Wednesday, October 29, 2014

The Good, Bad and the Vomit

Me and Elder Tomo from Mozambique!
GRAM AND GRANDAD! that sounds fun! My parents are coming to visit us in Oklahoma! We are super excited...
I´m happy to hear about that! 
And it really does help to hear that you guys want me here. The past two weeks have been really rough. Often times I want to come home cause I feel like I´m not progressing. But really, I am! It just feels like I´m not because time moves in slow motion here. It feels like I've been here for a very long time. But I´m doing better now.

The members feed us like crazy down here. Too much if I´m honest. Lunch here is the big meal and dinner is just as small if not smaller than breakfast. So that´s a weird transition. (excerpt from Ian's letter that Justin's Pleasant Hills YM group will find familiar- weak stomachs need not read: 
So funny story. read this to mom and dad. We were eating lunch at a member's
house and I had just finished eating a ton of fried chicken and potatoes
and pineapple juice when the 19 year old son brings me this giant bowl of
chicken soup. So to be polite, I start eating it. Well, I start to feel
sicker and sicker until I finish the bowl and I feel like I´m dying. So I
go into the bathroom to splash some cold water on my face and with like a
.5 second warning, I barf ALL of the soup into the sink. The entire bowl.
In the sink. Which then decides to clog. So I´m standing horrified in the
bathroom of a member's house with a sink full of vomit. So I had to explain
to my comp what happened and then I cleaned it up hahaha.)
We have two more baptism dates!! For some parents of a recent convert. And I´m stoked!

We went on exchanges on Thursday which was very cool. We taught some cool lessons.

We live in a pretty decently sized apartment with the zone leaders. That´s fun!
My shoes are absolutely wonderful. No blisters and my feet are normally never sore. It rains cats and dogs here and it helps that they´re water proof. Sleeping is a nightmare (or not, because you can´t have nightmares when you wake up five times a night). But it´s slowly getting better. Melatonin helps but I have horrible dreams every time I use it. So I don´t usually take it.

The bugs don´t bother me anymore! It´s magical!! (Or maybe all our prayers for him...)

I´ve been trying to work hard and Spanish is coming along!!

Also, I´m teaching an English class every Tuesday now so that´s really cool! Elder Garcia pretty much started that. The problem is that the only English a lot of these people know are the names of bands or swear words. So they´ll write that on the board and I´ll have to explain that it´s bad and they shouldn´t say it haha.

I love you!!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!
Love,
Elder Skinner
In the MTC with his new favorite fruit- Passion Fruit which he says looks like Alien embryos or brains or something. They do! Ew! (But I know the taste yummy.)


 The cool statues are at the bottom of the mountain we toured in Bogota 
and the one of me is at the top of the mountains.
 And the tiger blanket is my room here.
My friend Elder Dalton in the same mission. This is a kid who was in Justin's seminary class in Layton last year who go the exact same call-word for word -except their names.
 (I think that 's who this is....)
I don´t have any new pics cause I´m not really allowed to carry around my camera. It´s dangerous to pull it out here 'cause someone could steal it. :(

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Popayán, Colombia - Week 2



I'm not sure they are bed bugs actually. Cause no one else in the apartment
has them or any bites or anything. The bug spray is helping though. I hope
it's not something like a spider...
Anyways! This week has been a very tough one and my patience has been
tested like crazy... Today while we were doing Pday stuff (if you can call
it that. All my comp wants to do is play soccer and solve his rubix cube) I
left our window open and loe and behold, HUGE rain storm. So now my
journal, sheets, pillow, notebook, copy of Our Search for Happiness, and
other assorted things are totally soaked. Not ruined but soaked. Oh well
haha. My bad ;)
The baptsim on thursday didn't happen for reasons I won't name so that was
lame. But we are working on getting a new date set for her! Yesterday we
challenged a family we've been teaching to be batized and they all said
yes!!! 5 baptisms for November 15! Crazy huh?
We also had 7 investigators at church and I gave a scary talk in sacrament in Spanish! Wowza!
I can understand more spanish now but still not perfect. Speaking is still
coming slowly but it's coming! This country is absolutely beautiful though.
The mountains are amazing and the weather (here) is perfect. We've been
having a lot of lessons lately and they all seem to go well!
The mornings are super rough here though. Every morning I wake and I'm
really homesick and stuff and have a hard time with that. But once we start
teaching I feel great and all is well!
I love you guys! I hope all is well in Edmond!
Love,
Elder Skinner
I sounded really annoyingly sad in that last email haha... Sorry about
that.. I'm doing great!! I love it here and I miss you guys a lot!
Don't stop being the best family ever.

 


Tuesday, October 14, 2014

First Week in the Mission Field- Popayan, Colombia


Here's the latest from Elder Justin! And Pictures!

Hey ya'll! Happy anniversary mom and dad!! It's been 21 years already?
Shmowzow...
 I'm in Popayan and it's beautiful weather all the time! I've had to use my
big jacket a couple of times for water proof purposes but it's like spring
all the time here. 


