No one wrote me! You lil slackers! haha, but it's all good. If no one's writing, it means everyone's doing great!
Welp, today, the 20th of July, was the Independence Day of Colombia! WOOT! This morning, we went to a parade too! I have pictures, but I think I'll send them next week, because my time is short today. Like always:) But the military marched around the city with their weapons and tanks and jeeps and stuff, and they let people enter the jeeps and tanks and take pictures. And then they had some marching bands and stuff. It was cool, but not as good as the parades in the USA. But I ate some ice cream, so that made things better, haha. This past week was really great! We had lots of good lessons, and we are helping families be more united more than anything else! To celebrate the Independence of Colombia, I'm gonna talk about my investigators in Spanish. Also cuz I wanna show off more;)
La primera es Nicole. Ella es muy buena, tiene 13 años, y está muy animada para su bautismo. Su papá es miembro pero era inactivo por muchos años y recién está regresando a la iglesia. Su familia tiene muchos problemas ahora y los hijos pelean mucho con el papá, y por eso él decidió regresar a la iglesia e invitarnos a enseñar a sus hijos. Estamos enseñando mucho de la familia y ayudando a ellos a tener mas unidad.
La familia Martinez consiste de los papás y dos hijos (10 años y 3 años). Todavía no hemos conocido al papá, pero la mamá y sus hijos tienen interés, y tuvieron una experiencia muy buena en la capilla este domingo. La mamá (Elizabeth) quiere estar mas cerca a Dios para ser un ejemplo para sus hijos. Ella está teniendo problemas con su esposo ahora y no le gusta que el bebe tanto alcohol. Este domingo en la capilla, como siempre, el Señor planeó una clase perfecta para Elizabeth, y hablamos de la Palabra de Sabiduría. La mamá y su hijo, Diego, tienen la fecha del 6 de agosto para su bautismo. También la mamá invitó a su sobrina a la última lección y ella también tiene mucho interés! La sobrina se llama Tatiana y tiene 14 años, y quiere estudiar medicina para encontrar la cura de cancer. Chévere, no?
Well, the last thing I wanna say is that today someone almost committed suicide. We were shopping in a mall and we noticed that everyone in the street were yelling and looking upward. There was a drunk man laying down at the ledge of a building, thinking about letting himself fall off. I was so scared for him. Today was the first time that I've ever seen something like that. The despicable thing is that in the midst of a crowd of ppl, I noticed that the majority of the people were laughing and smiling. For them it was like a joke, or some form of entertainment. There weren't many people who were scared, or worried, or showed the slightest bit of compassion for the man. Yeah, he was a drunkard, and maybe he wasn't a very respectable man, but maybe he drinks because of all of his problems. Some dumb guys even had a heart cold enough to yell to the man, ´´Jump already! What are you waiting for? If you wanna jump, hurry and do it!´´ And they were laughing hysterically at the same time. It's like they were waiting to see something exciting happen, waiting for the man to jump. It was despicable. I got really angry. I thought for a while about going up to help the man. I was only two or three floors below him. Eventually I decided to go up. The stairway was closed by a locked gate that the suicidal man had locked, so I couldn't walk up the stairs. I can't explain it very well, but I started climbing the siderail of the stairs to get up to man. As I started to climb up, my companion told me that the police had just then grabbed the man and were taking him down. His wife had showed up too, I believe. The message of the story is... well, I don't know exactly. Perhaps it's that the world has degraded so much that people have lost the ability to have love and compassion. In St. Matthew, one of the signs of the second coming of Christ is that the love of man will wax cold. So the invitation is to love everyone, with all of your heart. We have to fight against that despicable plague of the inability to love, that despicable plague that I saw today. We have to love everyone, serve everyone, we cannot afford to be selfish, and only think of ourselves. Perhaps we can change the life of a person, or save the life of a person. I always loved the song from The Fray, ´´How to Save a Life´´. The world needs the gospel in their lives. The true gospel, the fulness of the gospel that is found in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And more than just believe in the gospel, we have to live it, and apply it to every aspect of our lives. Because Colombia is FULL of Christians - Catholics, 7th Day Adventists, Jehovah´s Witnesses, Mormons, etc. - but today I saw a whole bunch of Christians and people who claim a belief in God and Christ, but are obviously not living the teachings of them.
Well, I gotta go! Just do what Christ would do in every circumstance that you find yourself in. Love as he loves. Serve as he did. Because if we don't love, if we don't serve, we are not worthy to be called Christians.
Love,
Elder Bogdan
{written July 20, 2011}
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