Yesterday was one of my last days in Poblado, and I enjoyed every bit of it. Even though I must admit that there can occasionally be frustrations and misunderstanding between the locals and the foreigners. Despite the tensions, I feel more than welcome here. We stayed around the mall until about 530pm. Once we finished service we all treated ourselves to Cinnabon, which I must say, is 10 times better than the Cinnabons back home. We sat and talked and joked around. Then we took turns sharing our first immpressions we had about each other, which is alot harder than it sounds. I finally made my way back to Itagui, exhausted but satisfied. (Photos added to Photogallery Poblado)

I kind of put my foot in my mouth 2 months ago when I promised my cousin Mateo a DSi. It´s become more of a hassle than I originally thought it would be to find one at a decent price. The cheapest I could find for a new model was $250,000 pesos, which is about $125, which is way more than I wanted to spend, especialy considering the fact that I´m planning on a Wii U when I get back. Eventually I was able to find a used one for $170,000, about $90 dollars. It was as good as new, and I was convinced it was the cheapest price I was going to find, so I bought it. After coming home and seeing his gratitude, I was convinced it was worth it.

About 10 minutes after I got home, while I was on the third floor showing my cousin how to use the DS, we heard 4 loud booms. Now, I can never tell the difference between polvora, a type of firework that goes off every couple minutes once it gets dark, and gunshots. My grandpa says that you can tell the difference by a distinct echo that a gunshot will have, that polvora doesn´t. Aparently.. I missed the echo. I went out to the balcony, just as the traffic began to pile up. My aunt Esneda said that it must have been a gunshot, so I went down to the street to see for myself what was going on. My dad would tell me stories of how when he was a kid, growing up in Rosario, him and his freinds would go look around the neighborhood for bodies. More than 30 years later, it seems like I´ve developed that same hereditary interest in the no longer living. So when I saw a small circle of about 10 spectators standing in the middle of the road about 50 feet from my house, I joined right in. Right at my feet was a man in his early 40´s, dark hair, about my build, with 3 holes through his head and a black grocery bag at his feet. One shot in his cheek, and 2 in the back of his head, he probably didnt feel a thing. There was much less blood than I expected. I stuck around for about 5 minutes, than my aunt Sor came and yanked me out of there. After seeing something like that, you begin to realise how delicate human life really is. One minute, your there, the next minute, your not. The fact that we survive each day is amazing. Life is so short, which is why we should take full advantage of every minute of it.

                                                                                    -D.V.

Si hay una cosa que no voy a extrañar cuando salgo de Colombia, va a ser la mezcla horrible de comida. Lo he mencionado antes pero anoche fue lo peor de lo peor. Ayer Kevin me recomendo un restaurante chino, y bueno fui anoche para tratarlo. He visto a varios restaurantes chinos aqui, pero con colombianos en la cocina. Hasta ahora no he visto a ni un chino aqui. Me hace recordar de muchos de los buffets chinos en Georgia: buffet chino, pero mexicanos en la cocina. Bueno, regresando a la historia, llegue al restaurante y estaba completamente vacia. Ahora, bajo circunstancias normales, hubiera tomado eso como un señal que la comida era maluca y me hubiera ido. Pero como me lo recomendaron, me quede y pedi un Lo Mein(espagetis al estilo chino). Y hubiera sido un buen plato de comida.. si no lo hubieran arruinado con ketchup! Lo demas estaba bien, tenia soy sauce y bastante carne a un precio decente, pero por alguna razon o otra sintieron impulsados a echarle ketchup. -_-

Me quedo pasmado a ver aqui tanta gente que hasta faltando partes del cuerpo. Ojos, patas, manos, brazos, las dos piernas enternas, de todo. Diria uno de cada cinco personas en Itagui esta faltando algo. Abuelito dice que es porque pisaron en una de las muchas minas que estan enterradas en los campos por la guerra contra F.A.R.C. (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia). Kevin dice que algunos simplemente nacen haci. Sea cual sea la causa, se ve en todas las partes. Por donde voy a predicar al lado del metro hay un muchacho de unos 30 años que no tiene manos y es ciego. Se siente en el suelo y vende chicle. Tiene su bolsita donde le metas la plata y bueno le toca confiar plenamente en que la gente va echar la cantidad corecta, y que no le van a robar. Uno ni se puede imaginar como seria vivir asi.

