Service Project in Pasto.

Pasto puessss

Hey errrrone. How's it going. Here I am getting ready to end this pday, and start the new week! Last week of the transfer right here. Transfers come in this Sunday. Gotta work hard even when transfers are coming in... This week was pretty good... Pretty normal. I completed 1 year in the mission! Wooooo! Big guy haha I thought about buying a shirt for the one year mark, which is the tradition, but I didn't do it... haha! Cool thing we did with Carlos yesterday (Sunday afternoon)- we headed up to a poor neighborhood with a bunch of clothes for kids, and bread and hot chocolate. Carlos gave a speech for his foundation that he has, and then the locura came. We gave out all of the clothes to the moms, and after, we gave the bread and hot chocolate. We got like 6 cool references. Every one of them for the sisters and their area. Bummer haha! But it's all good. I'll send some pics. Today for pday was pretty chill. We cleaned the house really good this morning. We hadn't deep cleaned in about... 3 months. haha! JK... But the apartment's clean now. We ate lunch in the mall and played a little air hockey before walking downtown, cut the hair, did some errands and that's all folks! Angela and Carlos are both doing good in their progress as new members. Carlos got ordained as a priest yesterday. Anyway, the work goes on, no? I hope you all have a great week. I truly thank you all for your prayers and thoughts on my behalf, and for the people I'm teaching and people that I need to find. I'll let you all know what goes down with transfers next week. Love you all... See you later! (I heard Dez got to baptize in the ocean! Lucky duck.)

Elder Dean

 Happy Moms

Passing out bread and hot chocolate 

 The Crew

 

 

 Pasto Zone- Happy Mothers Day

 

Baptisms and P-day

Hey thurrrrrrrrrrr!

Hey everybody... Sorry I didn't get a chance to write last week ;( We went to Ipales to play soccer against their elders, 2 hours south, and on the drive back up we got delayed on the freeway a bunch, and got back too late to write. Bummer. But it's all good! Anyway, not this week, but the week before we went to Cali for zone leader conference. It was good. I slept in the house of Elder Wilcox there in Cali. Good friend. On the bus ride home, from 6 in the afternoon to 5 in the morning, I got a nasty cold that I'm just barely getting over... That weekend Carlos Guevara was baptized and confirmed a member of the church. His nephew, who returned from his mission that same week, baptized him and I was able to stand in on his confirmation. This week, on Wednesday, we had zone conference. President and Sister Prince came down with the assistants and we had our last zone conference with President Prince. Weird. It was good. I liked it quite a bit. This Saturday we also had a baptismal service for Angela. Angela is 14 years old. We found her through her inactive sister, Nicol. Nicol has been coming back to church, and we have been working with Angela for about 5 weeks. She's awesome, and it's great to see her sister reactivating as well. She wanted me to baptize her, so I did. Special stuff for sure. Now that Carlos and Angela got baptized, we are at a bit of a crossroads here with Elder Delgadillo. Gotta find new people to teach and keep the work moving forward! I love the mission. It's hard. It's trying. It's rewarding. It's a blessing. Even though I miss you all so much, I couldn't imagine not have come here and doing what I'm doing. The church is true. If you aren't going to church much or having doubts about anything in this life... Don't worry. It will work out. Keep pressing forward. Start trusting in family and friends and most of all trust in our Heavenly Father. I love you all. I hope you all have an excellent week. I'll try to send some pics of Angela's baptism and p-day today. We went to a little national park type thing. Really cool. Explored for about 3 hours. It had a part with a bunch of pine trees, and I felt right at home.  Also a little jungle part of the forest right in Colombia. Haha. It was coo.l Super pretty. Love you all. Have a good week!

 Angela's Baptism

 Great view of P-day today

 Pine trees here in Pasto

A Story About Carlos.

Hey yalllll!

