Week 59: Milagros en la obra del Señor en Yopal

Buenos Tardes Familia!

Still here in Sogamoso, although this week we took a detour to Yopal, which is like a city out in the jungle which is 5 hours away from us. What happened this week…I guess I will start with Wednesday.

Wednesday night we got to the house and we got a call from Yopal saying that they were having some problems with some companionships and things. So we called the assistants at like 10 o’clock at night, we said “Hey, Elder Piquasi, can we go to Yopal right now?” and he’s like “Why?” “because they are having these problems…” and he said “be careful, but do it.” So we went at 10 o’clock at night to the terminal, and there was only a mini bus that was available to go to Yopal. So we took it. That was the most miserable bus ride of my life. Usually In the buses, they’re really nice, the big ones, but the little ones, the seats don’t recline very far at all, and you can get on the bus and imagine that two guys, called llanuras, or plainsmen, I guess you would say, they are like cowboys here in Colombia, they sit down and they smell SO BAD of beer. I was being asphyxiated by the smell that was there, Fortunately we got about half way to Yopal and they got off the bus. But man, I will tell you what… the thing is that to Yopal, the road is really bad. There’s a lot of rainfall in Yopal, and it rains hard, so it washes out the road. There were a couple of bridges that were down, they have to go take a detour around the bridge on the dirt, or the mud I should say. It’s just as winded of a road as you have ever seen. It was crazy.

But we got to Yopal at 4 o’clock in the morning. We left at like 11 and got there at 4.

We got to the house of Yopal 3 and we slept there for a couple of minutes. It was really great getting out of the bus, cuz the humidity just hits you and you just feel wet. I actually miss that feeling from Bucaramanga. It reminded me a lot of Bucaramanga. It’s a lot hotter, but at night it was really nice. So we got to the house of Yopal 3, and they pulled out some mattresses and my companion slept in what’s called a Chinchorro. It’s a hammock basically, but a little more stretchy. I couldn’t sleep in the chinchorro, so I just slept on a mattress on the ground. It wasn’t pulled very tight, the chinchorro, and you kinda doubled in half. But I enjoyed sleeping without a blanket for the first time in 7 months. That’s also something I miss. In Yopal you cant really sleep without a fan in your face. We woke up the next morning and went to the other house in Yopal of the missionaries and we resolved some problems and then I went out on exchanges with Yopal 3. It was SO HOT down there in Yopal. I don’t know, I think it would give hell a run for it’s money. It’s so hot. It couldn’t have been less than 95 degrees. But I enjoyed it a lot. You get out of the shower, and you don’t feel any less wet. That’s how it is in Bucaramanga as well, but I had forgotten how that felt.

Yopal has some cool things: they have iguanas that are as long as my arm, and they will whip you so hard with their tail that it will tear your pants. That happened to a missionary about a month ago. Also, one side of Yopal has mountains, and the other has plains. One side you will see these mountains touching the sky, and on the other side you just see flat. Totally flat. And there is jungle surrounding Yopal. It’s crazy how diverse my mission is. Sogamoso, the landscape, it’s green. It’s like Utah in Spring. Then you go 5 hours away and then you’re right smack-dab in the middle of the jungle. Outside of Yopal, I didn’t get to go outside, but outside of Yopal there are monkeys and… I’m not even sure what it’s called, it’s like a giant rat, it’s called a chinguirro. There are monkeys and chinguirros, birds of every kind, it was really cool! But ya, I enjoyed that. We got back friday night to have the entrevista de bautismo, the baptismal interview, with Jefredy. He was baptized on Saturday, which was great. I will try to send some pictures, I think next week I believe. Just so you guys know, we did have a baptism this week and I have really enjoyed Sogamoso because we have been able to baptize every month that I have been here. So that’s good. We found a family of 7 this week that looks really promising. The Lord is blessing us, even though we don’t deserve it completely. But still, it’s great to see his hand in all things, and how he leads us without us really knowing.

