Elder Watts

Hey family!!!

So I am finally in Colombia! I never could have anticipated what its like down here! It is the complete opposite of Utah in every way possible I am pretty sure. I am in an area called Morichal and there aren´t a whole lot of members and it is really poor! I can´t even believe how spoiled we are in America! Most of the people here have little 2 or 3 room houses that are tiny and stacked on top of each other! There are some that are just shacks that are made out of spare pieces of metal and old store signs and a dirt floor! It was really humbling when I got here too! When I first got here and looked in the house I was staying in it was the poorest house I had ever been in and then we went in to other people's houses and I realized that we were so blessed to have the house that we do!

Spanish is kicking my butt so far and I have no idea what people are saying but I am learning so it´s all good! All of the members make fun of me because they will come up to me and talk a million miles an hour and I wont catch anything! ha ha but the people here are so amazing. they are all so humble and religion is usually the most important thing to them down here. We have had one baptism so far and her name was Edith Diaz. She is this little old lady who lives in Morichal. My first lesson was with her when we got here and her house had just got broken into and they stole her computer and some other stuff and she said that she was really upset and she asked us why God would let that happen.  So of course I thought that she was going to tell us that she wasn't going to be baptized anymore but instead she said that she knew it was a trial of her faith and that she doesn't know why it happened but she knows that God is giving her this trial for a reason. That doesn't happen in America. All of the people are like that and its just amazing to me!

Everyone here is so much more loving too! They will talk to people on the street for 30 minutes just to be friendly! All of them seem like they have never seen a white person in their life so when we walk down the street everyone just stares at me and it is pretty funny! I will even stare back and they don't care! Ha ha and some of the little kids yell to their moms, ¨Look! It's a gringo!!¨ It is pretty funny and we get a lot of people to talk to us because of it! The little kids in the ward love it when I speak English and they roll on the floor laughing when I start talking really fast in English! Sometimes when they will try to confuse me with Spanish I will just yell at them in English and they think it is hilarious!

My companions name is Elder Paez he is from Argentina and he is amazing! He speaks a little bit of English and he has been out here for a year now. He is the most loving patient person in the world. Sometimes I will have no idea what is going on or he will talk to me and I wont understand it and he will take time to explain it to me so I can learn. He is so amazing and I love him to death! We go out and teach with the members a lot and they know where not to go and what neighborhoods we can go to! My first day I looked at the map and asked where we couldn't go and my companion said lets start with where we can go because that is much shorter. Ha ha but I am safe as long as we don't go there and if we do go through an area we have like 3 members with us at all times so we have a little Mormon mob that protects the innocent little gringo!

It is hot here always, mostly because of the humidity but apparently everyone says that it is cold right now, yeah so I can't wait for June. I sweat a ton and my cheeks are always red because I am so hot and all of the members laugh at me because I am white and I turn red! Ha Ha

The food here is amazing! they have bread in these little stores that is my all time favorite. It is like a crescent with cheese baked in the middle and it is so good! But there is a lot of rice and beans and my first day here we were having lunch with a member and my companion said "do you know what this is" and I said no and he pointed to his hand and said it is the hand of a pig.  Yeah I ate a pig foot and it is was pretty disgusting! The member was just watching me eat it and it is very impolite not to finish everything here so I had to eat the whole thing and I felt like I was on fear factor or something. 

Anyways I love it here and I am so happy to be here! it is very different but I am getting used to it and I just love the people here!

I love you guys and I hope you had a great week!

P.S. I cant send letters here and if you are going to send me a package don't send a box. Send one of those little slips because it costs me like 200 dollars to even look at my box! But I can only email from here on out because it is too expensive otherwise! So if anyone needs to talk to me tell them to email me! I love you guys!!