Woot Woot, She's a Ute!!!

Well hey there guys:) I just read Shays good news!!!!! Well all the college pressure is off now, and all you have to worry about is having a good season and doing your best, and maybe winning state;) Haha I love you tons!!! Well dad was totally right about my New Years’, we were in the house by 7:30 and had planned by 8. Then I was able to get in some extra exercises before going to bed a good 45 minutes early. It was a real good New Years....then we woke up so refreshed the next morning to start the year of 2014 off right, working hard. Haha I remembered the last New Years Eve that I spent with you guys, me and dad went hunting and I shot me a big ol cow elk. That was some time ago wasn´t it. However we were able to go to our New Year’s eve dinner with a part member family, share a short little lesson and dig into our 2nd DIGO SECOND turkey dinner!! It was pretty darn tasty, they sure do know how to make turkey here in Colombia. So that was the New Years Eve. Then for New Years Day,  it was a sight to behold, first of all in the morning there was not a soul in the street. Then in the afternoon I started to see the action go down. First of all right after lunch (oh it´s important to know that I was on an intercambio in Jordan my first area) we passed by some old investigators of the elder thats there right know. I didn´t know them at all but they were cooking food in the street and listening to music at full blast. They invited us over and immediately started shoving potatoes and charred pieces of meat in our hands, it was quite the experience but that’s just how the people are here in Colombia, needless to say I couldn´t eat all of the food because I had just eaten a good ol turkey lunch at the home of the ward mission leader of Jordan, yeah they are always really excited to see me:) then throughout the day I saw a few drunk people having a water fight but with beer and others in taxis just completely passed out. It was pretty crazy because I didn´t see ANYTHING like that in Tunja on New Years day. Tunja was like a ghost town the whole day lol. Anyways those were my New Years festivities.

So Pa, is Charly Barber still the bishop in the Ward or did they make Ryan or Allen M the new bishop? I had no idea that was coming at all! It was definitely the shock of my day today lol. I thought you were just getting warmed up to your high priest calling lol. Now I know you´ll do a great job, haha at least you’re not the actual bishop lol, everytime there is something that us as missionaries don't want to deal with we just tell them to go and talk to the bishop lol. Or with the missionaries when that happens we just tell them to call the assistants or the president – that’s a good tactic just if you didn´t know;) haha but I love you and hope that you can find a lot of enjoyment and a feeling of fullfillment as you magnify your calling. I know you´ll do great and you´ll be in my prayers like you always are. You´ll not only have funny work or home stories now but also funny and goofy church ones! Oh and as well my white bible says June 13 2012 to June 17 2014, I assume it’s for my missionary plaque right, well you better tell that new bishop (if there actually is one) to get his butt in gear and MAYBE just MAYBE my plaque can have a few months of glory that it deserves. Haha thanks as well for the detailed fight updates, I feel like I was actually was there the way you described Anderson Silvas leg just breaking in half. Totally legit, even though it is useless information like you call it, it´s still fun to read;) 

So I can´t believe the Pallos are moving that soon! Dang I thought that they would have done it this summer but I´m happy for them and that Nicole was able to find a job. Will they stay in the Bay until they sell the house or how are they going to work it? Anyways Pallos: I love you guys and wish you all the best in starting this new chapter of your lives, say hi to Alex for me and tell him he´s a STUD:)

So we had another leadership conference last Friday and it was pretty normal. You always learn a lot of good new things and are reminded of good things as well. Its just getting kind of boring though now. Just going and sitting for a good 8 hours and listening and listening and listening more. It is cool though to see all the elders from all over the mission and get to talk for a little bit. Its always a good time for me and Albrecht to catch up on things and visit for a little as well. 

So we had a cool experience last night, a lesson had just fallen through and we were in need of a new investigator to achieve the goal of 10 for the week, and out of the blue a guy and his sister walk by and they said hi elders we live in your apartment complex, if you don´t have anything to do come up and eat some crepes with us and teach us a lesson. The one guy was an inactive member that was baptised in the U.S and his sister was a non member so we found our new investigator!!!

So today for the last p day of the change.  We played soccer all day with members, it was fun then we went back to our house and me and goood ol Elder Hicken hung out for a while. Then we said our p day goodbyes because I am sure he is getting changed next Monday. As for me I´m about 50 50 on if I will or not, I still don´t feel like it´s my time to leave but I guess we´ll just have to see. I really love you guys like crazy and I will talk to you next week!!!! AND WAY TO GO SHAY FOR VERBALLY BECOMING A UTE UTE UTE WOTTY TOOT TOOT!!!!!!!

