qUICK sTORIES

TIME FOR........................

qUICK sTORIES!!!!!!!!!

SO this week I was trying to teach my comp to say 3 Nephi 5:13 in English. He was doing awesome until had a hard time pronouncing the last part and said, "... that they might have everlaughing life" YES!

SO this week I successfully performed tick removing surgery (with tis head) on of Elder Bentley´s arm with a safety pin and tweezers. We got the head and all YES!!

SO Conference was OUT FO CONTROL GOOD I just loved sooo many of the talks. Man I love conference. Also, the best parts were when they spoke in their native spanish!!!! Off the top of my head I remember Robbins, Christensen, Christofferson, Pres Monson, Uchtdorf, McConkie, and others who I don´t remember off the top of my head. It was the bomb! Also I loved how much they talked about the importance of a prophet and what it really means to sustain a leader. Great stuff. YES!!!

Thanks for tuning in, this has been a new episode of........  qUICK sTORIES!!!!

Elder Pratt loves you.

AHHHH

SORRYEVERYONE

I totally didn´t ave anytime to connect to internet last week and read and write but its okay because HERE I AM!

My life was so crazy last week because WE HAD TRANSFERSSSSSSS So TIME FOR THE BIG NEWSSSSs----------

My son, Elder Gonzales, left for Cúcuta and I am staying here in Yopal wiiiiiiith

ELDER ANGULO!!!!!! He is also my son. Preeeeetty cool stuff.  He is from Ecuador, tall, suuuuper pumped and active which is the best, and the bomb. We are going crazy already here in Yopal inviting EVERYONE to be baptized and its been the greatest.

Things here in Yopal are GREAT. We moved out of the super ugly terribel house and got into a new, pretty and nice house, we are working super well, and the people are progressing. I am short on time again (always) so I can´t tell many stories, but just know taht like 4 people this past week have had their prayers answered in dreams and signs and now know the church is true and want to get baptized, so yeah, pretty cool stuff I guess.

Also SHOUT OUT TO MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS FOR LIKE ALL HAVING BIRTHDAYS THIS PAST WEEK AND THIS WEEK I feel so left out. eat more cake for me, please.

The other pic that you are getting here is of a real barbacue here in Yopal. None of that week stuff with grills and small pieces of meat, we are talking full animals killed, cut, and  put in the ground with big metal sticks and cooked in a circle with fire. THAT is how to have a barbecue here in Yopal. THAT is how we eat at parties here. also potatoes and guacamole and firey hot sauce. I LOVE LIFE

Estoooooo I have no time left .I am the wrost ever, I am sorry. but next week we´ll see if I send a surprise! probs not, I will probably not have any time to do it but whatever. IJust don´t get our hopse up too much hahaha

ELDER PRATT LOVES YOU

(clever title)

WE HAVE MET SO MANY AMAZING PEOPLE THIS WEEK YOPAL IS THE BEST EVER I AM SO HAPPY HERE

This week was super cool. Like really hard for some stuff that went down, but super fun. On saturday, we had a conference in Sogamoso with our mission president which was AWESOME. On Friday afternoon we had to get on the bus and travel there (that was the worst ever. 5 hours on a suuuuuper windy, unpaved road.............) with a super cool view the whole way there and it was awesome to get there, see some buddies, and then have the conference the next morning. President Andelin is so cool, my life is the best ever. Then in the afternoon on Saturday we got on the bus to go back (TORTURE SO MUCH TORTURE) and we got home late. It was a killer weekend. WE had some really great investigators at church and it was a just a good day. Now that I go back and think about it, actually a crazy amount of really awful things happened and I could be super bummed right now, but I dunno I just feel in a super good mood. Maybe it is because I ate a hamburger with beef and chicken on it today.... who knows....

PRO TIP say please and thank you. Please do it. Thank you for doing it.

I LIKE TO TAKE PICTURES I have this thing that I take a crazy amount of pictures and go suuuper hard with my cam sometimes and people like make fun of me and are like woah bro you are a nut and I am like dude its better to delete extra pictures or have too many than be like oh snap I with I would´ve taken a pic of that man I am so dumb. And they just laugh and laught and make jokes, then the next day they are like bro can you lend me your memory card so I can copy those pictures and I am like hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm yeah. 

