Tuesday, January 31st - Monday, February 6th

Alright hello everyone! How are you all?​

So as for this week, it started off like any other Tuesday. Well we worked, and did a zone meeting. Though the president and the Assistants all came, and yeah. So that was interesting.

This Thursday we received our new rules from the president. So more or less same 6:30 waking up, though we plan in the morning, less companionship study, and we are supposed to eat in our house at night a 9, unless we have a dinner appointment close to our house.

So Friday we had divisions, so we went and I went with a member Joseph, and talked with a mother of a kid (14 years old) who can be baptized but doesn't want to. We went with the kid's brother in law who is a member also.

Saturday we started to Fast (for Fast Sunday), but had an activity at the church, though nobody was over there, so yeah, me and my companion just ended up throwing rocks into a giant mango tree for about an hour and a half on a fasting stomach. We were able to get like 25 mangos down and harvested them for the Mango Salad we had on Sunday. We were dog tired later. Usually we have people showing up to these activities, so 2 days in a row with people not going to the activities is kinda weird. It was their Mutual night, playing football, but we were supposed to give a message, since supposedly they would bring a ton of investigators to play too.We were dog tired later.

Sunday, we churched it up, then afterwards ate soup...Soup here doesn't come in a coup bowl.....It comes in a giant dog bowl that is big enough for a family. Then later in the night we went to a member's house and I helped them build a table, and then we made a mango salad out of the mangos we labored over. I didn't eat the mango salad - I just ate my mango's plain. The salad that they like is with salt, lime juice, and hot sauce. It doesn't taste bad, but it's terrible for my teeth, and makes me feel like they're being dissolved. So I prefer mine plain.

Today (Monday) we went shopping in a market. I got a turtle shell ring, and then the Zone leaders took us out to lunch, because we won a competition.

As for a little spiritual thought. One thing that really touched me this week is the efforts of this one family. So they were a less active family when I first got here, but recently we got them to come to church, and he was talking with me, and he really wants to change and to better himself. Like I know many who say Yeah I'll go to church, and when it comes on Sunday always excuses, but we went over and did a family home evening with him, and are teaching them about different things. Like he said he didn't know how to fast, or stuff like that. He really wants to change and better his life and that of his family. So that was something really touching.

 

Love, Elder Vogt

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A few questions our family asked Seth this week:

1. You mentioned your zone had 5 of the 15 Best Companionship's - what exactly does that mean? What sort of Criteria is that? Have you ever gotten that? It's just number wise. And yeah I have before, though with the new rules they are going to stop doing it (since we don't keep track of as many numbers now). Though the last week we were doing it, I got the 2nd spot.

2. You mentioned about eating at home at 9pm unless you had dinner appointments, do you typically have them? We have them every day of the week, if they are far we need to bring the food back home and eat it, but all of ours are relatively close, so we won't change that much.

3. How are the Piano lessons going with the ward Pianist at lunch? They've been going good. I also learned a couple different things. Like you can tell Dad I learned Welcome home by coheed and cambria (well at least parts) on piano.

4. Spanish. We haven't really discussed it lately... how are you feeling with it? How much teaching/speaking during lessons are you doing? I can teach entire lessons, and I feel comfortable with it. Not like fluent or anything, but I feel comfortable. So that's a good thing.

5. Is it the same with the culture there? feeling more like you understand it and even though it's very different, things are starting to seem more "normal"?Yeah everything just feels normal. Though the biggest difference is the money.

Like we have 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, and 500 bills.

10 feels like a dollar

20 like 5 bucks

50 like 10

100 like 20

200 like 50

and 500 feels like a 100 dollar bill.

Though like sometimes places don't accept 100 cordoba bills, but then I'm like hey it's only 3 bucks. Like the money feels a lot different here. Like sometimes I'm like hey I don't need to buy a taxi, it's expensive. Though it's like 60 cents here...They have coins, 1, and 5, and we use them a lot too. Though they also have cents. And we don't use them.

6. You said that "10 feels like a dollar" does that mean 10 Cordoba's = $1 in US? No, 30 cords, is a dollar, though it just is treated more like one. Like we can buy stuff with like 1 or 2 cords, like snacks at the stores everywhere. And it's like hey I bought this for 6 cents! I'll take a pic with some of the money. I also wanna start a coin collection from many countries. I have one from Europe, one from the DR, and one from Guatemala.

7. And did I read that correctly - a taxi is like 60 cents!? Well it depends on how far. We can go in bus for 2.5 cords, or like 8 cents. Moto Taxi (doesn't go all too far, but still a good distance) for 10 cords each, like 30 cents each (though it feels like - Dang let's not, I don't wanna waste money!). And we hate taxis. Like if it's two of us, it's usually 30-40 cordobas each, but if we have more it's cheaper each. Like if we have 4 people (unless it's really far) it's usually 20 each. But it still feels like DANG a whole lot of money.  But yeah.

8. What's the thing you felt best about doing this week? As for the best thing. I think it was great that we were able to baptize when I thought we wouldn't be able to - just due to many problems.