Halleluya and Whack a Mole

2/17/14 

Well, I can easily tell you that this week was by far the most interesting week I have had on the mission.

We had a day this week where we had a lesson every single hour and we were gonna teach a full. We started out our day and little by little everybody canceled us... noooooo!!!  We remembered we had a reference we received a good 2 months ago and tried to contact him but he wasn’t ever there.  We went and tried his house, and what do ya know, Walter was there! 

So we went in and started talking. He told us he had just became interested in God and wanted to learn more, woo!  So we started teaching him and things were going great and when we invited him to baptism if he felt the spirit, he told us yes, Woo!  Haha it was so sweet to find him, such an awesome dude after such a crappy day where everything fell through. 

After that we were looking for more people to teach.  We were biking past this super classy old guy (who kinda reminds me of scotty boy Sherwood) named Geraldo.  He was working on his porch and we asked him if he needed help.  We started talking and we found out that he is Evangelista.  We asked him if he wanted to share a little bit of his knowledge with us so he let us in and his whole family was there.  They had a bunch of guitars and we started talking and they told us that they were going to start singing praises. So they started playing the guitar and singing and all that good stuff and it was super sweet. I am going to copy some of the songs and send them to you guys.

After that they told us to come back in a couple of days.  So we went back.  And when we got there we found out that they meant, come back and we will all go to church together.  Haha so we went to their church, and it was SO different... They had flutes, and bases, and guitars, and trumpets, and any instrument you could think of.  And they where all shouting and singing and saying things like "THANK THE LORD HALLELUYA!" and crying and all that good stuff.  My companion and I had no clue what the heck we should do so we just sat super super quiet in the corner and then we sang hymns with them and then they told us that we have to bear our testimony.  So we went in front of the whole church and gave our testimony but only bible based haha we didn’t want to offend anybody quite yet.

Well in other news my bike chain is broken and I have to keep on putting it back on cause it falls off every ten minutes. But look at the bright side, I’m a pro a putting chains on bikes now. And one of the times my comp was trying to help me so he started to flip the bike while I was standing up.  Lets just say that now I know how the moles feel in whack a mole.  Haha it was a good whack but good thing I was wearing my helmet, right?  

I love you all.  I hope that things are good.  Have a good week.

Love,

Andy

They ARE from God!

2/10/14

Ok well, usually the people here in Argentina can be really really friendly, until you try and talk to them. Then they go colder than the ice monster from the Matterhorn at Disneyland and slam the door in your face. This past week we had more than 20 people come up to us and start talking--little kids, parents, teens, men, women, everyone.  It was such a strange feeling to have somebody start the conversation for a change. I was so thrown off that the first time I didn’t know how to explain myself.

This week we were praying that we could find new people to teach.  Later that day we went to an investigators and she wasn’t there, but there were people across the street looking for something.  So Elder Santos and I went over to go talk to them and see what’s up.  We found out that they had lost a tap to their weed whacker and they couldn’t cut their grass without it. So we tried helping them look and we couldn’t find it anywhere.  So we decided to start a conversation about religion and they automatically shut us down "No no no, we don’t want any of your religion. We don’t want to hear anything" saying stuff like that.  We looked for another good 20 minutes and we didn’t find anything.  So my companion told me "we should just say a prayer. It will be more practical." so we said a prayer with them that we could find their top to the machine so that they could keep on working and finish their lawn.  Not even 20 seconds after the prayer I looked around and found the top under a little rock thing.  They were all amazed and freaking out and after that they were saying "holy $h!? They are from God!" and "when can you guys pass by our house?" and all that bidness.  Haha just a sweet way that the big man answered two of our prayers in the same time.  

In other news we have a pet dog that we have been feeding all of our leftovers along with all of our neighbors who have been doing the same. We named him "Jake." (My companion loves twilight. Cool story huh?

Also we were lost in the streets of our huge area that doesn’t have numbers, only names on the streets and we saw a bunch of guys with yamacas and huge hats. 

My companion started saying "OH MY GOSH! OH MY GOSH! LOOK GREEK ORTHODOX JEWS! I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO SHAKE THE HAND OF A GREEK ORTHODOX JEW!"  So he booked it over to them, like a cheetah chasing his zebra and straight up asked them "Is it ok if I shake your hand?" He did and then we didn’t have anything else to say so we continued on our merry way.

5 minutes later we saw another batch of them and repeated the steps mentioned earlier. 

Anyways I love you guys and I hope that everything is going well.

