Two Years in Colombia: 2016

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

December 5, 2016 - Suuuuuuper Boring Week!

Hey yall!

Welp nothing happened this week. Just lots of working. Summer is officially here in Villavicencio. Before it was hot, now it is a whole new level. Before the sun felt hot,now you can feel the sun burning you and heat coming off the pavement hitting you too! It is the worst sandwich in the history of sandwiches! The heat sandwich! But there is still rain right now which is very good! Other than that nothing suuuper memorable. We had the Christmas Devotional yesterday. That was really good. If you didn't get to watch it you should go back and watch it on LDS.org! We had to go to the other Chapel that is about 20 minutes from here in Taxi, but it was good. There were about 40-50 people watching in Spanish in the Chapel and another 6-10 watching in English in the Family History Center. So that was good. I watched it in Spanish with Elder Hernandez and one of the Zone Leaders. The other 4 gringos and Elder Valverde and Elder Roque went and watched it in English. Elder Hernandez was very proud Daddy when I said that I wanted to watch it in Spanish. I don't think there is anything else! I will be in Bogota Tues-Thurs. The whole mission will be in Bogota for these 3 days. About 200 missionaries so that will be a party maybe... Thank you all for all of your prayers and for everything! Y'all are awesome!

Matthew

When it is waaaay hot in Villao..

Thanksgiving in Villavicencio

I found these sunglasses in the old house so now I use them because it is very bright!

Playing with Machetes...

The Crew for our Service Project today. The Elders of Esperanza and one of the Young Men in our Branch.

Us with a Young Man in our Branch who is awesome!!

November 28, 2016 - WE FINALLY MOVED!!!

Hola Familia!

I hope that all of your Thanksgivings were good! I was super trunky during Thanksgiving. And no to all the questions of if Thanksgiving is a holiday here no it is not. Just lots of stuff on the news making fun of all the fat Americans all day. Also, no we did not do anything as a Zone for Thanksgiving. 70% of my zone are Latinos so we didn't do anything. So that night at 9pm when we got back to the house I ordered Pizza from Dominoes and ate Dominoes and drank Coke in the Hammock that was on our front porch then I went to bed and that was Thanksgiving. The next day we moved which was all day which sucked because after not wanting to do anything for the whole day before I wanted to work like crazy the whole next day so that was a little frustrating but whatever. But yeah not much happening. Oh yeah last week I had to give another talk in Sacrament meeting. I learned about it 15 minutes before the meeting so that was super fun. A Counsaler in the Mission Presidency and his wife were visiting and they wanted to hear a talk from one of the missionaries in the Branch. So naturally President Rojas(Branch Pres) chose the only one of the missionaries who can't speak Spanish which was just awesome, but it was fine. Five minutes talking about the Gospel of Christ then 5 minutes about how to share the gospel for people who don't want to leave their comfort Zone. It was fine. Not great not awful. Then President Garzon and his wife spoke to finish the meeting. Anyways. Not a lot happening here. Next week the Zone is going to Bogota for a Training and to hang out with President and his Family so that should be fun. That is on 12/8. Also if you haven't seen the stuff the church has for Christmas this year y'all should check it out! Anywho, I believe that is all. I love yall! Have a great week!

Matthew

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

November 14, 2016 - NO TRANSFERS, 6 More Weeks at Least of Villavicencio

No transfers for me! Or anyone in our district. The other 2 districts in Villao lost about half of their district. But I'm pretty happy that I don't have to move and learn a new area again! And our district is really cool so I'm glad we are all here. Elder Valverde called the Sisters in our district when we found out that nobody was moving and told them that I was going to Neiva and they were crying on the phone which was hilarious. Then he called them an hour later and told them he was kidding and they called him words I can't repeat... Also the big news of the week, we have house, we think. All the paperwork has gone through and we should move in on November 25! Also, we get to buy all new stuff for the apartment so it will be so much better than what we have now! I hit 4 months yesterday which was good I guess? I don't know. Other than that nothing really happening here. I wish I had more to say, but things are boring here. I haven't been able to send photos in a few weeks so here are a bunch.

