Episode 39: Colombian Holiday!

Hey everybody,

How is everybody doing? I can't believe that it is already Memorial Day. I still remember how awesome the carnival was. Today is also a holiday here, but unfortunately I have no idea what they are celebrating. And neither do the Colombians. But everybody likes the day off work.

This week has been really great. We have been working really hard with retention, or converts and less active members. 

We have a sister that we are working to reactiviate in the church named Melanie. Her mom and brother are active members so she has been really progressing. This week we werre able to talk with her about tithing and the blessings she would receive because she, like a lot of others here are living in difficult situations. But it was a super powerful lesson and she commited to pay tithing.

We were also able to find a new less active sister that we are working with. Her name is Andrea and we have taught her father-in-law, who is also less active, but never her. But when we talked to her she said she was completely ready to come back to church and that she had started to read the Book of Mormon just a few days earlier. Crazy, right? She was prepared so that when we came completely not expecting it we found a less active member ready to return to church. It was great!!

This week we have also been able to find various new investigators. We have the goal here to invite every investigator to baptism in the first lesson, which is kinda hard but when the people accept they get super excited. This week unfortunately we have been having a lot of opposition but we did have one brother that we were able to program in the first lesson. His name is Luis and he is the brother of the ward mission leader. He was totally committed to change if he received an answer to his prayer.

Well, that's a little bit of my week. I hope everything is going well. I took a few photos today of the city but I forgot my cord for my camera so I can't transfer them. Sorry, but I will definitely do it next week.

See you guys later,

Elder Parker

Episode 38: Dog Attack!

Hey everybody,

Things are going so great here. Literally this past week has gone by so fast that I can't believe that it is Monday again.

I'm so sad that I missed the party in Primary. It's still so hard to imagine how much the kids have grown since I left. But I'm very proud of Adelaide and her effort to give the prayer. I know how hard that is. 

This week has been super great. I seriously had no idea how great training would be before this week. We have been working so hard and have been having a lot of success, especially with our less actives. The big push in our mission is for reactivating less active members, especially because of the new temple here. But things are going really well.

I hope everything is going great back at home. Right now I have a tiny dog trying to eat the bottom of my shoe. It is seriously super cute. Just saying.

See you guys soon,

Elder Parker

Episode 37: "I'm a Dad!"

Hey everybody,

I am so sorry that I wasn't able to write last week. This past week was a little bit crazy. First we did have time to write last Monday so when we went to start writing the internet store lost power. So we talked with our leaders and they said that we could write on Tuesday.

But that brings me to the next piece of news. So, I didn't think I would be saying this so soon but, I'm a dad!! I am training a new missionary from Mexico, so I spent all day on Tuesday in a training for trainers and new missionaries. And after that I have just had a lot of inconveniences to be able to write you guys. 

Well, things have been going really great here. Like I said, I have a new companion. His name is Elder Pérez and he is from Mexico City. He is 19 years old and less than a month on his mission. It has been so great getting to know him and being able to teach him about being a missionary. He is a lot like me and people have even said that we could be twins. I can't say that would be accurate but he is a super fun guy and I really enjoy being his companion.

Well aside from that nothing really exciting has been going on. In the beginning of June Elder and Sister Rasband will be coming here to Barranquilla and we will be able to see them. And also President Gallego, our  new mission president, will be coming next transfer. I'm very excited but also sad to see President Searle go. I have learned a lot from him and have grown a lot.

Please tell Grandma and Granddaddy and everyone else back at home how grateful I am for their messages and their wellwishes. I am so happy to be considered part of their family and can't wait to see them in a few years. And please tell Grandma that I hope she will get better and that I am praying for her.

Well, I hope everything is going well for everybody. I'm so happy that Emma was able to find a job that she is more or less happy with. I hope that they can find a good place to live there. And also that everything goes well for Sarah and GusGus.

See you guys soon,

Elder Parker

Elder Perez and Elder Parker

Episode 36: "Clean the Glass From the Inside!"

Hey everybody,

I hope everyone is doing well. Things are going super well here. We just had our stake conference yesterday. The theme of the conference was ''clean the glass from the inside''. All of the leaders were talking about the importance of being the best members possible so that we can begin to help the less active members and converts. It was such a great conference and I learned so much.

I am so excited for this Sunday. I will try to call at about 5:45 because my companion is going to talk with his family right before me. I hope that works for you guys.

Well, I don't have many details right now but I will definitely be sharing more on Sunday.

See you soon,

Elder Parker

Episode 35: 100 References!

Hey everybody,

How is everyone doing back at home? Things have been going great these past few days and I am really enjoying it here.

