Week 4: Lots of New Faces

Dear WORLD, 

     This past week flew by. Let me start off from last P-day and what we did because it was awesome! First, we said our goodbyes to the last of the missionaries leaving the CCM and then we left to go do a sweet adventure. We had to get our visa stuff done first, then we headed up a mountain top to a Catholica Synagogue and it was so cool, but a little disturbing as well. Here’s why. So, if my pictures last week went through then you saw pics of me with a view of Bogotá and one of me in a church. Well in that church it was silent, and there were only a few people in the chapel worshipping. Then, in the front of the chapel there is a depiction of Christ falling with the cross. It’s a big statue and truly it made me feel sad, it was not at all pleasant thing to look at. But this church was centered around the 3 Milagros. The 3 people who helped Jesus when he fell. I don’t even have words for what it was like. It was so reverent, and it pierced my heart and soul. I truly believe that if I had been there I would have tried to help Him just like those 3 Milagros. After the viewing of the Synagogue we had a little fried pig intestine! It wasn’t bad it just tasted like and over fried something. It was pretty cool to try it anyway! But then we got some real American food. We had these big fat juicy burgers! There was so much meat you ran out of bun. I also had 2 milk shakes, and man it was the BOMB diggity! No words can describe how amazing that food was! 

     This week we also got new Latino's and they are all really cool guys. I love them to death already! There are now 5 Latin’s in our room so it is crazy! They all talk lightning fast and they love to just hand out their Venezuelan money. It’s hilarious because it’s literally worth nothing! They have stacks and stacks of cash that probably barely make up 100 dollars ha-ha-ha! So now I have some Venezuelan money. I’m gonna hold onto it until it’s worth something! Ha!  Also, uncle Derek one of the Latinos is  Guatemalan in our room so that’s rad! There were only 3 new Americans and they are all pretty cool, one plays a lot of basketball and even brought his own ball ha-ha. I thought that was kinda funny. Then one is a little shy and the other is just a very kind, fun dude. 

      I can´t describe to you what time is like here. Some weeks feel like forever and others fly like this past week. I like to describe it as days are like weeks and weeks are like day’s cause that’s literally just how it is. But man, I can’t wait to get out of here and just start teaching and really start to learn this language as I try to speak to the locals. I literally just look out the window while I study sometimes, because first it helps me study and second I imagine myself walking along the street and just talking to people. I can’t wait!!! There are like 2 Latin's here with me going to Bogota, so that's pretty cool! 

Alright now as my friend Nacho would say, let’s get down to the nitty gritty...

     So, Elder K a great singer and one of my best buds, as are all the guys in my district had an unfortunate incident. We were on TALL a program for language learning. You are on a computer when you do this program. Previously I heard stories from other Elders that they would check their email and stuff while they were doing TALL. I also had some other guys in the last group say they even did it. I thought I could confidently say that my district wouldn’t do this. Well I was wrong! So, we were on the computers, and I was sitting by Elder K  I got frustrated, because I had missed a question, so I looked over at him.  What do I see? I see him watching the new Star Wars trailer! Yep! He tried to put the TALL screen in front of it so it was kind of hidden. We all have headphones too so we can hear ourselves speak Spanish, so he was listening to it too. I was so disappointed! I had to report it to President. He said he knew exactly what we were going to do. Well, the next day was Sunday and my comp and I are Zone Leaders, so we had to do a quick lesson from the missionary hand book. We chose technology because that is what President thought would be best to go over considering the circumstances. This ended up taking the whole time in Elders Quorum because President basically ended up going off on stories of Elders who continue to do this kind of thing. It was awesome! 

Another reason I love Sunday is because during sacrament meeting they basically announce out of the blue who will be speaking at the beginning of the services. You are required to have a talk ready in Spanish every Sunday. Sadly, I didn’t get called on ha-ha!! Then our other meetings were on fire as always! We watched a church movie like we usually do. This week it was on Jesus Christ coming to the Americas. I loved it because it shows how much Christ always turns outward, and it made me think about what the second coming will be like. Then, after that we had this amazing scripture study that I want to send you. It’s all on the Atonement and just going through the bible, seriously I loved it! I’ll have to send a pic next week when my camera isn’t dead. (Mom will love this) We only get our cameras on P-days so that’s why it’s dead. We then got to watch a fireside devotional from Elder Holland given only to the missionaris and wow I loved everything he said. One thing I will share that he said about serving in the mission. He said, “The mission is hard, it is the hardest work you will ever do, and when you are thinking why is this so hard (he’s pounding the pulpit now) you just remember… it isn’t easy for you, because it was never easy for him”!!! Then he said some other striking things about how we need to use The Book of Mormon for everything it was the first gift that Joseph Smith got and had to complete first before anything else could happen. We need to use it as missionaries literally for everything!! 

