Life as a Missionary

Sent December 8, 2014

The plane was 17.5 rows of 4 and didn´t have hardly any space for luggage, so our luggage had to be driven to Medellín the day before.  There were 20 missionaries traveling with me (21 in total) and we are a big group. But we were only like half the plane. 

first sight of our plane to Medellin

21 of us in our group, a real big one

 Above Bogota

 At the Medellin Airport 

 Our Newbie Group

 Elder Gassaway and me

24 floors down from the Mission Office

View from the mission office

View from some overlook

On Pday We played capture took the metrocable up the mountain to play capture the flag in some forest.

View from the Metrocable

Elder Hurtado and I going up the metrocable

  There´s like obstacle courses and stuff to do, but we just walked along a path into a forest and decided to play capture the flag. 

I got bug bites like mad but it was way fun. The forest was real dense too so that was interesting. People were like diving through bushes and sliding in the wet dirt and we lost twice but it was so fun. 

 Elder Something, me and Elder Johnson

VICTORY!

On the way back, storms whipped up real good and they closed the metrocable. Considering this was basically the only way down, everyone was just stuck at the top. We just waited the storm until they could open the metrocable.  

 Hurtado and I on our way down..tired!

 Loads of rain made the river an entire meter higher!

Then we finally came down and then ate dinner at some restaurant in some mall in someone else´s zone and got home, wrote letters to the president, and went to bed. That´s why I´m writing this morning. 

Agenda for Dec 13

 

Christmas Activities

 Estandarte in Guayabal with E´ Hurtado

 zone leaders E´ Routson, Johnson, Ruiz

 Johnson and I walking our of a cathedral. We tried to contact the padre as he was out but he walked in too quickly for us to get there

 Our Zone

 

We held an Estandarte in Puebloito Paisa

Pueblito Paisa in Medellin (thanks Google Images)

View from Pueblito Paisa (thanks to Kai's camera)

  

All of us in a chiva (Party Bus) we rented for the Estandarte

 Singing in the park

Dec 24, 2014: Christmas Eve Dinner and Gringo Christmas Carol Singoff with the Banegas family

Dec 25, 2014 -- Conference & Jaka

 

Hurtado and I with a pair of gafas I bought for the Jaka for $5000 (roughly $2.11 in US)

My second ever mirror selfie with our new shades for the Jaka, with Elder Hurtado

Still eating well in our own kitchen --  Hurtado and I frying chicken and cooking dinner. Tasted great and it was a little intense.

L to R Hno Torres, Hurtado, Hno Franco, Hicken

 

The making for Morcillas: basically a bunch of chicken, oregano, probably other spices, and blood stuffed in pig intestines.

 the mix for morcillas

 

the bucket of pig intestines into which they stuff the blood and rice and meat

Hno Torres mixing the insides of morcillas, consists of oregano, rice, chicken, and a whole lot of blood

 People frying meat right across the street

 Some Christmas lights -- festive...

December 26, 2014

Family at home, with me in Columbia on the left screen, Talon in Peru on the right

"That's my cool brother", I'm pointing at Talon in Peru

My Skype View on our monitor.  Family and Talon posing for the picture (me holding up camera on the side)
Shopping for gafas and things...

 Munoz, Hicken, Hurtado

my first ever mirror selfie. I almost bought this sweater but I didn´t

 

This is that massive roundabout I talked about but as I said, the pictures don´t turn out so well. It´s normally 3 lanes, the overpass, it also has an underpass, like 6 footpaths in the middle, and a park on either side. And the whole thing is just like awesomely large. Maybe I´ll like take a video of driving through it.

Hicken, Muñoz, Hurtado´s Trainer, Hurtado, Tolman

Hurtado´s Trainer, Hurtado, Hicken

Lighting candles at the Zone Leaders' house...