I feel like every one of my emails could have the title "New
Experiences", but this week especially needed that title. Later on you
will find out why....
Remember those candy bars named
Baby Ruth? (Of course you remember them, you aren´t in Colombia) Well
this week I met one of our investigators daughters named "Ruth Baby".
And she is so cool. She is black and black people always hav the coolest
names. Imagine that name with a black spanihs accent. It is the coolest
ever and her dad is a super good investigator so allllll´s good there.
Yesterday in church, they made me play piano again
and it was a DISASTER and embarrassing but soooooo funny. So they told
me I was gonna play like seconds before the meeting started and didn´t
like ask me if I could play the hymns or if I knew them or anything so
that like helped my already enormous nerves of playing ht epiano in
church. For the first hymn, the director started leading before I could
even sit down at he piano to start playing and he just picked like a
random note to start it so I just let them go and it was awkward and
awesome and I didn´t play. The second song, I kinda could play, but up
until this point that day I hadn´t been able to touch the piano and the
soft petalwas locked so it had the softest and ugliest sound during the
whole song. The third hymn was a song that I have never seen nor heard
in my life. So during the talks, I was reading it and playing it in my
head and had it firgured out decently but it was like fast so I was just
going to have to wing it. Turns out that not a single person in the
ward knew it either. Not even the ward´s leadership up in front. I
fought to play the intro, my comp told me I was playing to wrong hymn
and stopped me, but the bishop and his counselors assured me that I was
on the right number and the right title adn was doing fine. So I
replayed the intro. Then nobody knew when to come in nor the rhythm nor
the words nor anything. And I didn´t know how to play. Blessed from the
big guy upstairs, my hands kept moving and my half came out alright and
kept the rhythm cooking. Everyone sat down laughing and confused. Then
the last hymn thankfully the congregation knew, but it is fast and hard
with a lot of accidentals and it was giving me a whirl. To speak
frankly, it absolutely trashed me. I was sooo much more nervous every
verse and it is a two pager with 4 verses. I wanted to jsut die, but I
had to jsut keep going. It was awful. (also, the people here know it but
sing it like wrong so even when I had the piano like decent, I wasn´t
in agreement with them). I hate playing the piano in front of people
with all of my heart.
Today I had one of those "went to the store to buy
peanut butter, came home with 10 bags of groceries but without peanut
butter" moments. All I wanted was one of the big bags of cheap oatmeal.
Oh well, next time I guess hahaha.
Attention BYU people who know what NuSkin is: last
week we met a young couple down here who work for NuSkin and they are so
cool. We contacted them on the street and they said, "Oh yeah we´ve
heard a lot about the church and seen a lot because we travel to the
states and Utah a lot and we´ve always had questions but never wanted to
break the work/beliefs barrier and ask." They are soooo coooool and
super interested. We have another appointment tomorrow!
So being here, sketchy things always happen. You see
some bad stuff go down, you see some sketchy people, crazy old ladies
on drugs chase you down the street trying to touch your booty, all kinds
of stuff. But last saturday, I think I had a highlight experience.
Unforgettable moments. A moment I will always racistly connect to my
memories of living during two years in Colombia. I got held at machete
point by a 12 year-old (okay he might have been 14, but they are all
smaller here so he looked 12). It was like 8:15
at night and we were walking from one appointment to another, going by a
path we travel often and where there is a decent amount of light and
people. Some little punk kid comes up to us and asks us for 200 pesos
(like a dime) and gets all up in my face (well more my chest, he was
very short). The punk starts like getting all tough starts grabbing my
shirt and my nametag (I don´t like when strangers touch me) and started
grabbing my pockets and my legs and hips too (weirdo). Then he pulls a
machete ouf of the back of his pants and hold it to my like sternum (the
highest the poor little kid could probably reach) and was like telling
me to give him all of my money. I was just like, "Ummmmm what´re you
doing?" and my comp was like, "Dude WHAT´RE YOU DOING" and then the
little kid´s buddy was like, "Bro I don´t thinik they´re from here," and
they two of them left. It was soooo weird. It was funny too, but like a
minute or two after. Its a good thing that the kid didn´t try to get
any more tough on us cause it would´ve hurt me on the inside to hit a
little child, but if the rat wants to pull out a machete on me and get
all tough then LET´S DANCE, LITTLE BOY ahhaha. (Don´t worry mom, the
dumb kid didn´t even steal my sweet gringo pen, which would´ve beena
tragic loss and I would´ve been really bummed.)
So yeah, being a missionary is actually the most
exciting thing ever. It has so many fun moments and it truly is a blast.
You should all try it sometimes (but if you don´t wanna do that last
part I did that´s totally cool too).
PS Liliana is the best ever. She and her 11 year-old
son are getting baptized at the end of the month and she is already
connected to the LDS group of facebok and chatting to members all over
the world and reading the Book of Mormon and Gospel Principles and
praying and the best. It literally feels like it´s all a big joke when
we teach her, like it can´t be true or somthing. She is sooooooooooo
ready and has so much faith. a few times in the appointment after
listening to her talk, I just laughed because it was so ridiculous how
awesome she is. It is like the best feeling in the whole wide world,
helping someone on that way. Man, it seriously ROCKS.
Wellllllllllll LIFE IS GOOD. I hope all is well wherever yálls are. (the spanish keyboard doesn´t want me to write y´alls).
Elder Praff