OTHER PRO TIP start your conference prep now. we all know what happens wen we delay the day of our repentance...... I AM SO EXCITEDDDDDDD

wellllll I have to go so I will have to stop this letter. PEACE OUT

Elder Frackt!!! (that is what this guy said in Elder´s Quorum on Sunday when he called on me to answer a question. cool.)

MY LIFE

I am so sorry to everyone that I have neglected thes weeks. My life is just crazy sometimes and I have no time for anything, but I will try to write a bit more this week.

Soooo much has happened in these weeks with the people here in Yopal. We have seen some families spilt up, a lady get in a huge family fight and run away 5 days before her baptism, investigatores who have just had amazingly terrrible things happen to them, and even a few ugly dog bites (don´t worry mom, i didn´t get bit hahaha). But We have seeen sooo many miracles. It has been amazsing how we have seen the Lord´s hand in our lives and in the work here. I am just loving life in Yopal. Well, if we had clean water here I might like it a bit more, but it´s all good ahha.

Last week, we got invited by some members to go to a huge barbecue for the birthday of a few members and to celebrate the baby blessing of a super cool family here. It was awesome because it was huge and it was a great opportunity to meet a lot of friends who aren´t members and a lot fo new people. We met this super great family that we are going to visit of wednesday.  I am super pumped! Best of all (jk but almost), It was a real legit llanero barbecue. Yopal is famous for its barbecues and this one was for real. They make a circle of tall rods of meat called chusos (the pic I sent) and they start a big fire in the middle and the meat just come sout amazing. Also, they had a llanero band there which was sooo sweet. They were super fun and I took some videos AHHH YEAHHHH because life is the best.

These past weeks, we also painted a house, got a super great couple to finally come to church and they loved it (and they are super pumped for their baptisms comming up!), had more choir practices for the upcoming branch conference (it is getting actually better I am stoked), had some baptismal services, met soooo many new people, had interviews with President, and are basically rocking Yopal. The culture here is so cool and rich and I just love it so much. Oh yeah, and dog bite drama. They couldn´t get the rabies vaccine here so they had to go to Bogotá in bus (9 hours there, nine hours backkkkkk). My comp and I got to stay in yopal though. loserssssssss

Dude so in Colombia, like everyone and their mom has a like sowing place where they will taper pants and do all kinds of stuff for like super cheap. It is awesome and like alwasy turnes out super good and they are really freindly and do it well and its great. BUT. Everytime you do it in a new place, it is a bit of a dice roll, but you jsut go for it. Man I got WORKED this past week. I gave the lady a pair of pants to taper them a bit, we measured and decided everything, good to go. Listo. she take my pants and says tomorrow morning they´ll be ready. Perfect. So I go the next day and I look at them and I was like woah it looks lik you took them in a lot, right? and she told me the measuremetn and I was like WHAT????? that is 3 centimeters LESS than what we talked about, they were like super tight. and she had already cut the leg and everything. then I held the hem of the pant and looked at it and held the tow legs together and they were DIFFERENCE and a whole centimeter or two different and was liek ummmmmmmm WHAT DID YOU DO why did you do this to me and she was like oh um well normal I´ll fix that and I was like no cool don´t worry about it and I peaced out so she wouldn´t ruin them anymore. AWESOME THANKS LADY like now I have to take them to someone else and see what they can do to fix them. I put them on after and its suuuper noticeable that the legs are different widths and stuff. I don´t wanna judge or anything but I really like ahve a big of hatred in my heart for this lady now, but it´s okay, it is a good way for me to learn more about forgiveness I guess. I wish God would have given me a different test, but it´s like chill. that´s what I get for trying to get my pants hemmed for less that 3 dollars.

Listen to this song from the EFY cds form a super awesome guy who I saw in some shows before I came out. He is a stud. Look him up for his secular music too, it is super good. This song has a killer message. Ryan Innes

I love you all!!!!!1234ideclareathumbwar

Elder Praft

I am a bad person.

