Dear Family,
This week has been pretty good. I don´t have a good story to tell though like I said i might. Sorry to keep you all in suspense.
But we have done a lot of work lately. I really like the area and I like the people even though they frustrate me... My first transfer ends on Thursday and I can´t really believe it. Neither me or my companion will be transfered though so it doesn´t mean a whole lot. But that doesn´t mean it is impossible.
We are still dealing with lots of problems (soap opera style problems...) But I won´t go to much into that. I learned that about 80% of the members in Chinchiná are inactive. And most of the 20% that go to church are recently reactivated or recent converts. It´s been said that it´s because we have Americans in the mission now and that the work struggled really hard without. Kind of cool I guess. But its crazy that 80% of the branch is inactive.
Speaking of inactive members... We have an inactive family that we visit and invite to church all the time. The Familia Velasquez. One evening, I was on splits with the ward mission leader. (I hate going on splits with members...) But we went up to talk to this family. Only the mom and dad were there so we talked to them about the sacrament. We showed a quick movie and talked about the importancia of the sacrament. It was pretty much 15 minutes worth of material. And then, they opened wide and told us all the reasons why they don´t go to church. Pretty much they said that they had been offended and that the branch has a lot of chisme (sorry i can´t remember the word in english... look it up.) They talked for at least an hour... It was getting really late when they finished. So when they finished everyone looked at me including the ward mission leader. Someone asked me if I understood any of it. And I came back and said that actually I did understand it. I said that I understood their problems and that it is sad that the members of the church aren´t perfect. I went on and on and said that nothing should matter except the sacrament, our covenants are only between us and God. Nothing else matters. The people of the church are not perfect, but the church is perfect. I went on for about 10 minutes... I might have been a little harsh with them but I know i said what i needed to. Oh yeah, all of that was in perfect Spanish.
This week was really cool because I got to go on splits 2 times. The first one with my zone leader, Elder Cox from Wyoming. And the second with Elder Shelley from Utah who was in the MTC with me. Both were really cool and it was nice to be able to speak and communicate with someone. Elder Cox leaves in 4 days to go home so it was one of my last chances to do it. But I learned a lot and it was a good experience.
Spanish is going pretty well. Still very hard but it gets better everyday. As long as we talk about the gospel, i´m good. But it is pretty cool to be able to have a conversation in another language. But i stutter through my english...
On Saturday, I talked to a guy from Brazil who knows 6 languages. I thought that was pretty cool, so i think I´ll try and learn 6 languages..
I hope everyone is doing good and enjoying themselves. I love you all!!!
Love,
Corey
P.S. Next week i will try to answer some of your letters. I don´t really have time today.
Ok I have become a little obsessed with quotes lately. So if you are willing, I would love it if when you send am email to me, if you would send a quote too. It doesn´t have to be a church quote (although I love church quotes too) the only rule I have is that I want it to mean something to the person sending it. Any type of quote it good. Thanks! I am excited to see what you send!
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