latinos and 14 North Americans. The Latinos are crazy but super funny and nice. One is from Southern Guatemala so I talked to him about Kevin and asked him about Guatemala in mostly Spanish and a little English. One of the missionaries in my room went home early yesterday morning. He said he has to figure some stuff out first. My heart broke for him and it really put into perspective that you never know what people are going through. He was the last person I would of guessed would go home. He is super spiritual and was doing great with the language, plus he only had a week left in the CCM. Although this experience was shocking and heartbreaking, it confirmed to me again that I need to be here and I have to push through anything. The reason why I realized this is that I wouldn't have felt so bad for him if I thought that being on a mission is important and the right thing to do. I lied when I said that our group last time was the biggest the CCM ever had because the week before had about ten more people, however this week is for sure the biggest group the CCM has ever had. I will try to send you a group pic again as soon as I can. I was made District Leader of our district Mormón. I don't really do much. I just have to figure out what to teach during district meetings and make sure everyone is being obedient. I'm really excited to be the district leader because I know that when you serve diligently in your calling and are obedient, the blessings are sure to come , and in this case to me and my whole district. But Next week we change districts so someone else will be called to be the leader.
There is a soccer stadium about 5 minutes away from here and a couple nights ago when I was writing in my journal I could hear the roar and chants and drums from the stadium. It was so cool!! You could feel the energy and just wanted to go join them. Colombians are crazy for their soccer, well I guess all of South America is. This week we were challenged to have one contact per day. It may sound easy but remember that their is a fence around the CCM and people are probably thinking we are in jail and need help or something. However, on Tuesday we got our first contact!! His name is Dario Rodriguez and he is an older man who doesn't have a religion, works a lot, but thinks God is very important. He was such a nice old man! It was a little difficult to communicate with our limited Spanish but we were able to get the point across and get his info. It was actually pretty easy, you just have to be persistent. Not gonna lie though, when we started on Monday trying to stop people and have them listen to us, it felt super awkward and I thought we were never going to get someone.
We got to go to the temple again yesterday and it was amazing as always. The best day though would have to be today because we went proselyting in the city!!! We went from about 9 to 12. We drove to a church about 25 mins away and then they told us to go and find people and meet back at 11:45. Starting off it was pretty nerve wracking because neither my companion nor I can speak really good Spanish and we had no idea how we were going to stop people. The first people we talked to were actually members which was pretty funny. We got away from the huge pack of missionaries and were by ourselves for about 2 hours without seeing another missionary. It was crazy because here we were, two Gringos who don't speak much Spanish in a city that we did not know the directions of, preaching the gospel. Thinking about it now, its actually pretty awesome. But anyway, we talked to a lot of old ladies and they like to speak really quiet and fast, which is so much fun when its super noisy. So I just nodded my head, laughed a little, and tried to respond to the parts that I could understand. They also like to preach to us about God and their religion, but again, they spoke really fat and I had no idea what they were saying for the most part so I just nodded and smiled. You would be surprised by how well it works. We had the typical people who would yell at us and those that would cross the street when they saw us. I just laughed at how much people tried to avoid us. We did get three contacts though and were able to teach this one guy for about an hour in this forest\park thing. We taught him the restoration and gave him a book of Mormon and had him read Moroni 10:3-5 because he said he had read it before but had never prayed about it. I don't know of a better opportunity to share that scripture haha. But it was a really good lesson and he said that he would read it and pray about it and that he wants to meet with us to have juice or something to talk about God and what he felt. I don't know if we will be able to meet with him but we got his info and told him that other missionaries would be able to. he spoke some English which helped a little. For our first time proselyting in a foreign country, and not knowing the language too well, I think it was a pretty good first run! I cant wait until I go proselying with someone who understands Spanish so we can have some quality talks with people and so I can figure out what people are saying. But it was extremely nice to not be caged in and really explore the city. I cant wait to get out of here!
So that's basically the big things that happened this week. Oh, I also found a scripture during scripture study a couple days ago that really helped me see how I am doing and what I need to be doing. Its Alma 5:14/15. I would invite you all to take a look at it. thanks again for all the love and support!!
Élder Richmond
I didn't see an email from you so I'm guessing you were going to write tonight since I'm supposed to be writing tomorrow. But Está bien. Anyway I want to first say, sorry for my emails being really random and having no order to them, but I just have to get everything out as quickly as possible.
