Week 46: COW STOMACH??!!!

How is everyone doing??  This week has been a pretty good week!

This week is going to be a little bit shorter, but we were able to find some new people to teach and help out Sandy as well!  Sandy is planning on getting baptized this upcoming Saturday the 30th.  It’s not a 100 percent surety that she’s going to get baptized, but we’re pretty sure.  We will do everything we possibly can to help her be ready.  I’m super excited for this upcoming week to see what happens!

We’ve been teaching Diana Velasquez for a little while.  We had a super awesome lesson with her about the Sabbath Day and she’s accepted to keep the Sabbath Day holy!  She hasn’t committed to baptism because she hasn’t been married yet, even though she will need to be married before she can accept the baptismal covenant.  She’s honestly got the sweetest soul I’ve ever met, and she is such an awesome lady. 

This last Tuesday, we had lunch with the Villalva family.  I am so grateful for them they are so generous.  They are members of the church and they live WAY up on the mountain.  They’re house is mostly made of metal scraps.  They don’t have any electricity.  For lunch we were given rice, garbanzo beans, and COW STOMACH??!!!  I couldn’t help but think about the last time I ate cow liver and got super sick at the beginning of my mission.  I just couldn’t bring myself to eating it.  I was afraid of getting sick again!  I knew my comp wouldn’t eat it either so I typed a text on mission phone saying ´´paseme su carne´´ (pass me your meat).  When they weren’t looking :/, Elder Sotowski threw the cow stomach on my plate, and I put it in a rag and threw it in my bag.  Phew!!! That was close! When we left the house, I decided to leave it somewhere on the road so a cat would eat it! ;)  It was super funny!  My companion thought it was the funniest thing he’s ever experienced (haha).

Anyways, we have a family home evening tonight with Sandy!  Things should run smooth!  I love you all and hope you’re all being safe!

Elder Marsh

Hermano Villalva, he is a shoe shiner

The view from their house in the mountains.

Eating COW STOMACH!! Just kidding!

Week 45: Patience is a virtue!

Hey everyone! This was a pretty good week with my new Companion!

My companions name is Elder Sotoski and he’s from Brazil!!  He is an awesome guy!  We work really well together and I am super grateful for the chance that I have to be able to teach him the ways of the mission!

This week, not a ton of stuff happened.  On Tuesday, I had to go to the Mission Presidents house to have a training meeting and pick up my new companion.  I had to wait like 8 hours to be able to find out who my comp was, and when they announced who our companions were, President Baquerizo said that my comp wasn’t going to be arriving until Wednesday at 3:30.  After the whole day of anxiously waiting, I had to wait a whole other day! haha I was super excited to meet my new companion.  I could see that the Lord was truly testing my patience! haha! But I met him!  He’s just starting to speak Spanish, so a lot of the time he will throw a lot of Portuguese in there and it confuses me! haha but it’s great, because I’m starting to learn Portuguese as well! haha!

We have this thing called 12 semanas (weeks) that we use to help out the new missionaries, and I challenged Elder Sotoski to put a baptismal date in the first lesson.  Last night we had the chance to put a date, and my stud of a comp totally did it without any fear! It was awesome!!  Can’t wait for what’s ahead!

We ended up giving Sandy a new baptismal date for the 30th of July.  I explained that it was my boy- Elder Wilson’s birthday and that she needed to make that day a special one!  I don’t think she thought it was as funny as I did!

This upcoming week should be a good one!  I’m excited to see what happens!

Love you all and I hope you keep reading your scriptures!

-Elder Marsh

My new companion, Elder Sotoski!

"Yummy Peanut Butter!" (Thanks Almond Family!)

Week 44: End of Transfers

Qué más todos???

This week was a super difficult week but I mean we’re doing the best that we can! We have our investigator Sandy that is supposed to get baptized this upcoming week, but she doesn’t feel ready.  She has the faith and we’ve taught her all the lessons but there’s just something that’s holding her back. But we will continue trying to help her out!

Diana and her family are super awesome!  They came to church this week and they keep loving it!  We had a lesson with them, and we explained they needed to get married before they could get baptized.  We tried giving them a goal for a date to get their marriage and everything in order, but both do not feel ready.  The thing is they want to get baptized, it’s just the marriage that’s the big issue with Diana.  Her “husband” Johnny isn’t working right now. He is in school.  And I guess he hasn’t really actively been looking for a job.   Diana says she doesn’t want to marry someone that at least tries to find a job. 