    So, I am going to try and give a funny thing of the week, every week for the rest of my mission. This week Elder Whitting and Elder George were teaching a lesson to their fake investigator and Elder Whitting started playing with a leaf doing the you love me, you love me not thing. In the middle of the lesson… When Elder George thinking he had an amazing relationship with the investigator hit the leaf out of his hand and said in Spanish listen to our message! HA-HA-HA!  He forgot he was speaking Spanish and guess what they lost him as an investigator!! It was sooo funny I could hardly contain myself I laughed so hard. They tried to make it up but the investigator would just not have it! It was seriously sooo funny! Mom would have died laughing! 

     Last night (Monday night) I had a very powerful experience giving a blessing of comfort. Elder Rios from Venezuela had a brother who died 3 months ago and he has really been struggling with it and has totally broken down 4 times here at the CCM. We came into our room at the end of the day and he asked that we give him a blessing. I said, “Of course!!”  So, I did the anointing and Elder McConkie did the sealing and let me tell you the spirit was so strong! I could literally feel the presence of angels in the room trying to comfort him, and a lot of what Elder McConkie said was pure revelation from our Heavenly Father, I could feel the spirit so strong. We were able to do the whole thing in Spanish, so that was awesome!! After he just sat there and began to cry. I felt the impression to tell him what President Holland said, “That it’s not easy for us because it wasn’t easy for him”.  He said he understood, but he just said it’s so hard and began to cry. I just knelt by him with my hand on his back, as he sadly gripped my face crying. It is so sad. But this is what makes me love the message we are sharing! We have eternal families and The Great Plan of Happiness and we get to share it with others! This gospel is 1000000% true!! I know times can be difficult, but there will always be light and we can’t deny ourselves from this light. This gospel is true and if you don’t know what I am talking about please go to lds.org or mormon.org and find out what The Plan of Happiness is, or better yet find the missionaries just like myself, wherever you are and have them teach you all about it in person. I love you all and I am doing great! The Spanish is coming!!

 

     Until Next Week,

     Elder Weaver

You can write to Elder Weaver at Preston.weaver@myldsmail.net

You can see lots of pictures here...

Follow his blog at www.Prestoninbogota.blogspot.com

Week 3: The Church is True, the Book is Blue!

Dear World,

     This past week was quite the week I don’t think I have ever studied so much Spanish. I have over 350 words memorized and I have the Objectivo, Baptismal invitation, The First Vision, and Moroni 10: 4-5 memorized in Spanish. Alright first things first.... COLOMBIA MADE IT INTO THE WORLD CUP! I am so freaking excited ha-ha! YES! I am seriously so pumped it’s going to be so awesome down here! 

     This was the last week for the Nortes y Latinos and it was bitter sweet. Let me just share some stories about my Latinos. So, Duran y Camacho they are soooo funny I call them fart slap and laugh, because one of them farts one of them slaps then the one that farted just laughs and laughs and laughs! I love it and hate it ha-ha. Then, one day Elder Duran y Camacho got upset we would talk in English with the others and they made signs on our closets that say "Solo Spanish Nortes Creizis I not spek Imgles please" basically they can’t speak English and they don’t like it when we do. So, that said if we went 24 horas sin hablar ingles then they would stop tirarando pedos. AKA throwing farts ha-ha it was fine by me because I need to work on just speaking Spanish and I don’t want my Habitation to smell like toot holes.

     Ok now here’s something sweet! My comp and I have been on fire and we taught our fake investigators and they complimented me on how much my Spanish has improved and then we committed them to baptism. I know its fake but I HAD THE BIGGEST SMILE ON MY FACE! IT WAS SOOOOO AWESOME!!! I have seriously improved a lot and I honestly think I talk more than my comp in the lecciones which is weird cause he is way better than me. 

