So here we go; I don't have much time left because it took me like an hour to read all the emails that everyone sent, hahaha. To all of you reading this I just want to say that: I love you all and really appreciate all the blessings. I can only send emails to my family while I am in the MTC so please forgive me for not writing you back.
Well to start:
The flight to Colombia was fairly uneventful, expect that I pretty much lost it in the Atlanta airport when I read a lette my sneaky sister had put into my backpack without me knowing. I got really sad and immediately prayed for support, craziest thing, some people going to Philadelphia who had shouldn't have been in my part of the terminal came up to me and asked me if they could pray with me. I didn't have my name tag on or anything they just felt the urge. I know that our Heavenly Father hears our prayers and answers them if we ask in faith.
On the flight to Colombia I was sandwiched between a bunch of Colombian military dudes and a dude from Korea that couldn't speak English. Needless to say I didn't say much on that flight. When I arrived I had to go through customs, unfortunately I did not have the address to the CCM in Bogota so they weren't going to let me through (mind you all of this is taking place in my broken Spanish). I finally convinced him to let me use his iphone to look up the address and he let me through.
Then I lugged my huge heavy bags by myself outside to wait for the MTC taxi. Well, I'm not quite sure how I feel about the three-suitcase travel thing, it's kind of a disaster. The moment I stepped out of the airport I was an immediate target. I was obviously struggling and I had nowhere to go. TAXI? TAXI? I waited for 15 minutes before I gave up and used somebody's cell phone to call the mission transportation; yeah, they kind of forgot about me, but it's okay ha-ha. When they picked me up they brought me to the CCM in a MAV-Mormon Assault Vehicle, and I was immediately assigned to an English companion with the plan of being in the CCM for 6 weeks. Since all of this happened at midnight I went straight to bed.
When I woke up I went to class with the North American's. That's when I realized this was a big mistake as they were learning simple phrases such as Como esta? And other stuff like it. Anyhow through a serious of events I eventually was reassigned to my companion now, his name is Elder Vargas. He is from Cartagena, Colombia, and oh my gosh he is hilarious. (Aven I have my first Gus). He is Afro-Colombiano and has a seriously thick Caribbean Spanish accent, he drops a lot of letters and so on. We are having a blast together.
My district that I am a part of consists of 8 missionaries, 6 elders and 2 hermanas. I love Hermana Dyer and President Dyer. Well in the first 24 hours I was appointed to be the leader of my district, seriously scary. I really don't understand a lot, but I understand a lot more than the other kids from North America. Almost nobody speaks English here. Being a leader means I have to organize them, I have to teach them, I have to be in charge of what they do and when they do it. All of the people in my district are awesome though, we constantly talk about how we are all a huge family and get along so well. There was one problem between a hermana and my companion, because well, sometimes he has some choice things to say, which I personally think are hilarious because he says them all so seriously when he really is joking and this particular hermana is vey serious. But everything is good now.
I love the food here, so many potatoes and rice and JUICE!!! Strawberry juice, orange juice, and any juice you want. AND GRANADILLA!
I love it her but seriously I am busy, busy, busy. There is not a moment to spare, I LOVE IT. My day starts at 6 everyday and ends at 10:30 with really only three breaks for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The lessons are so hard, they never taught me anything with language, which is fine, by this point I have learned all the new words. I'm starting to get a little nervous abou the whole teaching in another language thing. This is so awesome.
My companion and I are fairly well known by everyone here in the CCM. Elder Vargas y Elder Lyle (Lee-lay), and I'm not going to lie, President Dyer had to have a discussion with us because, according to him, somehow "the two more handsome missionaries in the CCM got paired together and that even a smile can be misinterpreted". Hahahaha, I was so red!!! My companion is such a lady killer though, he is always picking flowers for them and saying hello, but really, we need to be a little more careful because once President Dyer said something about it I started to notice it myself, it's kind of a little embarrassing.
Today we got our first day out of the walls of the CCM. We went to the temple. SO INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL! We got to see the city via bus.
Only 1 week till I'm out in the field, I'm so excited.
I'm having the time of my life, everything is amazing, all the people are amazing, I love every single person in the CCM and I let them know it. This is one of the most amazing places, we all hold ourselves to the same values, we all have the same beliefs.
It's funny I'm a leader here because i am officially the youngest one here. My companion became a member 5 years ago, when he was 18. I love it here. I can't stop saying it because it is so amazing. I love Colombia and I haven't even been outside of these walls.
I'm out of time, ughh, so much to tell all of you.
I love you all and I miss you all.
I'll talk to you in a week.
Elder Lyle
P.S. Please excuse the grievous spelling errors, this computer doesn't have spell check and honestly I am already losing my English. It's actually kind of sad, my personal journal is slowly moving into Spanish, and my notes are all in Spanish now.
We will see what the next 2 years do to me.
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