MY BOX!!!!

Me during weekly planning

Elder Hernandez during weekly planning

Eating Lechona. Google it. It is amazing!

Elder Herandez didnt think I would take a picture with it so I did it...

Elder Veach it would be funny if you held onto the tree like a Koala bear.... OKAY!

One of the most awesome families in the world!

My haircut that we tried to do at 1015 at night that we had to fix 3 days later

The Elders of Esperanza with the Familia Gonzalez

Distrito Esperanza. My hair is much better here...

Elder Hernandez and I after a bad rainstorm.

October 31,2016 - Who Invented Insects???

Haloooo!

Hey yall! This week was super uneventful. I can't think of a single thing interesting that happened... Oh so we were walking on our way to an appointment this week and I looked inside a house as we walked by and they were watching Clear and Present Danger! I stopped and went back to look to make sure and they definitely were! I was laughing for a good 5 minutes because before the mission that movie was all I knew about Colombia! I want to watch that movie again because there were places in that movie that they were in places that looked exactly like parts of my last area! Also, Mama I got your Box! And it was amazing! Elder Valverde was in Bogota for a Leadership Conference and the box was there so I got my box at 2am that night! I was waaaay excited! But I still don't have any letters from any of the people who told me they sent them... We had a pretty good week this week. Looooots of walking though. Also we will probably be moving in the next 2 weeks. Elder Valverde got a call from president this week because President found out that we are living in the area of the sisters and basically told us that this was our most important thing was to get out of their area. So we spent part of the week house hunting, which without a car is not the funnest thing in the world. We might have somewhere to live we are just waiting to see if the paperwork works out.... Other than this I cant think of anything! Thanks for everything yall!

Matthew

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

October 17, 2016 - Well I got bit by a dog... Also 3 months in the Mission

Hola Familia,

So this week was pretty uneventful and yet had some crazy stuff happen. So most of our week nothing really happened. Lots of walking from appointment to appointment for the appointment to fall. So yeah that was fun. I hit 3 months this week which was just kinda whatever to be real. Just really hard to be motivated that day. Lots of heat and lots of rain this week. So kinda funny. Thursday and Friday it absolutely dumped from the sky! Soo much rain! Friday there was literally anywhere from 2-6 inches of water on the roads depending on where you were! I forgot to take a picture which I was pretty sad about. Then that night we were walking away from this lady we are teaching´s house, who couldn't meet with us shockingly, and her dog freaking bit the crap out of my leg! I was honestly more mad than hurt. It tore my pants though which is bad because I only have 3 non suit pants now. But I only have a bruise on my leg which is a real blessing. If it had drawn blood and I would have had to the hospital I might have killed something. Anyway, the next night we went back over there to teach again and she couldn't again which was kinda nerve racking, but nothing happened which was very good. Today we climbed this mountain for P-Day which was really fun, but it dumped the whole way up so we were absolutely soaked. Anyway, to be honest the hike was pretty anti-climactic, but it was still fun. There were all these super cool bridges over the valley which were really cool, but they were also like a shake weight for your legs so I am waaay sore. I took a ton of pictures.

So a little description of my area. The entire city of Villao is smaller than my last area which is good and bad. But there are literally no hills here which is amazing! My last area had some hills that were crazy! The bugs aren't too bad here as long as you stay away from the rivers. The branch has a membership of 630, but has 100 attending church. There are only 3 branches here in Villao so not many members. It is weird because in my last zone there were 30 missionaries in the zone and here there 18 in the zone. It is really little.

Anyways, Love y'all tons! Hope all is well!

Matthew

At the top of the mtn their is this little waterfall

The amazing view at the top of the mtn...

Me at the beginning of the second bridge.

