Alright well it was absolutely
awesome to get to talk to you guys on Christmas. I honestly don´t know how
other missionaries are able to talk to their parents during the day and then
just go back to work just like that. I personally have to have it be the last
thing I do at night because there is always that little feeling of depression
after the awesome cool out of the ordinary things that happen. So I´ve just
tried to have a pretty normal Christmas this year. There are lots of elders who
schedule appointments with members all day to go eat and have fun and
celebrate, which isn´t necessarily the worst thing in the world if you do it
with a missionary purpose. But we just tried to make it as normal as possible
because I know from last year that there is a huge wave of depression that
washes over us when its all over. This year that didn´t really happen. Even
with the skype call, it made me really happy, but I wasn´t sad or that
depressed afterwards, honestly talking to you guys just made me want to get a
lot lot lot better and be the best! It was also really good to see the Pallos,
thanks for saying hi to me for a few seconds and it was really cool to see
Gage. I´m sure he´s changed a lot while we haven´t been able to see each other
but he looked the exact same to me. What
dad says is true, basically everything is the same back home and hasn´t changed
hardly at all. Thanks for your great letters this week, especially for the
first paragraph of yours dad. I have the determination to do my best and be the
best missionary for these last months of my mission. Elder Boyd, a really good
friend I made in Cucuta, told me the other day that looking back now (he´s been
home for the same time I have been here in Suba) he is so grateful for finishing
his mission strong and it is something that nothing else can measure. I did a
self evaluation yesterday in my personal study and wrote down all of my
weaknesess and the things that I wanted to achieve in my study journal. Then
said an extra personal prayer before we left to go contact people outside of
the church and we went to work! We had a great day yesterday and I felt an immediate
change in the effectiveness of our work. Hopefully this year I can make the
BEST days I had last year be my normal days this year, I know it all depends on
faith and actions, so here we go.
Well I basically already told you
about the awesome lunch we had with the stake presidency and the mission
president so I´ll just send you all the pictures I took to make the stories complete!
We went caroling afterwards and it was a blast! We went to the biggest mall
here in Suba and started to belt out Christmas hymns and there were quite a few
people gathered around us listening, it made me kind of nervous lol but it was
way cool. Then big bad mall cop came over (he was just a tad bit skinnier than
Paul Blart) and asked the elder who was leading the music if we have permission
to be here, he said welllll.....no, then the latino version of Paul Blart said,
¨well I guess this is your last number then.¨ I thought about showing him our
authoritative ministry cards that we have and telling him we are
representatives of Christ but thought against it lol. SO then we went and sang
in ma brudda Willies belt shop on the street, he spoke some gangsta english and
was a really cool guy. We sang all the Christmas songs in the hymn book and
then got his number and address to go visit him. THEN we had a few other
lessons AND an amazing Christmas eve dinner with a cool family that has a one
less active member and one non member. We shared a cool christmas message and
then we ATE SOME TURKEY BABY!!!! it was very very tasty lol. We had a blast
making faces with our dessert and other things and it was a great way to end
the day.
Well we´ve been having some great
weather here in Bogota. I feel like its summer break in Oregon. Just nice low
70´s with not a cloud in the sky and a light breeze. At nights it´s still cold
but when the sun is out its just pure paradise here in the good ol Bogy;)
So along with this great weather I
had some sweet plans for todays p-day. Well it got changed because president
thought we would be able to work better on monday instead of today where
everyone is partying for the new year. SO its Tuesday and I totally thought
that the Gold museum was going to be open, FINALLY I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO GO.
But no I guess today it´s closed due to holiday, I thought the real holiday was
tomorrow but who knows lol, so my new years eve dreams were shattered and we
just ended up staying here playing ping pong and eating MALL FOOD lol. So
nothing that exciting happened today. EXEPT for that we have to start working
at 5 instead of 6 and then we have to be in the house at 7:30 for our security.
We had a dinner scheduled with a family of members and investigators but we´ll
see how that goes, I´m still full from my MALL FOOD;) SO I love you all
and hope you guys have a great new year and get a good nights sleep like Shaylen
will be getting;) Dad you´ll have to tell me how those fights went next week
and your TV stand looks totally legit!!! I love it!
-Elder Crook
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