I can see the future...

The zone leaders snuck into our house to eat our food. 

They threw balloons at us when we walked in for Halloween.  It was kinda funny. 

October 25—Today was Stake Conference.  There were more than 200 people there.  President Searle and his wife spoke as well as the Area seventy, Elder Vallejo.  It rained pretty hard today during our last lesson with Alice Chaparro.  She’s lives close to the chapel.

October 28—Today I finished the Book of Mormon!  I also killed one of my white pilot pens.  It ran out of ink after 6 weeks of using the same pen.  Today in the morning, we contacted a reference from Rodrego Areas, close to where he used to live.  The family was hard core Catholic.  The Mom definitely knows her stuff, (or thinks she does).  “We believe in the same organization of Christ’s church” Uh huh, and why do you have a Pope??  “My job is to make sure that everyone understands baptisms, because in these days no one understands.”  Right, and that’s why you baptize infants.  Yea, oh well, the church is true.  

October 31—We started the day today with a service project for German Castillo.  He is a stake high council member.  He was assigned to barrio (ward) Hipodromo, but they just reassigned him to our ward.  He is moving from Dueno Soledad (an apartment complex) to a house close to the familia Marquez.  So we helped him get all the stuff out of his house and into the truck.  While we were there, he talked a little about his mission and told me he knows Aunt Bonnie!!  He was the assistant when she was on her mission in Chile.  Pretty Crazy!  He just got back from his mission 2 years ago.  We finished helping him kinda late, so we got permission from our zone leaders to go to lunch in p-day clothes.  When we walked into the house of Hrm Vicentra, the look on Rodrigo’s face was absolutely priceless.  After lunch, we went to the sacar dinero and we went all the way out to Prado Soledad.  We talked with the familia Sermienta and passed by Hrm Isquierdo.  Later we went to Youani and Karen.  Karen pretty much taught us about the 12 tribes of Israel.  She is a recent convert that studies like crazy.  Her husband Yovani works construction and maintenance at the Institute and has a ton of church history books and manuals. 

Also on Saturday we were in Prado Soledad (really far away) and we were looking for un hermano who is a member of the church and his brother is not. We haven’t had a lesson with them, but we’ve talked to them several times. Neither one was there, but while we were in the street his neighbor came out and started talking to us.  She said that she knows a little bit about the Mormons.  So we sat down with her and listened to what she knew.  We introduced ourselves. then she told us that she had a special gift from dios (God).... She can see the future!  Exciting, right?!  

She told us a bunch of experiences when she helped the police catch a robber and then they executed him.  She also told us about how one man wanted to deep fry her.   She thinks her neighbor is doing bad things to people... she seriously told us stories forever and ended with "So I have this special gift from God.  If you guys need to know anything just let me know."  Sweet.  Honestly, I almost lost it.  I was just cracking up.  This was the third self-proclaimed prophet we’ve found in just two weeks.  I was seriously sooooo close to asking her the name of Elder Cavero’s future wife.  Sooo close!  We ended the discussion quickly and invited her to church, not thinking anything of it.... The scary part was, she acutally came!

On Halloween night, when we arrived at our house, the Zone Leaders were hiding inside with balloons & the kitchen light on, with our ice cream out, cooking French fries.  It was pretty funny.  We entered the house and yelled, “WHO TOUCHED MY ICE CREAM?!” They took pictures of everything they did.  (Elder Slack and Elder Gonzalez--guilty)

November 1--Today lots of people came to church.  They changed Sacrament meeting to be first, so everyone was there for the classes.  We had divisions (splits) today and I went with Edubaldo to Prado Soledad.  It rained and we got drenched by a little wave from a car passing by.  I thought that only happened in movies.  The lady that can “see the future” came to the Sacrament Meeting.  Elder Cavero was scared.  Pretty awesome.  She was there for 20 minutes.  She said hi to us and left.  I was waiting for her to try to read Elder Cavero’s palm.  He was so freaked out. hahahah crazy.  I loved every minute.

Confession for the week... I have eaten fries and ice cream for dinner every single night for two weeks.... but it’s ok because we live in Colombia!

A little online chat:  It's always a fun surprise to catch Mason when he's actually online.  

Mason: ¿esta alla?

Mom: ?What the? English please.  M

Mason: bueno tiene que practicar...

Mom: No, I don't have to practice, my mission was English speaking. And every other calling the Lord has called me to has been to teach in English. So yeah, nope.  But I'm really happy you are learning Spanish! Smarty. 

Mason: well what happens if you get called on a mission to Spain with dad to be a mission president? gotta be ready... 

Mom: Ha. Fine, you win. IF Dad and I get called to Spain, I'll learn Spanish.  Hey, you're on the computer early today, do you have lots of extra time to write us all lots of letters???!!

Mason: I almost always get on at 5 and end at 6 but it takes me a long time to write or think in English. That’s why I like to just take pictures of my journal....

Mom: We love getting your journal. You are very descriptive in recording what happens each week. *But I might give you a bill at the end of your mission for how tedious it is for me to retype it for normal human beings to read…

Mom: Spencer wants to know if people in Columbia went trick-or-treating?

Mason: They used to copy the American tradition, but then kids started disappearing and lots of bad stuffed happened so no not really anymore.... but they sure love to party! Tell spencer to look up Vallenato music. He’ll like that.