Lessons In Faith: Buenaventura

Hey home!

Como va todo? Bien bien? Ahh bueno. Hope you all had a good week. My week was full of travels, that's for sure. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I was in a different area everyday in Cali. Saturday morning at 4am, Elder Walker and I traveled to Buenaventura, and were there all day, and slept there Saturday night. I've never sweat so much in my entire life, it was so humid. Buenaventura is super poor. The whole day I was crossing bridges just a long plank of wood over water - all trashy and dirty. Some of the houses are wood built on bamboo on the water, where the bathroom is a hole in the floor. The church is only about two and a half years old in Buenaventura. Sunday morning we traveled back to Cali and got off the bus and went straight to sacrament meeting. I was quite car sick. It was the twisty-est and turny-est road ever coming back over the mountain pass to Cali. Anyway, it has been quite the experience being with a different companonship everyday. So many new missionaries who just don't really know what to do. I feel like I've really had the opportunity to help quite a few missionaries out in all aspects of the mission work, and I hope to be able to keep up the energy and be able to be a blessing for the mission in these next few months. This week I had the opportunity to get to know a recent convert. The Elders took me to his house, and right away I could tell he was very special. When he opened the door I realized that he was blind. He invited us in and started to ask me questions about who I was and all about me. He was baptized 8 months ago. He told me with pride that he had memorized the sacrament prayer and that he had blessed the sacrament this past Sunday. We taught him the first Article of Faith, and after hearing the article one time, he repeated it perfectly. He has many gifts that make up for his lack of vision. When we knelt down to pray at the end of the lesson, he prayed for the bishop, the visiting teachers, the elders, the less active members, and to always be worthy of his priesthood, and prayed with such sincerity and faith. He knows the Book of Mormon is true, and that God exists, and is just as sure that the church is true as he was sure I was there, sitting in front of him. He couldn't see me, but he knew I was there. I learned a great lesson from him, and am very grateful for the lesson on faith I learned. Anyway, this week I will be in area tonight and tomorrow with Elder Walker, Wednesday in a conference, and Thursday, Friday,  and Saturday traveling again here in Cali and in a town called Villa Gorgona. Love you all. I hope you all have a good week. Thanks for your prayers and thoughts. Talk more next week.

Elder Dean

Terron Colorado

Hey everybody.

How's everything going? I'm doing great. My toe has healed up pretty good and I'm back in business. Haha. So this week I got all my zone shipped off for transfers, and then I hopped on a bus with all my bags real early Wednesday morning and got in to Cali at about 8 am. Got together with Elder Walker, my new companion, and we helped with the transfers for a little bit in the bus station in Cali. We got to the house about 10 am, and I left my bags in the house and straight away we went to the area. The area is called Terron Colorado, and it's like San Francisco on steroids. haha. It's straight up hill side, and iI have no idea how they built all the houses, but they did it. It's fairly poor, and we honestly won't be here in the area much, but from Wednesday until yesterday Elder Walker and I were able to teach like 20 lessons, and we had a few people in church yesterday. Elder Walker is awesome. He played basketball at Cottonwood High. We get along really well. We also share the area with President's secretary and the finance secretary (Elder Rebolledo and Elder Mejia) and Elder Lyle and Elder Gomez, Presidents Assistants. We all live together in the same house, right around the block from the mission office. It's a nice house. It's old, but it's a really pretty old house. Kinda classy. This week with the new missionaries that came in, I found out that I have a "great-grandson." I trained Elder Silverio, he trained Elder Bernales, and now Elder Bernales is training a new missionary. Gettin' old here haha.  Today for p-day we've just been running errands, getting ready for tomorrow, because starting tomorrow we will travel pretty much 4 weeks straight. We'll only be here in the house Sundays and Mondays. Divisions everyday with a different companionship, and we'll sleep on the floor! It's gonna be quite the adventure. Anyway, I'd better get going. Still gotta get some things set up. We'll be in Cali this week, and also Buena Ventura. It's coast, and it's super hot and muggy- right next to the ocean. Anyway, love you all. Thanks for your prayers and thoughts. I hope you have a good week. Hope Valentines day was good. I didn't even remember it was Valentines day until just now! Haha! Talk more next week.

Elder Dean

Elder Walker and Me

One Shoe and a Flip Flop: Extended to June.

Hey all.

How's everybody doing. Hope you all had a good week. This week was a little slow. This week I had to go to Cali and the toe doctor cut my nail off a bit. It was infected as well, so I've had to proselyte in one shoe and a flip flop haha. My companion has also been a little delicate with a wisdom tooth they took out a few weeks ago. We did what we could though. Anyway, so Wednesday morning I'm headed back to Cali. I've been called as a traveler. My new companion is Elder Walker from Utah. He has been an assistant for 7 months. We will be companions, and we will travel the mission doing divisions with missionaries, training them, and reporting to President. I actually had an interview with President, and have known for about 3 weeks now, but just kept in on the down low. My time here in Palmira wasn't too long, but I met amazing people here, and I hopefully have learned. They as well offered me to go home in June, so I will be going home in June. A little extra, but not too much, so we'll see you all then. This will be a new experience for me, and very different, but it will be awesome ending my mission by traveling the mission and getting to know so many elders, areas, and people. Anyway, I hope you all have a good week. I love you all. Hope you all feel the happiness that comes from this gospel. It's marvelous to know our purpose here, and know how to achieve real happiness. Until next week.

Elder Dean

No Bake Cookies and Square Dancing: The Heart of American Culture

Hey all.

How's everybody doing? So this week a few interesting things happened... This Friday we had a international foods night. The sister missionaries from Venezuela and El Salvador, and Elder Campos from Peru, all did a little dish from their countries, and I did chocolate no bake cookies. They didn't turn out as good as Dad's, but everybody loved them, and I definitely won best food haha! They didn't show up with the projector and some other stuff, so I just stood up with the microphone and talked about the states and even taught a little square dance haha. Saturday was crazy. We went to go fill up the baptismal font Saturday afternoon for Daniel's baptism. First, Daniel is an investigator that we've been teaching for about 4 weeks now. He is friend of Miguel Beltran, a young man in the branch. We went to go fill up the font, and the water pump was broken. With only a few hours before the service we started filling up buckets of water, trying to fill up the font, but it just wasn't working. So we sent two other elders from another chapel here in the zone to go fill up the baptismal font at another chapel, and when everybody showed up we had to send everybody over to the other chapel. Finally we made it over there, but we forgot the baptismal clothing, so I grabbed Elder Nilson, another elder here in the zone, and we took a taxi super fast to go get baptismal clothing. We got back to the chapel at 8:45 and the assistants called me to tell me that Elder Campos replacement was at the bus station in Palmira. I left the baptismal service to go pick him up, and left Elder Campos there to baptize Daniel. I missed the service, buts it's all good. He got confirmed yesterday in another branch because he doesn't live in my area, but we taught him in his friends house because he couldn't receive us in his house. The important thing is that he got baptized and his progress in the gospel. Yesterday afternoon Elder Campos headed out. I'm now here with my companion, Elder Azabache, also from Peru. I miss Elder Campos. It's interesting that sometimes the little things your companion does sometimes you get bugged with him, but when he leaves, you realize that he was a really good companion. Anyway, he's headed back to Peru. Anyway, I better get going. Gotta get the week started here. Thanks for all your prayers and thoughts. I hope you all have a good week.

Love, 

Elder Dean