7/2/2012

Well dear family of mine!! All is well here in the mission workin hard in the work of the Lord!! It was a fun and hard week!! We have a lot of stuff goin on right now. The new mission president just got here on saturday! he seems great!! i am stoked to have him here we are gonna be able to get a lot of work done with him!! It was pretty funny we called him on saturday to say hi and all to him and he was super concerned. in tolima its like the states that we are in there is a big volcano and he called us to tell us to be on red alert the volcano might explode! we were like oh ya, the thing is that the volcano is like always on high alert but he was seriously concerned. i was glad for his phone call and his concern for us!! So we made a kit for all of the missionaries in tolima and a spot to meet if something happened we made plans and all! IT was pretty fun to see some of the missionaries reactions to this plan!! We made it sound like it was gonna be like some mt. saint helens or somethin haha!! one elder put together and 72hr kit and all prepared agua and everything haha!! he was a good boyscout!! But i am glad to have president lozano here! We have a meeting with him this weekend to go over some stuff here in tierra caliente and all so i am excited to meet with him and discuss things of the mission. He is fresh in the field, excited and ready to go and willing to learn. He is a great leader!! Right now I am in a little town called pitalito. We do exchanges like 8 hours from ibague so it was a long bus ride, but boy was it beautiful!! Thats what i love about being AP is being able to travel and see the scenery!! I really miss taking drives in the mountains but here we take drives through deserts or jungles!! its cool!!

Pitalito is like the hippy town of Colombia. Everyone smokes and is really relaxed. Its more of a tourist place for hippies, just weed and greenery! haha!! Small town but its super fun!! Sending some pics of my area in ibague. its a small city and on the outsides its all farm and a little jungle i nthe mountains and fields, so when we go out of the town its really cool. It's a town of like 600.000 people its a lot different from bogota the people theclimate the weather i love it its a great place!! i loved bogota but i am glad that the lord took me out of there haha!! it was fun last week being with my main man Pres. Pico - dad's old comp!! He is a cool guy. I wish i could hang out with him as a regular person not as a missionary. He invited us over for dinner and we were talking and we had to be home at 930 as always but i wished we could have stayed longer. He had some great stories. We enjoyed it alot meeting his whole family and all! i loved it!! i showed some of the mission pics. The adventures of HAMMER and PICO!! What stories he had to share!! Time sure has changed thing Pops haha!! He showed us his mission manual and ya, our manual is a lot bigger! haha!! But what a great friend he is! We call each other every now and then. He really is a big fan of dad!! I mean why not!! Dad would be the tightest comp in the world!! He told me about there adventures and all!! I know dad a lot better now haha!!

 We are working really well in our area! tHe thing is that we are only there for like 3 days so we dont have much time but we try to make the most of it! we are meeting some fantastic people!! WOW!! We but a baptismal date with a girl named jennifer and wow she is super awesome! Some one how is really looking for repentance and looking for God!! it is fabulous!! so we are progressing with her, we are reactivating her brother and we met here, her brother invited us to go swimmin andplay tennins with some nuns next pday haha!! WE took him up on the tennis but after the mission iwould love to go swimmin with some nuns haha!! He kept trying to convince to go swimmin but we were lioke we cant, haha! it will be fun next pday! then yesterday as we were leaving the chapel a sister asked us if we bless her car, we were like you can say a blesing for your car and she was like no, i want you to bless it with oil and everything. i was liek what are you talking about lady. IT was a brand new car and she wanted us to give it like a baby blessing but for a car or something, we explained to her about how she could just say a prayer a priesthood blessin wouldnt be necesaary. THe funnny thing here in Colombia is, is that it doesnt matter if you have 1 month or 25 years in the church they still ask us weird questions. on saturday there wasa sister coming from girardot a town like 2 hours from ibague and she called me and asked us to help her unload the moving truck. I was like what time she was like oh i am just about to enter ibague in like 1/2 hour!! hahah! I was like what in the world! she didnt tell anyone she just comes and when she's about to get there calls the missionaries hhaha!! Well we couldnt help her cuz we teach all afternoon so we got the Elders Quorum in line and it was great to see the priesthood in action to save the day hhaa!! it was hilarious. 1/2 hr notice for doing a move shes already in the truck on her way comin haha! i love the culture!! its just about wingin it everyday! Planning doesnt exist, rules are suggestions haha laws are just written on paper but never enforced haha! it hilarious!! This week we were in holidyas of san PEDRO the town was in a mess!! It was pretty funny to see the drunks and all!!!! alot of parades and a marches and a ton of drinking!! But all is well in the mission1 i am really loving it!! i have less than 100 days now, WOW!!! Super scared, but i dont feel off or anything, tired, og course i am, willing to work you bet!! So ia made some goals and all ofthings i want to achieve before i finish the mission! So I amexcited to kick it up another knotch, knotch 1 haha!! i love ya all and miss ya ton!!! Love Elder Hammer