um.

well.

i feel odd. 

i feel like i am unwrapping a lemon wardhead.

i know its going to be sour.

i know that later it´ll be sweet.

but right now I just feel calmly anxious, or anxiously calm, i´m not sure which.

but one thing is sure,

i´ll see you soon.

ELDER ALEX WILCKEN PRATT

well.

well. we got to this point. this is my last week in the field. Next week I´ll be in meeting all week getting ready for the great death, but for now, here I am. it feels pretty weird, I can´t lie, I don´t like. I feel like I´m still not very concious of what is happening, I just like I know that at the end of this week there are transfers and I won´t be here in my area anymore, but leaving the country or not being a missionary, it hasn´t hit yet. We´ll see what happens. I feel like pretty normal I guess hahah.

This week was full of cool little experiences, from feeling the Spirit really guide and give the power of discernment to help a long-time investigator overcome a long-time issue, to seeing a new investigator with a lot of traditions accept the Book of Mormon wiht a desire to be baptized, to an investigator tell me to my face that I don´t have faith. I really feel like I´ve seen just about it all and I feel content. Some experiences are harder than others, but I feel happy with it all, I have learned and grown and I feel like I have helped others to do so too. I have one more week to levae it all on the court and I plan to do just that.

I love this place! Maybe I´ll get to say hi next week, but if I don´t just get over it because I´ll see you in person soon anyway hahah

I love you all!

Elder Pratt

PS 1

THAT AWKWARD MOMENT WHEN YOU PASS THE TWO YEAR MARK

(paraphrased) QUOTE OF THE WEEK (courtesy of Russell M. Nelson, quoted by our stake President here in Cúcuta):  

Missionaries are called to bring joy to live the lives of all those who want to follow the Savior.

I love this!!!!!!! It is the best ever! And remember my friends, every member a missionary!!!

Oh yeah, also this week I passed the two year mark. weird. 

ummmm... well...

OTHER RANDOM THINGS FROM MY WEEK:

- I found a door that had a two way peep hole. It had two peep holes, one that went to one side of the door, and the other to the other side. WHY DON´T THEY JUST PUT A WINDOW

- A few days ago I ran into some guys from the ward next door and one of them was living in the same house as me when I started and he was pretty new too but was waiting to go to another mission and the other was in the MTC with me and went to another mission but they both already finished. weird.

- Meeting new people contacting everyday is sooooo fun/interesting. You meet all kinds of people. Yesterday we had like 3 quality conversations with guys who were like suuuper drunk on the street and had some good chats. Also they all love to practice their english on me when they´re drunk, it is ridiculously confusing because their english isn´t that great in the first place, aaaaaand they are plastered. But it´s fun, they´re always really friendly and generous hahah. Hopefully they go to church next week! 

I love life!

Elder Prattano maduro

PS 2

PPS (for silly teenagers) Having a Gringo comp has been a crazy experience so far. Many Latins just have like a different sense of humor that a sarcastic gringo teenager has and there are jokes that I think just don´t quite hit home unless you understand like silly gringo internet humor. this takes us to our SHAMEFUL QUOTE OF THE WEEEEEEEEK! (courtesy of Elder Dominguez):

"Black people are so soulful! It makes up for gingers..."

I would just like to publicly state that we gingers do have souls. We really do.

I´VE GOT IT

I FOUND OUT WHY THE MILK HERE IS WEIRD! I talked to a member who used to work in a dairy production factory.

They take milk. Then they add water. Then they add like two giant blocks of butter. Like the size of a car engine blocks. That proportion to a truck full of milk. That´s why it is so weird.

ummmmmmm WELL in other news, life here in Cúcuta is great! The heat has gone down the past couple of days, we have been contacting a LOT and meeting new families to teach, we have this 18 year old kid of soem recent converts who is progressing a whooole lot and it super pumped to get baptized in a few weeks, and the members are starting to work with us more. I love it here! Also, we have a border with Venezuela so we have a cool view of the mountains and the city on the other side of the border hahah

Short letters for the win!

Elder Pratt loves you

SO MUCH TO SAY AND SO LITTLE TIME!!!!

I am in Cúcuta!!! I love it here! I am in a part called San Martín, on a mountain neighborhood (almost pueblo) on one side of the city that is boardering Venezuela. It is GREAT here! The people are super cool and the ward is awesome! The area has been a bit dead lately, but we are working with some new people and are seeing a lot of progress! My new comp is Elder Dominguez, from Oregon (his parents are from Guatemala which makes officially Guatemala the country of origen of the majority of my comps (shout out to Dad and my bros in Guatemala)!!!

This week was full of so many experiences that were crazy! First of all, Colombia´s immigration offices didn´t want to give me the extension on my Visa, which would have meant that I was going to have to go home like tomorrow, at the latest maybe in 2 weeks which would´ve blown, but with my Colombian bargaining techniques and a lot of help from upstairs, I was able to convince the guy to give me the extension I needed so I can go home on the day planned! It was a miracle!!! There were soooo many prayers in that by our president and his wife and a bunch of my mission buddies here, and we are all just pumped! I know I need to be here!