Love

Andy

Trust in God

2/3/14 

Hello

Not that much happened this week. The first couple of days in the week we had been teaching 4 or 5 lessons in the day and then some of the members called us for service.

And then the next day the Bishop asked us if we could go clean the church for the baptisms the next day.

And then my bike broke and the next day my comps bike broke. 

It made me realize that stats are just stats and that things happen for a reason and we shouldn’t be stressing the whole time about it cause we are here to help everyone.  

First off I wanted to write about a man named Ramon.  We had been praying to find new people to teach.  And of course I love my fruits and I had been eating them alot so we had to go buy some more on a different day than we usually go.  So we went to the fair and looked from one stall to another.  I felt that we should keep on going and not buy at the first stand, so we went on looking at the different tents of fruit.  We went to a tent and when we got there a girl said to us, "I had been looking for the Elders. My husband wants you guys to bless our son."  We looked at each other and said "Bueno, when can we meet up with you guys?" and then we did all that bidness.  

A good week later we went and this man told us that he wants us to bless his son cause their daughter was blessed in the church and she is stronger than an ox but their son who is 2 has a fever every other day and he wants him to be strong like his sister.  So he had me bless him and it went pretty well.  And then after that he said, "Now I want you to bless me." Haha so I got to bless him too and when we finished he was crying and said to me "I have faith that you can change my life.  I trust you." Haha I had absolutely no clue what I should say so I just looked at my comp like "What should I say?" and he just shrugged his shoulders. So I told him that he can change but first he has to trust in God, which I thought was a pretty good answer. But then he said, "No, I trust you." Haha that threw me for a good spin.  So after repeating for a good 5 minutes that he has to trust in god and not me I finally told him "Okay, we are going to start with trusting in me, and then my companion, and then in God, okay?"

The next time we met with him we found out that he is part of a religion called Umbanda from Africa that does sacrifices and worships the devil. And he was asking us where does he begin. So anyways we started teaching him about God and now he is assisting church and reading everything that we leave for him and already he looks dang happy, woo!

Well after we left his house this week he said hi to a guy on the street and he started mumbling angrily and then a good 5 seconds later we saw a rock fly by us haha.  The old guy was throwing rocks at us haha. I think he was drunk but either way I think it was funny.  And don’t worry ma I had my helmet on.

This week I started a shower and then I saw something that looked about the size of 2 quarters crawling on me. I couldn’t see that well but by how fast it was moving I realized that it was a cockroach.  I started to scream in the shower when my comp busted in asking ‘what’s wrong?’ I screamed something like "THE BUG SPRAY. GET ME THE BUG SPRAY!" and then he sprayed me down with bug spray, not the normal bug spray, but the stuff that kills them, which is toxic to humans too.  So I had to run in the shower hold my breath and then spray myself down and then run out and do it all over again until I was clean.

Well, I gotta go.

I love you guys have a great week and be safe.

Love,

Andy 

Elder Cook: January Update

Jan. 6

Hey how is everything going!!!! Well I am now on the Reservation and it is pretty awesome out here! I am loving it so much! I am going to miss Farmington but out here it is just really cool so far! There are a lot of really nice people out here! We have a ward and our Bishop has only been a member of the church for two years! It is pretty crazy! We have about 30 people to church! But it is really spread out here! We actually live in Many Farms which is south of Round Rock, But our area is from north Many Farms to Rock Point. Round Rock is in the middle! It takes about 40-45 minutes to get from one end of our area to another and that is just on the one paved highway that goes through it. Everything else branches off of the main highway and they are all dirt roads and they go back pretty far! This area is going to be hard to get used to, because it is so big and there are no directions. To get to someones house you would say its about 7 1/2 miles north of Many Farms and then you follow the dirt road for about 2 miles and our house is the one in between the red hooghan and the blue trailer.... Ha it is hard. And there is a lot of land to cover. We go on top of Mesas and stuff. Some people live really far out in the middle of no where! Some don't even have electricity and no running water. It is pretty hard to see. There is a lot of poverty out here. But the people are really nice and we drive a lot! A normal day is probably get up and do studies, including Navajo study for an hour which is cool, and then eat lunch and then start work. We start in Many Farms and work our way north trying people and then we come home and try people on the way home. We probably average about 3 lessons a day. People are home a lot of the time because they don't really go anywhere else except at the first of the month when they get their money. But this area is pretty great! We had 3 Confirmations this last Sunday and also we have to teach the Gospel Principles class every other week! And sometimes Priesthood. There is not very many strong members out here. So they only have people with a couple of callings. But it has been growing a lot in the past 6 months so I am excited! Also to send me mail, it is still to the Mission office. They will just redirect it here. But if it is a package then it has to be priority shipping or else I wont get it until I go into Farmington which we don't do very often. But yeah my new companion is Elder McCarrey and he came out with me! So we both burned our ties a couple days ago because we hit our 6 month mark! Which is crazy! It went by so fast! We live in a trailer with another set of Elders that cover everything south of Many Farms. There is a set of Senior Missionaries that live just right across from us. That is actually where we are emailing right now! We are teaching a lot of really good people and most every time I go into a lesson I feel the spirit so strong! The people here are really spiritual and I have felt the spirit stronger here then anywhere else I have been! The felling is just so great and I cant explain it! I am just so happy here! It is really a great place to serve! We are trying to build up the church and one thing that we are trying to think of is activites that the kids can do for Mutaul. So if anyone has any ideas then that would be great if you could let me know! Anyway that is all I can think of right now! But I hope everyone had a great Christmas and also New Years!

