March madness...

In the spirit of March madness...Elder Matos over the rim!

We madly raced in the car from Popayan to Manizales.

Sometimes we find ourselves sitting in traffic for almost an hour while they pull a semi back onto the road from where it fell onto a house...sad :(

Sometimes we find our way to where we are going

and other times we ask a taxi to show us the way and we follow.

Sometimes we drive in sunshine and sometimes in rain...

I wish I could have captured the full rainbow that filled the sky as we drove

from Pereira to Armenia.

A sure sign that the evening would be a success...and it was.

Our schedule is madness...I don't see it ending in March!

Popayán!

                 Happy Birthday Elder Matos, Hermana Talquenca, Elder Andrade, and Elder Condori

We had a group of young single adults join us for our conference.

They are all planning on going on missions. 

Marcela (on the far right) has her call to California!

Manizales!

Pereira!

Armenia!

We left early Monday morning, 12 March, for what they call they Eje Cafetero.

It is a beautiful coffee growing area.

I love it more each time we drive through.

We stopped in Calarca to get the Peterson's into their apartment...I think we left them in a bit of culture shock and with a lot of work to do.  They are amazing and ready to work.

We drove straight to Manizales for missionary interviews and an investigator fireside.

The chapel was FULL...the members are really helping to fellowship the investigators.

We drove that night to Pereira.

Tuesday was Zone Conference for the Manizales, Pereira, and Armenia zones.

Happy Birthdays to Elder Chiroque, Hermanas Lasso y Pinto, Elder Zuniga

Elder Dyas, Elder y Hermana Peterson, Hermana Juyumaya, y Elder Asmat

Two interviews and only a few wrong turns to get out of town and we were

on our way back to Armenia to do another investigator fireside.

The fireside was well attended and again we witnessed a lot of good member missionary work.

President Prince did member interviews until after 10:30pm

and we found our way to the hotel and collapsed.

Wednesday was crazy...

Morning interviews with the Armenia Zone

only a slight problem put us an hour behind...we got locked in the parking lot!

We arrived in Pereira an hour late and

worked our way through 9 interviews.

We stopped in Cartago to interview the two Elders there as we headed back to Cali.

One more stop in Palmira to share the news with our friend Israel

that permission was granted for him to be baptized...he has waited faithfully for that news.

It was a happy moment.

Our Elder Jamett first introduced him to the gospel,

was there to deliver the good news,

and Elder Jamett will baptize him before he ends his mission next week.

We made it home safely shortly before 11pm...March madness!