howdy y´all! I hope everything is great in the United States because Colombia is quite swell.
For the past week, they have given us an hour to get out of the CCM grounds/cage/wonderfulness? to go try to talk to people and practice spanish and stuff. Its pretty hard to just find people to talk to, especially since none of us knows many regular-world-small-talk words and i am awful at small talking in any language. That said, we definitely get some help from on high and have had some pretty stellar conversations. Most of them end up turning to be about Churchy stuff pretty quickly since we are a bunch of tall white kids (and my red hair) wearing suits and name-tags and carrying scriptures and all that jazz. Also since its mostly the only words we know. But oh well, its why I´m here, isn´t it? this past week though we have been out 5 times and have gotten to talk to 5 people in depth about the Gospel and out purpose as missionaries. It is really amazing. We can just bump into a random person in the park or on the street and end up talking to the for a half hour and bearing testimony to them and them bearing testimony to us. It is so great to hear about their love and belief in God and then sharing with them that they can learn more about God and Jesus Christ through the Book of Mormon and our Church. We have gotten some phone numbers from them to pass on to the local missionaries to really teach them, and who knows, i might get to teach some of them since they are in my mission. That would be amazing.
The rest of my distritc has been in MTCs (here and/or Provo) for 5 weeks now so even though I have only done 3 of my 6, I will prob head out next tuesday to the field. I feel ready as far as teaching goes- there are always things to improve but i feel confident that I could hold my own- and my spanish is getting pretty good, I just get stressed out when people talk to me really fast and can´t understand ahha. But that´ll come in time with practice. I am really excited to get out there and serve the Lord and try to bless peoples lives!
Also exciting, this past week in our big MTC Sacrament Meeting, I got called on to give a 5ish minute talk/message/testimony thing. I think it went pretty well, especially since it was in Spanish and I could see heads nodding in understanding. Man I love that approval haaha.
During my time in the MTC, I have been using my extra half hour after lunches and dinners to play piano and I made a goal to play through every hymn in the spanish hymn book. I have abpout 5 or 6 days left to go and have made it through 187 of the 209. I LOVE PIANOS. We arent allowed to really listen to our ipods of church music, let alone other "worldly" music here in the CCM and I am really getting to miss good music. All kinds of good music. AHHADFadsnfaosidnfasdifa. those were key types of frustration. next week once i can get all up on my church music in the field.
One of the Elders in my district, Elder Cutler, can be pretty crazy too and we get kinda crazy with random games to combat cabin fever and its basically the best thing every. a few days ago he tried to do a standing long jump up the stairs and cleared a solid 6 stairs (incredible talent) and totally ripped an 8 in hole in the crotch of his suit pants. It was top 5 one of the funniest experiences in the past year of my life, hands down. (Don´t worry, they´ll be fine, and if not suits are cheap here)
If life feels hard, read DC 122 and think about all the rough times Joseph Smith and Emma Smith went through, in every aspect of their lives. Then remember the promise in the last verses of the section. We are not forgotten, we will be protected, and it is for our experience. That there´s some sweet and simple doctrine.
The Church is true, God is great, and I love Colombian food. I love you all!
Elder Pratt
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