Zone Conference Continued...And another Week! ~ October 29, 2016

Wow.... are you going to guess what I'm going to say?... I'm sure you are! Wow! It's already been another week!? Haha. Yup it sure has.

Well, I wanted to continue about the Zone Conference we had last week and then talk a little about the experiences we had this week. So in the Zone Conference President and the Assistants trained a lot about how we as missionaries need to always be "walking with the Lord". All the things we do, when we are out teaching, alone with our companion, talking with other missionaries, etc. we must always keep ourselves in a righteous stance. Since President Gallego has gotten here he has really been focusing on encouraging the mission to be able to baptize every week. Because it is possible! We just need to have the faith sufficient to be able to reach it. President explained to us that if the missionaries aren't baptizing, then there must be something wrong between that relationship with us and the Lord and that we must refocus or consecrate ourselves. It was a pretty powerful training. We then talked about what we must do to find the investigators that have been prepared by the Lord, because the "field is white already to harvest." The "field" is already prepared, there are already the people that have been chosen and prepared to receive this Gospel. What we must do is find them. We then ended with a message about the Atonement and Missionary Work and I love the phrase that comes from one of President Eyring's talks about "Remember Him!" and that when we ever feel tired or that we can't go on, we must give ourselves that rallying cry "Remember Him!" It was powerful. We must leave behind our nets (things of the world) and follow Him.

Now this week was a little crazy again. Por qué? Porque it was transfers! AGAIN! Crazy I know. I feel like every other week I say it's "transfers again." So the new missionaries arrived and we got to eat in Rodizios again! Woohoo! Every transfer! ;) The cooked pineapple is the best. Anyways, so that happened with the new missionaries. We had some training with them on Wednesday and oh yeah I saw Elder Argyle! That was cool. He saw me when he arrived at President's house on Tuesday morning from the Bogotá MTC and he looked at me and asked: "You're Elder Hales? Does your mom work at the elementary school by Weber?" Haha. So he's here. He's actually in Galapa, so where my first zone was. Pretty cool. His trainer should be great. Let's see, apart from all that..... oh yeah! So Elder Carreon and Elder Salinas have now left the office, the new Housing Secretary is Elder Matos from Puerto Rico officially and the new History Secretary is Elder Troche from Bolivia! From my group in the MTC. Well the group that came to the mission with me! And now he's my companion! They changed a bit the companionships here in the office now. I'm with Elder Troche and Elder Pucha is now with Elder Matos. Elder Hansen is now training a new missionary to be the Executive Secretary, Elder Bustos from Colombia. He's pretty awesome. And what else.... oh yeah, so now that Elder Carreon has left the office, he was our district leader, President has called me as the new district leader of the office and the sisters in our ward. It has been and will be a great learning experience. A lot more responsibilities. I pray that I may learn the most from it.

Well that basically sums everything up this week! I love you all! Have a Happy HALLOWEEN!!! :D :D :D (The second best holiday, not because it's halloween but rather because it's my birthday. haha ;) and it's the second because Christmas is the best.)

See you, love you, bye!

Love,
~Élder Tyler Hales~

ÉLDER HALES

Secretario de Salud

Misión Colombia Barranquilla

It's going good. The battle is going well. Who's gonna be who? Did Bryce get his hair long enough to be Bucky Barnes?? ;) And is Matt gonna be Heman? hahaha ;) That would be funny. Yes they celebrate here. We actually went to the store today and they have all the decorations and such. And they have already all the decorations for Christmas too! Crazy! Yes we go out on Halloween to work. last year the day after Halloween in Sabana Llarga, all the kids went out in costumes and asked candy, but it's more crazy and disorganized here than it is there haha. Here in Barranquilla I'm not sure what it's like. Oh and here in the office we actually have a couple of decorations up. :)

Thank you so much momooo for the Birthday wish and really for all the love you have shown me. I just can't help it with these eyes of mine.... they are just too blue and big. hahahaha ;)

But wow that is so awesome about the violin for Emma that will be sweet! I'm glad she has been keeping up on it.