                                -D.V.

As you can tell by the title, I had myself quite an exciting day today. The service group met at Alvadan´s house, which is a bit of a shady area, but I´ve never had any problems there. Orlando Canyola, a ministerial servant in the local congregation was put in charge of the service group. It was a small group today, only 6 of us. Me, Canyola, MariLuz Alvadan, Kevin (the quiet boy from yesterday), his mom Amanda, and Uwaldo, an older, sickly brother who looks alot like Samuel Herd of the Governing Body. Since Uwaldo can´t walk very far, we did a territory that was only about 5 minutes uphill.

Everything went fine, just as normal, at first. I had preached in that same area last Sunday. However, eventually we came to a part of the road where, you could either continue down the main road, but off to the left there´s a alleyway that breaks off into 2 alleys, both going downhill. I believe the locals call it "El Hueco" or The Hole, which if I´m not mistaken, is part of Rosario, where my dad grew up. Now when we passed by there last Sunday, the brother in charge wouldn´t even let us go down there because it was so dangerous. However, our fearless leader today, was a bit too fearless. MariLuz tried to convince him that I really shouldn´t be going down there. But Canyola ignored her and so the fun began.

As soon as I took a step into the alleyway I could tell it wasn´t exactly the best living conditions. The homes were little brick shacks with cement floors, with the only indoor lighting coming from the sun. Further down, there were a group of street thugs distributing a big old bag of marijuana amongst themselves. At that point, Kevin told me to keep my mouth shut so they don´t hear my accent. MariLuz started to freak out for me, but Canyola simply told us to press on, that we were fine. I didn´t mind too much for my own sake, after all I was getting some pretty sweet pictures, but I still didn´t think it was a good idea to take sisters down there in the first place. Further down the alley broke off into a maze in 3 different directions. Canyola and Uwaldo did their own thing, but me and Kevin made sure we stuck with the sisters. We came to a part where all 3 alleyways came out to an open area with a small river running through it. It was just as awful as the alleyway, but luckily there were 7 very armed cops patrolling around there. Off to the side of the open area, me and Kevin preached to a guy that was clearly super-dee-duper high, so we just left him a tract and went onwards.

A little after 11 we finally made our way out of there onto a main road in 1 piece. After knocking on a few houses on the main road, we decided to call it quits. We were heading back when we saw Stefanie, a young sister from our hall (see photo 37 of PhotoGallery Itagui) walking quickly towards us with a Korean "brother" at her side. But something seemed to be a bit off. Once we got close, the Korean asked if we were witnesses too (in a perfect colombian accent), we said yes and he kept on going, and Estefa stayed behind with us. It turns out the Korean was an apostate who claims to be a missionary from Korea. Estefa was on the way back from a return visit, when she ran into the guy, thinking he was a witness. However he told Estefa he was an elder in Korea, but once he realised it was all lies, he came here to Colombia to teach "the truth". He stayed talking to her for a good period of time but then decided to start walking away, and that´s when she ran into us. Estefa said it was holy spirit that we were there right when she needed us. The Korean gave her a card, which Kevin and Estefa were going to read, but I snatched it from them and tossed it out. Kevin and I then escorted her home. On the way we ran into the Korean, he just chuckled and kept walking. Once we got Estefa home we each went our seperate ways and ended the most interesting service day so far.

My family kind of freaked out when I told them where I was. Even my thuggish cousin said that not even he goes in there. But now that I think it through, maybe we were suposed to go down there. We never would´ve ran into Estafanie otherwise, and who knows what could´ve happened with that apostate. Besides, thugs need religon too. (Photos added to PhotoGallery Itagui)

                -D.V.

Despite the overall "awesomeness" of Colombia and its people, I´ve seen a bit of lack of unity within the congregations. For example, this morning, one of the young guys from the hall that ussually doesn´t go in service, went in service today. I wanted to make arrangements to preach with him, but I couldn´t remember his name. I asked 3 different sisters, and no one knew the poor kids name. And it´s not like he´s irregular, he´s at every meeting and he even passes the microfones sometimes. Finally a sister knew his name and I was able to go in service with him. He´s a good kid, a bit quiet, but a good kid. I´ve been seeing quite a bit of that, unfortunately, people not knowing who´s who, much less where they live. It makes me appreciate Fayetteville a bit more.

