Monday, October 15, 2012
District Leader!
DISTRICT LEADER!! The cambios have come around, and I have been called to serve as district leader en la Zona La Libertad!! Cool eh? Im the newest judge in Israel. My responsibilities are to conduct baptismal interviews and train the members of my district every week. Im excited!! Im still in Tintal for at least another six weeks, but im very content. I love it here.
We had a baptism on saturday. A little kid, 11 years. His grandpa is the second counselor of the branch here, and he is sacrificing soooo much to be a part of the Gospel. His parents FINALLY gave him permission to be baptized just hours before the service. So it was a really awesome day. Im sending pictures this time.
Something crazy happened!! The parks here dont have gravel or woodchips on the playground. Its just asphault, so if someone falls it can be fatal. So we were walking to an appointment, when we saw a bunch of policeman with a section taped off. Well in the middle of the taped off section, there was a guy lying on a bench with a coat over his face, and he wanst moving. Well turns out that this guy was at the park playing with his children, when he slipped off the monkey bars and fell and broke his neck. Died instantly, right in front of his children!! It was really quite awful. We offered to visit the family and teach them the plan of Salvation, but they didnt want anything to do with us... Maybe they will give us a call someday... Who knows??
My new companion is Elder Gonzales. He will be coming on wednesday or thursday. I dont know where he is from and no one here seems to know him really well, so this will be interesting. Im excited to start fresh with a new companion..
Have a wonderful week, I love you all!!
Elder McEntire
Monday, April 16, 2012
WELL.....A NEW COMPANION IS COMING MY WAY!
Hello family and friends!
So its official. My companion is going home on May 1st. For several
reasons, and only a few of which I know for sure. Right now he is
actually not worthy to be a representative of the lord and has been
released as a missionary! He is not allowed to wear his tag and I have
to do all priesthood ordinances and make all the phone calls and
pretty much do all the work. A reason for all this is because he has
been sneaking out at night and doing who knows what. I caught him one
morning because he had left his garbage on the table. There is an
empanada place that runs all night, and he forgot to throw away the
wrappers. So immedeately I called the zone leader. Everyday he sleeps
in until at least nine in the morning. So the other day I sat him down
and told him, "okay buster. Im gonna let you be a lazy butt just
because you only have a couple weeks left. But when it comes to the
investigators, there will be no slacking off. Understand?" He agreed,
and the baptism of Fror Molina is still on. Very excited for that,
except I will have to do both the baptizing and confirming. The reason
he isnt leaving right away is because the absolute soonest day
president can match me up with a new companion is may 1st. What a
shame. Hes really a good guy, just not ready to commit his life to the
lord. Que pena.
So my area has two rather large shopping malls, an amusement park, and
a gigantic futbol stadium. So there are always a billion people here.
The other day I was doing an exchange with a different latino elder,
and we were outside the futbol stadium. The other elder got really
excited when he saw some dude and he ran up to talk to him. Turns out
this guy is the star player on the local team. You all dont understand
this, but this moment here was like walking up and talking to Lebron
James in the street. Thats how big he is down here. So naturally he
wanted to know why we were walking around in suits with black tags, so
I obliged to do my job, and told him pretty much the plan of
salvation. Surprisingly he was interested, and I took down his numbers
and gave him a book of mormon. He lives in North Bogotà which is out
of the mission, but I still submitted the numbers to the office. But
yeah, of I were in America, I pretty much gave Lebron James a Book of
Mormon. ¿Cool eh?
But anyway, there was a gang war just down the street last week. A
couple shots were fired, but I dont think anyone was hurt. Everyday
before we leave we need to go up to the roof and make sure the streets
are safe. If not, then we cant leave. Thats only happened once. The
other day we were walking in a rather dangerous area when a couple of
very drunk teenagers approached us and wanted to rob us. I said pretty
much this, "Hey guys, we dont want any trouble. Here is cinco mil and
we can both just leave." Just like that. They put away their knives,
shook our hands, and got out of there. Cinco mil is only about $2.50.
Thats the funny part.
So its official. My companion is going home on May 1st. For several
reasons, and only a few of which I know for sure. Right now he is
actually not worthy to be a representative of the lord and has been
released as a missionary! He is not allowed to wear his tag and I have
to do all priesthood ordinances and make all the phone calls and
pretty much do all the work. A reason for all this is because he has
been sneaking out at night and doing who knows what. I caught him one
morning because he had left his garbage on the table. There is an
empanada place that runs all night, and he forgot to throw away the
wrappers. So immedeately I called the zone leader. Everyday he sleeps
in until at least nine in the morning. So the other day I sat him down
and told him, "okay buster. Im gonna let you be a lazy butt just
because you only have a couple weeks left. But when it comes to the
investigators, there will be no slacking off. Understand?" He agreed,
and the baptism of Fror Molina is still on. Very excited for that,
except I will have to do both the baptizing and confirming. The reason
he isnt leaving right away is because the absolute soonest day
president can match me up with a new companion is may 1st. What a
shame. Hes really a good guy, just not ready to commit his life to the
lord. Que pena.
