Another crazy week in the jungle!

Hola mis amigos y familia,

This week was another week full of hard work in the hot sun! We had a baptism on Saturday which was cool because it was the first one I witnessed being done in a river.

Santiago ready to be baptized

Family and ward family support

 

Monday, went to Puyo to play soccer with the other Elders but they were all tired after an hour so that was boring. Then we played Phase 10 and ate pizza. Later we taught Santiago and his brother Tomas to prepare them for their baptism.

Tuesday my companion couldn't get out of bed because of how sore he was from playing soccer. It was pretty funny. Later we printed handouts for English class that we are planning on doing to try and see if we can find investigators that way. After that we went contacting and had some lessons planned but they all fell through.

Wednesday started off with doing a little bit of service and cleaning a fish tank for a less active member. Then we started divisions so that our district leader could do the baptismal interview for Santiago. I went to Puyo with Elder Gomez and there we had lessons planned for the day. Our first one we went to with a member but it fell through so then we went contacting and found this person who was super interested so we taught her and set up another appointment and then went to another lesson close by. After that we went home and did some studies and then later headed back out so that we could go visit one of the people they have with a baptismal date. Super good day.

Super huge tree we saw!

Thursday we had district meeting and that is when we switched back. But before that let me tell you that the house of Elder Gomez and our district leader is super nice. It has two bathrooms and they have hot water so I finally got to shower and shave with hot water! Later had lunch and then afterward went to a lesson where a member was supposed to meet us there but he got there an hour late. We taught the Restoration and they received it super well. Then we were suppose to go to dinner but it got canceled so then we were going to go to another member's but that got canceled too, so we contacted people by phone to try and set up appointments until our phone died and then went to go make some food.

Friday we started by doing weekly planning and then going to the cyber to take out references. The second Book of Mormon video came out too. Then we went to lunch but had to eat fast so that we could go to San Antonio which is the place where the bus comes every hour. We had a lesson about the 10 commandments and had one new person we are teaching there too. They gave us juice from a fruit called tomate de arbol which is basically tomato juice and I hate it. I downed it super fast and at the end of the lesson I ran off into their farm and threw up. Super bad. Afterward we had dinner with Familia Aldas and I had them order a ukulele for me and it arrived so I was super excited. Then they showed us videos of their parents who are indigenous and live in a community outside of Tena and what they do. Super cool, and then they told us stories of anacondas and how they eat people and how some breath fire, jaja.

Saturday we had the baptism at 8 in the morning and then later we went to this super far place for a lesson. Again we had to take a bus outside of Archidona and then from there we walked up hill for 30 minutes to get to this house and the family we were going to teach wasn't there like they said they would be, so we waited another 30 minutes and then left. We missed the bus so we had to take a taxi to Archidona and then take another bus to another place outside Archidona. There we ate lunch and had to wait for an hour for the next bus to come. By that time we were super late to English class. Along the way I also lost my wallet with 1.75 so that was sad. We got to the chapel and no one was there so we were going to go to a lesson but we called and they weren't home, so we went to the house and studied and practiced some ukulele.

Sunday we watched the video with Elder Ballard about the new youth program. Also the family that lives far away where I threw up came to church for the first time since I have been here so that was super exciting! Later we helped the Branch President deposit tithing because his counselors were not there. After church our lunch fell through and we didn't have anything in the house so we bought some stuff to make lunch. Oops! After that we went with the Ward Mission Leader to visit a recent convert who says that his cousin wants to be baptized, but she wasn't there so we just taught the recent convert. There was too little kids there that Elder Florian knows and he asked them why they didn't come to church. One said that he was too busy and the other said that she had something else to do. Elder Florian asked her if God or that other thing was more important and she answered God and we all laughed because they say they are too busy to go to church but aren't even 8 years old. Then went to go eat dinner with familia Guillin.

Hope you all have a great week.

Les quiero mucho,

Elder Tolman