9-26-11

Dear Family,

 

This week was good.  We baptized Javier!!!  It was such a good baptism and he may be my best convert.  He was probably the only investigator I have ever had that put ALL his trust in us.  It turned out really cool because I promised him that if he did that, he could fill every single hole in his life.  And my promise is already fulfilling itself.  It is really amazing to see things like that happen.  He will be an awesome leader in the church someday and it is really satisfying to see him progress.  He is even introducing his friends to us!

 

Pasto is a really interesting place.  It is a little city, which makes our areas fairly small.  It is the opposite of my area in Belen.  We can walk through the whole area in 10 or 15 min. (Belen we could do it in an hour.)  And not only that, but the people listen to us!  It is the best.  Its the zone that all the missionaries want to go to.  Oh and the members absolutely love us!  It is cool to feel so special...

 

On Saturday, we did a service project at a little school house.  It is a really cool little place but it is all overgrown and had some problems.  We worked for quite a while there and were able to see a lot of progress.  But most of all, I just thought it was the coolest little school.  It is kind of set back away from town.  The only problem is that there are a lot of creatures that live there.   For example, tarantulas and snakes and stuff...  I saw tarantulas bigger that my hand!  And we saw a cobra!  He was ticked at us too...  And being a school house or the equivalent of an elementary school, we had to kill it...  or I guess I should say I had to kill it.  All the other guys there were too wussy to do it.  But dont worry, the children can now play in peace.

 

Well, everything is going well here.  October should be a good month.  We have a few baptisms planned and they seem like sure deals.  But, other than that, not a whole lot more to say.  I hope you all have a great week and I love you!

 

Love,

   Corey

 

P.S. there are 2 pics of the school and the other is of the baptism.  The guy in the middle is Javier and the other is the Bishop.  And the white guy is me...

9-19-11

Dear Family,

 

This week was pretty good.  Pasto is such an awesome place!  I think it might be the magic place for the missionaries of the Mission Colombia Cali.  It´s crazy because the baptisms just come.  Sometimes we don´t have to do anything.  I already told you about Javier right?  He´s getting baptized this Saturday!!! It´s cool because he is a friend of the Bishop and he just showed up at church one day and now, 3 weeks later, is getting baptized!  I will try to send pictures next week...

 

I was really grateful for the packages I got!  It was so good to see some american stuff.  We have pretty much eaten everything already... Its sad to see it all go, but it was good while it lasted.  Funny story about the package from Kristin.  Everything came in tact.  Everything but the powdered suger included to make muddy buddies... You might be thinking that it may have caused a problem with them thinking it was cocain...  If you are thinking that, you might be right, but in a different way than you might think.  Now you should know that I don´t know exactly what happened.  But I´ve got a pretty good idea.  It seems as though it did cause a problem, but not a security problem.  It looks like someone (most likely the workers) thought it was cocain, and to make sure, they wanted to give it the test.  It may seem like a weird thing to have happen.  And you are right, it is a weird thing to have happen, in the USA.  To understand this story, you must remember where i am... Colombia...

 

This week was better health wise.  I am still not back to normal yet.  But I feel a lot better.  I just can´t eat very much.  The food here is good and everything but I am going through a phase where I don´t want to eat it.  Its tough but I imagine I´ll get through it.  But you may be able to understand if I say it is the same thing every day... rice and beans... unless you are in pasto it is rice and potatoes.

 

Not a whole lot more this week...  I did learn a lot about personal revelation and learned things that I don´t even know how to share...

 

Have a great week. Love you all!!!

 

Love,

       Corey

9-12-11

Dear Family,

This week wasn´t too intersesting...  We had some good experiences and everything but, I was sick the whole week.  It´s weird because after almost a year in the mission, I´m just getting sick now...  I don´t really know what has caused it, because Pasto is pretty clean (relatively speaking...).  I´ve just had flu like symtoms for 2 weeks now but it looks like I´m pretty much recovered now.

