Alrighty, well it sounds like you guys had a great week! Haha well your guys´ letters were the first thing that I have heard about this earthquake. Was it on the Coast or what cause Tunja is more northeast of Bogota and I didnt feel anything lol. It would have been cool though, I´ve never been in an earthquake. Hopefully the next time it will be closer to me lol;) Haha also one of the members looked up Tunja on the internet and the first thing the page said was Tunja is the country’s safest city. So I don’t think you guys have to worry about anything here, its super tranquilo, the only people who give us trouble are the ¨wanna be cops¨ . Anyways yes dad I have a few new stories that are a little bit funny but not hilarious. And I´ll be waiting for some college football updates when the season rolls around again! Also I can’t believe that the new wing in the hospital is already done! That went by super fast! I can remember when they were making the plans to construct it. Oh And HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM:) :) :) I can´t lie I totally forgot lol, like I still know its February 7 but I just didn’t realize it was February 7 already. Honestly my time here in Tunja has felt like nothing at all. The 1 change I had with my companion Elder Ortiz went by like a blink of an eye lol. Anyways HAPPY BIRTHDAY once more, I hope you’re enjoying your extra year you have now:) and I´m sure your wisdom has increased as well with this new age, you’re like a ripened peach:) all juicy with good qualities lol.
So it has been raining alot here this week and yes pa I´ve been using my rain boots:) haha but for some reason I always forget my raincoat in the house and get soaked through walking lol, but it’s all good the rain just makes me feel more at home. I enjoy watching my companion stomp through the water and mud like a 4 year old lol. I always try to keep away from getting dirty but my companion is just one of the goofiest people and doesn’t seem to care, so I get a good laugh at watching. Anyways honestly there has been nothing really too exciting going on here, we´ve just been trying to work hard and find and teach people, and of course walking. I think we might have broken the record for miles walked this week, it just seemed like no one was home or all our lessons fell through. But I will walk 500 miles and I will walk 500 more, just to be the missionary to fall upon your dooooooor. But I do have a few mediocre stories.
Well the first is about an investigator we have that’s kids are members but she is a hard core Catholic. I honestly wouldn’t call her an investigator, maybe like a half listener or something like that. But her kids love that we go to her little store and teach something, so we do it. Well last week she started to tell us the story of Tobias, a fallen angel from heaven. She was just regurgitating what the pastor had taught her the night before at mass, but she was so sure that it was in the bible. Her son, the member, was with us and I gave him my bible. He was kinda snickering about the story of Tobias and showed her that there was no such name in the bible. But she Claimed that the Catholic bible she has has the book of Tobias. Honestly I´ve never read out of a Catholic bible so I had no idea. But her son bet her 20 mil pesos (like ten bucks) that there was no book of Tobias in the bible. Me and my companion were laughing pretty hard at this point and trying not to show her that we just thought it was a big joke. I haven’t talked to the son yet but I´m sure he´s 20 mil pesos richer now lol.
Also I have to tell you about lunch yesterday, and I have to say sadly that my training in becoming 100% Colombiano had a setback yesterday. Well we got to lunch and a big ol bowl of soup was put in front of us. I noticed something that looked like a big chunk of.....well I´m going to say it “ crap” in the soup. But we started to pray and I started to peek at the soup to try to figure out what the thing was. Well it had a big ol bone in the middle and brown lookin jellly stuff around it. I asked my comp what it was and he told me he thought it was the tail of the cow, I´m like no bro cow tails don’t have huge bones in the middle like this! Then he told me ooohhhhh yeah, its the pata. Its the cow foot. Like the bottom of the tibula of the cow with the jelly stuff around it. Add on top of that I was fishin around in the soup and there was pieces of mondongo in there, the cow stomach! I could definitley make out the alvioli that lines the stomach, at least I think thats what it is, it looks like a bunch of white hairs. I heard my companion let out a sigh, and I looked at him and said "you’re Colombian you should be used to this stuff right? No, we don´t eat this at my house he says, but it´s not that bad. So I go to town eating around the mondongo and pata figuring its better left untouched in the soup than in the soup for the second time after its been thrown up. Yeah dad I don’t even think your timer threatening could make me eat that lol. Anyways the hermana realizes what I´m doin and tells me to just try it. So I stick a chunk in my mouth, chew once have a gag reflex but keep my cool and take a big gulp of juice and swallow it whole. She could tell I didn’t like it and grabbed it out of my soup and ate it herself, telling me that all the gringos that waste the pàta should send it to her. Relieved I worked up a plan on how to get rid of the mondongo. She got up and went to the kitchen for more juice or something, then the son and dad went over to the computer. I figured if she took my pata then she wouldnt mind a few more pieces of mondongo in her soup either. So stealthily, but quickly I shoveled all of my mondongo into her half eaten soup, and NO ONE SAW ME:) haha I hope that’s not bad lol but I just couldn’t eat it! Anyways my companion ate all of his pata and mondongo and I guess it required a lot of effort because after the soup he couldn’t eat anything more. I on the other hand ate my other plate of meat, rice and a mountain of beans lol the green kind. Well thats about it for the stories except for the guy I baptized a few weeks ago brought a friend to church and hopefully we can baptize him too! I Love you guys SSOOOOOOOOOO much and dont forget to e-mail me while you’re in Mexico! I can´t imagine how crappy a p-day would be without your letters! Send lots of pictures too!
Elder Crook