Also thanks mom for that spiritual thought you shared. It is something so important that we learn in this life to be able to understand that in whatever circumstance, the Lord and His Atonement helps. All we must do is apply it in our life and we will see the blessings and joy that comes from it.

That's great Elder Jorgensen could go yesterday as well. He is really an awesome guy. He was a great friend and help in Arjona. Elder Baque finally left Arjona with these transfers. He had like 8 months there! That's a long time. He is now here in Barranquilla in the area called Malambo. Elder Brunis ended his mission this week as well. That was sad. I gave him one of my new ties I bought. The blue striped shiny one.... I think that will be the only tie I will give away haha. you know me ;)

Well I love you so much Momoo! Thank you for everything. You are the absolute bestest mom in the whole wide world! Take care of the family!

See you love you bye!

Emotional and Spiritual Explosions ~ October 22, 2016

Hola a todos!


Wow this week once again..... ZIP!! Se fue! And this next week... ZIP se irá as well!
This week, as the title says, was full of emotional and spiritual explosions, as Matt would say. First thing, this week in the mission there were three missionaries that had appendicitis and well all were operated on. It surprised all of us. On Tuesday I had quite the adventure with Sebastian, President's son. After lunch Sebastian had a dentist appointment to fill a filling that had fallen out or something like that so Sister Gallego asked me to take him to his appointment. All turned out well. After that there was a sister missionary that had an appointment in the clinic Porto Azul, like the main clinic/hospital where we go for everything. So Sebastian and I went to the clinic to pay the doctor appointment for the sister and her companion. After that we all went to the room where one of the missionaries, as well a sister, that had the appendix operation and we had to talk to the nurses and doctors and stuff to kind of get some information about the operation they did. We waited there for a couple of hours until they gave the sister leave from the hospital. While all of that was going on, another missionary had called with extreme stomach pain and had come to the clinic to urgencies. The zone leaders that had come to accompany him called me and said the doctors were saying it looked like appendicitis. In that moment I was just like noooooooooooo. Like Luke when he finds out Darth.... yeah I'm sure you all know the story. So after the sister left we went down to urgencies and found the elder and the specialist there examining him. Sure enough... another appendicitis. (Just so you know the first appendicitis had already happened the Friday before, so this was the third) Anyways, so we were with him and then I had to leave with the companion of the elder with appendicitis to go and sign some papers because he was going to be the accompanier for the patient. 

During that, Sebastian had to go with the elder with appendicitis up to the floor of the operations and while they were going up Sebastian saw some terrifying stuff. Just so you know Sebastian is like me in terms of getting light headed and stuff when seeing blood or being in a clinic. Luckily he didn't pass out nor I. Anyways we were there in the clinic until about 10:15 and finally we got to go home because the zone leaders came to stay with the elders. It was quite an adventure. So yeah emotional explosion. 

The spiritual explosion was the Zone Conference we had about finding the chosen ones. It was super good. But for the time I can't tell it in detail. I love you all and wish the best for everyone!!!!! Ciao!
¡Paz fuera!

Love,
~Élder Tyler Hales~

ÉLDER HALES

Secretario de Salud

Misión Colombia Barranquilla

Tayrona Park ~ October 8, 2016

Wow what a super fast but super legit week! Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you're part of a team!..... Moving on....