On Saturday, we had had a baptism.  It was probably the best/coolest baptism I have been a part of in my mission.  The guy´s name is Edinson.  His whole family got baptized about 8 years ago.  He had been working in a little town here close to Pasto.  The problem he had was that he worked in an alcohol factory (or the english equivalent to that...) and really liked to drink with the buddies.   In that time he was spending the nights in a little house alone.  One night, he had a dream where Jesus appeared to him and told him to get baptized.  So as he said in his own words, ¨Jesus told me to, so I had to!¨  He shared his testimony after his baptism and said that he had filled the whole in his life.  He his super excited to go to the temple and get sealed to his family.       I included a picture of him and me and the other is of his family.  Oh and he is one of the funniest guys I know.

Today, we all got together as missionaries and made lunch and went to play soccer.  We invited investigators and members and made two teams.  The first (and the best) was just missionaries and the rest played on the other team.  We played for like 3 hours and we pretty much destroyed them.  It was fun and everything but we are all dead now.  Most of us haven´t played anything for our whole missions and now we are dying.  But it was cool.  (and thats why my letter is a little late...)

All of our investigators are really good and we have 7 investigators who go to church every sunday.  We will be baptizing like crazy here pretty soon.  We have one of the best areas in the whole mission.  Pres Prince wrote to me and said that it sounds like your gonna baptize the whole world.

I finally got my packages from mom and kristin!  I haven´t opened them yet but tonight I will.  Thanks!!! 

All is well here (and cold...)!  I love Pasto and I am blessed to be here.

I love you all and hope you have a good week!

Love,

   Corey

9-5-11

Dear Family,

 

This week was good.  We had lots of really cool experiences, but I was sick the whole week.  It all started on wednesday and got worse everyday...  Now, I feel ok.  Not great but just ok.  I don´t really know why I was sick or anything. 

 

So, as a result of being sick all week, I don´t have too much to share this week...  But i will do my best.  I think one of the coolest things that happened was that we got a new investigator who is a friend of the bishop here.  This guy, Javier, is the best investigator ever!  He is the kind of guy that has essencially destroyed his own life.  He shared with us what he did (most of which being problems with the family...) but he humbled himself and confessed everything.  After all of that he said that he has been going to lots of churches and stuff but never felt good about anyone of them, until he came to our church...  We reassured him that he had been prepared and guided to the bishop and to us.  Then we started to teach him.  He really liked the lesson about the restoration.  He told us that he was willing to do anything to get his life back on track.  One of the coolest parts was when I promised him that if he would listen and apply the teachings of the gospel that he would get his family back and everything would get better.  It was a promise that I wanted to give him so bad but I had to wait to get permission from the Spirit to give it.  It was really cool because I really got the prompting to tell him these things. 

 

From that lesson, we went to another where we didn´t know what to teach.  We both opened our Book of Mormon to the exact same page ( by ¨coincidence¨...)  and shared a scripture that the investigator really needed.  She even cried and asked us how we knew what the problem was. 

 

So I guess what I´m trying to say with all this is that the Holy Ghost is real and that we should all trust more in him to guide us.

 

Now some notes about my new area...

 

1. My companion and I are getting along really well.

2. I never thought I would be freezing cold in Colombia, but Pasto is butt cold all the time...

3. The people here in Pasto have really cute elf accents...  it is the best haha.

4. Pastusos (the people from Pasto)  are super cool.  They are pretty much the nicest best people I have ever met. 

5. The counselor in the ward here had a problem with the missionaries... Now he´s not counselor...

 

I can´t think of a whole lot more to say...  But Pasto is the best and the situation is awesome here!

 

And we will be baptizing a guy named Edinson here on Saturday!  He is getting baptized after 10 years of listening to the missionaries and is the last in the family.

 

I hope you all have a great week and I love you all!!!

 

Love,

 Corey