Colombian Service

Hey! We'd a Great week!  Don't have much time for more than a little summary... so

We set a marriage date and baptismal date for Maria Jimenez!  Cheers!  Marriage is planned for the 28th and baptism for the 29th! So we're pretty excited for her.  Her ¨husband¨ is getting his marriage forms done this week.

It’s weird when Colombians mention their ¨spouses¨ as their spouses, when they're not actually married. It is Colombian tradition and culture to NOT get married, so... hardly anyone here is married! Marriage is our biggest obstacle for baptism. No one wants to pay for it and they're afraid to just get it done. So Maria Jimenez is fantastic!

As shown in the photos I sent from last week, we had another cool service project and it was a party (no sarcasm haha). It was really fun! We pretty much just worked all day long, moving tons of boxes and other random office items and other random, not - office items, like huge stoves! I got to talk with and get to know some new missionaries in my zone. Missionaries are seriously, usually, really cool people, and it's cool to hear their stories.

Someone brought one of those weird rubix-ball things (Like the one we have), and no one could figure it out! Haha some dude was working on it for hours without success and I just showed up and solved it in a couple minutes. I'm sure every missionary in the world is learning to solve the standard 3 by 3 by 3 rubix cube these days. Am I right? Every missionary I know has one and can solve it or is learning to! We joke that the President will test us on our solving skills in the final interview! Haha ¨If you can solve this in under a minute... you can go home.¨ (Placing a rubix cube on the desk :)

Anyway we had Jonathon committed to attending church... But he has failed us. Lol  We'll see what went down in our next appointment. He made us french fries the last lesson so he's a pretty good guy, we have no idea what happened.

We have a really recent convert named Arnoldo, who follows us around all day, sometimes. He says the funniest things and it's like watching TV being with him so we let him follow us around all day. We accidentally ditch him sometimes cause it takes him too long to get on the bus! LOL We get a ton of ¨lessons with member¨ when he's with us tho! I told him the other day that if we were in the Lord of The Rings, he would be Gollum! Haha it's sounds mean but I guess you just gotta meet him! Haha Seriously tho!

Love Elder Zierenberg

Here's a ton of fotos:

Which Way We Face

What's up?

So last week was pretty groovy. Elder Reyes and I had some rad lessons and we taught some hip people with some righteous members! It was wicked...

Elsa Guerrera now has a baptismal date for the 29th. We had a great visit and taught the Restoration and asked her if she would pray about it. She said no and her reason why was that she already knew it was true... Pretty sweet! Haha She said she felt the Holy Ghost bearing testimony of what we said.  But we told her she should still pray. She accepted the baptismal date and we will continue working to help prepare her for the date. We just need to get more members involved. Maybe a couple ¨Noches De Hogar¨ (FHE) will do the trick. We are excited for her. We met her one night when a less active member that we’d never met before called us and told us to come and share the message. It's really weird how less active's can give us referrals like this, but it happens all the time, and this one was golden.

Our zone had a meeting with President Andelin and after we had interviews. It was really great seeing him and receiving his training. The meeting was pretty short and was focused on a theme from a Conference Talk about “Which Way We Face” and fearing God and wanting to please him more than fearing man. We learned a lot in the short conference. 

The President also went over new exercising methods that he encouraged us to start using every morning. He told us we should see how long we can plank, meaning stay flat like a plank on your toes and elbows. He explained that the world record was made by some Asian soldier that held the position for an incredible 4 hour stint!! That is GNARLY!! The 2nd place record was around 2 hours, SO that guys gone and set a pretty safe record!! 

Then the President told all the Elders to line up and that we had a competition! So we all lined up, he set the time and we planked. The minutes ticked by and our numbers lessoned as trembling Elder after Elder fell flat on their faces. Myself and 2 others, out of the whole zone, passed the 5 minutes that the President set. Elder Thacker ( 27, who served in the army), The other was our new Zone Leader (Replaced Christian Conaway), and me. The President was pretty pleased with us and we 3 received Homemade Brownies!!!  

Sister Andelin brought THE BROWNIES for the Brownie Challenge and so afterwards everyone who passed off all the assigned scriptures, received their brownies For Each Language they memorized them in... and they were DELICIOUS!!