My english talk in Poblado is a week and half away. I´m going to see if I can practice it with Daniel or another foriegner to make sure I´m using proper theocratic english. What makes me more nervious about it is that Alvadan said she already put together a small army to come and see me (no pressure).

                -D.V.

Ayer habia una llovisna constante que facilmente causaba peresa. Aun asi sali a predicar a las 6 con Rodolfo Alvadan, y al poco tiempo nos dimos cuenta que valio la pena nuestros esfuersos. Tuvimos la oportunidad de hablar un buen rato con unas 5 personas, y hasta empesamos un estudio con uno de ellos. Luego llegue a la casa para dar unos ajustes finales a un discurso que me tocaba dar esa tarde.

Era el salon mas bonito que he visto aqui en Colombia. Y a diferencia a muchas de las congregaciones aqui, cantaban los canticos bien jeje. Creo que esta vez el discurso me salio mejor que todas las otras veces. Pero mi abuelito me dio la misma critica que siempre me da. " La palabra es desastroso, no detrasoso". Argi le encanta gozarse de mi, y me pregunto "¿Pues que hay detras del oso?". Justo cuando regrese a mi asiento despues del discurso, un ministerial me toco el hombro y me pidio que le siguera. Salimos afuera y me dijo que ese discurso era justo lo que necestiaba el y toda la congregacion, y eso me animo bastante.

Luego al llegar a la casa, me premie con un Cubano. La lluvia ya habia parado y habia un clima agradable entonces decidi caminar por el parque. Los payasos estaban ahi haciendo su show entonces me sente un rato para verlos. A pesar de decir que el programa el para niños y adultos, decian palabrotas y hacian cochinadas entonces regrese a la casa mejor para ver los American Music Awards. Fue super gracioso escuchar a Mateo tratar de cantar "Call Me Maybe". Fun CASI gano un premio, pero seguro que para el proximo año ganan.

                            -D.V.

My new tract method continues to work for me. Yesterday, while I was waiting for Luisa Garces at the Metro Station so we could meet the group in Poblado, I witnessed at the entrance with my tract fan. A man that had already recieved a tract from me several days ago came up to me and gave me a pat on the shoulder and said that he read the entire thing and that it was good information. I´ve only tried the method twice, and between those 2 times, I´ve placed over 30 tracts, it´s great.

Thursday night I got a text message from Daniel from U.K. at about midnight. He said he had some friends from U.K. in town that were going to be in the area for a while and that they needed a place to stay, a pioneer couple. I spent a while trying to find them a place with no sucess. But I got to meet them Friday morning in service with Poblado. They´re a young couple that have come to help out for a couple months, and possibly longer. They were able to find a place with Jonathan Whatley, one of the head honchos of the Poblado group. They´re a awesome couple that reminded me alot of Peter and Amanda. (Photos added to Photogallery Poblado)

                    -D.V.

Ayer fui para Mayorca al cine. Casi siempre me toca ir solo porque si espero hasta que alguien me acompaña nunca voy a poder ir. Lo que no me gusta del cine aqui es que los asientos son asignados. Bueno, tu mismo lo asignas a pagar, pero no entiendo porque lo hacen asi si todos los asientos son iguales. Eso hace que la fila para comprar los boletos van suuuuper lento. Al salir habia un aguacero, y yo venia en shorts y una camiseta. Cruzando el punete, ni podia ver enfrenti de mi, y estoy seguro que habia granizo. Fue divertido.

He querido ir todos los Domingos a Poblado para la reunion en ingles, pero no me ha sido posible. No voy a poder ir hasta mi ultimo Domingo aqui, cuando tengo el discurso publico. Cuando regreso, si es que voy estar por el area de Itagui, voy a dedicarme al grupo.

                          -D.V.                 

I´m proud to say that I can finally match my own clothes, and sometimes I feel like I´m the only guy here capable of that. Colombian guys seriously can´t match thier clothes. Luckily I´m only half colombian. But these people come out with horrible combos, like a orange shirt with a red tie, it´s awful.

I just went to drop of my cousin´s kid at school, and on the way we saw a kid trying to catch this little black puppy. On the way back, I saw the same puppy tied to a motorcycle going at full speed, and I was freaking out. The poor thing was barking and crying and trying to keep up but it wasn´t going to last much longer. It was the same kid that was chasing the puppy and his dad was driving. He drove around the block a couple times until the neighbor´s started cussing and screaming at the guy. Then he drove off elsewhere and I haven´t seem him since.