     Oh I almost forgot, something funny happened to me in class this week. I was grabbing a marker and all the sudden the TV in our room turns on and opens up on YouTube! I grab the remote to try to shut it off and all the sudden a video starts to play ha-ha everyone in the room was soooo confused but it was funny. I turned the TV off and just hoped that when the teacher turned it on that the video wouldn’t be there luckily it wasn’t, but I told her what had happened ha-ha it was sooo funny! 

     So, I have been studying my stack of note cards a lot and it is huge. I have been trying to find new ways to memorize but note cards just seem to work best for me. We use the little red Spanish for Missionary’s book for a lot of our words and we named it Charmander the Pokémon because there are 3 books so Charrmander, Charrmelion, and Charzard. We use Charmander the most though it is a lifesaving tool. This past week has been kind of sad because everyone is leaving and this Latino who I love was crying the last night. He had told me earlier how he was sad that Norte’s couldn’t go to Venezuela and he said he thinks its wrong. He hates it because he says Norte’s aren’t bad people. It was so sad! His name is Elder Garcia and he is sooo funny and a very good singer. I am going to miss all of them. Then I had to say goodbye to one of my best friends. His name is Elder Lister and he is from Idaho we grew close, and bonded quickly. I absolutely love the guy! He’s a very athletic dude, he played football, and he loves the gospel. We relate on a lot of things and we had some deep talks, I was so sad to say goodbye to him. I really look up to him, he said he might go to Hawaii, so I hope I’ll see him again. 

     Ugh! I had to eat oatmeal which it’s like not bad but it totally destroys my stomach! Let’s just say the food here is good, but it does 2 things to you. Either it makes you have diarrhea or you can’t poop at all for days! I have been fortunate enough to get some pretty solid stuff out ha-ha. 

      Last thing, so last night we had the chance to do family home evening with just the people in our habitacion and it was super spiritual. The spirit was thick in our room that night. I may have had almost no clue what the Latinos were saying, but all I know is that they are strong in this gospel and they testified it was true. They come from some very hard circumstances and some family members aren’t even active or even members, but they are here serving missions. I find that so amazing. We all bore our testimonies in Spanish and I was last. I was very nervous, but I said what I needed to in Spanish. It was not perfect, but I could feel the spirit help me and guide me. I do love these men and I love what these first 3 weeks have already done for me. This gospel is true and I am so glad I am here and I am even more excited to be able to serve the people and teach the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!  I only have 3 more weeks in the CCM! I testify that Joseph Smith restored the gospel and because of this every single person on earth has been effected. The Church is true, the book is blue.  

Love ya! Signing Out!

     -Elder Weaver

Week 2: The Spirit is Real!

Dear Family and friends,

Wow! Que una semana! YO AMO COLOMBIA!! Seriously, this past week truly has been amazing and it all started last Tuesday when we went to the temple El templo de bogota Colombia. I was tired because we had to wake up especially early at 5:45am to get ready to go and it was kinda hard to stay awake. But I was on a mission! I had questions that I needed to be answered. I’d been having a tough time the days before learning the language and I was feeling sad, and frustrated. I read my dad’s letter and he told me I needed to pray to ask why I was here. He then gave me the following reasons I might consider… 1. for someone I’ll meet 2. for my mission president 3. for something I’ll need in the future. He then challenged me to pray and ask my Heavenly Father specifically. Well, I decided that when I went to the temple I was going to humbly ask my Heavenly Father a few questions, and let me tell you I have never had an experience such as this. I had an actual conversation with my Heavenly Father and he literally gave me answers to my questions. It was amazing and honestly truly hard for me to even describe! I know and testify that god loves and answers our humble, and sincere prayers. I know that if we but pray with a humble heart he will reveal all to us. I don’t believe anything that has to do with His work is a coincidence. He loves each one of us and each one of us are important to Him.

