November 24, 2014 New Companion and Ladrones!

November 24, 2014

New Companion and Ladrones (Thieves)!

Hello! This week has gone by pretty fast, because of transfers and such. On Tuesday Elder Perez and I had to get up at 5 to leave the house at 6 to get to Bogotá by 9. We listened to a couple great talks from the Assistants, and then had our transfers! Elder Perez went with his new companion to an area in Bogotá, but I had to wait because my companion was coming from Villa Vicencio, which is pretty far from Bogotá. I was waiting in the chapel with just a few other missionaries for a few hours, when it started to rain and even hail! It was cool, because it is only the second time in the mission that I had seen hail, and some of the missionaries had never seen it before in their lives haha. Then at like 4 the missionaries from Villa Vicencio got there, and by the time Elder Maquera and I got back to La Mesa, it was already almost 9 at night, so we just visited the Duque family for a minute and went to sleep.

On Wednesday we visited Agustín to help him start his first talk in the church! It was pretty cool. We also went to visit a couple less actives, Rosa and Leidy, who haven't gone to church in 7 years. And they committed to go! I was sooo happy. Then we visited an investigator, Oscar, who is an ex drug addict, who wants to get baptized already. The only thing is, he has to work on Sunday (like everyone else haha). But he will get there!

The best thing that happened on Thursday was that for lunch, a new member gave us a big, thick piece of steak wrapped in bacon. Even though the majority of the appointments fell, I was still happy haha.

On Friday we went to Soacha to have meetings, but as we were leaving to go to La Mesa, I felt someone grab the back of my collar. I thought it was a missionary and started to laugh, when I looked back and saw a ñero with a little pocket knife to my neck who said "Give me your backpack or I'll stab you." Yep so I gave him my backpack, then he took my wallet (a $2 Spiderman wallet I bought haha) and the cell phone, and two other young men took my companions money and left. I was just kinda confused from the whole thing, it was my first time getting robbed haha. It wasn't a really big deal, they were just a few kids looking for easy money and saw a gringo. The bad part is, the backpack had all my scriptures and manuals and notebook and highlighters and markers and the binder to teach English for the zone (I am the designated English teacher haha). I told the dude a couple times there was nothing, but he took off anyway. I am happy that I am ok, and my companion too. So we walked the long two minute trip to the stake center, and the zone leaders gave us another cell phone to use. Luckily I keep all my documents and the majority of my money in a different place, so we were able to still eat lunch and go in the trip back home.

Today we went to Soacha again to play soccer and American Football! It was pretty fun, even though we had a tiny nerf football haha. We went and ate fast food, and I put an arepa in my cheeseburger (pretty good!), then had fun doing nothing in the two hour drive back to la Mesa.

Gotta go! I know that this church is the only in the world with the fullness of the gospel; If I didn't know, I wouldn't be here in Colombia today. Have an awesome week!!!!

Love,

Elder Toombs

November 17, 2014 Transferred!!

November 17, 2014

Transferred!

Hello! So we have transfers tomorrow, and I am staying here in La Mesa! Elder Perez will be transferred to Bogotá, and one of the missionaries from Elder Perez's group will be coming here with me. Another Peruvian, which means that half of my companions will have been from Perú haha.

We have had a couple of good weeks! And it has been raining and thundering a ton!!! The difficult part of La Mesa is using time wisely and intelligently; we always have more lessons here than I have had in any other area, but that doesn't mean much more success haha. One of the problems that I have previously described is how much the people work here; we teach a few of our investigators in their workplace (stores, haircut places, etc), and even though we need to teach the people that receive us, these people have a huge difficulty with going to Church on Sunday. We have been learning a lot about how we need to teach the importance of every meeting on Sunday and about the Sabbath Day, but it is still a very hard commitment for the people here. We just need to find people that don't work on Sunday haha.

