Elder Kendall's Service in Colombia: 2 Toothbrushes Down, 1 to Go

Wow! Time goes like really fast! More than a year ago I was sitting in the CCM and not understanding any Spanish! I’m sure glad that those days are long gone, and speaking Spanish is a lot of fun!

Opened up another one of my 6 month toothbrushes, when I open the next one, I´ll only have 6 months left in the mission! What’s up with that?? Anyways, my teeth are clean!

This week was pretty good, we got some good stuff done and found a little bit of new people. Something that was interesting was that every single day we had someone come up to us in the street and ask us who we were or what we were doing, and we have been able to teach a few of them!

Wednesday was one of those days! We got to meet with a guy named Yovanni and his 9 year old daughter Geraldine. They are awesome! Yovanni speaks like really good English, and he asked us to teach the first time with him in English! And it was super hard! I have pretty much how to talk about the gospel in English now, it was pretty difficult to think of the words and explain things clearly. It was cool.

Friday we taught Ninfa again, and we went full out Bible mode to help her out to really understand the Apostasy of the church of Jesus Christ, and she was left with a sure answer that the church has the same exact organization that Christs church had anciently. It was pretty powerful, we are just helping her attend now because she has a little bit of doubts of changing her religion. That’s why I love General Conference!! I know that all her doubts can be resolved just by listening to the prophet Thomas S. Monson.

Oh yeah, also completed a year on Friday.

Weird.

Saturday, Bosa had 4 more baptisms and I did 4 more baptism interviews. They are a family that are fantastic, and the opportunity to interview a person to see how they have prepared themselves for baptism is one of the coolest, and most nerve-racking, things you can do as a district leader. That was the cool part about Saturday.

Sunday. So, we got to the chapel and all the people that said they were going to come, didn’t show up. The only highlight was that Ceniada, an investigator we have been teaching, called us and said" Hey I wanna go to church will you guys come pick me up?" We were like "UM, YEAH!" But, as the meeting started, the Nupia family hadn’t shown up, and that meant they weren’t going to make it to their date on the 24th, and I probably wasn’t going to see anyone baptized in my time here in CasaBlanca.

During the passing of the Sacrament, I was feeling really bummed, and disappointed like I hadn’t done stuff right. In short, I felt like I failed here. Then, the Mendieta family showed up, and I thought alright that’s better! I didn’t totally mess up. Then a new guy named Edwin called us and said he was outside of the church, so we went out and brought him in and I sat with Edwin and my companion sat with Cenaida. I was feeling a little better, when I looked over to my companion and he signaled for me to look back behind me.

When I looked back, I saw the 3 kids from the Nupia family!!! They came!! By themselves!! Which means they are still on track to be baptized on the 24th of September!!! In that moment, I felt like the Lord answered my prayers and showed His endless love and mercy that he has for me. I was so happy!

So, this week ended up pretty awesome. God is so good, and he is always willing to answer our prayers! I love being a missionary!!

Love,

Elder Kendall