Week 18: Pictures

                                                       Pizza for Thanksgiving!

My new companion Elder Gregersen. He likes Star Wars too!

Week 18: Done with training,pizza for Thanksgiving, and my new companion

Hola familia y amigos!!

This week was really good!! Tuesday we had a really good NDH con Familia Mosquiera.  We had 3 investigators, 2 menos activos, and 1 miembro all teenagers and it was awesome!  We watched Meet The Mormons, played spoons and ate brownies!  Then Wednesday  we found a new investigator and had a good leccion with her in a members house.  Thursday was Thanksgiving, I was on an intercambio con Elder Consuegra and at 3 PM it started to pour down rain.  We were completely soaked and neither of us had any more clothes so we ordered a pizza and watched the district to finish my 12 weeks training haha.  Then Saturday all of our lecciones fell through but the other missionaries in our district had baptisms, 4 people were baptized! It was awesome the spirit was so strong.  Then Sunday we had a NDH con Familia Echeverry and we watched a video about families and then we played spoons and they fed us a USA  dinner!  Later that night we found a guy who had talked with missionaries 15 years ago and they helped him with something so he thanked us for what we do and bought us juice.  It was really cool, we set a leccion with him for tomorrow.  It makes me think about how everything we do is important, that small act those missionaries did 15 years ago that man never forgot, so we never know when people are watching our actions so we always need to be an good example. Then this morning my comp Elder Araujo got transferred to Bogota. He was an AWESOME trainer and I'm really going to miss him!  I spent all day today waiting for my new comp Elder Gregerson! He's awesome and he's from Hawaii/Idaho, I'm excited to get to work with him!! That's basically it. Hope you guys are all doing well! Love and miss you guys!!

Elder McBride

Week 17: Pictures

Week 17: Lots of work, primary program, and some sick Crocks!!!

Hola familia y amigos!!

This week was really fast but not a whole lot to talk about. Tuesday was a lot of contacting and not a whole lot of success. Wednesday was kind of the same, a lot of contacting and not a whole lot of success, but that night we started teaching one of our invetigators girlfriend and she was really receptive, we have more leccions planned with her and I really think she's going to progress. Then Thursday was a really cool spiritual experience. The place where we write our emails is an internet cafe owned by a family and we always were planning on contacting them but we never did because they're always working. Then all Thursday I had this feeling we needed to go talk to them. So we went to talk to them and only the dad was there because the internet was down!! We talked to him and we're going to have our first leccion with him this upcoming week!! That was a really cool experience with listening to the promptings of the spirit. Then friday was intercambios with Elder Sorbonne again, we had a leccion with one of his investigators who's getting baptized this next week. She is so happy about the gospel, it's awesome to see the joy this gospel brings to people in their life. Then Saturday literally every leccion we had fell through, we basically just biked all day, but we got to set up a noche de hogar for a bunch of young men. My goal is to try and get them all prepared to serve missions, that's going to be tomorrow. Then Sunday was awesome, it was the primary program, it doesn't matter what language a primary program is in no one can understand what they're saying native spéaker or not haha. We had some invesatigators at church and that was really awesome, our investigador said he saw spirits in the chapel, really big white beings standing in the doorway. A little weird but he wants to come back to  church so I guess it was a good thing!! Then today we cleaned the house. We went shopping and I bought crocs because my sandals broke already.  I bought Elder Araujo a milkshake because this was probably our last p-day together. We ate lunch with our district and then we were going to play paintball but it was closed so we ended up just playing soccer. That's about it, I love and miss you guys hope everything is going well!!

Elder McBride

Week 16 Pictures

Week 16: Lots of contacting, lots of rain, and some new food!

Hola familia y amigos!!!

This week went by super fast and it was a ton of fun.   Tuesday we contacted a lot and found two really good new investigators.  Wednesday I had an intercambio with Elder Sorbonne and that was really fun, we had to ride our bikes and carry our lunch which was hard but fun, we had good lecciones with members that day.  Then Thursday we found an awesome familia contacting, they let us right in, we taught them about the restoration and it was awesome, the spirit was so strong in that leccion. Then Friday was interesting. It was hot all day, but that night it started to rain like crazy. Elder Araujo and I were riding our bikes in the streets but it was more like a swimming pool. There was no one else outside so we sang Rolling In The Deep at the top of our lungs. We were so soaked we literally dumped glasses of water out of our shoes when we got home.  Then Saturday was fun too. It was hot all day long, we had almuerzo with Familia Alcira and that was the first time that I've really eaten anything weird. I ate cow lungs and then I ate cow intestines filled with rice and blood! I actually really liked it, the food here is awesome. Then the same thing happened it started pouring down rain, so we took off our shoes and socks, put them in our bags and we rode our bikes home 20 minutes in the pouring down rain without shoes haha it was awesome!  Then Sunday was great too, we had two of our young investigators come to church and that was awesome. Then we contacted that night and found a really good familia again. We taught them and they were really receptivo and then they made us dinner!! Then today we cut our hair, cleaned the house, took pictures with santa and bought food. I'm really having fun here and I love the people!!   Miss you guys hope you are all doing well!!   Elder McBride

Week 15: Pictures

Week 15:Multi Zone Conference, Halloween, and packages!

Hola familia y amigos!!

This week went really, really fast. Monday night my companero left for Bogota so I had a new companion Missionary Elder Cieza for Monday and Tuesday, he has less time in the mission than me so we were probably the youngest companerismo in all of the mission!  We biked a lot Tuesday and had some good lecciones, but it was hard to get around because everyone was celebrating Halloween. I got little candies for Elder Cieza, Araujo, and Duerden. Then Wednesday my packages came! Thanks for the peanut butter and all the other goodies! I eat the peanut butter very sparingly. Thanks Fam Aanderud for the mini hands and the minion stickers!! Later that day we had a leccion with an invetigador Victor and when we were getting ready to leave 2 bats flew in his house and Elder Araujo and I ended up in his bedroom with 2 bats! We had a broom and eventually got them out the window. 

Thursday we all traveled to Bogota for a MULTI ZONE conference. It was really good, Presidente Baquerizo talked about how missionaries and members need to work together, and how investigators with baptism dates are like "MESSI" and "MESSI IS MESSI" so they are special and we need to treat them like the soccer world treats Messi, it was really funny. Then Friday and Saturday was a lot of working, a lot of our lecciones fell through, but Saturday night we had a leccion with a guy named Alfonzo, he was baptized when he was 8 but has been inactive.  We had set a leccion with him the other day but he purposely left so he wouldn't be there when we got there, but we were late so he got home and then we arrived 2 minutes after him. He let us in and later he told us that he let us in because it was a sign from God that he needed to listen to us! That was really cool, it lets me know that God is putting people in our paths to teach . Then Sunday was good, Church was great, but lots of our lecciones fell through but we had to really fun Noche de Hogar's with Fam Guzman and Fam Echevere. 

Today we played games as a zone with all the Elders. We played musical chairs, a flinging chicken game and eating donuts without using hands, it was really fun. Then I ate at a really good burger place. The mission is really fun and really hard, but the message that we have is all about Christ and his atonement and that is the most important event in the history of the world. It wasn't something easy, so it shouldn't be easy to teach people about it. I'm glad I have this chance to serve the people of Colombia and I'm excited for the next week! Love and miss you all, hope all is well!!

Elder McBride