The highlight of the week I would say was really Tuesday. We had exchanges with some of the missionaries and I stayed in my area and went to an investigator named Paola. And Paola, we found her in her store when we went, actually, to grab some water. She asked us: “what do you missionaries do?” She’s a joven…. A young lady of about 25, but so prepared for the Gospel. We came back with a member the next time and every lesson has been powerful. This time we taught the Doctrine of Christ: Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. I have never felt the Spirit like that before in a lesson in my mission. Just her answers were amazing, she shared with us an experience that she had with repentance: I guess she has had some problems with her family, her sister-in-law, I guess has been being abusive to her brother and to her niece. So she got mad and actually has worked in the police of Colombia. She went and hit her, her sister –in-law, but then she felt bad about it afterwards, and she went to her sister-in-law and apologized and then she went to the Lord, she hit her knees and asked the Lord to forgive her, because she just felt so bad. and we hadn’t even taught repentance yet. She said that she just felt this overwhelming, strange feeling come over her, and the hate for her sister-in-law just went away. It just went away. In that moment, I just felt the spirit so strong. It gave us the opportunity to testify, in a very special way, of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. That is evidence that he has experienced everything, and for that, he can take it away when we humble ourselves and do what’s necessary. It was so great. I felt the spirit so strong, just guiding us what to say. I felt so many promptings and had so much personal revelation during that lesson, it was just amazing. Me and Elder Ferral, I left that lesson just walking a mile off the earth. Just on a spiritual high. That was the highlight of my week I think. She’s actually not in our area, dang it, so we had to send a reference, but she is still going strong, and I plan on going to visit her every once in awhile in her store, which is in our area. And, eventually here in the near future, the 25^th of November, seeing her baptized. She is already giving us references. She just told us at the end of the last lesson she was crying and she told us “thank you so much for the peace that you have brought me. I just can't even describe it.” Her prayer was the most sincere prayer I have ever heard anybody say. Elder Ferral, afterwards he told me “man, I feel like garbage about my prayers, they’re nothing compared to that.”  She was just thanking her Father in Heaven for the peace that she felt, and having guided us to go there. It’s really interesting, you can relate it with the talk by, I think it was Elder Renlund, that talked about there isn’t such thing as a coincidence. We just went in there to get water, but I can see now how the Lord was guiding our steps. We were going to go the other side of the street to grab it, but then we thought: “go to the other side of the street to get the water.” Maybe it was in that moment, but we didn’t recognize it as a prompting, but… ya. The Church is true. The spirit guides us. We should always listen for it.

Well family, have a great week. Love you all. Chao Chao!

-Elder Lewis

Iguanas in Yopal. as long as Elder Lewis' arm and their Tail Whip can tear clothing! 

The view from Yopal 3's apartment. Elder Lewis worked out here in the morning, and the mountains in the photo are home to monkeys and chinguirros.

Chinchorros in the apartment

Week 58: "Well, He Sent You Guys, Didn't He?"- Serving in Nazareth

Buenas Tardes Familia!

It’s been a good week here in Sogamoso, I think, not a lot to report. One of the guys in our zone, Elder Altamirado, got his gallbladder taken out. He was in Yopal, which is a town about 5 hours away from Sogamoso. It’s out kind of isolated, and it’s in our zone. But ya, I guess he got super sick a week or two ago, and he had to get shipped over to Bogotá to receive treatment. Good thing is, our Mission President is actually an ER Doctor. So we talked to him about it while it was happening, and he said “There’s no way I’m letting him get that surgery in Yopal.” Haha So they shipped him over to Bogotá and he got the surgery that he needed this week, and the whole zone fasted for him, but it turned out well. They are now back in Yopal and he just has to take it easy for awhile. That was exciting. What else, what else, what else…..

