Elder Watts

Hey everyone!

Bus ride picture on way to Manizales.

So I am officially in Manizales and I am in an area called Chipre! It is freezing here and we are way high up in altitude so it is actually pretty hard to breath here! Ha ha there are so many hills in my area too! It is ridiculous, sometimes we will walk to areas and I will have to pop my ears because we walk up so high! Ha ha there is supposed to be a huge volcano here but I have never seen it because it is always covered by clouds! It is supposed to be covered in snow though which is pretty cool because I never thought I would see snow here in Colombia! I really cant believe how cold it is here, I really get cold when I walk outside because it is such a big change from my last area! My area is really cool, I have the down town of Manizales in my area and it is really cool because I have never really had a town with stores and stuff to work with, normally I have been on the outskirts but it is pretty cool to change things up! The members are amazing too! They work really hard and it is funny because they always say that it is their responsibility to baptize people and not the missionaries! Ha ha I have never seen this kind of support from the members in my life! They introduce us to a lot of people and they have a lot of success here because they work a lot with references! There was a girl that came up to us the other day in church and said that she wanted to be baptized as soon as possible! Ha ha so far this is a ward of miracles! But being a zone leader kind of takes a hit on the time that you have to work in your area because you are always doing stuff to make the zone better and you have to make sure everyone is doing good, like this week we spent a lot of time looking for a house for some new missionaries we are going to have in the zone and stuff but so far it has been pretty good! we don't really have a lot of free time in the night because we have to call the whole zone but it is alright! Oh how could I forget! My new companion is Elder Venable and he is from Hooper Utah! Ha ha I had no idea that I was going to have a gringo companion until I met him! I cant even tell you how happy I am to have a gringo comp because we are way more alike than all of my companions that I have ever had! I have talked more English in this last week than I have in my whole mission! Ha ha it is pretty cool though because if we need to change plans or something during a lesson we can just say it in English and they wont understand which is kind of nice! He is an awesome guy though and we are having a blast so far! Anyways I am doing so good! I love my area, my companion, and everything else here! I hope everyone has a great week!

Pictures from bus ride to Manizales.

Elder Watts

PS the conference with Cristofferson was awesome and he speaks awesome Spanish! we all go to introduce ourselves and tell him where we were from and I said my name was Elder Watts and I was from his stake and he said "well I have something for you from your mom!" and he gave me a big hug in front of everyone! Ha ha it was very cool and it was nice to see someone from the stake!

 

This is a picture of my area from my window in my room! Ha ha we are just in the middle of the mountains here and it is so pretty!