A week of Venting. Keep prayin'! (This one has pictures and video and audio!)

WHOOOAAAAAAA!!! I sounds like everything going good (kind of... I think...) I'm sorry that this letter won't be too long.. Just after getting the lecture haha. We don't print letters anymore because it's expensive and hard to do in the rich parts of Cali. So I spent a lot of time reading today.

To everyone who wrote me, I'm sorry I can't write you as fast as you write me but THANK YOU SO MUCH. Your letters are always helpful (especially for this week). You are all righteous examples to me.

This week was really REALLY hard. We are all still trying recover from it. We had zone conference and that was pretty cool. But it ate up the week. We had some really stressful moments. In Pasto, we were kind of like a different mission. Same president and rules but so far away that it was just different. But here we are constantly under the eye.The thing is, we don't have enough time to do ANY of the stuff they keep telling us to do. So now we are all over worked in attempts to get us focused in the work, which makes us depressed because we get stressed and then we all think about home because we are depressed. So it's been a really hard week. I know it's my fault, but I've kind of let some of Satan's temptations get to me. In the sense that I have convinced myself that the the mission office is a cult and they all suck and I don't want to listen to them. Tell us how you really feel, Justin...  It's been harder and harder to want to be obedient and even want to be here. Nothing more than that but it's not good. Snap out of it!!! He will. I'm sure. 

SO... the letters I got this week were heaven sent! (Thanks to anyone who wrote!) They all talked about being obedient and how that makes a difference in the way people see you. So I've made some goals to get better about wanting to follow the rules and stop trying to be against authority. I know it'll help and I'm sorry that I'm probably not pleasing anyone by this letter..

But Yes, we are all trying to get better and I'm starting to get better about reading the Book of Mormon. That helps a TON!!! I want to be so much better when I read all of the Stellar examples in there.

Don't worry about me but please don't stop praying... we need all the help we can get.

I love you all. Happy Birthday Emily!!!! Audio of him singing HERE!

Love,
Elder Skinner.

                        Entertaining ourselves on Pday with no money!

My Companion

Toilet paper!

Trying out the clear nail polish that is super popular
with the men in Colombia.

New haircut (from across the room)

Here's a bunch of old pictures I copied off of Elder Pead's blog! (An Elder he served with in Pasto, and the MTC!) Thanks, Elder Pead's family for giving me the link! It's been fun to read his posts. After I'd lectured Justin about taking more pictures and how jealous I was of Elder Pead's family, Justin told his dad that Elder Pead is a teen guy version of Gram. He takes pictures to document EVERYTHING! Haha. I thought that was funny. 

PRAY for new investigators! oh and some Cockroaches and Girly Screeches

This week was really hard. We haven't been finding any new people and the people we have are hard to find time with. We averaged around 3 lessons a day this week and in this mission, that's really bad. We have a lot of family nights with members planned to find investigators for this week and so I have high hopes for the new people we can find this week.

Something funny that happend this week!! Elder Critchlow (he's form Utah and lives in our house) was shining his shoes for church yesterday and as he had the shoe in his hand, a huge cockroach crawled out of it and onto his arm. He and his companion are deathly afraid of those things so while I was ironing my shirt in the next room, I heard his companion say, "So for the next district meeting... WAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"
The house was filled with girly screeches from the both of them and they jumped around trying to kill it. Since the two rooms are connected by a sliding glass door, I saw and heard all of it. Almost burned my shirt because I was laughing so hard! It was hilarious and it's the new favorite topic of the house haha.

I got a nice Mother's day letter with this, but this is all there was for the general letter. 

He's doing okay, but has been struggling with some stuff. Prayer and support through emails or letters would be so great. He's probably just going through a slump, and with the new HEAT he's experiencing (Daniel says he's been spoiled in the mountains and this heat is the real South American climate near the equator!) and little missionary work going on, he's been down. :( 

But he always ends with a great upbeat attitude so I know he'll be fine. 
So here's a part of our call with him on Mother's day talking about the bus ride from Pasto to Cali. 

 And here he is reciting the First Vision in Spanish. 

Been Sick and Being Transferred to San Fernando, Cali

Life sounds like it's going smooth like a smoothie! Glad to hear about everyone and what they've been doing. :) HAPPY STAR WARS DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! (May the Fourth be with you!)

So Mother's Day!!!!!!! I'm thinking around 5:30 my time. Because I don't know how easy it will be with church and ward council. So if that's cool with you guys, be ready on google hangout at that time :) I'll have 5 minutes on Thursday to confirm the time but only through email. So we'll find out soon if you can at that time. SUPER EXCITED!!!

So other news! I'm being to transferred! To San Fernando in Cali. My first real taste of hot weather and I'm not all that excited about it. I really like Pasto but you know, Change is Good. I'm excited to get to the main city part of the mission. I thought Colombia would be more of  a jungle but really, from all that I've seen it's just city city city. So I'm hoping there will be at least on jungle-y area I get to see. But I leave tomorrow at eight or nine and it'll be a pretty long bus ride haha. But I won't be alone this time so that's good news! I also found out that Elder Cortes (his last companion) is going to be my zone leader there and I'm stoked about that.

Other NEWS! I've been pretty darn sick since Saturday. I ate something bad I think. We had a dessert at the lunch family's  house and it was some sort of jello stuff that had a raw in it. (Raw what? I don't know.) Everyone thinks that THAT'S what made sick. But I've had the worst diarrhea since Saturday. I've been restricted to nothing but liquids until this morning and now I'm allowed to eat breads and soft foods like that. But pretty much all day yesterday was spent sleeping and drinking. I got some much needed rest for sure. haha. Hoping the bus tomorrow has a bathroom. ;) (Owen specifically prayed for this after we read his letter.) 

This week was really hard and super long. We had very few lessons and doing this whole BEE missionary thing has been really tough. It's fun but we have literally three people we are teaching right now and they can only meet with one day of the week, leaving a LOT of time in between visits. But it's all good. We both got the rest we missed when we were home all day yesterday. Only found 7 new people who are also a little tight on their schedules. But hey. Seven is better than nothing.

We still haven't found a house :P but we are looking into two or three apartments we've found. And the ward secretary hasn't either from what I've heard. (I guess this isn't his problem anymore...)

Well, I'll write you guys on Thursday and SEE you guys on Sunday!!!!!![?] (Happy Mother's Day to me... Hee Hee!)

Love you guys!!!!
Love
Elder Skinner