This week on Tuesday, I got SO SICK. I felt like I wanted to die. I guess some member gave us hamburgers that were made of something called molito pollo, and it’s ground chicken, but they grind in everything. The intestines, the stomach, the everything. It was really good, I just didn’t know. Then afterwards, the next day, ugh…. I was in the bathroom for all of the night and the next day I was just gone. However, we went to our appointments that we had, and in between appointments I went home and DIED. Haha. But ya, that was pretty fun… I am feeling a lot better now, it was just kind of a 1- 1 ½ day thing. I’m grateful; it was like food poisoning I guess. I don’t know what I’m going to do next time she offers me hamburgers…. Cuz that was… whoa… but let’s see what else has happened….

This week we had a cool service project, we went and cleaned out an old abandoned house. We cleaned out the front yard. I have learned from service projects here that the machete is the tool most unused in the United States. That thing is amazing! The one I was using in this project was kinda dull, but you can clear a lot of stuff, with that one that was dull I could clear out a good thick bush in like 5 minutes.

But this week me and my companion have been focused on forgetting about ourselves. It occurred to us when we were walking one time that sometimes we as missionaries get caught up in our own things, and it’s hard when things don’t go right and you have somebody that doesn’t understand the doctrine and therefore doesn’t want to take the steps that they need to take to be baptized for the remission of their sins. That’s hard. But we found that if we forget about ourselves, that that doesn’t even matter because we are going to go find the people that have been prepared. Because there are people that have been prepared and you can tell the difference between the people that are prepared and the people… I don’t want to say that are not prepared, but they don’t want to listen. That don’t want…. They’re good with what they’ve got. I have really learned this week, we have had to leave some people, because they don’t want it. They want to be happy but they are not willing to do what is necessary to be happy. We have taught just about everything we know how to do. But we are going to go into this week, we have put a new emphasis on service as a way to find investigators, and it has really panned out for us so far. We’ve had one service project on Saturday and we have another one planned coming up here. I just want to share an experience with you guys:

So we went and cleaned out this place, they are going to tear down the house, so we went inside of the house and cleaned out all the stuff, because it’s abandoned and people have gone in there are done drugs and stuff. So we cleaned out all of that and then we took out some bushes and things, and cleaned the pasture out, then afterwards we went back to the house of the people that we were doing it for, and I started to talk with them. I started to talk with them and I asked them if by chance, they believe in Jesus Christ. I thought for a second and said: “What blessings have you had from believing in Jesus Christ?” And they said: “well, he sent you guys didn’t he?” That’s a big blessing for us. That just made me realize the power that is in serving other people. Doing simple things makes great things come to pass. Well, that’s not our area; it’s out in a little town called Nazareth, but the Sister Missionaries will be going out there to teach them soon. And this Saturday we have a baptism. Jefredy is going to be baptized. He is a reference from a recent convert. He has been a little bit slow to understand but we went and talked to him about the real reason that we get baptized and we found that he didn’t understand even after all of our lessons. We asked him “why do you think we get baptized?” and he said “to show God that we want to follow him.” Or something like that. We said “yes that’s true, but more than that, it’s to receive a remission of our sins so that we can go back to live with our God.” And we explained that to him, and after that he says: “well, I have to get baptized!” so he has already been to church so we are going to baptize him this week. It’s going to be a heavy week; we have intercambios tomorrow and Friday, we are going to Yopal on Thursday. This is my first time going to Yopal. I am pretty excited.

Well, I think that’s it for this week. I love you all and I will talk to you later. Chao Chao!

-Elder Lewis

Turns out that the machete is the tool that is most under used in the states. Fact. I´ve learned to appreciate them doing service projects here. Also, the other guy in the picture is Jesus of Nazareth. His name is Jesus Ruíz and he lives in a little town outside of Sogamoso called Nazareth.

Week 57: The Purpose of a Smile

Hey Family!