Elder Crook 

HO HO HO a very merry christmas and broken new years eve dreams;

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

Feliz Navidad

Well guys I`ve been doing pretty darn good here! I kinda feel like Shay though and I`m not sure why, I`m just not in the Christmas spirit this year, and it feels weird. I think I felt like this last year as well though so it`s okay. It`s cool though because I will always remember this Christmas! It`s kinda weird, I really haven`t even got that excited to talk to you guys yet, just cause I know that I will have one hour of heaven then I will have to come back to real life. I`m pretty sure a million years could pass like this and I would still miss you guys like crazy. It`s easy to forget about you guys during the week and focus on working but just seeing you and being able to talk to you will just make things that much more real that I am super far away and I miss you. It`s all good though, I wouldn`t give this opportunity away for anything! SO our skype plans still aren`t that concrete BUT we do know that we will be doing it on 2 different days, so that makes it a bit easier to tell you guys when I will be skyping. So We´ll just do it from 7:30 to 8:30 at night on the 26th my time here, which would be 4:30 to 5:30 your time, remember I`m on east coast time. I`m saying 7:30 just if we have any mishaps like last time so I will try to be on and ready around that time ok! Sounds good right! I`m super excited!!!!!

Oh mom me pegaste un susto por la mañana!!!! I honestly can´t imagine how other missionaries feel when all of the members of their family don´t write them. I copied and pasted dads and shays and spent like 5 minutes dumbfounded because moms letter hadn`t come yet. I honestly felt like the world had come to an end and was never going to be happy again. Then I realized that a problem had probably occured because my mom ALWAYS WRITES ME!! haha it was just a little reminder on how I STILL take you guys for granted a ton. Hopefully you could find the humor in my litte note in the morning and yes I have calmed down and THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC:) it`s gonna be so fun to learn! even though I have very limited time here on how much I can practice, I think I`ll be able to master it here. 

SO I went on splits with Elder Hicken last Tuesday and we always have a blast. I think we spent the whole day talking, to ourselves and to others. He`s one of the kids that just has made this part of my mission so much more fun. We always have such good days when we work together! We work hard and have tons of fun too! haha they have a gym right outside their house and we went down in the morning, needless to say after warming up a bit I made a beeline for the bench, the guy that was there put on like 85 pounds for me and I did that once like a toothpick, then I jumped off and jacked up the weight to 180 like the good ol days back home. I was able to do it, but not as many times as I was doing when I was home, the owner guy then proceeded to say este man tan berraco! I`m pretty sure thats not in the dictionary but it means like a stud or something along those lines. SO lets just say I woke up the morning after that with a pretty sore chest lol. But then we ended the wonderful split when we went to district meeting and had to go back to our normal comps which was good:)

So kinda bad news about our couple that was going to get married this week. They had everything good to go, to go to the marriage place (notaria) and get a date for their marriage. HOWEVER I guess there are no slots until next January. We had told them this like in the middle of November but the lady (Mayerli) said that she had investigated and the place that they were going to go could just marry them like 5 days afterwards or something so we agreed and she was wrong. SO as a last ditch effort we borrowed a phone book and started to call all of the marriage places in Bogota. There are 77 notarias lol. SO my comp called the first 20 with no luck then the second call I made was a hit! They told me that they could do it this month no problem, but I don`t know who I talked to because when our 2 investigators went the marriage place rejected them until january. So It was a real bummer for me once again to have setbacks with a complete family (remember Tunja?) yeah the complete family has been quite elusive for me and my time here. But our investigators told us the 18th of January they would be married and baptized. I`m sure they will be it was just a bummer that it wasn`t this week, I think I was relating my Christmas this year with their marriage and baptism, but I didn`t get as down on myself as I did the first time in Tunja. That feeling lasted for my whole first change in Cucuta so I`m trying to be an optimist. BUT I WANT TO SEE A COMPLETE FAMILY BAPTISED!!! and I haven`t yet. But theres still hope, and the good thing was that it wasn`t anything about their efforts it was just bad planning, they were pretty bummed too. Their names are Diego and Mayerli.  Maybe if you could keep them in your prayers and we could witness a christmas miracle in january!!!

SO I was reminiscing on my p-day last year:) haha it was the first p-day of mi hijo elder Escobar and I`m sure you can remember that we had a great 4by4 adventure on those mini fourwheelers:) I don`t know if I would do that again, but it sure was sweet!!! that was such a special time in Tunja with Escobar , Larsen and Avila:) this year we didn`t do anything that extravagante. But I did go to a sweet mexican restaurant and eat SUPER NACHOS!!!  They were pretty darn good and I savoured every bite. Then I just hung out with Elder Hicken and our other gringo bud elder Benson, I think goofing around with the dudes oops uhh Elders lol is just about the best you can get!!

OH BABY I forgot to tell you, our stake president loves us so much that he invited the whole zone tomorrow for lunch in the chapel. Who knows what we`ll eat but I`m stoked!!! Our president is so cool and we have a great relationship with him, so more on that next week.....wait no THURSDAY WHOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO!!!!! Love you guys sooooo much! hope I won`t cry when I see you like last time on mothers day. I don`t think soo this time I`m a LOT HAPPIER!!!!! LOVE YOU ALLLLLLLL HAVE A GOOD SAFE NEXT 2 DAYS AND I`LL SEE YOU THURSDAY!!!!!

Happy Anniversary

Well I´m not sure what a ¨silver¨ aniversary is but it sure seems interesting lol.   Too bad the hobbit couldn´t be a part of it lol. But I congratulate you both for lasting so much time with the same companion. That’s a pretty amazing feat. Let’s just say there’s no emergency transfers in marriage. Heck there aren´t even any planned changes to look forward to when you want to get rid of your compy (not that that has EVER crossed my beautiful mind). But at least you got to choose you companion, thats a big plus, I think maybe I could do it with Elder Perez, or E´ Albrecht or Hicken lol.

