First area - Zipaquirá!

YO YO yO YO
whaddup y`all? I am in my first area! It is CRAZY.

So the city I´m in is called Zipaquirá, it´s about an hour or so north of Bogotá. It is real cool. Its like a normal city, but like pretty ghetto. Like messed up streets and sidewalks, a lot of busted up buildings, all the buildings are brick or cement, a ridiculous amount of free roaming dogs, all that good stuff. Its real fun. For the most part, the people are super friendly and nice and alwasy greet us in the street and stuff. I get a lot of stares and everything because I´m the only white person in the entire city or surrounding communities, much less that I have red hair and I´m about a head taller than everyone else. Oh yeah and I wear a white shirt and tie and have a nametag. But its fun. My comp`ss name is Elder Sanahuano, and he`s from a suburb of Cali, Colombia. He is deffy not white and speaks a bit of english, but for the most part my life is totally in Spanish. He wants to learn English though so I have been helping him a lot with vocab and pronunciation and all that good stuff. His Spanish is pretty easy to understand because his mom`s family is mostly countryfolk so he talks nice and slow. `ve been learning all these fancy Colombian phrases so I seem more legit and all that jazz. Its pretty tough, especailly since (as I have learned) I`m a visual learner so I like to see a word spelled out when I hear a new one, but I`m trying to change.

In our first week here, we picked up a few new investigators and some even have commited to baptism! We are working hard and a lot and already seeing some fruits. The hard part right now is taht Zipaquirá is kinda big and there are a lot of people, so it was two areas. Yesterday, though, the other two missionaries left to go to their real missions in Mexico (they were waiting for visas) so now at least for the next 5 weeks, it`s just Elder Sanahuano and I here. It`s a lot of ground to cover, but we`re pumped.

I really like that we get an hour each morning for personal study, its been real nice. I really like to read nowadays and I love getting to learn more and more, for my knowledge and my testimony. I have been trying to read the Book of Mormon in Spanish and sometimes It`s pretty tough to understand, but I usually get whats going on. I just need to learn the random scripture vocab and stuff. My Spanish has been getting a lot smoother and I`m understanding more and more every day. Elder Sanahuano says my spanish is the best he`s heard of any new gringo. I take it as a huge compliment, but until I can understand everything that`s going on, I`m gonna be frustrated haha. Someday that`ll happen, and I hope its not too far away.

Food here is delish. Super rich and tasty. The only problem is I eat a lot (and fast), especially for a person my size. So sometimes, I kinda struggle to get full (but dont worry I eat enough and I need to learn to not fatten myself up too). The other elders always laugh when we`re eating cause I eat so fast and so much. So sue me. I`m like 30 punds more than them, I should eat more than them anyway haha.

I hope everything is going well back home and I miss you all! Keep me and my comp in your prayers, you all are in mine!

Love, Elder Pratt

PS if you want to send me letters but dont want to email me or whatever and dont care if i dont get the letter for a few weeks, check out DearElder.com. they send letters to the mission homes for free (i think) and its cool.