WEEK 13: September 23, 2019 (3 months)

September 23, 2019

WEEK 13: September 23, 2019 (3 months)

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Olive Tree.

Well this week I ate chicken hearts 4 out of 7 days of the week, needless to say people like their grilled meats here. Lots of food like Rodizio or Tucanos which tastes good... but don’t know if it's the best thing for me being able to fit in my pants in 2 months.

This week was really good! In my new area, Vacaria, there are probably 25 active members, and the chapel is really just a white warehouse with the church plaque on it which is quite different from my last area! (50 members in my last area and a big fancy chapel!) Anyway, it’s interesting because the people here are a different race than in Cacador, like most of the people we met and taught were white in my last area, and here everyone is brown! Also I don’t know if I forgot to mention in my last email, I am now in the same state as my sister which is kind of a funny coincidence! This week we spent a lot of time knocking on doors, I think it was Tuesday we talked with 70 different people and 6 let us into their house and talk a little! (Mom: He mentioned to me that they knocked on twice that number of doors and only 70 even answered.) The people seem to be a little more closed here!

The Thirteen Articles of Faith in the local newspaper

We do have one guy that we taught this week that is catholic, but really thought our message was interesting and decided to put our little message into the newspaper that he publishes (I'll add a picture and hope one or two of you can understand haha) With our phone number and the address of our church! No calls yet, but still waiting.

Not too much more to talk about... but overall was a really happy week, I'm liking my new Colombian companion, even though his English only goes to “hello and goodbye”. He loves music and listens to the minecraft soundtracks a lot which I get a kick out of.

Thanks for reading, until next week.

-Elder Hammond

A little more about his companion - He is from Bogota which he says is very dangerous. His mom is an active member of the church. His dad is not a Latter Day Saint. He has an older sister that served a mission in California and had two younger brothers Joseph’s and Will’s ages.

From our conversation:

He makes popcorn every morning. He bought a bag of kernels and pops them in a pan with some oil and says they are really delicious.
They’re going to start an English class in town because it’s really popular for people there to speak “English”, but I guess it isn’t that good.
His bed bug bites are going away, but he forgot to tell the mission president about the problem, so hopefully his old companion told the new guy not to sleep on that bed.