Colombia Cali Mission is 40 years old!

Things are going swell here in Colombia! Transfers are next week (already? Sheesh!) and we are both pretty sure Elder Cortes is leaving. He thinks that I'm going to get called to be the district leader as his replacement  and be training a new missionary. That sounds horrifying and I don't know how much I want that. But all is well if it happens haha. 

I got your letter and read about Garrett and the kids swearing at school (Garrett is in his first year of junior high and gets to experience so much swearing it's really bothered him. He's not used to hearing the F-word constantly... ) and I remembered something that I found when we were living with Gram in California before we moved to Layton. It's called the "No Cussing Club" and the website has a place wear you can sign up and get some stuff like a bracelet, a book of words that can be said instead of bad words, and some other stuff I can't
remember. I thought G and O would like that and if he wore a bracelet, it would spark some sort of missionary opportunity. I'll let you guys decide what to do from there ;) haha.

This week was sooooooo long. It feels like it's been a hundred years since I've written. But it's been a decent one. We had a Karaoke activity in the church and it was a big hit. We had about 50 people (give or take) with lots of investigators and less active members. Elder Cortes and I had the spiritual thought which was about enduring to the end and it was super
cool. I did feel left out considering I don't know a single song they played (not really left out. Just kind of like that black sheep you know?).

The mission turns 40 years old this Saturday and we are having a huge devotional and it's going to big a huge deal. Just for the occasion, they made a list of all of the converts from the last 2 years and gave to us to update and invite the people to come. It's going to be cool but because it's this Saturday night, we can't hold any baptisms. So that's annoying.
But hey, it'll be cool!

The tiredness issue has eased up a little (He's been super tired during the day. While I think a lot of it is just being a missionary and learning a new language, I mentioned that he should make sure he's getting enough to eat and vitamins, especially iron.) and I'm pretty sure it's because I've been eating this cereal that has 90% of the Iron we should have daily. So I think that's helping. If you want to try the cereal, mom, It's Quaker Oatmeal Squares. It's yummy too! So I'll keep you posted on that.

We had divisions with the traveling Elders. They are people who travel to every area in the mission and do divisions with us to see if we can improve. But that day, I was in some sort of funk and the whole day I was messing up on everything. I'm pretty sure it was because I knew we had someone practically grading our lessons. So that day was one that should have ended 24 hours before it started haha ;) But we learned some cool things from Elder Dean and we have been able to improve a lot more.

(I love these "typical missionary" pictures he sent. Most are from his companion's camera, so Thanks, Elder Cortes!)











































 A bug we found on the terrace.



Paper cigarettes we made with notes of encouragement for those trying to quit smoking.