I swear so many emergencies come up every week so I don´t write a decent letter and send pics. Weird stuff always happens. Like today, one of our buddies got bit by a dog and in the hospital they didn´t do anything nor give him anything, so I have to go brush off my first aid skills and wash the wound well (people jsut don´t know how to do it here...) while we wait for him to get a rabies shot. GOOD TIMES

also leading a choir of people who have never sung before is hard, but super gratifying when you make progress. It is going preeeetty well here adn we are just hoping to have it ready for the conference in 2 weeks! I think we are crazy!

soooo My life is good, we are working hard, and Elder Bentley probs doesn´t have rabies.

I love Colombia!!!!!


Elder Pratt

my life in a box

HELLO MOTO

Islena is going to get baptized this week! She told us a super cool story about how she was living in this little pueblo and feeling super far away from God and any good churches and lost. She took the decision to fast (a full 24 hour fast) and pray for help. The next day, she got on a bus to visit some friends in another pueblo called Villavicencio. There, she took an on-the-fly decision to visit her sister in a far away city called Yopal, even though her friends in Villavicencio called her crazy. She got on the bus, she came to Yopal, she got to her sister´s house, and a half hour later, we knocked on the door because of the appointment we had planned with her sister´s family and had our first appointment. That was a month and a half ago and now she is gettign baptized this Saturday! It is amazing how God guided her here. We are all pumped up!

Today we were walking in the street and saw a pair of policemen facing up against a crazy dude who was drugged up. The crazy dude was like taunting one of teh cops, who was holding a beat stick. The cop looked at the stick, threw it away in the grass, and looked the crazy guy in the eyes. The crazy guy yelled and the cop ran up and just took him down bare-handed. Sometimes, I want to change life plans and be a cop, I bet it would be fun sometimes ahah.

WE ARE GOING TO CHANGE HOUSES BECASEU OUR HOUSE IS ..... (not so good) AND WE ARE HAPPIER THAN TURTLES UNDER A HEATLAMP. HAPPIER THAN AN IGUANA IN THE CHAPEL! HAPPIER THAN (the rats in our roof)! ! ! !

Being a missionary is the bomb. Spanish is cool. Rice is more common than clean water.

Elder Pratt

SPEED LETTER EVERY WEEK IS THE BEST

SPEED LETTER:

- Iguana hunting is the best

- In this past week, I have taught 12 hours of English classes to all types of levels, from braaaaand new to decently advanced. Pretty gnarly. (The "why" is a loooong story. to be short, an investigator who has an English institute and all of the teachesr peaced out for like crazy lame reasons, so we are helping in the mean time.)

- We are making a choir in the Yopal branch! It is super fun but hard because like nobody here reads music or has ever sung in a choir ever. But it is fun. Also, music ahs like a whooooooole set of vocab that is different and I don´t have much practice with it, but it´s cool. I am learning a lot too! (but pleeeeease pray for us!)

- MTV´s "Teen Mom" has got nothing on Colombia..

- So far here in Yopal, we have had a looot of success in finding people to teach. there are a lot fo people who are ready to hear us and want to listen and change their lives, but the trouble is getting them to act. They want to and talk and commit themselve to do things, but then they don´t act in the end and it can be kind of had. We have to work really hard to gives them priorities so tehy do the little stuff, like go to church, read the scriptures, and pray. But, when they start up, it is awesome. We have been reading the Book of Mormon with Islena every day and she is super pumped up and learning a lot. We are really happy for her and trying to keep her going and help prepare her for her baptism! She is pumped!

This has been another edition of SPEED LETTER. THANKS FOR WATCHING!

Elder Pratt loves you. BELIEVE IT

MY LIIIIFE

PUES I have soooo many things I want to say this week, we will see how it goes. BULLET POINT LETTER TO THE RESCUE!!!