Elder Cook

 

Jan. 13

Well this week was awesome! We found some new investigators that are way cool! But this area is pretty crazy! Almost everyone here has been baptized but no one comes! But there is a scripture in D&C that talks about the blossoming of the rose for the Lamanites! I think it is in section 49.... Somewhere around there. Or maybe in the 20s. I cant remember! But here we are building the ward up so that they it will blossom! I just realized it this last week! I have been noticing people that the Lord has prepared to make the foundation of the church here really strong! Like our bishop has been a member for two years and he is awesome! Also there are people that we are teaching that I can just feel that they are the elect that are really strong and they are going to help build up this church! It is awesome! But we have about 30 members to church each week and we teach the Gospel Principles class and sometimes Priesthood and really whatever they need us to teach. A lot of the time without warning! Ha it is good though! Anyway there is this person named Simon who is a less active and he is way prepared! He studies the Book of Mormon all day and also the teachings of the Presidents books and he is way smart! We just got him to come to church this last week! He wants to get the Priesthood too! But yeah a normal day here is to drive a little bit and get out and knock on a house or two and then get back in the car and go somewhere else and knock on other houses like 3 miles down the road! Ha our area is like 50 miles one way and then I don't know how many the other way! I still haven't even been to a lot of my area! It is crazy! Also this last Saturday we helped with a Funeral here and it was a good service! We had to be the casket carriers though and that was kind of scary because they don't have a machine that lowers it so they gave us rope and we had to lower it in the grave and we did not want to drop it! But it all worked out and they invited us to their lunch after and they did a little ceremony which was kind of different and after they let us get in line first for food and they were all really respectful! And also we had Zone Conference this last week so that was way cool! Anyway love you all and I will talk to you all next week!

Elder Cook 

Jan. 20

Well how is everyone doing!!!!!????? This week was pretty good! We had some really good spiritual experiences and there is a great family out here that were just baptized like 8 months ago and they are like the strongest members ever! Their last name is the Timmons and they are such a cool family! They own a little restaurant and they feed us a lot! Also I get to have Ach'ii tonight!!!!! That is sheep fat wrapped in sheep intestine! I am way excited! Ha but things are going great! At the Timmons we are working with one of their daughters who was baptized 8 months ago too but she kind of fell away and went through a really hard time. But we went over and visited with her and we had a really good lesson! She told us how she wanted to get back into it but it was hard for her to stop smoking too and she asked us straight up, "Is there any scriptures that can help someone who fell away and wants to get back into it!" We told her just to do her best to read the Book Of Mormon everyday and keep on praying and going to church! And we shared some scriptures with her and also I shared one of my Favorite quotes, "You dare not live for the moment; rather you must live for the eternities!" I love that quote! But anyway also this week we helped this less active member get to church and he is really smart and loves the Gospel. His whole family is against him going to church and they all like tried to curse him and he didn't sleep for 3 days and then we finally got to go over and see him and he came to church the next day and we saw him again after that and he said that the biggest burden was relieved from him and he was just the same old happy guy he use to be! He is really great and he has seen God's love for him in his life and he is awesome! Also this last week on P-day we went to a mesa and rolled tires off it! It was awesome! And then we went on some hikes! Well love you all and I have to go! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Cook

 