This week went super de duper fast. Like all the other ones haha. This week we had leaders council again. But this time, instead of here in Barranquilla like it has always been, we went to Santa Marta! The REAL coast of Colombia! Santa Marta is really small compared to Barranquilla and it was my first time going so that was fun. It is small but very beautiful. Everything is super green and luscious there! It's kind of cool because it's like a little valley where the city is surrounded by mountains on three sides and then the beach on one. As you enter the city you come down a pass that's like in North Ogden and you see all the big buildings and stuff in the middle of basically jungle covered mountains. Anyways, we had the council in the Manzanares (Apple Orchards) chapel. (It is a beautiful church, probably the most beautiful one I've seen here so far, but it's really small. And it is where my companion, Elder Pucha, was serving before coming here to the office, so he felt at home.) In the council, President trained about the Book of Mormon and how we all need to really STUDY it more. Not just read from front to back lots of times, instead really finding scriptures to themes and marking them and writing them down in a journal to remember them. He taught that we really need to know what is contained in the Book of Mormon and we talked about the structure of the book, like the four plates it contains, which ones contain which books, by whom it was written and compiled. It was really cool how he explained it to us. Later the assistants taught about finding people. We watched the mormon message about the man searching for gold and compared it to the mission in how we need to use all the methods and ways we can to always be finding tons and tons of people to teach to really be able to find the ones that are prepared in this time. God has already prepared the field, all we must do is harvest it. It was legit.


Now, the next totally legit part. We went to Parque Tayrona!!! Or Tayrona Park in English haha. It's like an hour drive from Santa Marta. We went yesterday and changed our pday to yesterday as well to do it. We went with President and his family and WOW it was SOOOO beautiful! Oh I felt like a scout again going on high adventures! But this time, in what I consider the real life untamed wilderness haha! Literally we were in a jungle. Literally. Legitimately. You'll see in the fotos. (Fotos is so much easier to write than photos. That's why I write it that way haha). Anyways, it was like an hour and a half to two hour hike through HUMID jungle and passing by beautiful beaches with super blue water! There were a lot of creepy creatures we saw in the path and we even saw little zaboomafoos! (Is that how you spell it?) Ooooh there was even a guy that left the park right after us that saw a cayman (aligator) in this little lake pond spot that we had passed not too long before him! He showed us pictures and it was HUGE! And cool! Sebastian (President's son) and I actually did see the water moving in that little pond as we were passing but we never saw anything. Pretty creepy. We even saw tons of ENORMOUS beehives hanging from trees. I think the people that work in the national park go through smoking them out or something because we never saw any bees in them. So that was good because we were scared. In the last beach we walked to we played soccer in the sand. I will just tell you that the sand is super heavy and it looked like we were all running and playing in slow motion! Ooo and the sand hurt your ankles when someone kicked you. My ankles are a little scraped. Not too bad... It was really fun though. If I come back to Colombia after the mission I might go again to Parque Tayrona.


So yeah, that's practically my week! We'll see how things go this next week! It's already week 5 of 6 in this transfer! That means my fourth transfer here is already ending. Time is slithering right on by. Keep on studying the Book of Mormon and the new Conference talks! They are the inspired words of prophets that will guide us in whatever circumstance we are in. I know that God loves and protects us in all things. He shows us our weaknesses to make us strong and to help us reach our full potential. Remember who you are and where you come from and where you're going. I love you all so much!

¡Paz fuera!

Love,
~Élder Tyler Hales~

Yeah the view was so beautiful! Haha I don't think i've grown at all in the mission. Maybe my face and cheeks in width wise but other than that... nothing.

Tayrona park is really beautiful. It would be fun to go but you ohave to be really careful. It would scare me to go with the family I think. It was awesome though because it reminded me so much about Jurassic Park! It looked exactly like it! The trees and mountains and everything! I was always saying like "imagine if a trex just came out from behind those trees or rocks." It was legit. There is one fotos in particular that reminds me of it. Its the one with the single jungle mountain in the background with the palm trees in very front. Ooh it was a cool atmosphere. But scary at the same time.​

haha Yeah (President Gallego) he is really young. But he is really awesome!

Um, do you know how much I have in my checking account? have you been able to transfer any over? Just because I'm thinking of buying the new set of scriptures because mine our outdated.

Thank you so much! I love you too! Sorry I was on the phone with Sister Gallego for the past five minutes.




Oh! We even saw some indians that live up in the mountains there and stuff. They hardly speak spanish. It was pretty interesting.





OK got to go now! Love you so much! Say hi to everyone! It's so hard to write everyone.... I just wrote my weekly, you, pops, and gracie. Tell everyone else I love them too!