I haven't had any weird food yet but some of these juices and fruits get pretty interesting. The mission field is incredibly fun but very very hard. The people talk super duper fast and it's hard to understand them. My companion is really nice and cool. Elder Garcia is his name and he's from Lima, Peru! My Spanish is much better now but far from
perfect (or even good for that matter).
It's been a very patience building past few days... Elder G speaks a little
English so that's good and helpful. We've been teaching like crazy! We got
four new investigators yesterday and we have a baptism on Thursday! I was
asked to be the one to baptize and I am crazy stoked!!!
The mission president is very nice! I was told to delete all of my movie
soundtracks though so that's lame. He speaks very little English so that
interview with him was pretty stressful. haha.
There most definitely bed bugs and I have a bout a million bites all over
the place. They aren't too bad though. What??? Not too bad? That sounds pretty bad!
I'm going to start sleeping with bug spray on to see if that changes anything. If it doesn't then I have chiggers or something like that. But all is well!! Good boy, but I still think he should contact the mission president about possible bed bugs. Won't he just spread them through the whole mission? Comment below if you know anything about missionaries having bed bugs...
General conference was so good!!! I loved it so much!!! I really liked the
fact that they're speaking in different languages now. That's pretty cool!
I liked the talk that talked about patriarchal blessings and how we need
to live in a way that will make the promised blessings in them come to
pass. It may seem like, "well, of course your living the right way. you're
on a mission." But your mind set counts too. It's been hard to keep myself focused on the
mission and not on you guys or how much I miss home or music or my guitars.
SO I've tried to change my thought process and it's coming slowly, like my
Spanish, but I'm getting there!
I love you guys! Keep it fresh!
love,
Elder Skinner

His mission companion from his last 2 weeks in the MTC who didn't speak English 
In honor of Principal Skinner and Elder Skinner, an Elder at the MTC drew these characters for him.



Justin and his new companion, Elder Garcia.



 I don't know where these were taken. I was assuming Bogota...

The home of the Bed Bugs? 
Aaigh!@*&$*&(!

Friday, October 3, 2014

MTC days are numbered! (4 more)


I can't believe it, but he's leaving the MTC in Bogota for his mission in Cali on TUESDAY!! 
That means he was only in the MTC for 6 weeks. When he said that at the beginning, I though he made a mistake. I have always thought it was 2 months in the MTC for foreign languages, but I guess in the country it's only 6 weeks.

Do you see him? (Bottom Left corner! Look at that missionary cut. Is his hair parted??)

We got a great letter this week. Must have been a birthday present for me. Here it is: (my comments in green again.)

Mummy and family,
HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY!!! How old are you now? Like 32? Yes, that's exactly how old I am... cough cough.
Sorry my letters are so short haha. They give us an hour and that is not
enough time... That's a half hour longer than I supposed. ;) But things are going swell. I had my first touch of home sickness last Friday and it's still lingering but no big deal. I'm having fun!
Things at the MTC just picked up. I got a Latino companion from Venezuela
named Elder Paz. Doesn't speak English so it has been VERY frustrating but
I'm hanging in there. :) My Spanish has easily doubled, maybe even tripled
since last Wednesday when he showed up. We went street contacting again
yesterday and thanks to his craziness we talked to 20 people, got 14 of their
numbers, and committed two of them to be baptized!! He was seriously nuts.
He was practically chasing people down (which is really not something we
should do but he knew more Spanish and so I had very little control
over that.)
I just wanted to read my Patriarchal blessing in the celestial room at the temple so
I'm so happy you sent it so fast! It's so amazing to read in such a
spiritual place.
I just got six dearelder.com letters on Wednesday so yes I got them :) Hmmmm. 6 letters from home, same day homesickness started...Coincidence? Probably not. oops. I loved
that haha. Tell all my fool sibs to write me! Specifically Ian. Haven't
heard from that booger yet! Ian has written twice (short emails) but has put the wrong email address both times. (shakes head)
I've made some amazing friends here and it's been super awesome. The scary
part is that this has been the LONGEST WEEKS OF MY LIFE....... It feels
like I'm coming home on Tuesday. Oh yeah, I leave the MTC on Tuesday. I
might call from the airport in Cali or Bogota depending on whether or not I
decide that it's ok to do that. It'll be at like 3:00 AM if I do though. so
probably not.
Spanish is coming! I've been doing pretty well and proselyting yesterday
was incredible. It's been hard not to feel sorry for myself when I can't
talk my companion (unless I want to bear my testimony or ask to go to the
bathroom haha) 
So I'm retarded and can't figure out how to use the life straw... I don't think it's that hard. Put in water, suck water up. I will find instructions and send. 
I'll send a real letter once I'm out of the MTC with some stickers for the
kiddies. There are these stickers here that come in little chocolates and
they are worth more than money man. People lliterallybuy ties with these
stickers. I have around 25 and man do I have some good ones!
I love you guys!!!
Love Elder Jenky Baby.

So...looks like he's off to his mission SOON!!! Yikes. 
Start sending mail to Mission home now.