Date
September 16, 2019
Area
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Companion
Busy to say the least.
Hey guys! This week has been quite the ride. We are super busy almost all the time. Really the only time that we are not busy is when we are sleeping, and that is still doing something, so we're always busy. As a compansionship we set the goal to contact 20+ people each day, and that has been insane. As we contact this many people our schedule is never empty, and if it is that is our own fault. We have tons of appointments everyday, and talk to tons of people when we don't have appointments. We have several people that are getting closer and closer to bapism. They love learning, the only problem is getting them to church on time. On Sunday we usually leave our house at about 7:00-7:30 to go wake everybody up and bring them to church with us, and that helps quite a bit, but the concerning part is that we won't always be here to wake them up, so we try to get the members to bring them to church. We'll see how that goes. This Saturday we decided to try something. We had a basketball night for those that we are teaching at the church, and we had several games. It turned out super well. We had about 20 young men who showed up to play with us, and all but about 2 are recently baptized, or we are currently teaching them. Then afterward we taught the first lesson to all of them. It was great to see so many of them together and supporting eachother. Turns out that most of them know eachother, so it was cool to have those that have already been baptized share their testimonies, and feel the spirit as a group. Here I'm convinced that basketball is far more present than baseball. Baseball is played by many, but only the really good ones like it. The rest play basketball in the streets, and in the courts that are around the city. I'm pretty sure than anyone of them is far better than an entire school team put together. Watching them play is like watching a professional game, but they are all honest when it comes to the rules, so they don't need refs. It's kind of cool. However, it makes me realize how pathetic I am when it comes to anything of the sort. The four missionaries in our ward got totally destroyed by one of them, and then another, and then another. We finally decided to give up and just watch for a while. That was better for our self esteem than actually trying to play. I don't remember if I have mentioned this or not, but the two main types of transportation around here are motorcycle, and a thing called a ruta. They both cost $25 for a ride. We are not allowed to use the motorcycles, but we see them everywhere. The motorcycles are like taxis, so they will just take you right to your destination, and they are probably the fastest, but sketchiest method of transportation here. Next comes the ruta. As it says in the name it follows a route, and just continues along the route making circles and picking people up and dropping them off where they want to go. Now to the fun part. Basically there are two types, a Toyota Carolla, or a VW hippie van. In the Corolla they will cram 4 people into the back seat, and two into the passenger seat, and it is really small. Sometimes if your neighbor is a bit bigger you essentially just get sat on because there is not room to sit on the actual seat. In the Hippie van there are 4-5 benches that have been welded to the floor in order to fit as many people as possible, and they cram 5 people to every bench, so when they get full, they are very, very full. And then of course the carollas, and the vans are from the late 80's, early 90's, stick shift, and so one is sure if they will fall apart, so we just pray really hard that we make it where we want to go. It is totally awsome!! And a whole new experience every time we get on one. Have a great week guys!!Elder Wilson