This week we really haven't done anything that interesting. Mainly just the normal routine of teaching. But this Saturday we were able to find a super great investigator named Yeimy (Her name is pronounced Jaime). She was a reference from a family of members and we were able to have a great lesson with her and she attended church yesterday. We were super happy because we have been having no luck with investigators attending church. But the members did a great job of fellow-shipping and she really enjoyed the experience.

Aside from that, we have been swamped with contacting references(which is in no way a bad thing) because these past few weeks we have been able to receive almost 100 references from the ward. We are working on getting help to be able to follow up on these references and having lots of members involved in fellow-shipping. Unfortunately, the problem with members giving rides to investigators can't be solved by the members giving rides because basically no one here has cars, just motorbikes. Fortunately, the chapel is in our area and everybody lives fairly close so we are working on getting the members to walk with the investigators to church.

Congrats to Adam and Aubree with the baby blessing. I can't wait to be able to meet all of the new family members when I get home. I still love being able to see the pictures of the kiddos in the book that you guys made me.

I hope everything is still going well at home. If it is okay with you my companion and I are planning on calling home probably mother's day. If you would prefer a different day that would be fine too.

See you soon,

Elder Parker

Episode 34: So Much Training!

Hey everybody,

I hope things are going well at home. That's awesome that Emma and Jared moved back home. I hope everything goes well for them and that Jared can have a lot of success with his new job.

That's crazy that Ryan is going to Texas. One of my companions in the MTC is from San Antonio and he said Texas is great. I'm not sure it's as cool as Colombia but still.

This week has been fairly interesting. On Wednesday we had a giant training meeting with all of the missionaries in the city of Barranquilla where we were able to hear from the Assistants and President and Sister Searle. The day later we had to go to the mission office for interviews with President Searle (nothing's wrong, I promise) and that took all morning on Thursday. And we had a few more meetings with our district and our zone so I feel very trained.

Yesterday we had a multi stake conference broadcast for all of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela. It was very good because we got to hear from Elder Oaks, Elder Hales, Sister McConkie and one of the members of the Presiding Bishopric. And Elder Oaks tried to share part of his talk in Spanish, but he doesn't know Spanish so that was interesting. It's crazy to see how human the apostles really are and that they have difficulties too, but he made a great effort and I was very inspired.

So about the pictures. The past two P'days I have brought my camera but I have always forgotten to charge it so I don't have very many pictures. I just charged my camera though so next week I'll be sure to have more.

Everything is going pretty well here with the work. Our investigators right now are not progressing too well but we are working on fellowshipping more and receiving references from the members to talk with. But yesterday was pretty bad because we only had 4 regular active members attend the conference. And none of our converts or less actives attended. So that's been a little stressful but we are working on changing the attitude of the members here.

I'm pretty sure that you guys found our church building. It is really small and doesn't really stand out too much, especially because of the graffiti, but it's nice inside. And has air conditioning. Our house right now is about two blocks away from the church. We are currently living in a house that the patriarch is renting out to us but he is asking for the house so we will be moving in the next couple of weeks.

Dad, thanks for sending the mission goals. The work back home sounds like it is really progressing. Here our goals for lessons and new investigators are a little higher, but we still have so many investigators that end up not progressing. It's really sad and I wish there was something more that we can do. So these

past few days I have been thinking a lot about what more we can do to help with retaining investigators. If you have any ideas, they would be appreciated.

I still have plenty of money here. There really isn't that big of a need for personal money because we have enough with what we receive every two weeks. And I am fine on clothes too. I have had to fix a few shirts and pairs of pants but they still work just fine. And I am still fine without a suit. 

It's been great hearing about what's going on at home. I can't wait to hear from you guys in a few weeks at mother's day.

Elder Parker

With Elder Condori by church in Soledad

At the apartment

Episode 33: All Night Parties in the Street!

Hey everybody,

How is everyone doing back home? It's so great to not hear about any more injuries or sicknesses. Everything is still going well here. Mom, the ward is called Las Moras. It's in the Hipodromo stake.

This last week has been very slow. We have been struggling with finding help from the members and teaching our less active members and converts. Basically we spent the entire week finding new investigators but none of them followed through with the commitment to attend church. The week has been a little bit stressful but things are slowly getting better.

So yesterday I played piano in church, but it was with an electric keyboard that was super hard to play and I felt really bad. I also gave a talk about the Sabbath day and it was good but I couldn't remember any of the stories that I wanted to share because the night before I only slept like 3 hours because our neighbors had a huge party with a huge speaker system in the street until 4  in the morning. But the ward here is super nice and have helped me out a lot getting adjusted to the area.

Thank you so much for the song. Here we are allowed to have anything that is church related and invites the spirit, so I already have a few songs from MoTab and EFY. But anything that you guys can find is great. And I was able to download the song just fine.

I hope everything is well at home. I can't believe that it is almost Mother's day next month. It will be great to see you guys.

See you soon,

Elder Parker