This week has been really good. I have been enjoying it a lot. On Tuesday, we had intercambios with Yopal, and Yopal is like a city that is 5 hours away, but a totally different climate. Super, super hot. So they came up here to Sogamoso, and I went with Elder Colving from Harrisville, Utah. We had some cool experiences on that intercambio. Bit the rest of it went pretty normal. Then that night, got… they got.. ugh crap… The rest of Yopal got to our house, there were 6 of them because there was a Multi-Zone Conference the next day. So there were 8 missionaries at our house, and we made pizza, and Elder Gutierrez from Argentina is a gourmet chef. Imagine that. So we had a good time, we played UNO, we made pizza, it was pretty fun. We finally got our water filter installed, so now we have clean water to drink, although I don’t think the water in Sogamoso is all that bad, but then Wednesday we got to go to Duitama to go to a multi-zone conference, and that was really great.

President was really at his best. He talked to us about baptism and about our purpose. Sometimes when we invite people to be baptized I feel like as more as a favor to us as the missionaries. Like “will you be baptized” and not really knowing why we are saying it. But the training from President was focused on that, and it really opened my eyes. As I have been studying about it this week and followed the counsel that he gave, I have noticed that my purpose here as a missionary is to invite other people to receive a remission of their sins through faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, confirmation, and the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. It’s something that I repeated before, as part of the mission purpose, but nothing that I really understood. We are inviting other people to come unto Christ to be forgiven of their sins, to better their lives, and to return to live with God with their families. Could you have a better purpose? I really don’t think so. I am so happy to be here, and it made me want to work hard. That was one of the highlights of the week.

After the Multi-Zone Conference, we had interviews with the President. As I told you guys, I asked for an extension. President said “Thank you so much, Elder Lewis, for your desire to serve the Lord for more time. But, the answer is no.” and he said it like that. I was so bummed! But, ya know, it just makes me realize how much I want to savor this time on the mission. There’s nothing like it. Then he gave me some great advice; he said: “Elder Lewis, you should learn to be happy. You should learn to be happy right here where you are. Some people think ‘I will be happy when I’m in the MTC.’ And then after the MTC, ‘I’ll be happy when I am in the field’, and then “I’ll be happy when I have 6 months’ and ‘I’ll be happy when I have a year’ and ‘I’ll be happy when I’m home. ‘ Then ‘I’ll be happy when I’m married’ and ‘I’ll be happy when I have kids.’ And ‘I’ll be happy when my kids grow up’. But it’s a trap. Because we will always be saying ‘I’ll be happy, one day.’ But we need to happy right now." As I thought about that counsel, it was kind of abrupt. I didn’t know why he gave it to me. But as I tried to apply it in this week, I saw why. My companion told me something kinda rough, he said “Elder Lewis, I don’t see you smile very much in our contacts. You need to smile more.” I thought about it, and instead of getting defensive, like maybe I would’ve done before the mission or before I learned, I thought, “you know what, you’re right.” So I slapped a smile on my face and said a prayer, and we went, and the contacting was so much better. I have learned that just putting a smile on your face will do so much for you. Having a positive attitude. You know, it’s not easy all the time. I’ve learned that from the few days that I have been trying to have a good attitude all the time. But it’s so worth it. You have the spirit with you. you get along with your companion. You learn more. You’re happy! So that’s what I learned this week.

Well, after that, on Thursday, we had a normal day until 4:00, then we went to Bogotá. We stayed with some Elders that live right by the offices of the mission. Went to concilio, or the leadership counsel the next day, which is really great. Spiritually fed again, and then we went to the temple after that, and again another spiritual feast. Then we came back to Sogamoso, for Saturday and Sunday, and I am here again. For p-day we went and played soccer, it was a holiday here in Colombia, we went and played soccer with all of the ward. That was really fun, I am starting to use my feet a little bit better. Scored 3 goals today. So that’s been my week. I love you guys so much, hope to hear from you all. See you later! Chao Chao!

-Elder Lewis

Week 56: A Lifetime in 2 Hours

Buenos Tardes Familia!