Jan. 27

Well this last week was really good!!!!! We had a lot of success and we were in the right place at the right time! It was really cool!!!! We are teaching this guy named Billy and he is really cool! He use to be in a gang and then he got stabbed and almost died and when we first met him, he was really paranoid all the time and now he is doing really well!!! He loves the church and we invited him to be baptized and he said he would think about it and we told him to pray and read and go to church and he would get his answer if it is the right thing to do. Well just this last week he was really happy and not even the same person that he was like 3 weeks ago! He told us that he wants to get baptized and also he wants to live at the church! Ha he loves it so much and there is a complete change in his life! He feels God working throughout his life and it is really amazing to see the change that he went through! He is way cool and he works out everyday all day! And now his brother is starting to come! It is so cool to see the Gospel help people in their lives! It just makes me so happy when i see that! Also i gave my second talk ever this past Sunday! Ha this ward is really small and so we have to teach a lot and it is helping me learn a lot... But we are trying to get people to teach so we don't have to. This ward has a lot of great potential, but they are use to putting it all on the missionaries but they are trying so hard and i feel like God is preparing people to come and help this ward grow into something great! All the missionaries talk about the blossoming of the rose in the D&C but it will happen when it is suppose to happen. I am just really excited to be among the Lamanite people,they are all so nice and all of them are so humble! One day there will be the blossoming of the rose! Ha we also went on a hike in LA!!!!! That's what people call Lukachukai. I don't know if i spelled that right. But we saw where apparently Spencer W. Kimball saw a vision where a temple is going to be built! That was pretty cool! I love it out here and i have learned so much and have learned to really love the people out here! I know this Church is true!!! Anyway i will try and send some pictures! Love you all and have a great week! Look forward to hearing from you next week!

Love,

Elder Cook

 

 

 

Animal Planet

1/27/14

On Friday we went to the temple WOO! Man it was so sweet there. It was super clean and had all of these spires and we got to do a session.  After the temple time that we had we got to go take some pictures.

One of these major events this week is my 6 month mark!  It’s crazy how fast things are flying by.  It is weird to think that 6 months ago I didn’t even know how to say anything in Spanish. And now, 6 months later, I still don’t know how to say anything in Spanish haha. jk it is comin bit by bit.

We had a bit of bad luck this week.  Our bikes were very broken. We woke up in the morning and my comps tire was flat so we went and got it fixed at the bike shop.  As we walked out of the shop I hopped on my bike and the tire went flat.  Gosh dang it.  Some of the other items that we had to fix were:

-Both of my tires

-My handlebars broke off my bike

-The wheel was doing the serpentine

- The mud flap

And much much more. I’m starting to wonder if while they are fixing one part, they are rigging the other to break.

In relation to the title this week, I saw many many crazy things.  So many that I felt like I was on Animal Planet.

-The average temperature of this week was about 100. It was so dang hot and of course our fan broke last week. So at night we decided to sleep on the floor but it didn’t do anything. We were still slow roasting in our oven.  So we opened the windows, but then we realized it was a bad idea because of all of the mosquitos and flies.  It was weird how I couldn’t sleep because I can always sleep, but there were so many flies and mosquitos that I just heard so much buzzing that I felt like I was going insane.  The next morning I woke up with over 20 bites on my knee.  My companion said that it was like connect the dots as he started to draw lines from one to another. Dang mosquitos.

-I was washing my clothes by hand outside in our little sink when I heard a sudden buzzing.  I looked around and didn’t see anything.  Then I heard it again and again and again.  Every time that I heard the noise I went looking for it and finally found it.  In the corner there was a little fly (which are everywhere in our pension) stuck in a spider web.  And there was a huge spider (which are everywhere in our pension) that was walking towards it.  I watched with my own two eyes in amazement as the spider bit the fly, dragged in down into the depths of the web, and started to wrap it. Haha it was so dang interesting. I decided to let the spider live because he put on such a show.

-After that we were at an investigator, Orlando’s house he was laughing with his camera and filming something in the grass.  We walked over and found a red wasp fighting a spider about the size of 2 quarters side by side. Then one of them (we found out later that it was the wasp) was dragging the other to its hole.  We watched in amazement as bit by bit the red wasp slowly dragged the huge spider down into the dark depths of the box with the gas control.

-Also when it is really really hot there are these bugs that just screech in the trees.  I don’t know what they are called but it just is a constant screeching noise all down the road.  At the beginning I wanted to die because they were so dang annoying but now I forget about them haha.