We are excited about this week's planned lessons and I'll let you all know how the week plays out. 

So I don't have much time so that's about it for the week.

Love Elder Rod Zierenberg 

   

PS If you want to know anything about Colombia send me a Q or 2

We had a Nephites Vs. Lamanites Battle (in other words: Gringos Vs. Lamanites)

I Do Love The Colombian Accent

Yesterday was a Colombian Holiday so the internet shops were closed and that's why we are writing today.

Also, yesterday was day one of the new transfer, and my companion (Elder Reyes) and I stay here in Funza! I'm glad, as I love it here!

I had forgotten that the transfer was ending and so I bought a mountain of milk bags (the biggest size they have) and 2 big boxes of cereal 2 days before transfers!  I was worried that I would end up having to carry all that milk with me or worse... just leave it there for some lucky missionaries.  

This past week we celebrated Halloween by helping two different families move everything from their houses and into a big truck and finally into their new houses.

Helping 1 family move is ok...., but 2 is just a LONG DAY!!

I did receive 2 pieces of candy from the wife of the bus driver who took us home afterwards. Nothing compared to the US candy but still pretty good...  Among other things, I miss Beef Jerky... 

Our Mission is doing a Brownie Challenge: If we memorize the following:

1. The Mission Purpose

2. The Standard of Truth

3. D&C 123:17

4. 3 Nephi 5:13

5. D&C section 4

6. I Stand All Amazed 

We win a huge brownie for each language we memorize it in.

I've got them all memorized in Spanish and English so that'll be 2 for me. Haha

We are going to be teaching a man named Mauricio who is very interested in learning all he can about us. He contacted us in the street and told us he has family living in Las Vegas and they are members of the church. Pretty Cool. I love teaching people that are interested and come to us!

Our Mission has started doing things a little different and one of those is Lunch.  Before we would rotate through lots of families in the ward and I liked getting to see more variety. But now the mission just pays the same trusted sister to make us a ¨safe lunch¨ every single day of our lives... And I'm suffering from Rice Stress! I don't know if that's a thing but Rice is really starting to stress me out! Haha I don't know if I'm going to be able to handle the ¨Last days- food storage life¨ that Dad always talks about. Oatmeal I can do.  But the assigned sister is so nice and I love getting to visit with her family everyday. She's actually a great cook and should be one of the best in the ward. 

Her daughter and her are recent converts and they are the only 2 church members in their family. Sister Isabel Farieta has lots of older sons that we will try teaching when the opportunity arises. She has been visited by some Jahova's Witnesses and she told us that she has shared a bit of the truth with them. They have been returning so she is trying to set up a date and time that WE can also be there to share some peaceful discussions. 

I absolutely love confronting other missionaries and pastors from other churches because I could Bible Bash all day and win in a minute! Haha But seriously I just like hearing what they have to say and sharing points with them. I always try to focus on what we have in common and go from there.

We are teaching Mayerly that I mentioned in previous letters. She's the wife of a less active member. She is super interested and we just need to get her to go to church next week.  I have been focusing on committing investigators to coming to church in the first lesson. It's super great because it helps them progress quickly! Especially when the members befriend them and invite them to Family Home Evenings! That is the best! And if the investigators don't go to church- they don't progress by missionary definition, so it also shows us who to focus on.

We are making tons of goals and we plan on seeing a lot of success this transfer. I love the feeling that new transfers bring! It's like restarting you're favorite game and trying to do better or go farther than before. 

2 weeks ago, Colombia had a special conference broadcasted and all the Colombian stakes and wards got to listen to Elder Holland! I loved getting to hear him speak!  It was funny because he said that he hears that Colombia speaks the best Spanish (Accent). People told me that in the MTC as well and I do love the Colombian accent.

Man the power has been going off a couple of times all day, and thank goodness emails automatically save to drafts....

Well I think that's it for the week.

Love Elder Rod Z 

I'm going to miss this guy!

So quick week and not much to say...

Last week we were contacted by a 35 year old, less active man named Jonathon, who seemed desperate for our missionary services.   We set up the appointment and had the lesson later last week.

