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

Happy Easter.

Hey all!

 

Happy Easter! Hope the Easter bunny was good to you all and brought treats... I don't think the Easter bunny exists here. I mentioned it, and I'm pretty sure I just came off as crazy... But it's all good! This week we had an awesome combined ward activity. Friday we had a "salvation route". What we did was do a tour of the plan of salvation with the organizations in different classrooms to do acts for each part of the plan. For example, the primary was the Garden of Eden with all the kids dressed up like animals, and the teachers explained the garden, and like that we went through the chapel with us missionaries as guides through the plan of salvation. We all took groups of 15-20 people through, and to end we all ended up in the "celestial kingdom" and watched a movie about the atonement of Christ. It was really good. I think about 100 people showed up. We even ended with a snack :) Best missionaries ever. So transfers came in, and it looks like I will be with my companion Elder Delgadillo one more transfer. It's his last transfer in the mission. I will be his last companion. There are a lot of changes in my zone, and that's always stressful as a zone leader getting everybody in and out in one piece. But that's it. 1 transfer down here in Pasto! Anyway, this last Sunday morning I woke up thinking about the resurrection... I just want to share my testimony that I have felt in my heart that Christ lives. I want to tell you all that in my short 11 months here in Colombia I have seen him change lives. I know he is our Savior. I also know that through Him and only Him we can find true peace and happiness. The church is true. He lives and guides his church today. I love Him, and I hope with all my heart that everyone of us, no matter where we are, or what our circumstances, can accept him and let him into our lives and hearts and minds. I love you all. I know that the Savior loves you all. And this little testimony I share with you in his name, Jesus Christ, amen.

Just An Ordinary Week.

HI EVERYONE

Hey everybody. How's it going? Good? I'm glad ;) Thanks for all your prayers and thoughts. I'm feeling better. I think I got over my bug! After I wrote you all last Monday, it got worse for a few days, and then Thursday/Friday I started to get over it. Whew. Not fun stuff. SO this week was pretty ordinary, other than President Prince and Sister Prince and the APs came down to Pasto for interviews with all the missionaries. Best part was eating Sis. Prince's banana bread. Good stuff.  I'm gonna miss that for sure. Always love talking with President Prince, too. Awesome guy. That might have been my last personal interview with him. He's going home in June... Yikes! If I'm lucky though, I might have one more. We'll see what he does... Anyway the assistants slept over at our house, too. Good to chill with Elder Eliason again. Love that guy haha! Those were great times in Popayan with him- 4 1/2 months in the house. Good stuff. Anyway, just truckin' along here in Pasto. We are doing fine. Keep up the good work at home, and I'll keep working here :) Lots of people to help wherever we are. Lets go get it! Love you all. Hope you have a good week. This is the last week of the transfer here coming up. Almost one transfer down in Pasto! Love you. Talk to you later.

Elder Dean

Pictures from last week at Zone Conference in Cali (Pictures from Cali Colombia Blog)

Zone Leader Coference and General Conference

Hey all.

Hey everybody. How's it going? I'll just start of by saying that conference was awesome. There were a few talks that I liked more than others, like Elder Uchtdorf's talk of gratitude, as well as Jeffery R. Holland (he's always awesome). We watched conference on the family history center computer in the chapel with Elder Jolley, Hansen, Kendrick, and Payne. Gringo club. It was nice to be able to watch it in English. I loved priesthood session as well. I shared the Utah tradition with all the Elders in my zone, and we bought ice cream right before the priesthood session started. Good stuff. This past week I also went to zone leader conference in Cali. We started off in a bus Wednesday morning, and got to Cali Wednesday night. The conference was all day Thursday. It was good. We talked about a lot of things- about how we can improve as a mission and in our zones, and it was awesome to be able to talk to old buddies (Eliason, Wilcox etc) We hopped on the bus Thursday night and got home at about 4 o'clock Friday morning, and then got up again and we were working in our area all day Friday! I was pooped out, that's for sure. I can't wait for the Ensign to come out to be able to read the conference talks. Anyway, I hope you all got the chance to listen a bit to conference, and if not, you can just hop on the Internet and watch a few. Love you guys. I'll attach some pictures this week for sure. I've been feeling kinda sick lately- bad stomach and other things, so thanks for your prayers. I'll keep working hard. Thanks for being awesome friends and family. Love you all. Hope you have a good week!

 

Elder Dean

Gringo group watching conference

 

 La Cocha

 

7 days ago (last p-day) when we went to "La Cocha" as a zone

First Dog Attack in the Mission and Las Lajas Pictures.

Que mas Famila, Parseros, y los demas!

Hey everybody. Sorry about my email last week. Super short and no pics. Halfway through writing we got a call and had to cut it short. Joys of being a zone leader... Anyway, I sent some pic this week of the pics I wanted to send last week. This week was good, bad, and in between. BUT I was thinking the other morning - what a blessing it is to be a missionary right now. I love my family. They love me. I have the gospel in my life. I have many blessings. And it's true. Last Monday night a dog attacked me. Bit me on the leg right behind the knee. First dog attack in the mission! Whewwwwww! But it's all good. It didn't break the skin, and super lucky the dog had its shots (rare here in Colombia). I called the office and they told me to wash it out, so I did when we got home to the apartment and... I'm alive. A few days ago I completed 10 months out in the mission. Nice. Not much to say this week. Just trying to work hard. We've been running into some walls lately, but we will keep trying and working. Thanks for your prayers and thoughts. I love you all. Conference is coming up in a few weeks. Super excited for that. Also we have mission council with all the zone leaders and President Prince coming up in 2 weeks I think... First mission council. We'll see how it goes. That will mean another 8-10 hour bus ride to Cali. YUCK. Ha! Anyway- love you all. Hope you all have a good week. Hey. Quick idea. This week I challenge you all to take an Ensign and a snack to a less active member you know... There is a difference to be made. :) Talk more next week.

Elder Dean

 

 

Baptism of Luz Elena and Maria Jose about 14 days ago here in Pasto. President Prince came down from Cali to baptize them.

 

 

  

Las Lajas. Just standing by a creepy angel with "holy water" no biggie

 

 

 

Las Lajas. 5 min away from Ecuador. Creepy church. Pretty cool though...

 

Almost my whole zone (missing 4) at Las Lajas