Last Saturday, we helped the branch to clean the chapel in an activity they called "A Cleaning Journey." I wasn't too surprised when not a ton of people showed up haha. But as we were cleaning with the branch president, a few families showed up, and we had a good time sweeping and mopping and then eating hamburgers with buns that Agustín cooked!

We are starting to see the perks of having a baker in the branch; he also brings the bread for the sacrament on Sunday. Agustín has been growing well in the church; slow, but he has come to church on time and stayed the whole time every Sunday since his baptism. And, he is going to give a talk on Sunday! He is pretty shy, so we will be helping him during the week.

The Suárez family didn't show up this Sunday; that was pretty sad, because they won't be able to reach their baptism this month. They always have to work on holiday weekends. However, they have been growing and growing in their testimonies, I am excited to see them continue to progress! They are fantastic people, just a little slow to change.

We have also had more service opportunities these past few weeks. We have helped President Rubio (ex bishop, mission president, and temple president) clean up his yard a few times; he has a few exotic fruit trees (plátano, guanabana, guayara) that needed some shaping up. We have also helped Agustín clean his bakery, and helped him eat some bread too haha. We are also helping the branch to shape up and clean the chapel better, and to prepare and clean up the sacrament in a timely manner. And we are still looking for more ways to be able to take off the tie to be able to work and help out haha.

I know that this is the true church and gospel of Jesus Christ. I can see it in the way people improve their lives as they live it, in the way the people come to understand it, and in the way that I feel as I teach and share it. It is such a wonderful feeling to know that we don't need to wonder if something we teach is really true, or feel confused with what the purpose of this life is. We know it. I hope you all have an amazing week!

Love,

Elder Toombs

November 3, 2014 Halloween

November 3, 2014

Hi! I can't believe that we are already in November, the time is going by too fast! It has been a little slow of a week here in La Mesa, but we are working hard. One of the challenges that we have here in La Mesa is that almost everyone works on Sunday! And nobody can get baptized if they don't go to church haha.

Our best family right now is the S family, A (mamá), J (25 años), Y (23 años), and O (Y's boyfriend). The biggest problems that they have is that J works on Sunday, A works on the sundays when there is a holiday (yesterday, and next Sunday), Y and O aren't married, and O decided that he just doesn't want to listen anymore. But the other three are doing great, and are doing what they can to change their schedules to live the commandments. The other night, we taught the Sabbath Day, and felt that we should use a particularly tough scripture, and I was a little nervous that it was going to be to tough, but it ended up being perfect to help them all realize the importance of Sunday. Gotta trust more in the spirit haha. So we will see how they go!

We have another investigator that has really been prepared, but needs help to not work on Sunday! His name is O, he is in the picture with the cool costume haha. He reads the Book of Mormon, he knows it is true, he finds the answers to all his questions there, and wants to share it with everyone! He dropped coffee, and all he has to do now is stop working on Sundays to be able to go to Church and keep the commandments.

Halloween was pretty crazy here! In La Mesa everybody went to the central park to party and listen to concerts and drink, literally everyone was out on the streets, and we couldn't visit anybody because...well everyone was gone! So we ended up finding the D family in the street, and went to their house to share moustaches, silly string (thanks to the Leach family!), and a little message.

Last night, we went to visit O, an investigator that we have been visiting in her little shop (every other house in Colombia has a store on the first floor) when we found a drunk guy bothering here because he wanted more beer. So of course, when we got there, he wanted to talk to the Gringo and got all up in my face, I talked to him and he just kept telling me how perfect my Spanish was (it's not haha), and I finally just told him that we were going to bring him to his house and we got him to stay there haha, I can now say that I have figured out how to talk to drunk people haha.

And today, Elder Perez made a Peruvian dish, Ají de Gallina (delicious!), and I made crepes to eat it in and it was fantastic! Oh and we made it with the D family, and I also let Sis. D use my haircutter to cut S's hair, and he was moving and crying too much and now his hair is fantastic. So that was my week! I know that this church is true, that Jesus Christ lives and is my Savior, and that with him we can overcome anything! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Toombs