So my area has two rather large shopping malls, an amusement park, and
a gigantic futbol stadium. So there are always a billion people here.
The other day I was doing an exchange with a different latino elder,
and we were outside the futbol stadium. The other elder got really
excited when he saw some dude and he ran up to talk to him. Turns out
this guy is the star player on the local team. You all dont understand
this, but this moment here was like walking up and talking to Lebron
James in the street. Thats how big he is down here. So naturally he
wanted to know why we were walking around in suits with black tags, so
I obliged to do my job, and told him pretty much the plan of
salvation. Surprisingly he was interested, and I took down his numbers
and gave him a book of mormon. He lives in North Bogotà which is out
of the mission, but I still submitted the numbers to the office. But
yeah, of I were in America, I pretty much gave Lebron James a Book of
Mormon. ¿Cool eh?
But anyway, there was a gang war just down the street last week. A
couple shots were fired, but I dont think anyone was hurt. Everyday
before we leave we need to go up to the roof and make sure the streets
are safe. If not, then we cant leave. Thats only happened once. The
other day we were walking in a rather dangerous area when a couple of
very drunk teenagers approached us and wanted to rob us. I said pretty
much this, "Hey guys, we dont want any trouble. Here is cinco mil and
we can both just leave." Just like that. They put away their knives,
shook our hands, and got out of there. Cinco mil is only about $2.50.
Thats the funny part.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Monday, April 9, 2012
IT'S GETTING A LITTLE EASIER!
Hello family!
Doing very well! About my companion... Turns out he had a bad experince with a gringo companion awhile ago. But he sees now that I work hard, and now he knows that not all of us white people are the same. But he still doesn´t like me, and said he would try to tolerate me. All is well. It´s still hard to get him motivated, but we were able to do some remarkable things these last couple weeks! Last week we committed a family to baptism. It was awesome for me because I actually got to see the change for myself. We found them walking in the street, and it turns out that the husband is an inactive member. We activated them all, and they want to be baptized! But we are only baptizing the mother, the other children are too young, but I can tell that they have fast developing testimonies. And they love going to primary. The date is April 28th, and she personally asked me to baptize her! I´m really excited.
Nothing too crazy happened this week. But I have a word for my friends, especially Bronwyn. Get my phone and text her these exact words, "you can write me all the letters you want, but I can only get them every four to six weeks and I cannot write back. If you want to write me, send me an email. I can always respond to your emails." Thank you. Also thanks for the package. All my favorite things (minus devilled eggs) in a package. I am able to get packages and am soooo grateful for them! But I only get them every 4 to 6 weeks. So thank you!!
The other day the Bogotá MTC sent some missionaries out to try out the mission field. I was put with a peruvian. He was very excited. Perhaps a bit too excited. He couldn´t stop skipping when we walked, and I have never ever been helped to cross the street. It was a rather interesting day...
I´m sending a bunch of pictures. I hope you get them all. Some are from my last days in the MTC and the rest of Bogotá. And I just asked my companion what our street address was, and he doesn´t remember. So sorry!
I love you all and I sure hope you all have a lovely week. I appreciate your prayers and emails.
Love you all so much! Take care!
Elder McEntire
Doing very well! About my companion... Turns out he had a bad experince with a gringo companion awhile ago. But he sees now that I work hard, and now he knows that not all of us white people are the same. But he still doesn´t like me, and said he would try to tolerate me. All is well. It´s still hard to get him motivated, but we were able to do some remarkable things these last couple weeks! Last week we committed a family to baptism. It was awesome for me because I actually got to see the change for myself. We found them walking in the street, and it turns out that the husband is an inactive member. We activated them all, and they want to be baptized! But we are only baptizing the mother, the other children are too young, but I can tell that they have fast developing testimonies. And they love going to primary. The date is April 28th, and she personally asked me to baptize her! I´m really excited.
Nothing too crazy happened this week. But I have a word for my friends, especially Bronwyn. Get my phone and text her these exact words, "you can write me all the letters you want, but I can only get them every four to six weeks and I cannot write back. If you want to write me, send me an email. I can always respond to your emails." Thank you. Also thanks for the package. All my favorite things (minus devilled eggs) in a package. I am able to get packages and am soooo grateful for them! But I only get them every 4 to 6 weeks. So thank you!!
The other day the Bogotá MTC sent some missionaries out to try out the mission field. I was put with a peruvian. He was very excited. Perhaps a bit too excited. He couldn´t stop skipping when we walked, and I have never ever been helped to cross the street. It was a rather interesting day...