There’s another investigator that we have, named Diana Roman!  So many Diana´s! They’re all so awesome too cause they have my mom’s name :) haha  Her kids are members of the church, she just hasn’t been able to get baptized because of work!  So we are super excited to start working with her and getting her prepared to get baptized.

I had a companion exchange with Elder Mueller from my district and things went super well!  He came to my area, but we weren’t able to do hardly anything.  Our visits fell through and everything, but I mean no worries!  That’s the mish! It happens…haha.

I have some good and bad news.  The Bad news, is that the Dynamic Duo has been split apart.  Elder Damiano is going to the other area here in Villa Javier.  It’s not very far so we’ll still be able to dynamic duo-it at times.  The good news is, we will both becoming “DADS!” (just another mission term ;) ….when you become the trainer to a new missionary).  It was a great 3 weeks together, but now we’re going to be able to progress and be able to have “kids” (referring to the new missionary we get to train)!  We’re both waaayyy excited for this opportunity to grow and help a young missionary out!  What a blessing!

I’ll let you all know about my son next week! Have a great week!

Elder Marsh

Sad face, will miss his companion but excited for new adventures!

Week 43: Utahns have an accent???!!!

Hey friends and family!

Happy Fourth of July!  My companion, Elder Damiano and I have been super stoked for this day and it went super well!  So this week was a super successful week.  We were able to have a lot of lessons as well as references from the members!  The members are seriously so awesome here in this ward.  I am loving it!  We set up a baptismal date with an investigator named Sandy.  She’s super awesome and has been very accepting of the gospel.  She didn’t end up coming to church this week.  I’m not sure why.  I guess we’ll find out this week!

Diana, another investigator is doing really well!  Her whole family was able to go to church this week!  We were so happy that her husband came to church!  He told us that he really liked it a lot, so we’re super excited for him and the family!

Our area includes part of downtown Bogota.  Every P-day we get to go whenever we want and look around and buy some cool things!  Everything there is super cheap but really cool.  There’s like half of it that’s super rich and super nice, then you cross the main road to the other part, and it’s like a 180 flip!  It’s crazy! It’s a really cool experience! MY companion and I want to go back one of these weeks to take pictures.  I’ll have to send you all of them because it’s super sweet!

Three weeks ago I wanted to try an experiment.  I decided to cut my own hair!  It was hard as heck but it actually turned out pretty good!  I don’t know if I’ll EVER do it again because it was super stressful but we’ll see! haha Then just last night, I had Elder Damiano cut my hair! Double experiment!  It turned out really good though! It was a great companionship unity building project to gain some more trust! haha. We have a blast together!!

Today for the 4th we went to the temple!  I decided to show my American pride with the tie that I wore.  Later, we went to Buffalo Wild Wings!  We for sure thought we deserved everything American today because I mean hey, we can haha. BWW isn’t the same here, but it was still super good! haha!

Apparently people from Utah have accents.  My comp is from the Georgia and doesn’t have a southern accent but he actually didn’t grow up there.  He thinks that all of us from Utah have the same accent.  Which was really new to me haha. I guess we say ´´way`` a lot instead of so, or super.  So little by little I’m trying to convert him to the best Utah ways hahaha.

I’m having a blast here on the mission! Every day has its ups and downs but it’s so worth it!  We are working like horses ;) and doing everything we can to help others come unto Christ.  

I hope everyone has a great week and chooses the right!  And read Alma 36 this week!  I found a lot of answers and great things in this chapter!

Love and miss you all!

Elder Marsh

Temple grounds with Elder Damiano

Funny video of a dog outside our window

Week 42: Mini CCM

Hey everyone! 

We had an awesome week this week! We were able to find a lot of people and also help the ones that we have progress! My companion, Elder Damiano and I are having a blast together but most importantly with the work!

The members of the ward here are SUPER awesome! It has been a huge blessing to get to know them better and to be able to do the work with them.  Our relief society president is a straight up stud but for a girl! haha!  She is always giving us names of people to go visit.  We have been trying to help Diana and her husband (they’re one of our investigators.  I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned them before) get married.  We are hoping to do a family home evening with them and present the Proclamation to the World.  We have been working with our Bishop and his wife, the a lot.  His wife is the Relief Society President.  They’re super awesome and get the work done!

This week we did like a mini MTC thing with a ward in our stake!  It was super fun!  At first we did a training, then ate, then afterwards went and contacted people!  We had Josh Camacho, go contact with us.  He is only 14 years old but looks much older!  He was like a mini missionary.  He did a super awesome job!  We would give him a contacting card and would challenge him to contact someone and he would do it!  He was learning how to be a missionary.  I think he learned a lot.  It was a super cool experience to have and help out the future Elders!