 

Hey! Hi, how ya doing? Hope you all had a good week! This week had some interesting highlights. I'll tell you about them, right after I tell you all I'm super excited to skype this Sunday! Whoop Whoop! Anyway, this weekend, on Saturday, we helped out with a service project for the homeless with our investigator Carlos. We got together three trash bags of clothing and a big box of food and went down to a Catholic rest home for homeless, and gave out clothes and food to people who need it. Carlos is excellent, and is starting a foundation to help drug addicts and homeless, and he is an expert in these two things... I'll tell you all why. When I first met Carlos, it was 4 months ago in Popayan when I was with Elder Silverio. One day Elder Silverio and I were walking by the river when a homeless man called out to us, "Are you missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints?" he shouted. We turned around to see a man with long hair, all dirty with a sack over his shoulder walking towards us. He stuck out his hand to shake mine, and I shook it intimidatedly. He introduced himself as Carlos, and we staring walking and talking about his life. After walking for about 5 minutes, he thanked me and told me that he had a nephew serving as a missionary for our church. He told me that he knew what he needed to do to change his life, and that nobody could help him but himself. He walked off down the road and I thought that I would never see him again. General Conference weekend here in Pasto, we received a reference from a member- a man who lived right in front of the church that went to the conference. When we rang the doorbell, a man answered, and his face looked awfully familiar. I said, "Do i know you?" and he said "Were you in Popayan about 3 months ago?" That's when I put it together. Carlos Gueuvara was standing right before my face, clean cut shaven and looking normal. He invited us in, and ever since then we have been teaching Carlos, and he is progressing greatly. Carlos has been a pastor from other churches, and is a writer and journalist. He was in the street 5 years prior to meeting me in Popayan, and has now overcome addiction and is working to help others. This weekend it was great to be able to help him in his work, and help out the homeless. I'll send some pictures of the activity. Sunday Sofia made it around to getting confirmed. Good stuff. Awesome girl. She loves singing hymns (even if she doesn't know the tune haha). Awesome to see her get confirmed. Anyway, we are headed this week to Cali for leadership training on Wednesday and Thursday. Long bus ride waiting for me again. Can't wait to talk to you all over skype on Sunday!. Love you all. Hope you have a good week. I'll send some pictures right now, too. It's been a while since I've sent some! LES AMO.

Elder Dean

 

 

Chickens and Baptisms

Hey everybody. 

Hey all. What's UP? Just here in Pasto finishing up my pday. Hope you all had a good week. My week was pretty long. We finished up the transfers. It was pretty stressful in the terminal getting all the missionaries in and out, but whew it's over. This week was pretty interesting. Saturday we woke up and went to the chapel to fill up the baptismal font, only to find a truck load of chickens in the chapel... I guess the area bought chickens for all the members in Pasto. We ended up helping unload and count chickens all day Saturday. Yuck. Chickens are gross. I never want to work on a chicken farm. Saturday afternoon we also had a baptism. I baptized Sofia, a little girl who is 8 years old from a part member family... She loves the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately she didn't get confirmed Sunday, but we will work for this next Sunday to get her confirmed. Saturday night the sister missionaries also had a baptism. Their little old investigator, her name is Jesus. She wanted me to baptize her, so I hopped back into my wet baptismal clothes and baptized her as well. When we got into the baptismal font she started panicking saying, "My heart, my heart!" I thought she was having a heart attack, but turns out she was just scared of the water haha. Anyway, I baptized her and she came out of the water. I think she might have been speaking tongues.... All I could understand was "I saw darkness". Uh Jesus might be a little weird. She was confirmed Sunday morning, and left the chapel happy as a clam. Good stuff. Today for pday as a zone we played volleyball. I got super burned, but it's all good. Anyway. That's all for today folks. Hope you all have a great week. We didn't do so hot as a zone this month in April, but we are headed into May with great plans. May will be excellent. Love you all. Talk to you more next week. CHAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (for Gunner)

Elder Dean