SO last monday I had kind of a funny story. So me and hickey stayed in the chapel till about 4 practicing our duet. There were some niños playing on the field and they left and gave us the keys to give to the bishop, no big deal right? Wellllll not necessarily when they forgot that the deadbolt is in one of their backpacks. SO we go to leave and find that we can´t lock the gate. Well that’s a really big deal. So I raced home changed and went and wrote you guys, all of this time leaving the chapel unlocked because the bishop wasn´t answering. SO finally afterwards at 6 we were able to locate the niño and he was still unaware of the deadbolt (ahhhh niños) haha I had to track him down and tell him to STAY WHERE YOU ARE SO I CAN SHUT THE CHAPEL. Turns out in all of my haste, I lock the keys in the apt. (first time in 4 months). I who had done it once before knew exactly what to do. Get the ladder from the maintenance  guy and climb in through the window which is strategically left unlocked for precisely these moments lol. BUT the maintenance  guy had gone home early haha. SO my set of keys being the only ones we use were in the apt along with the church keys to lock up the gate...Wonderfull. Good thing I´m an eagle scout and am always prepared with a plan. We have a member just around the corner of the apt and miraculously he had a ladder. Haha the look on the security guard’s face was so funny when I walked through the door with a 20 foot ladder. It was literally 5 minutes after I had asked about the maintenance one. He thought I was out of options but NO I have connections lol, It´s great to be a missionary:) So I climbed in through the window and was at the church in a matter of minutes to close the gates like at 7. Well yet another learning experience of how if you don´t take a minute to slow down and think things through in stressfull moments, more stressfull moments are going to compound the problem. It was pretty funny the look on the security guys face though. That made it all worth it:)

WELL we had an AMAZING Christmas conference that was actually a whole lot of fun. It´s cool to see how president has lightend up just a tad from last year. Last year’s Christmas conference consisted of A HUGE 4 hour capacitation on how to teach short lessons, how ironic. 30 minutes to scarf down a really good but really small lunch, more capacitations, a small Christmas video and passing out a few gifts from the mission. This year was full of musical numbers and a really good lunch, tons of games and stuff and the same movie as last year. It was a lot better and a lot more relaxed. President is still really really strict though. Our number was THE BEST haha we played it sooooo goood! I only messed up once playing it the last time through fast and Hickens voice cracked super hard on our last big opera note lol we had everyone laughing sooo hard and it was classic. I will never forget it, I wish I could send you guys the video but oh well. Oh about the piano, well I realized that I really really really love to play and that I regret it so much not having learned the hymns before. So It´s a goal I´ll have  to learn to play all the hymns. Oh and ma, don´t forget about that sheet music!

Well on top of the Christmas conference we had our ward Christmas activity, it was the most legit activity I have ever been to. They rented a TON of games and blow up houses and cool stuff to do it looked like the circus from outside the gates. And the best part was the ELECTRICAL BULL, yeah pretty sweet huh:) Well I had to go buy a new SD card just so I could have a video of me dominating the bull. Yeah the other one is full;) so I did get up and kick the bulls butt for about a minute and a half until I was so dizzy from spinning in the same direction that I just kinda let go and flopped onto the pad dizzier than a drunk dude on Friday night. It was tons of fun and I had a blast helping set up and talking to all of the members and all of our investigators, they all congratulated me on my succesfull run on the wild bull. You mine as well call me Vaquero Crook instead of Elder;) Also before in the morning we went caroling with our district to a few investigators and me and Hicken had tons of fun singing goofilly to the investigators. We were going to go sing ¨Feliz navidad¨ to all of the Jehovahs Witnesses that were out in full, but decided against it lol (probably a good idea) 

Well to finish the night we had a baptism:) it went well and hopefully he will become a strong member, a member baptized him which is always better than one of us. So hopefully we can do a good job with the ward setting him up with a network of support. He is the boyfriend of a very active member who got pregnant and had her baby a few weeks ago. They have said a few things about marriage but who knows. But I know the gospel has made a big impact on his (carlos) life. 

Well turns out that I think we are gonna have to skype the 26th because we were planning on going to a members house for Christmas eve and skyping our families BUT president says no members computers( don´t ask me why) so no one is going to have an internet open the 24th. Sorry, I was really excited to do it as well on the 24th but the 26th will be just as good. WE also can´t call to set up a time so I will figure everything out really well this week and e-mail you guys with the time next monday.

To end, I can´t believe Shay has narrowed her colleges down to 2 WOW! this will definitley have to be a subject of matter when we skype. I CAN¨T BELIEVE DECISION TIME IS SO CLOSE. Well I really love you guys, thanks to gradma and grandpa Crook who e-mailed me this week. Sorry I´ll get you your personal e-mail next week. But I´m glad grandpa liked listening about us giving it to the christian missionary:) haha! LOVE YOU ALLL SOOOOO VERY MUCH AND TALK TO YOU NEXT WEEK!

-Elder Crook