I´m sending a bunch of pictures. I hope you get them all. Some are from my last days in the MTC and the rest of Bogotá. And I just asked my companion what our street address was, and he doesn´t remember. So sorry!
I love you all and I sure hope you all have a lovely week. I appreciate your prayers and emails.
Love you all so much! Take care!
Elder McEntire
Monday, March 26, 2012
I'M IN COLOMBIA......LEARNING CURVE HEADED MY WAY!
March 27, 2012
Letter from Zach......he's finally there!
Hello everybody! I am safe! Right now I am right in the middle of bogotá. Pretty crazy out here. The culture is completely different. The people of Colombia are very short. So it´s really wierd being the tallest person here. It is a miracle! My spanish is very good. I am able to communicate with almost everybody. Everybody here wants to learn english, and they all think I dont speak a lick of spanish (even though I understand every word they say) and so they alltry to tell me what they said in english, and it´s really funny. Super dooper funny because they can´t prononce the words. Then I reply in spanish and they are like, woah you speak spanish! My companion is Elder Hernandez. He is from Argentina. In the MTC, they al told me that I would be put with a gringo like me and he would help me, but no. I get to the mission home, and president Casablanca puts me with this short little latino, and says, this is your companion. See you in a month. Oh, and he doesn´t speak english. You have to teach him. Bye! Turns out he does know some english. Someone taught him every bad word in the english language. So whenever he makes a mistake I hear !%$&!¿ It´s pretty funny. Trying to teach him otherwise...
The colombians are some pretty crazy people. Right now it´s the rainy season (colombia has two seasons. Rain and sun) and we were walking down the street. We saw two guys sitting in the engine block of a semi truck trying to stay dry. But I looked closer and they were smoking! I told my companion to walk faster. Turns out it´s impossible to escape Utah county. The ward mission leader that we work with rather closely lived in springville for a year! He never learned english, but it´s such a small world! So the mail system here is horrible, but I know exactly what I can do. Have everybody send me their e-mail address (everybody that wants to) and I can write them a letter, take a picture of the letter, and send the picture. That makes it easier for both me and you! It´s even easier than sending mail because everybody I know spends their whole day online anyway, so why not take five minutes and write a nice little message to me, then hit send! Super easy! So give my email to everyone, and it will save them time and money in writing letters. Cool!
The last elders here left us a lot of baptism dates. So we have about seven people we will be baptizing in the middle of april. We are currently preparing them. yesterday a lady approached us after church and told us she wanted us to give her a blessing. Turns out she has a tumor the sive of a grapefruit in her uterus. She asked me to give her the blessing. She asked me to give it in english so I could be more detailed. So I Gave her this blessing. This is the first time I have ever felt the spirit so strongly. The spirit directed me to tell her that everything would work out for the better and that she would be blessed for her diligence. It was rather incredible for me to feel that. Afterwards she told me that she understood everysingle word, and she said the prayer back to me in spanish almost word for word. Remember she doesn´t speak a lick of english! The church is true my friends. Dont ever forget that. As we were leaving I said "Dios bendeciré" which means God will bless me, but I meant to say "Dios bendecirá" which means God will bless you, she thought it was pretty funny and I was pretty embarrassed. I´m doing great here! The reference system isn´t very good here. So we tract and tract and tract and tract.We probably walk a good five miles a day which is great! The homes are intersting. We live in a house while the other elders live in apartments. To get in we have to go through about four different locks. It´s pretty sweet place. It has two floors and is rather large for a colombian house. We are in a rather wealthy area. The colombian dream is to have a house and a car. You are rather wealthy if you have this. Some people in my area have two cars, which is almost unheard of.
My first day here, we stepped off the plane and were picked up by an AP. He took us to the temple and on the temple grounds is a hotel for visiting genera authorities and others. We stayed there for the night. The next morning we were shipped off with our new companians. The food is great but you have to be careful. It´s rude not to eat everything on your plate. We ate at a members house the other night and on my plate was this super disgusting looking piece of meat. I ate it and it definately was disgusting. It was horrible! I wanted to puke! Turns out it was... How do I say this... It was a thing that horses use to drain water... Yup. I ate that... Lots of crazy stuff here. I already have lots of stories, but i´ll save them for a day when you are more prepared to hear something awesome. Okay here is one. Today I was walking home with te comp, and this guy bumps into me and steals my watch right off my wrist! It was my cheap one, but how cool is that! That guy has some skill. Now I gotta go buy a new watch.
Hopefully this is enough detail for you. I guess I could give a bit more. Bogotá is huge. Just my area which is a small part of the city is gigantic. It would take us about four hours to walk from one end to the other. It´s a lot like new york city i´m told. And turns out I won´t be in the jungle. Gringos aren´t allowed down there because remnants of Pablo Escobar´s gang lives down there, and they dont like gringos. I´ll be sending pictures next week to give you all a better idea.