So this week has been pretty good, it’s been busy as heck… Well, basically what’s been happening is that on Thursday we left for Bogotá to Tierra Linda, one of the richest parts of Bogotá to do intercambios with the Assistants. That was really cool, we were contacting in a park, me and Elder Wood from South Carolina, and we found a guy who was wearing a Slipknot shirt (Slipknot is a heavy metal band) and I walked up to him and said “hey do you like Slipknot?” and he said “Heck ya I do!” then we started talking about the gospel and then we asked him “Hey could we pass by your house one day to share a message with you?” and he said “you guys don’t have time right now do you?” and we were like “wait, are you for real?” and he said “ya, I have 40 minutes.” So we went in this park, which is a beautiful park, and we went and sat down and told him about the Book of Mormon. It wasn’t the right moment to do a first lesson about the restoration, but we did tell him about the Book of Mormon and he was super, super interested. He was a guy of 17 years. It was really really cool to see the power of the Book of Mormon, especially teaching with Elder Wood. The spirit was very strong. You would be surprised how many people love that we teach that Jesus Christ came to the Americas. That’s something that’s very special for people here.

Then after that, we went to correlation with their Ward Mission Leader, that was Nefi. That’s the Spanish version of Nephi. Nefi is a magician. He does some SWEET card tricks. I think I might be able to send a video to you about one of the tricks that he does. They will blow your mind. He always does them at correlation because there are always missionaries visiting with the intercambios with the assistants. That was fun. After that, on Friday night, we went to Carlos y Diana, who are investigators of the Assistants over in Bogotá. It was great, the lesson, we went there and had planned to teach lesson 2, The Plan of Salvation, but I looked over at Elder Wood, and we were kinda short on time because their area, Tierra Linda, is super super far from their house. It’s like ½ an hour in taxi. They have the temple in their area too which is cool, but anyway, we went to Carlos and Diana and we switched to talking about baptism with them. The spirit was very strong again as we explained to them the doctrine of Christ concerning baptism. I felt really good teaching there and we invited them to be baptized, and they had a couple of questions and we answered their questions and then the wife said “you know, I think we are going to need a little bit of time.” And then her husband chimed in and said “Why? I’m ready.” And he said “no, I’m serious, I’m ready to be baptized. You’re right, the Catholic Church does not have the authority to do that. I want to be baptized.” And she looked at him and said “OK. Let’s do it.” And so they are going to be baptized in a few weeks when they can finally attend church. But ya, that was cool experience. When you speak the doctrine very clearly and you explain it, it’s so powerful. We taught them with The Book of Mormon and 2 Nephi 31, which talks about baptism and the doctrine of Christ. I have learned to know how powerful that book really is. My conviction of the Book of Mormon is true, the word of God is very very solid. I don’t know, maybe I am not to the point where Russell M. Nelson said that we need to be, that we should feel like that we need that every day, that we should not just know that it’s true, but that there is something missing if we haven’t read it in the day, maybe I am not to that point but I know that I can get there. I know the Book of Mormon is true, and I love the Book of Mormon.

In our area, we had a couple of good things happen yesterday, we had a investigator named Rodrigo, his family is members, and before he was just not in the lesson, didn’t even want to pay attention. Nothing interested him. We said “hey Rodrigo, how do you feel about this passage of the Book of Mormon?’ and he said “ya good good…” he was just waiting for this thing to end. But last night, we did something called “my life mirrored” where me and my companion open up the scriptures and show them that Methuselah lived for 1,000 years and we asked them “what would you do in 1,000 years of life?” then we move to the mismo….the same Genesis is Noah, that “my spirit wont fight with men continually” and that his years will be trabajar…. That his years would be lessened to 120 years. Then we asked him “what would you do with 120 years?” THEN we say that that average life span in Colombia is like 80 years, so we take 80 and then we show them the scripture in 2 Peter that says that God’s time is that 1day for him is 1,000 years here in the earth. SO we do that math with him and find that 80 years, for God, is 2 hours, more or less. 1.95 hours. Then we say: “what would you do if you only had 2 hours left to live?” and that’s when they really think. Then we share a message with them that life is very short. And we end with Alma 34:32 that says that this is the time for men to prepare to meet God. That really made him think. Then he said: “What should I do? What do I do if I die and I am not ready?” At that point my companion said: “Look, we would like to explain that. We are going to leave this pamphlet with you and let you find the answer and we are gonna come back.” And it was just so cool, because it was finally like he had a connection, like he had a need and we were able to push the Gospel in to fill that need. Hopefully, he will be reading. We will see. That was cool. Then next week we are going to baptize Jefredy. Just trying to get him a testimony. He just doesn’t have that strong of a testimony. But all things are looking up and a growing ward here in the area. I am very optimistic and very happy about what’s going on, so ya!

