Semanazo

So this weeek has been great, but with a ton going on.
To start, on Thursday, we were having our normal weekly planning, right? Well, we were finishing up when we heard a knock on the door.... who could that be? To our shock and surprise it was the....Zone Leaders...BUM BUM BUM!!!!! At first we were thinking uh oh, this cannot be good. But in the end, turns out all they wanted was to see how we are doing as a companionship and participate in our comp inventory (the whole evaluation of the strengths/weaknesses of the companionship and its members). Phwew. A bit of a shock that. Having your leaders come unannounced.

Not much on Friday or Saturday. On Sunday though, we had a baptism!!!! Stefanie finally got baptised. And better yet, my companion was the one to baptize her! Sweet. Nothing in the mission is quite as cool as seeing your investigators change into the newest members of the church. The Young Women organized the service and did an awesome job. They had an amazing musical number, a talk about the importance of following the path from baptism to the temple. Really cool in all. And in and of itself it was a bit of a miracle. When we got to the church, there was no water. At all. That is not usually a good sign. Then, when we were about to give up, after having tried almost everything, the water started shooting out. We didn't do anything. It just happened. There are miracles.

That night we had an experience a little less enjoyable. We had to move a sister from our ward to another house because the one she was living in was leaky. She is now living in a room with half functioning electricity, a room that is full of mosquitoes and is about half the size of my bedroom at home. Wow. I was left with a grand sense of gratitude for all that God had blessed me with. To me now, our mission apartment seems like a place. We have water, electricity, gas, everything. It's moments like this that really help a person to appreciate all that they have.

On Monday we did a big service project as a zone. We went to a farmhouse about fifteen miles outside of Bogota and spent the day weeding, moving literally a ton of sand, cleaning out a room full of food storage and floor tiles, pulling out a planting terrace, and more. The sister was really nice and made us pasta. Homemade pasta. She had one of those little pasta makers that flattens out the dough and cuts it into strips. Really was a lot of fun making that. After we walked to a nearby lake and enjoyed the weather, until it started to rain that is.

Tuesday...interviews. It was funny, we were told that we needed to be there at 9:30. We got there at 10:30. I was so nervous, afraid that President was going to cut my head off. But thankfully, he was taking a long time with the zone leaders and we actually ended up waiting awhile before we got in to see him. The interview for me is always a great morale booster. And this one was no exception. I am so pumped to work now!

Last, but not least, the temple trip today. We went to the temple really early, getting up at about four-thirty to get ready to go. As always, an amazing experience. We almost didn't make it into the session, and when we did, we almost didn't fit. They actually had to bring in several folding chairs so that there was space for everybody. All in all, it was amazing. Got several questions answered today. After, we ate in the temple cafeteria, and upon leaving, ran into another zone. One of my coolest companions ever, Elder Godoy was there. So cool to see him and several of the other missionaries again. Great experience.

Well, that was very long and I am now out of time. So, I will see you all next week. Love you all!!!!!

Elder (Gabe) Rallison