colombia-cali mission: What we do in our spare time...

This past week was a free week, so what did we do...

Monday - it was Festivo in Colombia...so we had a day of work in the office trying to organize files, etc for the Medellín mission. A skype session with the new mission president and his wife to present a few of his missionaries to them. A missionary with a belated confession who had to go home. And my dad's wife, Connie, had a double masectomy at the age of 88...so our prayers and thought's were with her. (the surgery went very well)

Tuesday - attended a lesson with the sister missionaries in Limonar in the afternoon and then we went with the Granjas Elders in the evening to attend a discussion. Both couples were struggling with receiving testimonies. I saw very clearly that the key was reading the Book of Mormon. The missionaries did a great job teaching in both situations.

Wednesday - we drove to Buenaventura to visit with Elders Rivera and Patino. They are the first missionaries to open the city of Buenaventura. They are living in a hotel and trying to find a place to live.

This is our first visit to Buenaventura. Buenaventura is the largest port city on the Pacific for the country of Colombia. It is a large city, but there is a lot of poverty. It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive to the coast. It was a beautiful drive, but a lot of construction on the roads. Someday it will be a lovely drive.

There are about 4 families that belong to the church in Buenaventura and to attend church they have to drive about 2 1/2 hours into Cali each Sunday. They have now formed a group where they can hold Sacrament meeting in the home of a member.

We had lunch with the Rodriguez Family

Hermana Rodriguez prepared large fresh shrimp that were excellent.

We hurried back to Cali so Elder Rivadeneira (who went with us to work on a housing contract) could baptize an investigator. We had an appointment in the Israel Ward with the Elders there and getting there was nothing more than white knuckle adventure on the streets of Cali and finding our way. Just another day in Cali.

Thursday - The morning was filled with shopping at the Galeria for groceries and looking at apartments with the Elders. This evening we had 2 sets of missionaries and their investigators to the house for a discussion. Then we ended up driving the investigators to their houses to save them the bus or taxi fare.

Friday - This morning they arrived at 7:30am to remove furniture, paint, knock out a cabinet in the hall and redo some wiring. It sounded like a construction site. The new sofas and chairs were delivered at about 10am...without the end tables. Somehow we will figure out when to look for them! Amidst all this, Ana and I made Ajiaco for lunch and invited some of the workers. At 2:30pm we headed out for Armenia (3 hours away) arriving in time to speak at a couples fireside, help serve dinner, do interviews, and watch the dance.