So the entire week I had cold showers every day, that was fun! I absolutely love jugando futbol! I love playing with the Latinos they are so good but they are not fit so we manage to beat them sometimes, especially if we have one or 2 on our team. One day my team won 6 times in a row! It was slick! I love them and I will miss them. As far as the language, I have been steadily improving each day and I got to teach a lesson with my comp to our fake investigator and seriously it was sooooo good. The spirit was so strong! I was speaking like I have never spoke before and was able to testify to him and he cried a little and my comp almost cried a little! It was insane. But yes, I have truly been improving and I can teach a pretty good lesson in Español now. One of our teachers Hermano Saldaña is the bomb digity and he is so funny. He learns how to say random English phrases and he doesn’t really understand what he's saying, one time he told me, "To jump in a lake, and that he couldn’t stand the sight of me." hahahaha! It was so funny of course he is completely joking. I love that man to death!

I love my district they are so funny and awesome to be around. There are 9 of us and it is soooo fun! One of my best friends here at the CCM is Elder Whitting he is so funny! We sometimes just draw random crazy pictures of everyone and just throw them to each other during class it’s so funny! I Love them all! Sometimes ya just gotta lighten things up a bit and get people to laugh!

Then on the 7th we got to leave the CCM to go proselyting! It was such a great experience! My comp and I got assigned to Elder Wood. My family actually met their family randomly at a triathlon in Omaha this summer and their son is the AP in my mission! Man, what a great dude. He is so cool and taught me a lot! First, we left to go to this lady’s house to do servacio and she wasn’t there so we contacted nearby houses and one of the people that answered was an older lady and it was so cool. We got her info, and she told me that her daughter is a member in another country! She was a pretty cool old lady and I hope she will be taught soon by the missionaries already in the field. Then, after that we got to contact in the park for a bit and I got to talk a little bit it was kinda nerve racking but fun and I love how open and happy these people are! After that we went to a member’s home who are from Argentina and moved to Utah then to Colombia, so yes they speak perfect English. They truly are a wonderful family the dad is hilarious and I just loved talking with them and believe it or not they spoke in Spanish to help us out then in english if we need help. We were able to share a message with them and if went really well. Finally, we got to teach a guy named Juan. He is this huge ripped dude who is actaully so kind and awesome! The spirit was so strong he said how much it all made sense and how he's been searching for this. I got to bear testimony in Spanish two times and talk about The Book of Mormon. Then, I was prompted to commit him to baptism and luckily so did Elder Wood and he said... YES! WOW! So, amazing I can’t wait to get out into the field, because of this I seriously just want to go out and teach!

Alright last thing. On Sunday and Monday we had the chance to watch a talk by Elder Bednar that was given exclusively for Mission Presidents and MTC's. It was possibly one of the greatest talks I have heard in a long time. He talked about becoming fully converted and to become like Christ turning out ward instead of inward. He then shared examples of Christ and of a lady in the world today and they both hit me really hard. He was direct in telling us the fact is we always need to be doing something! He was kind of savage and it was awesome! The spirit spoke to me and there’s a lot more I could say that goes with this, but I need to move on to what I felt the next day during personal study. So, I was doing personal study and reading "Our Search for Happiness" by Elder Russel M. Ballard and let me tell ya this also affected me. The story about his grandfather seeing Jesus Christ really touched me. The combination of this, Sunday and yesterday made me right down my goal for the rest of my mission and life. I want to completely loose myself in service and forget about me and just completely turn outward. I want to become fully converted and for the rest of my life I want to devote my life to Christ. Never have I felt the spirit confirm something to me so strongly. I want to travel the world serving people. Honestly I know it sounds crazy but I love how happy this gospel makes me feel and I want it for everyone and I want to feel this way for the rest of my life. I testify of the truthfulness of the gospel and that Christ lives. That the Holy Ghost prompts us and leads us in our times of need. This gospel is true and makes me so happy. I hope all of you take my challenge to read The Book of Mormon in search of any questions you have and to also visit mormon.org to find out why I am so happy! Love you all!

Signing out!