Alverson, our recent convert, has been flourishing in the Gospel. He is just on fire. He has been accompanying us to lessons and doing very well. He has been taking self reliance classes at the church, he has been taking institute, he got into school… He’s just on fire. He’s just so awesome. He is recognizing the blessings of the Lord in his life. He wore the tie I gave him to church yesterday. It was awesome. I like seeing him with that tie. Unfortunately, I don’t have any anchor ties anymore, I have given them to people haha.

So ya, that was my week. This recording has been not too long, I’m trying to think of anything else that might have happened…Oh ya, on a funny note, we were in the house of familia Medina, and it’s the most humble house that I have actually taught in. Sometimes it’s kinda sad. There are a couple of recent converts in that house, we went in the room of one of them and to cover up holes on the wall there are some close to pornographic things on the wall. He said that he would take them down when he could fix the wall, which doesn’t make sense, but we are going to buy him some church pictures and put them up in…. lugar de… crap. In place of those pictures. But we were there and one of the recent converts is really kinda crazy. I don’t think he is there all the way. But he is great and he supports us a lot. But we had a lesson and he was teaching a little boy named Julian to orar, to pray, and it was really interesting, this prayer. He was dictating to him so that Julian could repeat it. The thing is, when Oscar doesn’t know the name of something or someone, he just throws in whatever he thinks of. So he said “Please Heavenly Father, bless J. J. Thompson that he can lead and direct this church.” And we were like “J.J. Thompson, who the crap is that?” hahaha. My companion is laughing. But he’s a great guy, he’s got a lot of heart. But there’s also a guy that was baptized a little while ago, that before he had done a lot of drugs but he quit them. His name is Fabian. And Fabian, I was on intercambios with Elder Coop who is a new missionary a few weeks ago. We were walking through the street and he said “Elderes!” so we stopped and he starts talking to us, and he was really wigged out. I think he was on drugs again. Ya, he was pretty drugged. But he was like “ya, ya I’m a member, I’m a member.” And we were walking through the street on the sidewalk and he would see a car coming in the street and he would push me out of the way and say “Elder, you just about got hit!” and I said “Fabian, we’re on the sidewalk.” But ya, he was like, “Elders, I am not doing well, I need you to come visit me.” He came to church the next day, but after that and since then, he has had an affinity for Elder Coop. Elder Coop is the one that I sent you a picture of him looking at the parrot. And the other day I guess they were walking through the street, him and his companion, and they found Fabian, and Fabian runs up to him: “Elder COOP!!! Tú eres la luz de mi vida!” or “You are the light of my life!” and gives him a big hug. Hahaha. We have been laughing about it ever since. But ya. Fabian. The interesting thing is that he has the Doctrine and Covenants memorized. I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true. He was the thing freaking memorized. He will just go off quoting it word for word. We will be in church and someone will be saying a scripture and he will get ahead of them and just say the scripture before they finish without a triple in his hands. It’s really interesting.

Well, I have told you guys a lot of things. I hope you guys have a good week, I have been thinking about you guys and it sounds like the Lord is blessing you guys so much. I am glad for Joe getting married and for the success that you guys are having. Love you guys so much, and hope to talk to you the next week. Gracias. Chao Chao!

-Elder Lewis