They let Tanner loose on the streets of Bogota!

On Thursday morning they gave us a Book of Mormon, two Liahona magazines, two family proclamations, and two Jesus the Christ pamphlets. They drove the old Gringos and the Latinos 45 minutes south into southern Bogotá. They literally dropped us off in the middle of the city and told us to be back in three hours. Let´s just say a lot of us were nervous yet excited at the same time. 


Elder Flamm and I just took off walking for the first thirty minutes. We both wanted some time to gain the courage to talk to the first REAL person. We walked until we were sufficiently lost. We were by far the companionship farthest from the drop off point. We literally just lost ourselves in the middle of the southern Bogotá streets. We then began to use our voices. We talked to two really old women and they just flat out said, "We are Catholic, so....." We tried to share our testimonies, but they didn´t want anything to do with us. This pretty much happened 80% of the time when we talked to someone. We spent probably the first hour with zero success. 

We finally met a limping man who had had the right side of his body run over by a tractor. He told us that he was Catholic, but had a lot of questions. We did our best to answer them. We asked him if he wanted to learn more, and he said yes. We got his name, address, and number. Literally ten seconds later we talked to a man gutting fish on the side of the road. Super nice man. He offered me raw carp. I respectfully declined. We chatted with him and also got his info. Then literally ten seconds after the fish man we met a man walking down the street. We chatted about bee´s for a good 15 minutes. He makes honey in his upstairs apartment. I feel bad for his neighbors. Anyway, he was super nice and wanted to learn more. We got his info. In a space of less than 50 feet we had just made three full contacts. It felt awesome. We spent the rest of the time walking the streets and talking to everyone that would listen. Overall, we had 7 full contacts, gave out our Book of Mormon, gave out both Liahona magazines, and all but one of our proclamations on the family. Super successful. The majority of other companionships made an average of 4 full contacts. It was a really great experience. 

A little bit about Bogotá south. Tiny streets, alleys everyone, stray dogs everywhere (Emma, they are gross and really sick). We watched one literally try and poop in the street and nothing but blood came out.  There is poop everywhere (honestly I couldn´t tell if it was human or animal), strange and funny smells everywhere, tiny shops everywhere, and many large canals that just transport brown disgusting water to I don´t know where. I was happy that my shoes got dirty for the first time. The city was gross, but I loved it. I´m sure that although we were in Southern Bogotá, I will see pretty much the exact same in Northern Bogotá.