More from Ben(Elder Coffman)

Querido Familia,

It´s been a good week. I´m learning a lot and we met a few new investigators that seem really promising. Jaime is studying to be a lawyer and lives in a house with his sister. He´s 24, single, and very receptive and interested when we teach. He´s the kind of person the church needs here, I think, and like him.

In addition, we´re doing lots of reactivation, especially with prospective missionaries and that has been going well. There was a baptism this week, a girl the previous missionaries taught, and that was neat. I played the piano for the baptismal service, and though it was just a fairly cheap electric keyboard, it was fun to play the piano again.

There are perks to being in Colombia...one of the big ones is the panaderias. Fresh-made bread all the time, and kinds that you can´t find in the US. The tiendas on every corner are nice as well.

Speaking of meals...we eat at members´houses for lunch every day. I couldn´t eat everything my first day here, but after that I have been working on growing my stomach and I have been able to eat everything I have been given. I couldn´t have eaten so much in one sitting a month ago. If I had known it would be like this I would have practiced in the MTC. My companion, on the other hand...he looks about the same size as me but he weighs 40 pounds more and he always finishes his food in half the time that it takes me, even when I eat as fast as possible. I don´t know how he does it. In general I have liked what we have been eating. The meat here is the only thing that´s difficult to get down, it´s so fatty and gristly. There´s always some kind of rice, usually fried plantains, and if we´re lucky a jugo of some sort. Jugos! That´s one thing I´m going to bring back with me. Basically they´re blended fruit and water and sugar, or sometimes milk. It´s always hot here, so they are way nice. The strangest thing Ive eaten here is probably a mixture of fried beets and onions and I think peppers. I mixed it up with my rice and it was pretty good actually. There are mango trees all over the place here and they are just starting to be ripe. I´m going to make jugo de mango at home soon I think. I shared a mango with my companion a few days ago and it was delicious.

Spanish is coming. It´s not there yet, but it´s becoming easier to understand what people are saying. I´m not exactly comfortable when I´m speaking it but I can usually communicate what I want to.

I´m still healthy, which is nice, although a pasta from yesterday gave me diarrhea for a few hours this morning. I´m glad nothing more serious has happened.

Elder Coffman