Elder Weaver

Week 1: La CCM

Dear People of The World,

I made it to Colombia! So, let me tell you exactly what happened when I got off the plane. So, I get off and immediately we go to find our bags and then go to the CCM. We get in at like midnight, go to sleep and wake up at like 7am because they told us we could sleep-in a little. Then this is when it all starts. NO hesitation we just start going at it learning Spanish and everything! We get all of our study stuff and then we move to our classroom for 5 minutes. Then, we leave to another spot and learn Spanish in the hall way. Then, we go upstairs and start memorizing the missionary purpose in Spanish, at the same time they are pulling people out to get their hair cut! So, in case you all were wondering yes, I had to get my hair cut even shorter. YA! So…Sister Cottle was kinda right. Then they said it still wasn’t short enough, but they didn’t make me cut it anymore thank goodness! Also, everyone was like ya the first day is terrible. It totally was I literally felt like after every meal was one day. It was like 3 days in 1. I learned more Spanish in one day than I have learned my whole life. Absolute mayhem! So, after the eternity of a day I get to my bedroom and we get to talk with our roommates who are super cool. Elder Lister, Elder Peck, Elder Duran, Elder Chamacha and my companion Elder McConkie. They are all great and the 2 weird names are the Latinos in my room and oh my gosh I love them so much! I love all the Latinos here! They are so funny and full of energy and they love me and I love them! So, the rest of the week went a little bit quicker. We just sit in this classroom that's half the size of my bedroom at home and all 9 of us just learn Spanish for like 6 hours it is very stressful. Especially when you have a companion who literally can just see a word once and memorize it. He helps me out though and I am so glad he is my companion, because I learn a lot from him. The food here is good. A lot of people are getting sick with diarrhea though and it es no Bueno! But I like the food sometimes. We even get American stuff like French Toast!! OH, y’all would be so proud of me, because on Sundays and P-days they don’t serve breakfast. So, guess what I get to eat? My least favorite food in the world! CEREAL! Yep, I’ve had to eat it twice now and I am not liking it!  But, what can you do?!

Ok so can we talk about conference?!  Wow!  What a rich Cenferencia General!! Seriously, Utchdorfs talks were great! I also loved Hollands. I loved how he talked about how too often we judge others and their decisions even when they are trying to walk back towards Christ. How often do we judge what someone does and don’t reach out?! As a missionary, it stuck out to me that we need to reach out to everyone even if they are on the drunken path towards Christ. I thought this conferencia was super rich with a lot of references about having faith in our leaders and Jesus Christ, and studying The Book of Mormon, as well as, looking for miracles in our lives. I could talk about it all day, but I only have like 30 minutes left sooo ya. Presidente Hansen is amazing! Talk about a super cool spiritual guy! Man, I LOVE THAT GUY! I think he truly gets me and understands how hard this is for me. I am really struggling with the language! Yesterday was tough on me because we had our second lesson with our fake investigator Felipe. So, what happened was I was saying everything I could, occasionally looking over at my companion for vocab help and then I turn to him for his part and then Felipe says "Yo voy en dos minutos". So, we stress because a lot of our time was taken up by him wanting to just talk to us. So, when we finally got to start we didn’t have a lot of time. UGH! Then, Elder MCConkie just goes and is basically speaking fluent Spanish and I literally just sat there. I felt so helpless and the rest of the day was just a drag for me because I felt like I was falling behind. But then my encouraging Latino friends in my room shared a story with me, because I think they saw I was disappointed. They told me about an Elder they knew who could only speak a tribal language, and then he went on a mission to like Ecuador or something and became fluent in Spanish, but not until he got in the field. He did not learn to speak Spanish in the CCM. They told me lovingly that I won’t learn a lot here at the CCM and not to worry, because I will learn it in the field! They were talking in Spanish but I understood and I felt the spirit testify of this truth! One last thing! There is a teacher here at the CCM that is the same guy I went on splits with in Paraguay during HEFY!! If you go onto the HEFY account, you can see him and me in a group picture!! That made me so happy!!  He totally remembered me too! That really made my day yesterday a lot better too! SOO COOL! I’m not home sick yet, but I did need to seek my Dad’s help last night. I’m not gonna lie! I read the letter he gave me when I graduated and the Ten Demandments he gives to all of us, and it totally helped me feel better! I love you all!!

 Sorry if you all were hoping I would speak some Spanish in this email, but I can’t think that fast with this short amount of time!

 Elder Weaver signing out!

I LOVE COLOMBIA!!

If you would like to keep in touch with Preston you can email him at preston.weaver@myldsmail.net