- We taught a 4-generation Adventist and it was like a crazy cool experience. She is super nice and friendly and was totally open to listen adn share thoughts and is reading the Book of Mormon. BOOM SHAKALAKA

- This week, one of our investigators asked us, "Hey would it be alright if you guys came by everyday in the early afternoon to read a chapter of the Book of Mormon together at the next-door nieghbors house (who is a member)?" It was tough, but I was able to say, "Yes," without crying in front of her. We have been reading and it is so awesome. COOL BEANS

- There is this recently-rescued member here who lives in our area. She was inactive for like 6 years then just felt the desire to go back to church one day about 3 months ago. Now, she gives us references, goes to appointments, gives CRAZY POWERFUL testimonies in the appointments, and is serving in the chapel. Her testimony of the gospel has pumped her up so much it is like the best thing ever

- WEIRD COMPANION FILES: When he showers, my comp told me thst he rinses his body, puts on soap, then dries off. He doesn´t rinse the soap off of his body. I worked for a solid like 10 minutes trying to convince him that that is not normal, but he just won´t take it. Whatever.

JESUS WANTS ME FOR A SUNBEAM is totally a powerful song. For real. think about it. Jesus wants me to be so happy and shining that I shine for otehr people and lift them up too. Pretty cool. Just go be a sunbeam, alright?

Sometimes, it is frustrating when you hae astory you want to tell, but then you have to type it and it is long and you get frustrated. SHORT VERSION: This lady had the CRAZIEST answer-to-her-prayer-in-an-appointment experience with us the other day. Prayer on knees, crazy leg cramp, yelling of the name of the Savior in pain, pray harder, super powerful feeling of calm, stood up and before we could comment said, "I know that this is the true church." I totally openly cried that time, it was an out of control moment (in every context).

Well. Sorry if you have written me letters and I haven´t responded. I read them, I jsut feel like they deserve better responses sometimes and I just don´t have time. I will do0 me best to plan better!

I  LOVE YOU ALL

Elder Prrrrrrack!

QUICK LETTER

THIS IS MY QUICK LETTER.

- We had a conference with President this week THAT WAS AMAZING and we talked a lot about inspired questions and IT WAS AMAZING and now I feel like I can be a better teacher and we put it in practice and it was the bomb and IT WAS AMAZING. I LOVE PRESIDENT ANDELIN

- In Latin America, the change the name of Master Splinter from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Master Rat. LAAAAME

- WE WENT TO A FARM and it was SO COOL because it had like crazy cool animals and they are all like exotic for us gringos (like toucans and parrots and iguanas and parakeets and capybaries and flamingo-meets-chicken and EVERYTHING) but the thing is the guy caught them all here just like close by like no big deal. I LOVE COLOMBIA

- Here in the Llano, it is like what would be a southern town. The older people here are like cowboys and super legit and they have leather-everything and wear boots and bit hats and listen to cool music. Look up the música llanera and it is all stringy adn super boss

- SO MANY INVESTIGATORS WENT TO CHURCH AND IT WAS SOOO COOL they had like a great time and went from like kind of maybe listening to us to like oh snap this stuff could be for real. Man, I just ove being a missionary it is so gratifying.

- I got to teach a group from the ward how to lead music for real because like nobody knows here and it was fun and I realized that all of my years in choir weren´t totally wasted hahaha

- (other random comment about how my life is weird but cool)

THAT WAS MY QUICK LETTER. 

Please get this Nacho Libre reference:

ooxxOXoXoxoOXxXOxX

Elder Prrrrack!

el fin se acerca y hay poco tiempo

I HAVE NO TIME and there is a little chubby kid leaning on my chair in the internet café. LIFE IS GOOD.

Wellllllllllllll this week was crazy weird. We were having a super good week but them some stuff was gong down in the city so we had to wait it out for a while and couldn´t work normal which was a bummer, but everything is normal now so we are gonna turn it up again. 

During the downtime, I got talking with another Elder and we starting remembering the movies Sister Act. Man, those movies are so good it makes me just have one of those awkward loner smiles here in this internet cafe thinking about them.