A funny thing that happened this week:  I’ve been sneezing like crazy.  When I was with Elder Ibañez I would sneeze 3 or 4 times in a row.  Then my new Comp Elder Damiano started saying ´´salud´´ (health) after the first sneeze, ´´dinero´´ (money) after the second sneeze, and then bautismos after the third sneeze.  But, ever since Elder Damiano got here, I’ve only been sneezing two times!  It’s been a super funny joke, cause I’m like trying to sneeze on purpose so that we can get baptisms haha.  So this week, please pray that I can sneeze three times, so we can get some baptizms here! haha! Just kidding!

Anyways, this week has been super good!  Love you all and hope all is good!

-Elder Marsh

Elder Damiano and I with Josh Camacho...mini MTC

Elder and Sister McGinnis are going home soon

Week 5: Five More Days!!

Well, 5 more days and I’m out in the real world!  I could not be more excited!  I know I am going to have so much fun, because every time we go proselyting, I fall in love with the people! Haha.  For the most part they are so friendly and are so accepting.  There was this one person that my companion and I talked to.  He was the perfect investigator!  He was very accepting.  We gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and he was so excited to read it!  I was really tempted to challenge him to be baptized right there because he was so amazing!  Anyways, I’ll have many more things to write about when I get out into the field.  More adventures, funny, and crazy stories! 

In reality, what I’m going to miss the most here in the CCM, are the teachers and the spirit.  The teachers are the most amazing people I know.  I had this one teacher named Hermano Castiblanco and he was like my best friend.  That’s how all of the teachers here are.  They’re all just so young and so much fun.  It will definitely be a weird experience when I get out into the field, not having these amazing teachers to help me along the way!  It's really a sad thing to think about but such an exciting thing at the same time!  

I can't wait to do the Lord's work and spread this amazing gospel.  If any of you are having trouble with your testimony or your faith in Christ, I would recommend you read Alma 32.  It describes faith perfectly.  I have been able to use it in my lessons with investigators and I know it touches their hearts.  

I love you all and plan to write more next week after being in the field!  Thanks for all of your support.  I cannot thank you enough!

-Elder Marsh

My whole district at Bogota Temple.

Elder Kendall and I wearing cool wool sweaters from the market.

Week 4: One Month Down!!

Wow I can’t even believe that i have been out here in Colombia for a month!  …like what the heck!  Sorry about my punctuation and everything, the computers here are weird and I don’t have a whole lot of time to find all the keys to them! But anyways these last 5 days have been amazing!  To start, I’d like to tell a funny story, at least I think its funny (hahaha)!

So on Friday we got to go proselyting, which is my favorite!  Me and my companion had a goal of getting 15 contacts.  I was determined to get that many people’s names and numbers.  So basically every person we pass we try and talk to them and there were these two ladies standing next to each other so I was like... “hey we’re going to talk to these two ladies!”  I was talking to them for a while and asking them if they believe in God and Jesus Christ and they were like oh yeah!   And they had these little pamphlets on prayer so I was like,  “Oh no way that’s awesome!  Jesus Christ is really important to us” and the lady said something about Jehovah and so I said, oh yeah that’s Jesus Christ’s other name and she got all serious and was like no!  That’s God’s name.  I wasn’t sure what she meant I thought it was a Spanish miscommunication or something so I just brushed it off and I asked them what religion they were and they said Testigos de Jehovah.  So I was super happy they believed in Christ (everyone here does) and I kept trying to get their contact information and they refused.  I wasn't sure why?  I kept asking them for it and they were like nope!  So we left them and my companion was like you know those were Jehovah Witnesses, right?!  And I busted up laughing!  I had no clue!  I heard about them before but I guess they don’t like Mormons very much! hahaha  Well anyways that was super fun!

Conference weekend was great!  It was the first time I watched all 5 sessions and took notes on it and it really made a huge difference!  It was sad when it was over because I enjoyed it so much!

Today we got to go on tour and it was BEAUTIFUL!  We went to the top of the mountain of Bogota and saw the entire city and it was seriously so cool!  hahaha  It made everything seem so real.  It was amazing!  I wish I could go back because I loved it so much!  After the mountain tour, there was a llama and we got to sit on the llama and take pictures it was so cool! haha 

It’s my last two weeks here in the CCM and I couldn't be more excited to serve my mission and spread the gospel to the amazing people of Colombia!  I love it here and I cannot wait to get going!  I love you all and I hope you are safe!

-Elder Marsh

Top of Bogota mountain

Elder Marsh riding a llama :)