So on our hike last week we had to cross these 3 rope and wood bridges which was cool. This is the lowest one..

The Elders of Esperanza

Villao. From the highest bridge.

My pants after the dog bite. My purple socks protected me!!!

October 10, 2016 - I am sweating from places I did not know produced sweat...

Hey Fam!!!

So week one in Villao (Slang for Villavicencio which I will use lots because it is faster to type) is done. Welp to get the obvious out of the way, it is very hot here. Very hot. I have no idea what the temperatures are here but it sucks (low's in low 80's and high's in the 90's with no A/C anywhere not even at church). Also, it rains quite a bit here. Probably about 5x's a week. The people here are super nice! Not at all like Bogota. It is like the difference between your average person from New York City and your average person from the South. But at the same time they are really hard to teach because it is so hot that people never want to do anything at all. We didn't get too many days of rain with hurricane Matthew, funny name right? But it was raining so hard it literally hurt when it hit you for a few hours. The apartment here is well really gross. I bought a bunch of stuff to clean it today so that was expensive. The work here is really frustrating. We were having some really good success in my last area and we had a bunch of people progressing, but here there is nothing. We had 3 investigators progressing before I got here, but they split the area because there are now 6 missionaries in this tiny branch and the area that now belongs to the new sisters has all 3 investigators... So yeah. Every time I have a really good experience with Spanish something immediately happens that just absolutely crushes any confidence that I had. We had a training with President which was good. Also there are 2 other Nortes from my group in the zone, there are about 20 of us in the zone. Elder Harris and I weighed ourselves right before I left and I have lost 32 pounds since I went into the MTC so that is good. Anyway, nothing else to say! Love yall tons! Have a great week!

Elder Veach & Hernandez

Matthew's mission Grandpa now an AP

October 3, 2016 - Well I got transferred to Villavicencio...

Soooooo yeah... I got transferred. I got the call on Sunday at 945pm. I was at the church the next morning at 9am with all my stuff to find out where I was going. Then on a bus at 1215pm for Villavicencio. So that was fun. Also, I am in the part of the mission called the Hotlands so yeah... It is very hot and very humid. My new trainer is fron Peru, Elder Hernandez. We live in a house with another set of missionaries, both from Peru as well This could be a rough transfer, because Elder Hernandez speaks only a little English and the others don't speak English at all. I guess I'll learn Spanish really fast now! I am mostly sad about the move because we had 8 baptisms planned for the next 3 weeks so I am sad I will miss those. General Conference was awesome! It was so great! We were piled in the Family History center to watch it in English. So yeah. Here are some pictures. Love y'all tons. I will talk to y'all next week!

Elders Harris, Veach and Archilla at Subway

Elder Harris and Elder Veach before the transfer

Chillin

Exchanging Ties before the transfer

Elders Archilla, Harris and Veach

Baptisms scheduled that I will miss

September 26, 2016 -

Heeeelllo!

So we find out about transfers on Saturday or Sunday so that is exciting. It is weird that we are in week 6 here. This week was okay. Lots of ups and downs. Firstly, our investigator who every time we asked how he was doing and how he felt about his baptism for the 24th he said Excited and Prepared, every time. All of the sudden out of the blue on Tuesday told us that he didn't want to get baptized right now because he didn't feel like he had a strong enough testimony. So he is going to go home to Venezuela for the next 5 months and then come back take the lessons some more and get baptized then... So yeah we were really bummed about that to say the least. Everything here is pretty much the same. Spanish is up and down. Some days are amazing other days not so much. I don't know what else to write about. For P-day we went to our DLs area to buy professional looking jackets for here that handle water better but are less bulky. But I couldn't buy any because they don't carry sizes big enough for me. The high point of the week was definitely when I found a Dunkin Donuts in the mall today. I was waaay excited. Also, I am super excited for General Conference! We get to watch in English which I am super pumped for that! Anyway,here are some pics. Love yall!