YESTERDAY WAS COLOMBIA´S INDEPENDENCE DAY. RESPÉTELE HERMANO

We had the really cool experience this week of hearing a bit more about the story of a less active kid. He is 18 and got baptized with his family about a year ago, but was super disanimated and didn´t want to go to church, was gonna go to the army, and just kinda throw it all away. When we got here a few weeks ago, we were able to meet him and have a few little appointments and good stuff. We found out that he was doing pretty bad, even had some restrictions of stuff he couldn´t do in church and stuff. So we got talking and teaching and he showed up at church our first Sunday in a t-shirt and jeans. Then we had a few more appointments, and the next week he showed up in a collared buttoned shirt. Last week when we were visiting him, he said that the week before, he felt something in the chapel that he had never felt before. He picked up the Book of Mormon and started reading and in two days was in 2 Nephi. He threw his plans away to go to the army and now he is talking to the leadership in the area to make the arrangements to go on a mission! Yesterday, he went to church in a white shirt and nice pants! Pray for Brayan so he can keep up these changes he is making in his life!

Clarity is soooo important. Too often, we dance around things and don´t say what we mean. Clarity and love are soooooo important if you want to help someone makes changes in their life. Try it out.

If you have sent me personal letters and I didn´t respond, just know that it´s not you, it´s me. Don´t make this harder than it has to be. It just wasn´t our moment, it was just bad timing, and all the other breakup excuses haha.

I HAVE NO TIIIIIIME but I do have LOVE for y´alls. Yeah.

Elder Pratt

IS THIS THE REAL LIFE? IS THIS JUST FANTASY?

(shout out to queen)

As I begin this letter, I am making an outline so I don´t forget anything. I hope I don´t leave anything out of my outline...

-Stats of the city of Yopal:

The city is hot. Hot is the city. It is hot here. I feel much heat. Hot. 

Today I started sweating when I put clothes on at 8 in the morning.

We are in winter here, I it is HOT. This week it rained like sooooo much (like you are walking in the street in the sun, its not raining, and then 5 mintues later you are soaking wet) and then all of the sudden it just stopped raining like 2 days ago and they say that summer is going to start. In August, it just starts getting really hot and really windy. Like between 90 and 120 degrees every day. And it is humid here. (Emperor´s New Groove reference on the way) Sharp rocks at the bottom? Most likely.          Bring it on.                  BOOYAHAHHAHA OOOOOOO

I love it here. The heat is crazy but the people are AMAZING. SO AMAZING. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY HERE

-Stats of Yopal´s branch:

Yopal is a branch because there aren´t enough groups of members to have a stake, so it pertains to the mission. The attendance in these past weeks has been about 150, but in the past it had also been closer to 200. WE ARE GONNA MAKE IT BLOW UP. The Branchj President is a STUD and I am so happy to work alongside him in Yopal. The members here are super pumped to help the missionaries and life is great!

-MEETING NEW PEOPLE:

THIS WEEK WE MET SO MANY NEW PEOPLE. We are just finding people all over the place. We are trying to focus our work in a specific part of our area to take advantage of the time and not waste it walking or doing dumb things. The specific part is smaller than mile square park and we have like 15 super amazing families there. The problem here is getting them to go to church and getting them married. It is our focus right now with them. The work here in Yopal is going great. Our district is made up of the 4 companionships in the branch and we are just seeing miracles!

-D&C 27:2 (the first lines) gets put in practice in Yopal:

wafer cookies

-Showering with a bucket of cold water:

our water goes out for like days at a time here. We buy big bags of water and shower with that. It was weird at first but now its pretty cool. We totally save water ahhaha.

Sometimes, mission rules can be hard. Like this morning there was a guy here who was in a pretty critical state and they needed to send him to Bogotá to the hospitals there, but he couldn´t make it without a blood transfusion of O positive. I have O positive, but I can´t donate blood as a missionary here. It was a bummer, but a member stepped up and made it happen. God had it all planned and prepared, but it still was sad that I couldn´t help. 

Help the missionaries! They will feel happy and love you! Trust me!

Elder Pratt

INTERNET IS SO BAD HERE IN YOPAL

AHhhhhhhhh! MY NEW LIFE!!!