Anyway, so my new room has 16 elders living in it including me. There are 4 Latinos and 14 North Americans. The Latinos are crazy but super funny and nice. One is from Southern Guatemala so I talked to him about Kevin and asked him about Guatemala in mostly Spanish and a little English. One of the missionaries in my room went home early yesterday morning. He said he has to figure some stuff out first. My heart broke for him and it really put into perspective that you never know what people are going through. He was the last person I would of guessed would go home. He is super spiritual and was doing great with the language, plus he only had a week left in the CCM. Although this experience was shocking and heartbreaking, it confirmed to me again that I need to be here and I have to push through anything. The reason why I realized this is that I wouldn't have felt so bad for him if I thought that being on a mission is important and the right thing to do. I lied when I said that our group last time was the biggest the CCM ever had because the week before had about ten more people, however this week is for sure the biggest group the CCM has ever had. I will try to send you a group pic again as soon as I can. I was made District Leader of our district Mormón. I don't really do much. I just have to figure out what to teach during district meetings and make sure everyone is being obedient. I'm really excited to be the district leader because I know that when you serve diligently in your calling and are obedient, the blessings are sure to come , and in this case to me and my whole district. But Next week we change districts so someone else will be called to be the leader.
There is a soccer stadium about 5 minutes away from here and a couple nights ago when I was writing in my journal I could hear the roar and chants and drums from the stadium. It was so cool!! You could feel the energy and just wanted to go join them. Colombians are crazy for their soccer, well I guess all of South America is. This week we were challenged to have one contact per day. It may sound easy but remember that their is a fence around the CCM and people are probably thinking we are in jail and need help or something. However, on Tuesday we got our first contact!! His name is Dario Rodriguez and he is an older man who doesn't have a religion, works a lot, but thinks God is very important. He was such a nice old man! It was a little difficult to communicate with our limited Spanish but we were able to get the point across and get his info. It was actually pretty easy, you just have to be persistent. Not gonna lie though, when we started on Monday trying to stop people and have them listen to us, it felt super awkward and I thought we were never going to get someone.
We got to go to the temple again yesterday and it was amazing as always. The best day though would have to be today because we went proselyting in the city!!! We went from about 9 to 12. We drove to a church about 25 mins away and then they told us to go and find people and meet back at 11:45. Starting off it was pretty nerve wracking because neither my companion nor I can speak really good Spanish and we had no idea how we were going to stop people. The first people we talked to were actually members which was pretty funny. We got away from the huge pack of missionaries and were by ourselves for about 2 hours without seeing another missionary. It was crazy because here we were, two Gringos who don't speak much Spanish in a city that we did not know the directions of, preaching the gospel. Thinking about it now, its actually pretty awesome. But anyway, we talked to a lot of old ladies and they like to speak really quiet and fast, which is so much fun when its super noisy. So I just nodded my head, laughed a little, and tried to respond to the parts that I could understand. They also like to preach to us about God and their religion, but again, they spoke really fat and I had no idea what they were saying for the most part so I just nodded and smiled. You would be surprised by how well it works. We had the typical people who would yell at us and those that would cross the street when they saw us. I just laughed at how much people tried to avoid us. We did get three contacts though and were able to teach this one guy for about an hour in this forest\park thing. We taught him the restoration and gave him a book of Mormon and had him read Moroni 10:3-5 because he said he had read it before but had never prayed about it. I don't know of a better opportunity to share that scripture haha. But it was a really good lesson and he said that he would read it and pray about it and that he wants to meet with us to have juice or something to talk about God and what he felt. I don't know if we will be able to meet with him but we got his info and told him that other missionaries would be able to. he spoke some English which helped a little. For our first time proselyting in a foreign country, and not knowing the language too well, I think it was a pretty good first run! I cant wait until I go proselying with someone who understands Spanish so we can have some quality talks with people and so I can figure out what people are saying. But it was extremely nice to not be caged in and really explore the city. I cant wait to get out of here!
So that's basically the big things that happened this week. Oh, I also found a scripture during scripture study a couple days ago that really helped me see how I am doing and what I need to be doing. Its Alma 5:14/15. I would invite you all to take a look at it. thanks again for all the love and support!!
Élder Richmond