June 12, 2017 - Veach and Elder Mann End Their Time Together Baptizing AGAIN!

Hey Y'all,

So we had transfers today.  I got moved to a different stake in Bogota and I'm now in an area called Bosa.  My companion is Elder Gambini.  He is from Argentina.  But the best part of the week was that we had another baptism to close out the transfer!  His name is Emmanuel and he is 16.   His cousin baptized him!  I was super pumped.  We got blessed big time because we worked our butt  off!  I'm so happy we had so much success here.  I'm going to have to go back there at the end of the mission!  Not a lot of time this week.  Here are the pics!  Love yall!

Matthew

Us with Emmanuel.  He's the tall one...

May 29, 2017 - Elder Veach and Elder Mann Baptize Again!

Sup Yall!

So this was another pretty slow week.  We only had one lesson and zero new investigators.  But Thursday, Friday and Saturday were awesome!  Thursday night we had the baptismal interviews for Chrisbel and her 12 year old son Esteven and they both passed!  Then on Friday I had exchanges with Elder Rivero, a new missionary who is a stud and we had so much fun that day, and Chrisbel(Investigator) and her boyfriend Leonardo(Kinda Active Member) got married!  Then on Saturday we had the baptism of Chrisbel and her son Esteven!  Elder Mann baptized Chrisbel and I baptized Esteven.  FYI  Esteven is really tiny so when everyone saw us in the font it was hilarious!  Then yesterday was the confirmation which also went great!  Then today I got to go to the temple for the first time since mid December which was nice.  And that was our whole week basically.  Nothing else really happened.  So here are the photos of the baptism and the exchanges!  Les quiero mucho!

Matthew

 White Night!

Us with Chrisbel and Esteban

 Me and Elder Mann with Chrisbel, Esteban(the little kid), and Leonardo(Chrisbels new husband)

 Me and Elder Mann with Chrisbel, Esteban(the little kid), and Leonardo(Chrisbels new husband)

May 22, 2017-transcibe this

Hey y'all, (this is a place holder)

So this is the first time I've really done this so I don't know how well this is going to work. So we'll see. I figured I'd just kind of talk about something every week. This week I thought I would talk about the baptism that we had two weeks ago with Angel. Sorry my voice sounds kind of weird I'm getting sick. So on Saturday, not this Saturday, but last Saturday in the morning we were doing our studies and we get a call from the missionaries that are in the other chapel that is in our stake because the chapel that we have doesn't have a baptismal font so every time we have a baptism we have to go over to the stake center about 20 minutes walking from here and we were talking to them and they had had a baptism for this lady with cancer and she should have died a week before her baptism and they were trying to set up her baptism before Angel so we were trying to do a baptismal service together with them and so they tried to we had kind of worked out a plan with our ward mission leader for how the baptism was going to go and then we had to call him and see if we could change up some stuff and he told us oh yah elders I can't be there so we were kind of freaking out. We had to do the program basically by ourselves. We were going to try to be over to the church at 2 or 3 but our lunch with the members that day was this family that lives 45 minutes walking from our house in the opposite direction from the stake center. So we walked up there got lunch and ran back got our suits on and ran over to the stake center and we were helping clean up

May 15, 2017 - The First Baptism and 10 Months!!!

Hey yall!

This week was awesome!  Well, the week was alright, but Saturday was awesome!  Firstly, and not very importantly, I hit 10 months!  Second, WE HAD A BAPTISM!!!  His name is Angel Salazar.  He is 27 years old and he is a freaking boss!  We found him through contacting an old investigator from about a year ago and he got baptized about 5 weeks later!  He is awesome.  He loves the Book of Mormon and loves the Church and already has a testimony that they are true!  He honestly is just a stud!  His baptism was one of the best experiences of my life!  Watching him come up out of the water and hearing his testimony at the end of the Baptismal Service was so cool!  It was for me a very real confirmation that God sees all of our efforts and our hard work and gives us blessing for them!  I love the gospel and I love this work and it changes lives!  I love y'all and have an awesome week!  Here are some pictures!

Pics 1 and 2.  Elder Mann and I with Angel and a priest who baptized him named Camilo!

May 1, 2017 - Luna Park Week 13

Well another week gone here in Luna Park.  The mission had transfers on Sunday, but Elder Mann and I are staying together for at least 6 more weeks.  Out of the 90 companionships in the mission 75 had transfers!  And they Changed the districts here.  So now Elder Mann is the DL and our District has 2 other areas that weren't there before...  So now our District is completely different.  But we'll see how it goes.  This week we helped C.... move out of her house because she and her "Husband" decided they can't live together so we moved her about a block away.  6 hours later we finished.  We didn't have any help from the ward.  So it was me, my comp, and her ex-husband.  So that's cool, but she and her son might get baptized on the 13th with one other of our investigators, but we will see.  That is about all that is going on right now I think.  Still working hard.  I love y'all tons!  Have an awesome week!

Matthew

April 24, 2017 - Welp Change of Plans this weekend...

Hey Family!

This week was hard.  We contacted a lot!  Our baptism fell through.  And our ward doesn't do very much.  So that was fun.  C.... and her future spouse decided that they didn't want to get married anymore less than 24 hours before the baptismal interview.  They got in a fight and now she and their son are going to move out.  The good thing is they are going to stay in the ward and she still wants to get baptized just when she moves out... But we'll see what happens.  So that was pretty disappointing, but we will get over it.  Um not much happening honestly.  Lots of contacting.  Today for P-Day the ZL(The only companionship in our zone that lives close to us) came over and made Mom's chocolate chip cookies and we played Risk for 4 hours.  So that was fun.  Transfers are on Sunday so we will see what is going to happen with that...  Anyways love y'all tons!  Talk to ya next week!

Matthew

Pic 1.  Me with our ward mission leader.

April 10, 2017 - The Blessings DO come!

Hey Fam!

This week was really good.  We had been contacting A LOT the last few weeks with almost no success, but this week we had several new investigators from all of our contacting!  Then we were in our English class on Tuesday and one of the counselors from the bishopric pulled us out to talk to us and told us that he had talked to C....(Investigator) and L....(Member) and said that they wanted to get married and had the papers and everything ready and want to get married and her to get baptized on the 21st of April.  To give a little background to this.  We were teaching C.... when I got here and they almost had all their documents and everything ready to get married.  Then about 4 weeks ago she decided that she didn't want to get married to L....., who is a member but they live together with their 11 year old son so she can't get baptized before she gets married, because they had been having problems.  We were stuck and we decided that we would let them both get counseling from the bishopric and see what happens, cause she didn't want to talk about it with us.  They are now, after lots of counseling, ready and excited for the marriage and her baptism!  They will get married on the 21st in the morning then they want to do the baptism as soon as possible so we are going to do it that same day in the afternoon.  They are so excited and happy and it is so cool to see the difference!  We now have a lot to do to get them  ready for the 21st!  Today for P-day we didn't really do anything.  Our zone is really lame and doesn't want to do anything...  Other than that don't know what else to talk about.  Spanish is doing good.  Slowly but surely we are getting there.  Love y'all!  Have a great week!

Pic.  Elder Mann and I eating lunch today in the apt.