Monday, January 13, 2014

Bucharamanga Here I Come!!



Well well well, I´m sure you´re all anxious to know what is going on down here in the transfers of the Bogota North Mission. Well I´m leaving the Bogy once again, I´ll miss good ol Bogota but what lays ahead of me will be much more exciting than these last 2 changes. So I´m going to be a father for the 3rd time in the mish, wow you can say my seed is very fertile;) it sure is spreading lol. SO I will be going to a place called real de minas to open up the area to missionary work. I´m not sure how long there hasn´t been any missionaries there but my kid and I will be the first ones to be there in this new year. I¨M STOKED! I know that its going to be a challenge because I´ve never gone into an area not knowing anything. My companion has always been there at least 1 change before to get to know the place, even if they don´t hardly have investigators lol. But I am soooo stinkin excited first to see who  my kid is, and second to get to work!!!! I don´t know if I had mentioned to you guys before but ever since I have got here to Colombia I have heard about Bucaramanga and about how it is such a beautiful place and everyone calls it ¨the paradise¨ of the mission. So I have always wanted to go there and now I actually get to go!!!!! Another scary thought that came to my mind last night just as I was about to go to sleep was that ¨wow, this is surely going to be your last area in the mission.¨ Yeah, you know that just scared the living sleep straight out of me;) So I will be going to the temple to pick my newbie up tomorrow morning. I´m sure we´ll have some type of training  deal for all the trainers and newbsters by the assistants and president, and then it´ll be OFF to Buca which is about a 10 hour bus ride. At least it´s not Cucuta this time lol. Also I will be able to pass by the tranquil little town of Tunja which is on the way to Bucaramanga, which I´m excited about, that town has a special place in my heart:) Also (sorry for being all over the place in this letter) but Elder Avila, one of my best Latino buddies, is assistant now and I wasn´t surprised at all to hear that he had gotten transferred to be assistant.  He is one of the best, strongest missionaries that I have known. About 6 months ago his mom died but he decided to stay here and finish out his mission, which is just impossible for me to imagine how he could even function after a blow like that. But he´s such a good example of enduring to the end. 
Speaking about that, I feel really really really good about what I have left here in Suba. I really feel like I will be leaving this area better then how I found it, even though I found it in really good condition. We have 1 baptism coming up next week, and the couple (diego and mayerli) that were gonna get married moved to another ward here in Bogota. SO we passed the reference and the last time I talked to them, they had set their marriage date for february 1st, so hopefully they actually get married and baptized on that date. I wouldn´t be surprised the least bit if they do, they are some of the very very few people that you can call ¨golden investigators¨ they would have gotten baptized in November with Mayerli´s mom and sister but the wedding stuff just took a long time. This last week we found 13 new investigators and our goal is 10 every week, and it´s so cool because this area is the only area that I´ve been in that EVERYONE within 1 block of the house knows who we are because we´ve talked to them all about the church at least once. So it´s just really cool to leave the house and say hi to everyone, because they all know that we´re the ¨muchachos mormones¨  
So I´m still really proud to say that my sister´s a ute, haha love ya toots, hey I wanted to ask you, whats your high school G.P.A and if you even applied to BYU? do you still have all A´s or what? also the spanish phrases that you wrote me were really good. I can tell you that I had no idea how to use those conjugations of the verb ir and ser in high school, thats actually a really high level of spanish Shay, way to go y que te vaya bien en los exámenes que vienen. Also it´s cool to hear that Ryan P is the new bishop and the Keith Huff is the second counselor, I don´t think I ever met him formally. But sure thing pa I´ll be waiting for those funny church stories and you know it the more miserable the better;) just please don´t let the ward counsel get to out of hand lol, sometimes that happens here and nothing gets accomplished but hurt feelings and missionaries that no one ever listens to. Hey missionaries know whats going on.....listen to them!!
So I just really want to say to you guys that I know God knows me perfectly, he has given me companions that have made me better and areas as well that have made me better. I always have the good intentions to get better and better each day but there have been some times in my mission where I have felt myself plateauing, and then God has sent me a companion that has made be better or sent me to an area that has kept me from plateauing. In the last leadership council, I was talking to Elder Albrecht about that and how I was kind of plateauing.  I was kind of getting tired of babysitting missionaries, sitting on my butt in a training meetings for 8 hours straight, and always trying to help everyone else work harder and stuff like that. We came to the conclusion that we might have had enough zone leader time and wanted to go back to being missionaries without so many responsibilites and just having to worry about the people in our area. Interestingly we both got changed to train lol, kinda weird huh. But I´m so happy and thankful for what God has given me and I know that it has been exactly what I have needed. Love you all!!! next time I´ll be writing you from BEAUTIFUL BUCARAMANGA:)
-The ever so content and happy, Elder Crook 



No comments:

Post a Comment