So here in Cúcuta, the fruit is DELICIOUS amd cheap so the other day we went to tyhe market and I picked up a delish fresh mango and was suuper pumped to eat it. I cut it up and went crazy and ate the whole thing really fast. As I was cleaning the last bits of mango off of the skin to actually eat it ALL, I found a ..... (drum roll please)....... MAGGOT! It was a tiny little maggot, like maybe the size of a fat grain of rice. I´m pretty sure I´m not gonna die. I´m just trusting in Kelly Clarkson, if it doesn´t kill me, it´ll just make me stronger (or as colombians say, if it doesn´t kill you, it just makes you fatter) Also, now I have a good conversation starter for when I meet Bear Grylls.

In our Elders Quorum class on Sunday, the teach was talking about brotherly love and how we need to be really tight and close as a quorum. At one point he read the story of Abel and Cain toi show a crazy example of an extreme that we obviously wouldn´t do, but then show us how we might not kill our brothers, but we do sometimes do hurtful things and it was a sick lesson. At the moment of sharing that story and reading the scripture where cain says like, " what, am I my brother´s keeper?" all sassy-like, the teacher kind of jokingly asked one othe older (and more crazy guys in the class), " Would you be capable of kiling your brother?" all of us like giggled for a second quietly and the old guy cocked his head, closed his eyes a bit and sat there thinking a solid like 30 seconds (just imagine how the awkward silence made us all like laugh, then unconfortable, then laugh because it was so uncomfortabloe) and then said, "Well, it depends. If he..." and was going to start explain liek a serious situation about when he would need to kill his brother, but the teacher cut him off hahaha. Looks like I gotta stay on that gfuys good side haha

I love you all!!! Life is great!!!

Elder Pratt

YA ME VOY

My life!!! I got transferred! I´m going to Cúcuta! Maybe I´ll get a chance to write later this week, but if not, pray for me in the buses. I´ll spend 27 hours in buses in the next 2 days ahhaha. Time to buy some dramamine....

I love you all!!!

(no subject)

THIS WEEK WAS SUPER COOL. Why you ask???

1- WE FOUND SOME SUPER CRAZY COOL INVESTIGATORS IN WEIRD WAYS.

2- I ATE TURTLE SPINE.

3- WE HAD A KILLER BAPTISM.

4- OUR APARTMENT GOT BROKEN INTO BUT NOTHING GOT ROBBED.

5- MY APARTMENT DOES NOT CURRENTLY HAVE A FRONT DOOR.

More details you ask??? (aaand if you didn´t want more details, just like skip to the bottom I guess)

1- This week we were walking to an appointment and we ran into a guy who stopped us and started to talk to us, saying his brother is a member in another country and he wants to know more and maybe join the church. AWESOME. (We´ll just ignore the part where he was a bit tipsy when he said that) We kept talking, made an appointment for later, he showed up, it was awesome, he is actually a genious who is just a bit offtrack right now but wants to change his life and get baptized. We met another guy too in a similar case. Pretty awesome stuff, I love the mission.

2- I´M PRETTY SURE THE TURTLE SPINE ONE DOESN´T NEED ANYMORE EXPLANATION.

3- WILSON is the coolest. He is probably the most humble man I have ever met and he was just waiting to hear the restored Gospel. A friend of his brought him to church, we met him, started teaching him, and a month and a half later he was baptized. He is the best!

4- We got home from church yesterday after lunch to drop off our coats adn go out to work and BOOM we found our doorknob DESTROYED and on the floor in pieces. The door was shut, but luckily I had my pocketknife (BOYSCOUTSRULE) and we jimmied the lock to get in (don´t worry, we took pics of EVERYTHING before touching, yeah i´m seen wayyy too many episodes of CSI). Inside the door (in plain vision as we had left it the morning before) were iPods, MP3 players, etc (and potable water, which is actually a treasure in this city) THEY DIDN´T EVEN TOUCH THEM. We thought maybe they didn´t get in or something so we started looking around and found that the drawers were all opened and the clothes thrown around a bit and stuff but they DIDN¨T STEAL ANYTHING. The door and house of our neighbors was the same. WHAT A BLESSING! My comp and I just fell on our knees and gave thanks to God (then we made some phone calls- police, owners, etc ahah) God is wayyy to good to us.

5- as a result of the previous point, they took our door this morning and are fixing it and we have to have or 2 or 4 missionaries in the house at all times until they bring our door back nice and fixed later this afternoon. good times.

So yeah, basically this week was killer. I love the mission so much, my life is the best. I have been here in Yopal for almost 7 months now and I just love this city. We are soo blessed to have some amazing leaders an some great members in this branch and it has been great bein here. Most likely I´ll be getting transfered next week to another city to finish my mission in another place, but if I stay here, I´m gonna be stoked!

Until next week, Love you all!

Elder Pratt

PS 6