Good luck! Love you all! Don´t forget to hand out my email!
-Elder McEntire
Letter from Zach......he's finally there!
Hello everybody! I am safe! Right now I am right in the middle of bogotá. Pretty crazy out here. The culture is completely different. The people of Colombia are very short. So it´s really wierd being the tallest person here. It is a miracle! My spanish is very good. I am able to communicate with almost everybody. Everybody here wants to learn english, and they all think I dont speak a lick of spanish (even though I understand every word they say) and so they alltry to tell me what they said in english, and it´s really funny. Super dooper funny because they can´t prononce the words. Then I reply in spanish and they are like, woah you speak spanish! My companion is Elder Hernandez. He is from Argentina. In the MTC, they al told me that I would be put with a gringo like me and he would help me, but no. I get to the mission home, and president Casablanca puts me with this short little latino, and says, this is your companion. See you in a month. Oh, and he doesn´t speak english. You have to teach him. Bye! Turns out he does know some english. Someone taught him every bad word in the english language. So whenever he makes a mistake I hear !%$&!¿ It´s pretty funny. Trying to teach him otherwise...
The colombians are some pretty crazy people. Right now it´s the rainy season (colombia has two seasons. Rain and sun) and we were walking down the street. We saw two guys sitting in the engine block of a semi truck trying to stay dry. But I looked closer and they were smoking! I told my companion to walk faster. Turns out it´s impossible to escape Utah county. The ward mission leader that we work with rather closely lived in springville for a year! He never learned english, but it´s such a small world! So the mail system here is horrible, but I know exactly what I can do. Have everybody send me their e-mail address (everybody that wants to) and I can write them a letter, take a picture of the letter, and send the picture. That makes it easier for both me and you! It´s even easier than sending mail because everybody I know spends their whole day online anyway, so why not take five minutes and write a nice little message to me, then hit send! Super easy! So give my email to everyone, and it will save them time and money in writing letters. Cool!
The last elders here left us a lot of baptism dates. So we have about seven people we will be baptizing in the middle of april. We are currently preparing them. yesterday a lady approached us after church and told us she wanted us to give her a blessing. Turns out she has a tumor the sive of a grapefruit in her uterus. She asked me to give her the blessing. She asked me to give it in english so I could be more detailed. So I Gave her this blessing. This is the first time I have ever felt the spirit so strongly. The spirit directed me to tell her that everything would work out for the better and that she would be blessed for her diligence. It was rather incredible for me to feel that. Afterwards she told me that she understood everysingle word, and she said the prayer back to me in spanish almost word for word. Remember she doesn´t speak a lick of english! The church is true my friends. Dont ever forget that. As we were leaving I said "Dios bendeciré" which means God will bless me, but I meant to say "Dios bendecirá" which means God will bless you, she thought it was pretty funny and I was pretty embarrassed. I´m doing great here! The reference system isn´t very good here. So we tract and tract and tract and tract.We probably walk a good five miles a day which is great! The homes are intersting. We live in a house while the other elders live in apartments. To get in we have to go through about four different locks. It´s pretty sweet place. It has two floors and is rather large for a colombian house. We are in a rather wealthy area. The colombian dream is to have a house and a car. You are rather wealthy if you have this. Some people in my area have two cars, which is almost unheard of.
My first day here, we stepped off the plane and were picked up by an AP. He took us to the temple and on the temple grounds is a hotel for visiting genera authorities and others. We stayed there for the night. The next morning we were shipped off with our new companians. The food is great but you have to be careful. It´s rude not to eat everything on your plate. We ate at a members house the other night and on my plate was this super disgusting looking piece of meat. I ate it and it definately was disgusting. It was horrible! I wanted to puke! Turns out it was... How do I say this... It was a thing that horses use to drain water... Yup. I ate that... Lots of crazy stuff here. I already have lots of stories, but i´ll save them for a day when you are more prepared to hear something awesome. Okay here is one. Today I was walking home with te comp, and this guy bumps into me and steals my watch right off my wrist! It was my cheap one, but how cool is that! That guy has some skill. Now I gotta go buy a new watch.
Hopefully this is enough detail for you. I guess I could give a bit more. Bogotá is huge. Just my area which is a small part of the city is gigantic. It would take us about four hours to walk from one end to the other. It´s a lot like new york city i´m told. And turns out I won´t be in the jungle. Gringos aren´t allowed down there because remnants of Pablo Escobar´s gang lives down there, and they dont like gringos. I´ll be sending pictures next week to give you all a better idea.
Good luck! Love you all! Don´t forget to hand out my email!
-Elder McEntire
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