I am here in Yopal, where it is SOO HOT but awesome. It is actually wintertime here right now so it rains like everyday and when it rains here it RAINS. Like it rains for like a half hour or hour and just floods the whole world. It is the best ever. Desert storms and the most releaving thing on hot days ahahha. But life here is great. Alos,  I AM WITH MY SON!!!! His name is Elder Gonzales, he is 21, from Cochabamba, Bolivia, and also is the bomb. We are having a blast here and working super hard. We are opening a new area here so we have a lot of work to do, but it is a blast and we have been soo blessed. We have seen so many miracles in these days it is just crazy. We have some amazing families that we are teaching and they just fell into our hands and are just soo prepared and open to our message. I love being a missionary!!!

This week we met a less-active lady who is the coolest and just had a baby and totally wants to return to church and it was the best! We found her looking through the ward list and visitng random people from it in our area. It was the best! Also, I was able to convince her that I was Colombian and she believed me! I love this country!

Yopal is so hot. Like so hot. Like sweat-while-calmly-standing-in-the-shade hot. And if you know me, I I don´t like that. But its whatever, I am totally getting used to it and I think my sweat it turning into jsut like water. Probably purer water than the water that comes out of the faucet here. But it´s chill. I just get really thirsty hahah.

Yogurt is the best! I never did but now I do! It is the best. Hunger and thirst can be quenched at once!

With the slow internet, time flies but just know world that God is the best and always blesses us, but we have to open our eyes to see the blessings we have. For example, this internet cafe is super slow, but the computer has Windows 7 and virus protection! Two rare things! God loves me so much! Okay that was a dumb example but like for real they are like big deals for nerd Elder Pratt. Just deal with it.

Right now we have to go put some baptismal dates with some news super amazing families we have. I love everything!

Elder Pratt

MY LIFE IN 5 MINUTES

COLOMBIA CLASIFICÓ PARA LA PRÓXIMA RONDA DE MUNDIAL. VAMOS A GANAR. The United States of America almost assured their place in the second round, but we´ll see what happens in a few days. It is crazy how interesting the World Cup is when you can´t watch the games ahha. The people here get sooooo crazy during the games, and when Colombia plays, they shut down a lot of the city. Like it is illegal to sell alcohol here during the games because people jsut get so crazy. After Colombia won the first game, 9 people died in another part of Bogotá. They were all Colombias happy and celebrating, but then just got out of control and killed each other. Crazy stuff, yo. But it´s all good, I guess. Nothing too crazy has gone down in our zone. Just a looooot of parties. 

Poetic grafitti quote of the week:  

"They can cut down the flowers, but they will never stop the Spring."

Deep stuff, man.

So among all of the dodging of games and looking for people who don´t like soccer so we can teach the Gospel, We totally found some super cool people. We got to talk to a few old investigators who hadn´t been progressing so we had left them a long while back. We even got to take one of them to a baptismal service which was an awesome experience. He is a lot more excited now to hear us and ready to start progressing! Pray for Wilmer!

Ward Council quote of the week:

Bishop: "Laziness is the mother of all vices!"

Elders´ Quorum President: "But it is a mom, so you better respect her!"

(silent applause)

MUSIC GEEKS:

So this week, we were singing a hymn, and as you might now, music theory and ear-training aren´t the same here like in the US or in other places. Sometimes half of the group starts in one key, and another half in a nother key and usually somebody gives in to those who are singing louder and everything gets back to normal. A miracle happened this past week, the two sides didn´t find an agreement, both singing louder trying to win until the whole song was sung with the two groups in a tritone. My eye started to twitch.

I LOVE TO SEE THE TEMPLE, I WENT THERE TODAY. I FELT THE HOLY SPIRIT, I LISTENED AND I PRAYED. and it was awesome. so. awesome. sooo. awesome.

MY LIFE IS THE BEST LIFE OF ALL THE LIFES THAT HAVE EVER BEEN LIVED. Also I am not very good at playing soccer.But I am becoming a professional recorder player. I think I´m gonna have to schedule some gigs when I get home to make some CA$H MON3Y.

PLEASE READ YOUR SCRIPTURES EVERYDAY. PLEASE. 

