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.

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