Here is something that I thought was super funny about Argentina this week.  The people love to be a little bit louder than the other people around them.  So this week several times I saw somebody with a speaker about 4 feet tall screwed into the hood of their car so that they could play their music louder than the people next to them haha. I am going to try and get a picture of it because it looks so ridiculous with a tiny car with a huge speaker jimmy rigged on top.

I remember Bradley Cook telling us that if a lesson falls through it is for a reason.  So we were looking for somebody to teach and we knew of a less active family nearby.  So we went, and nobody was there, but we tried again and again and on the third clap a kid my age answered the door.  We sat down and talked and right off the bat we hit it off.  We were both the baby of a family of 8 and he has 4 sisters and 1 brother. And he was 19 years and is trying to decide if he should go on a mission.  Then I had a huge dejavu and I remembered saying some stuff to him about the mission.  I gave my testimony about the mission and it was super sweet.  It was the first time that I have had a dejavu about somebody in the mission and I later I didn’t even remember what I said--just some stuff about the mission. After it was just super quiet and we wrapped it up and headed out. and now this week he is going to help us teach.  Haha I thought it was super sweet how there was somebody that the big man wanted me to find out here and he changed some of our plans so we could talk to him.

This week we had a something called a super baptism where we had all the missionaries baptize in the same place and we had a huge conference.  We had 2 girls named Sofia and Rosio.  We have been teaching them for close to 3 weeks and they are freakin sweet.  They are both dang funny and a bit competitive so whenever we ask a question, they are always arguing who should answer it haha.  We went to the baptism and everything worked out great and they were super super happy and I got the opportunity to baptize Sofia, woo!

I love you guys.  I hope that everything is good.

Love Andy 

Mr. Incredible

1/13/14

Hello everybody!  Well this week was a good one. On Monday I met my new companion.  His name is Elder Rubens Santos and his dad and his sister are converts to the church so it is always cool to hear his stories.  My comp is super easy to get along with and we are only speaking Spanish so its doubly great. We went to our area called Ezieza and it is a whole new world.  For example, we needed to pull some money out of the bank and the closest one the church tells us to avoid because they have been known to give fake bills out to people. (haha sneaky argentines.) 

1.) So we went to a bank that was 5 minutes away. 

We only had one bank in Guernica.

2.) We were riding on a huge street that was paved. 

Close to all the streets were dirt.

3.) We pulled up to a mall with a bowling alley, a movie theater, McDonalds, and an elevator.

We didn’t have a supermarket in Guernica.

Things like this that are just blowing my mind.  There are a lot of super super pretty houses here that I am loving and the more I am liking architecture.  

Our bikes are super super old and kinda crappy here so they brake a lot. For example, mine broke less than an hour ago with the mud guard stabbing into the tire and now I have to buy a new tire and mud guard... dang.

But the good news is that we have pegs.  I have never ridden pegs in my life, but this week we have been riding pegs close to everyday.  (Pegs are the little things on the back of bikes that people can stand on so you can have 2 people riding)

The bad news we look kinda dorky with our helmets on.

The good news, we look kinda cool with the pegs so it all cancels out.

The bad news, with pegs you have to pedal for 2 people and I am bigger than my companion so usually I am biking for 2 people at least 5 miles everyday.

The good news, my legs are getting ripped.

My companion is a Brazilian. He is from a family of 4 and is the only active one in his family.  He knows a tiny bit of English but only speaks it when we are in serious situations.  He will look at me in the middle of a super serious lesson and say "What do we do?" but in the most robotic voice I have ever heard. And it’s super super tempting to just bust out laughing but then at the same time it is so serious that I have to think of something super sad so that I don’t laugh.

Another thing that’s super funny is that he says ouch.  He will say it before he thinks that something is going to hurt and then if it hurts, he will say it again like 3 times.  So for example, we will be riding on the bike and he will see a bump, say ouch and then we will go over the bump and he will say ouch 4 more times.
 

This week was New Years!  We had to be in the pension at 6 so we went home and talked and watched the fireworks and played some cards and I was the first person to jump and do a 360 in this year! 

The members here are super super cool.  I do miss Guernica but the members here are super sweet.  We go to a recent convert’s house 2 times a week for lunch and if they don’t have dessert ready they will pack it up for us and then give it to us that night. 