.sdrawkcab daer nac ttarP redlE 

I LOVE YOU ALL

Elder Pratt

My nail fell off

My nail fell off. I thought about sending a pic, but then I thought better. It would be just tooooo weird. 

Wellllllll howdy folks!

HAPPY LATE FATHERS DAY!!!

Seeing as I just sent an email liek 3 days ago, I don´t really have many new things to say. Libia got baptized, we had an awesome conference with our mission president, and other little baby things. It has been a crazy few weeks but they have been really great. I am learning sooooo much about everything. I feel like I am just having so many little experiences that are going to serve a LOT in my future life. I guess that´s one of the big blessings of being out here. These are lessons that I can learn here and now or maybe in some other time in the next 20 years and in much scarier cases. I am so happy to be out here.

Sometimes this silly thing happens where people don´t want to be obedient to mission rules (and like super big and important rules), you sit them down and tell them straight up as a friend that it can´t keep going and if it does, you are going to tell the president. They say okay and it won´t happen again, and the they keep doing it and get really mad at you when you tell President. Then they do it again and get mad at you. They send you angry text messages like a 14 year old girl and when you call them to try to talk it out, they ignore your calls and send more angry messages, talking about how they "don´t want any drama." It is interesting. I wish that kind of stuff wouldn´t happen, because it is like a joke. I find strength in the motto, "Don´t be an idiot."

Last week in one of the conferences with our mission president and his wife, his wife was talking about some stuff and totally made a reference to Galaxy Quest, saying, "Never give up. Never surrender. " I just about fell on the floor laughing (which totally happens sometimes. my comp makes fun of me.). Our mission president and his wife are the BOMB.

MUNDIAL EMPEZÓ LA SEMANA PASADA Y VA A SER TERRIBLE!!! tODO EL MUNDO SE EMBORRACHA Y CASI NADIE NOS ESCUCHA DURANTE LOS PARTIDOS. En secreto espero que Colombia no gane muchos partidos para que no estemos en esta vaina más tiempo. Pero, fue super chévere que pudiéramos ganar el primer partido el otro día. COLOMBIA ERES MI AMOR. Tengo un anillo de la bandera de Colombia y las personas en la calle son más receptivas al ver ésto. BOOM

Con mucho amor, 

Elmer Brack

Hey, everybody!

We had a weird week this week and on Monday we worked and had a super awesome conference with like 3 people from the Quorums of the Seventy (Elder Clayton, Presidency of the 70; Elder Uceda, Area President; Elder Camargo) which was amazing. Wednesday was our Zone meeting , which was probably my last one here in Suba (since they will probably transfer me soon since I´ve been here for almost 6 months), which was sad but fun. We had a good time and learned a lot. Today was super pday, where all of the missionaries who were in Bogotá (about 100) got together and we played sports all morning and had a mini conference with our mission president. We watched a movie called Ephraim´s Rescue and it was EXCELLENT. Tomorrow we have another conference with president in the morning. Then, in the afternoon, we have a baptism. Yeah, it´s basically a super hard core week. Basically the best ever.

Last week, we heard some bad news as a mission. Elder Galleguillos, my second comp, got hit by a car on a big street and was in preeeetty bad shape. Then like a thousand miracles happened and he left the hospital the next day with just a broken collar-bone, a broken vertebrae in his neck, and a bit of short-term memory loss. He has to go home to recover, but if all goes well, he will be back here in 2 months. He was doing super well and working really hard. He actually was also training a new missionary! (I have a grandson!!!) We are praying a lot so his therapy goes well and he can be out of the wheelchair and back here soon!

My life is pretty cool. 

The other day I read the talk that Elder Uchtdorf gave last conference about living with a thankful heart. I am trying to do that better. Sometimes lame stuff happens but life for real is just a blast. It is amazing the peace and happiness I feel in life as I try to live the gospel. It is just great. I have so much to be thankful for. (insert emoticon happy face)

I realized I haven´t put any caps in this email. That´s not very like me. BLAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. That´s better. 

I LOVE LIFE AND ALL OF YOU.

Elder Pratt