Protests, Teaching, and Weeds

Elder Wadley is alive and well, and seems to be falling into the routine of an actual missionary! This week we got updates on the work he and his companion are doing.

Dang i cant believe school is out already that is crazy!! I am so glad i don't have to deal with that though haha! It is terrible having to deal with last minute crap! Well this was the last week in this transfer and it was pretty good! We had a lot of lessons and picked up some new investigators which hopefully we can get them to progress and get to baptism.

So this is kinda how this week went, last Pday we went back to the primera and ate ice cream and a hamburger! We saw some monkeys but i didn't get any pictures of them:( We found a 1,2 and 5 mil stores, they are kind of like dollar stores and i bought a couple things haha i bought a little game that has like Tetris on it.  The rest of the week wasn't really anything special just kind of a normal week. We had another intercambio with our zone leaders basically we walked a lot and accomplished nothing. So that made us tired the next day as well plus a lot of our appointments fell through that next day.We did have a couple lessons that were pretty cool! One is our investigator Miacol he is 18 and pretty much knows all the stuff we are teaching him it is cool he knows a lot! We asked him to be baptized and he said that he was going to pray about it. Another one is we contacted a reference from our Ward Mission Leader and we slowly started to teach his whole family. We were teaching his sister and cousin and invited them to be baptized, and the sister ,Beatris, said she had been praying about what church she should go to and be baptized and all that stuff, my comp said that we believed that us coming to their house was an answer to her prayer. She said that she knew it was an answer to her prayer! Even cooler is that this happened while we were teaching about Joseph Smith and the Restoration! Their family all really like hearing the word of God hopefully they can progress and we can keep working with them! They are a super nice and humble family! After we got done teaching them we were walking back and they had fires in the street! A bunch of people were protesting and had fires in the middle of the street. They would take stuff from random people on the street and throw their stuff in the street in the fire! Oh Colombia! Other than that we had a couple other lessons. Aide still doesn't really want to be baptized which kinda sucks.So yesterday was a pretty rad day! So the last couple of days have been overcast and rainy, so it has been a little bit colder. So on Sunday I guess it was raining hard core ( I slept through it ) but it cooled down and the power didn't go out so we had the fans going all night so i actually slept cold!! Like at one point it was colder outside than it was in the church, and the church has AC!! But it is kinda sad because this "cold" i am talking about is maybe like 70 degrees haha! But i am used to 100+ degrees so it kinda makes sense i guess. Anyways this Sunday after lunch we went to Abe´s and took a nap haha and when i woke up there was a pizza sitting on my lap! I thought i was dreaming but he went and got us pizza! They also made us hot chocolate! Then later that night we taught the same family i was talking about earlier , the Lopez family, and then came home and that is pretty much my week! 

I hope everyone is having a good time back home! Love you guys! I miss you!

Elder Wadley

My heart is so full of love for Abe and family for taking care of and loving my boy. I am sure that the pizza and hot chocolate are a huge sacrifice for this family. It makes me feel helpless to not be able to hug them, and pay them back somehow. I can only pray that the Lord will bless them in some way for their kindness, and that He will make me aware of opportunities to be able to pay it forward. It is very humbling to be the mom of a missionary- and feel so grateful to strangers.
 Sam's letter:

It was like 70 degrees here for a couple of days! It felt so good! Hey man i always look for white fluffy clouds and they make me happy! I also saw like 10 stars the other night haha! I love the pics man! So i have two things for you specifically. One is we went shopping the other day and i bought Cookies and Cream Oreos!! Do they have them in the states! I sure hope so because they are amazing!! Like so good!

The other is you know your story about teaching the guy with the sucker and the money and he did not get it at all? Well i had a similar experience on an intercambio this week haha! We were teaching this lady about the priesthood and how to baptize you need to have the right authority and she didn't get it. So Elder Larroza did an example, where if you were driving and got pulled over by basically an ice cream man and he started to write you a ticket you would think he is stupid and you wouldn't take it right? She said that yeah she would take the ticket haha! We were like uhhhh, and said if a police officer pulled you over he can write you a ticket because he has that authority haha and she didn't get it oh man it was so funny!! 

As far as the Spanish and all of that i don't know man i feel like almost i am digressing a little bit i mean some things are staring to click a little bit but not much.  I try to practice my Spanish, but i still cant talk worth a poop. Other than that it is pretty good though and i teach a little bit in the lessons but normally I just sit there and smile a lot haha. 

We still try to work with Aide but she hasn't been home lately and i don't really know what to do about her. It kinda sucks but hopefully we can get her to baptism.Anyways i like thats about it for now, I love you Pops! I miss you!

Protest fires.

(I feel like maybe Colombia is on to something here with the protest fires. I think I will adapt this. When our ward changes church time to the 9:00 block, I will just toss my church stuff into a street fire in protest!)

"Glorias"

The area Elder Wadley is in right now has these government housing buildings. He calls them "the glorias." This is a view of them. He said the wealthier people paint their homes, and upgrade the flooring to tile, etc. The next photo is a ground level view of some of the glorias.

Some very welcome rain clouds!

Eating a hamburger. Side note: for the 18 years I have known this kid- he refused to eat hamburgers. He thought they were "Gucky." (<--five year old Jayden) Now he embraces the burger! And rice every day. That is another food that he wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

I noticed his sweaty face right away. Hahaha!

Also on the weekly food menu. "Alphabet Soup." I hope he ate Spanish words.

And a "selfie."

I am not sure if this is going to work. He sent me a little video clip of these plants that grow in more tropical climates. We discovered them years ago on a family vacation to Puerto Rico, and saw them again on another trip to Ecuador. The kids were fascinated with them. When you touch them, the leaves close up- like a Venus Fly Trap. Not sure what they are called, or why they close up, but Jayden was excited to find them in Colombia.

Pretty cool how something like a common weed, some fluffy clouds, or a scattering of stars can make you feel connected somehow.