One day they didn’t have the strawberry pie ready for us so they packed it up and gave it to us later that night.  My companion downed his part and then I, like usual, and slowly ate my parts over the next few days.  My comp kept asking me if he could have some and I said he’d already ate his half.  So one morning it was just too much for him and he told me that he would give me cereal for the rest of my pie.  I told him that it is gonna take a little bit more than that for my pie and then he told me "ok ok I will give you a liter of milk and also all of my cereal for your 2 pieces of pie."  Haha I thought it was super funny that he wanted the pie THAT bad to give me a weeks worth of food.

Also I don’t know why but everybody here LOVES soap operas.  Every single house that we go to everybody is watching it. At lunch we talk about them. Before lessons we talk about them.  I am starting to learn which is which haha.  

This week when we were teaching a lesson we heard the investigators kitty meowing like crazy.  We went to go look for it and we found it stuck in the tree way high and shaking. Poor little guy. So I had to climb up in the tree in my church clothes and fetch the little thing.  When I got close I tried to grab it but then it got scared and ran away from my hand so I had to go higher into the tree and try and grab it again.  Finally quick as a cricket I grabbed the little kitty and as it frantically tried escaping my grasp I gently tossed it to my comp.  I felt like a fireman, or Mr. incredible.

Anyways I love you all and would love to hear from you all. Good luck with this week. Love,

Andy 

Last Days in Guernica

1/6/14 

My last days in Guernica we called Alex and his mom and asked them if we could cook for them (because they always cook for us) to celebrate my last days in the area.  We prepared some Honduran food (which is actually just Mexican with different name.)  We ended up having tacos and these corn tortilla balls filled with pigskin and cheese. (Haha I really am going to try every single part of an animal here.)

We were cooking and cutting and then my comp asked me if I could cut the peppers and then take out the seeds. These weren’t any normal peppers. They were like jalapenos, just hotter.  So he told me to cut them up so I did exactly that, but cutting out the seeds with the knife was taking way way too long. So I just decided to take it out with my hands.  Much easier.  I relaxed and talked with them and played some church music, etc. etc. Then I started to feel a burn in my fingers, up to my knuckles, then to my wrists then my face, ears, nose, mouth, throat, lips, and all down my arm started to burn.  I didn’t know what to do or say so I just started to laugh and ask for some water.  They all looked at me like I was a loon but it was killing me.  I couldn’t really explain what was going on cause I was laughing but it was burning everywhere.  I finally pointed to the peppers and then they understood.  I had to put my arms in water for the next hour because every time I took them out they burned. I thought one hour was bad, but then it burnt for 2 then 3 then 4 then 10 hours, then I woke up in the night and they were still tingling and even to the next morning they felt really really hot. So I have learned my lesson.  Do not touch anything if you are cutting peppers or wear a good 2 or 5 layers of protection.

The next day was my last day in Guernica and I had to give a talk about missionary work.  I was dang nervous cause usually I don’t talk for very long. Also my companion went to the Ensign and found all of these quotes and scriptures and then when he saw my page and a half of notes he told me "Don’t worry. I can talk for at least 40 minutes if you only have 5 or 10 minutes of material." So I got up there and like a baby I was already choking up when I started to talk but I managed to push through and I didn’t cry until the end.  And after sacrament.  And when everybody was leaving. And later that night.  Haha they call a cry baby a lloron here.  They also call a lloron an Elder Merkley.  Anyways, I ended up talking for 30 on accident, I don’t know how or what I said but I did it! I accidentally took 10 minutes of my comps time so all of his hard work went down the drain... sucker...

After that we went to the pension to go change out of our suits and when we were there the other missionaries called us and asked us if we were ok... When we asked why they told us that our bikes weren’t there.  They have an April fools day here so we thought that they were joking but there were being really really insistent.  So we went down and what do ya know... The bikes really weren’t there.  We looked where they were and somebody had cut the lock and ran off with our bikes in the 15 minutes that we were changing... Gosh dang it...  So we were on foot my last day en Guernica

That night we decided to have a Game night in the church for my final goodbye.  We invited everybody and talked and watched a little movie and had food.  It was real good until everybody wanted to say goodbye.  I didn’t know what to do because there were people there that I had never even talked to and they wanted to take a picture and talk for 30 minutes and I was trying my best to say "Alright time to move along folks" in the nicest way possible.  It was especially hard saying goodbye to the people that we had baptized there-- Fernanda, Bruno, Santiago, Albert, Marivel, and Pierina and also the families like the Guarachis, Avalos, Sajama, and Americes who fed us every single week without fail.  It was a sad sad night but it was gonna happen sometime.

I’m stoked for this transfer. I love you and hope that everything is good. 

Love Andy