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!