I´ve developed a good service schedule where I can do 20 hours a week, and only go out 4 days out of the week. I make 8 hours easily every friday in Poblado, so that just leaves 3 days of 4 hours and I´m set for the week. I´ve been trying that out the past couple weeks and it works great. However, a good majority of those hours are made on my own, which doesn´t really bother me as much as I thought it would. Today I walked down to the metro station to try out a new technique. Outside the station, you walk onto a bridge a long bridge that goes into Mayorca or down onto the sidewalk. There´s a part of the bridge that makes a left turn, so I would stand in that corner with my fan of tracts. That method really worked! I can´t remember the last time I felt that productive out in service. I would offer one to everyone that would make eye contact. A few metro passenger´s even snatched them right out of my hand. It really caught people´s attention... a bit too much unfortunately. A couple security guard´s with shot guns told me I couldn´t preach on the bridge, they were cool about it though. They said I could stay at the entrance of the bridge, so I did, and it was just as productive. Across from me was a little old lady selling gum from a suitcase. After almost a hour I noticed that everyone that would by from her would walk away with a tract in their hand. So I went to say hi and it turns out she´s a witness. I was standing literally 5 feet away from her all that time and I didnt notice. So I left her that territory and went off to preach elsewhere, but I´ll definitly go back there tomorow.

    -D.V.

El otro dia estuve mirando las fotos de Costa Rica que Amanda habia puesto en Instagram, y me dio una idea para el blog de hoy: plata. (Fotos añadidas a Photogallery Itagui). Antes de venir a Colombia, tenia pensado simplemente usar la tarjeta de credito como lo hago en Estados Unidos. Asi no tuviera que preocuparme tanto por ladrones. Pero resulto que no aceptaban mi tarjeta en algunos sitios, y de todas formas 90% de las personas solo usan en efectivo. Solo utilizan la tarejeta para sacar billetes del cajero. Son pocas las veces que he usado mi tarjeta aqui. Tienen un sistema donde con cada compra que haces, puedes pagarlo poco a poco por mes, o pagarlo de una. Es un poco confuso asi que prefiero usar en efectivo. Me tomo unas semanas para familiarisarme con la plata de aqui, pero ahora lo manejo bien. 

-D.V.

Last night, after finishing yesterday´s post, I went off on a cheeseburger hunt. I knew I would never find one like the ones in Jardin but I knew there were decent ones out there. Weekends are the best for eating out,  especially holiday weekends like this one. Like most big cities, some of the best food is typically found in little food carts on the street. And you always see them more often on the weekends here. So with little effort, I found myself a good huge burger, with a pepsi, for about $4. The thing with huge burgers is they make a huge mess. I was dropping bacon and dripping sauces all over the place. While still battling my monster burger I headed over to the park to catch the last couple minutes of the clown show. They perform every Sunday, and every Sunday the park gets crazy packed. Once the show finished I sat down to finish the rest of my burger. About 5 feet away from me there was a homeless man lying on the floor, which made me feel slighty guilty. The thought had crossed my mind to give him the rest of my burger... but I didn´t.

I was planning on going in service today, but instead I ended up washing my grandpas car. That took a good hour and a half because he´s a bit of a clean freak when it comes to his car. We had a early lunch because abuelito wanted to take me to see some little towns. I wasn´t to crazy about the idea, because in general, you see one little town, you´ve seen them all. But I know this is his way of trying to make sure I´m happy here, so I went along with it. First we went to a town called la Ceja (the eyelash). I have no idea why its called that. It was raining pretty hard for most of time we were there. So we just sat in a bakery and drank coffe while we watched the rain fall, and made fun of a one-eyed baker. The next town was called Rio Negro. We didnt do much there, just pass in the car, and get lost for a good half hour. Then for some reason, my grandpa decided to go to the airport to look around and stretch our legs. That caused a bit of a inner conflict for me. On one side, it made me wana jump on one of planes and head home, but at the same time I was fighting to dismiss that thought because it´s really awesome here and I really want to enjoy the 23 days I have left. (Vea PhotoGallery La Ceja)

-D.V.