Letter, (and Q&A with Mom)

Hey Kai!!! ... It sounds like some of the elders around you have a lot to learn.  Hopefully they will have the experiences and people in their lives to help them through it.  Heavenly Father does a pretty good job of putting that learning experience together for us, but it’s not usually very pleasant, it seems.  But He does give us some gems along the way.

 

Hey Mom, sure all the Elders have a lot to learn also me but we finally got working well together this week and I started praying for that and all, but now we are no longer companions. 

 I’m sure I’m not the only one who wants to know: what stupid thing did you do and what kind of sick were you?  You probably didn’t want to say, but now you’re older and wiser (by a week or so) and might not mind sharing follies from your youth.

If Sierra really wants to know, I got sick by eating candy off the floor and if you remember Peru, it's no wonder I got sick.  

What is your normal day schedule?

Normal day:up at 6:30, study at 7, breakfast at 8, class at 8:45, lunch at 12:30, class at 1:40, Gym at 3, class at 4:30, dinner at 5:30, class at 6:30, planning at 9, bed at 10:30. 

Do you get to play piano?

I play piano maybe twice a week if I'm lucky but the only piano is in the chapel so they only want us to play hymns. 

I have been looking at the weather app on my cool new phone.  It looks rainy and chilly there (thunderstorms).  Is it?  What is the weather like?  Does it affect you much, or are you inside anyway?  Will you be able to buy the raincoat you actually need?  By the way, on the app, Medellín looks about 20 degrees warmer than Bogotá generally, but still cloudy with thunderstorms.  

Weather really is bipolar from really sunny to cold and pouring rain. It does a cool thing around 1700 hours when the sun is setting and it looks like it's raining gold. We are consistently inside except Gym and there's really not much room at all around the CCM it's a really small place with a like 100 person capacity. 

Is there someplace to take a picture of you pointing to your mission on a map?
 
Yes, there's a place and people usually do that their last p-day.  

What did you have for breakfast this morning?

This morning we had some mediocre scrambled eggs, MILO hot chocolate, a banana (we normally have 2-3 granadillas a day but this morning there weren't any) and some random juice. Also rolls, but you have to put the eggs in the rolls or else it gets really bad. About half the elders associate diarrhea with most of the food we eat. 

Do you do your own laundry each P-day?  If so, everyone regularly goes 10 days before getting to wash?

We don't do our own laundry. There's few of us enough that we have workers do our laundry twice a week.

Do they have a CCM choir?  Are you in it?

There's no CCM choir but we are putting together a musical number and I'm accompanying two gringa Hermanas for a musical number. 

What is your Sunday schedule?

Sunday: up at 6:30, study at 7:00, breakfast at 8:00 (we fast every other week so this week is fast sunday {lunch to lunch}), sacrament at 9:00, district meeting after until 11:00 (oh also I was called as district leader but I'll be released this week), priesthood at 11:10, district leader meeting after, lunch at 12:30, meeting at 1:40, study the language after, meeting at 3:00, district study after, dinner at 5:30, BoM lecture after, church video usually for a devotional at 6:30, planning at 8:00, then at 8:30 President Dyer dumps his vast knowledge of the Plan of Salvation on us for like two hours as we ask every question we can think of and it's actually the coolest thing. 

Do they have lettuce and strawberries, or are missionaries not allowed to eat them?

We have lettuce but no strawberries but I'd eat them both. 

Do you know anyone in the CCM that has gotten a package from the U.S.?  Snail mail?
  I know of one person that has gotten a real big package from his mom but that's the only one. People get letters, but they take forever and often get here after the person has left and if they're gone they only sometimes forward them. Often, I think they just send packages straight to the mission office. 

Do you read scriptures in Spanish?  What is your scripture study like?

Yes we read scriptures in spanish but not for personal study. For personal study they challenged us all to finish the BoM so I'm in about 3 Nephi 5 but we have a ton of different studies and tactics of studying different things. 

 If I sent a small package, is there anything you would particularly like to find in it?

If you sent a package, one thing I find myself lacking is a camera cord to plug into the computer. I just need a microUSB to USB cord. Not nanoUSB. That's all I can think of needing. 

 ---

Hey we went on tour yesterday after going to the Temple. We went to some catholic church way up on a mountain and we took a cable car all the way up. There's a ton of cable cars in Medellin, says Hno Mendoza ... (If I haven't talked about my teachers I need to--tell me if I have or not)...

Cable Cars in Medellin

Thank you, Google images -- coolest public transport EVER!

 The  bottom of the Cable Car, starting the journey up the mountain.

 Close to the top of the mountain, overlooking Bogota

 In the Cable car, L to R: Anderson, Hicken, Hno Mendoza, Tolman, Nae'ole

 By the Catholic Church L to R: Nae'ole, Lauritzen, Tolman, Hicken, Anderson, Mendoza

 In the church

 View of the mountains from the church

 There was a path around the church with pictures of the Crucifixion

 ...and then we went to a Gold Museum of old indigenous civilizations' gold and Elder Nae'ole was talking about, like, "that's probably from a Lamanite...that's Nephite for sure."

Something cool made out of gold

Then we went and bought soccer jerseys and i bought sweats and my card worked so it was all smooth. One is Ronaldo #7 and the other is Hicken #99 and they be cool.

I moved my room upstairs and now I no longer have the best showers in the building --I have the worst showers in the building. It's weird that now we are the big kids here receiving Latino companions because we have literally been here like two seconds and we have two weeks left.  It's crazy.  My companion, Elder Romeu, still hasn't arrived but he is from Argentina. 

When we go to the Temple (20 minute drive) we pass a homeless camp and we always point out our homeless investigator. Did I mention that one time we taught someone through the fence? 

Also a latino elder, Elder Gomez from Venezuela almost stabbed me during lunch - we don't get along and no one could get along with him; he's just super hard to work with and he doesn't compromise on anything and he is just the most mean and mainly annoying kid.  But this was unprovoked, too, but he's gone so that's good. 

One North American sister came late and she's real cute, but a latino elder, Elder Conde really fell and his intentions are to go to America to learn English and marry her after his mission and all the Elders knew and then I told Hermana Newbie. Actually, I want it to happen because it's fantastic. Hermana Newbie is pretty feminine and she would still wear the pants in the relationship. Hno Mendoza and Hna Rangel [both teachers] are both single and we aren't having much luck getting them on a date but they are spending more alone time together so that's good. 

Hermana Rangel y yo

Happy Birthday to Sierra today! Also happy birthday to Angel Rocke and Matthew Cheney from 8 days ago. I think there are more but since I'm not actually thinking about birthdays I haven't put any brain power to thinking of them so if there is send me candy. 

de

Élder Hicken

(have i mentioned that the Colombia CCM is the only MTC in the world that puts the accent above the E on the nametags? So I think it's a thing that Talon will email without the tilde and I'll use it. Typing "the young Elder Hicken" is just long.