Computer Stolen

October 19, 2009
It has been a good busy week here. We had some good days of working in our own area and we spent a good amount of time preparing and participating in the big zone leaders meeting in Bucaramanga.

Monday and Tuesday we spent working and preparing all of the plans etc for the Zone Leaders Seminar. We finalized and made sure that the zone leaders had everything in Bucaramanga prepared and ready. We also spent a lot of time studying about the things we were going to discuss and preparing PowerPoint presentations and etc. It was a lot of preparation and planning but we got everything ready and headed out Wednesday at about noon on a flight for Bucaramanga.

We had a meeting with President and got all of the last little things ready for the Seminar. Meanwhile all the Zone Leaders from the other parts of the mission were on buses traveling to Bucaramanga. We got a good sleep Wednesday and were up bright and early to get over the chapel. We did a lot of delegating to the ZLs to get the church, food, housing etc prepared and then we made sure everything was alright. We started at 9 AM and I conducted the meeting. We divided it into three sessions.

The first session went from 9 to 11 30 in the sacrament room. It was cool because we gave several zone leaders some presentations to prepare which went really well. Sister Hacking also spoke a little and President, Elder Gags and I gave a presentation about how to prepare and carry out a meeting (knowing who presides, everything to prepare and what to do during and after etc). Then we had a nice lunch brought in by a member from Bucaramanga who does catering stuff. We then had the Second Session which was in one of the classes in the church. We used it all to talk about teaching skills and do practices of them. We took my camera and recorded some of the practices to review them after and see how we teach.

Then we had another break and had the third session which was up in the sacrament room. This is where the interesting part started. I went up to make sure our power point presentation was ready and presidents laptop was gone with all the cords and stuff left sitting there. I went to ask him if he had moved it and he hadn’t. Turned out that someone had left the gate outside open and someone had seen 2 teenagers come into the church but just figured they were members. So president’s laptop and my memory stick which were in it were stolen while we were in the other presentation. After a long unexpected time of looking around the whole chapel we started the last session. President was out reporting the theft and told us to go ahead and start our part.

Some of the Elders sang a special number and we started our presentation. The only problem is that the whole thing was with PowerPoint. So we just winged it and talked about service as leaders in the mission. It actually turned out very well, there was a great spirit and with all the "drama" of the stuff getting stolen and the unplanned mess, it turned out to be a great spiritual session.

So after all was said and done it was 8 o clock and we had finished the first "zone leaders seminar" It was a little stressing and we lost a few full nights sleep in the process but it was rewarding to see everything turn out well even if it all didn’t go as planned. The cool thing was that the idea to change things up and do the meeting was my idea a while ago and President Hacking basically just let me and my comp plan and prepare it all and it ended up going very well. It was fun to do.

We stayed that night and celebrated a little :) We went back and stayed at the apartment in Real de Minas where I started the mission. We stopped at Perro Luchos, the famous hot dog and hamburger stand in my old area that makes the biggest, cheesiest hot dogs and burgers the world has ever seen. We bought huge cheesy hot dogs and some pop, put on shorts and tee shirts and went up on the roof of the apartment. Then we put our feet up and enjoyed the greatest hot dogs ever and a cold pop looking over my old area and the skyline of the city in the warm Bucaramanga night air. Haha dramatic right? But the meeting was a cool experience and took up most of the whole week so I don’t have much more to write about.

We got to work the last few days in our area and we spent a ton of time knocking doors and looking for new investigators and we have been able to find some very good ones the last few days, so hopefully we can keep up the success we have been having in our area.

Today we got together and played soccer at one of the chapels that has a nice field. It was a good time but Elder Lee got hit pretty hard in the eye with the soccer ball and they had to take him to the clinic, so hopefully he is alright and nothing serious happened. I’ll check on him.

Time is flyyyying very fast, the weeks seem like days but I am having a great time and trying to do the best I can. This week we should be out on swaps with other missionaries all week, and then the same thing next week and we will already be at the transfers, yikes. But all is well, I love you. Best wishes to everyone from Canada to Kansas to wherever else.
Hasta next week, Elder B