Jonathon says he's been less active for over a year now and isn't living the way he should. He didn't get into details but he said he wasn't living the commandments. He also informed us that he is an x ward mission leader... Yikes.

He seems to be depressed and just looking for spiritual relief. We talked about the importance of reading the scriptures everyday and we committed him to do so. He says he already prays everyday so we committed him to continuing to pray. We asked why he didn't go to church - (this is where the lame excuse usually comes into play) and he said:  He had to wash his laundry on Sunday mornings.... Come on! Haha That's so lame!!

Anyways we let him know we thought it was lame. I felt like he was just using us to feel some spiritual relief, and I hate when people just try to get spiritual relief and don't want to repent and change their lives! So I brought that up as well and we said that his salvation was in his hands and that he needed to chose for himself to go to church on Sundays.  Then we talked about the atonement and gave him the spiritual relief he wanted. We'll see if he starts going to church!

We also have been working with some members in the ward and are getting to know neighborhoods we haven’t worked in yet. It's always great to see the faith that nonmembers have in Jesus and it's good to know there are so many people prepared to hear about the Restoration

We had a cool p-day today and the whole zone played soccer!

Elder Conoway (My Zone Leader from Fillmore) is finishing his mission this week. I'm going to miss this guy!

This next week is also Changes so I'll find out what happens!

Well I gotta go, talk to you all later.

Love Elder Z

Temple Trip

Hey so we had a crazy week!

First off, that butterfly was insane!!  One day when we returned home I walked into my room to brush my teeth and while I was in my room my companion yells for me to come see something gnarly! The biggest black butterfly I have ever seen is just chillin on my door frame! The photo I sent does not show how big it is! It wasn't there when I walked in and we have no idea how it got into our house, but my companion was set on that it's a death omen. 

I, being a somewhat superstitious man, was a little nervous. I wanted to put it in a container or something, but my companion said that we could just leave it there and that it would stay. I told him it was going to disappear and reappear in the worst time and way possible (Like eating his face in the middle of the night)!! Didn't believe me... So we just shut all the indoor doors and we left to work. That ¨Mariposa Traicionera¨ Mana song was stuck in my mind the whole day.  When we got back later that night, lo and behold the monster's not there! Maybe it got out of the house we thought. So then the next day still no sign of it! 

Well 2 days later at night, after our planning session, I'm just writing some nightly poetry, peaceful and everything...  And I move a box that's under a table and THE THING just flies out like a Bat, and of course I'm screaming my head off! My companion just runs into our room and locks the door before I get there. So I go back and see it on the curtain (We only have 1 curtain...). I grab a big plastic container, trap it, and throw the container out the window. There have been no further sightings thus far.  

I've had some crazy dreams here in this house! In one of them I was standing in the shower, and it took me a while to notice that the water had risen to my neck! The shower door was closed, but not water-tight, so the water outside of the shower was like at knee level! I thought, ¨Oh shoot I guess I'll just have to wait for the water to go down the drain before I can open the door and get out!¨ 

We had some way cool lessons this week and Maria Jimenez is going to get married soon so she can be baptized! She's super prepared and goes to church every Sunday and keeps all our commitments!

We watched The Restoration with Alvaro Marquez, but not the short one that's better for investigators. We watched the beginning of the 1 Hr movie because that was all we had access to at the moment.  It still had a powerful impact on him, and he went on and on about his favorite part: when God says ¨This is my beloved Son, hear Him!¨.  We asked him inspired questions and he answered them revealing his growing testimony. We talked about baptism, invited him to be baptized, and he said he would like to, but that he wouldn't set a date.

I don't know if you have seen the District Missionary Videos, but there's this one cowboy dude that says the exact same thing in the video.  I don't know why, but those videos are sooo funny to me!!! It's an Office type of awkward humor!! Hahaha Maybe you gotta be a missionary to get it.

We switched this week's pday to Tuesday because we wanted to go to the Temple, and Temple's are closed on Mondays. It was really cool to visit the Bogotá Temple!! It's amazing how big the Church is and that you can find it anywhere! 

<3 Elder Z