Hey everyone

Okay, so I'm here in Pasto. It's not that cold but cold enough to the point where I have a nice blue sweater to wear around haha. I would have bought a black or a grey one but the only colors they had even close to my size are blue, orange, and pink.

My companion is Elder I. He's from Peru. He's way chill. He's exactly how President described him- not in your face annoying but he does like to talk.

Oh yeah, they say for packages, you should send them in like one of those bubble envelopes cause then it won’t cost anything for me to go pick it up. Also they say just to send all packages to the main mission home and then they will ship them to me. 

Anyways, it's pretty nice not being all cooped up in the MTC. The people here speak slower but I still have a pretty hard time understanding people. I haven't had any weird food yet but apparently I'm gonna have to try the roasted hamster soon. Oh well. They mostly just eat potatoes and rice here. It's weird cause they always give you soup before your meal so entonces the food is cold by the time you get to it. The only thing I've had to choke down was my first meal they gave me this tomato water stuff. It was gross. Oh yeah, somehow I lost all my soap in between here and the MTC so I'm just gonna have to buy some face soap and stuff here.

The people here love it when I teach them English. Apparently I am teaching an English class this Saturday. Should be interesting seeing how I don't even speak Spanish completely yet. But it's all good and should be fun.

Everyone here thinks I am some sort of martial arts expert because when they ask what sport I do, there's no equivalent word to college type wrestling here. So when I say luchar. They think I mean like lucha libre. So because of this, I get to teach a self-defense class too...that should be interesting.

Night time is still sketchy around here, although Pasto is one of the safer areas. President Prince kept telling us to be prepared not for "if" you get robbed, but "when" you get robbed haha. Nah, but for real, I feel like as long as you’re not dumb, and you pay attention to everything around you, we should be fine.

Oh yeah, if you send anything, make sure to include pictures. The people here love to look at pictures of me and my family. The one the other Chases sent me... everyone has seen and they all love it haha.

If you wanted to send me like a dark sweater or jacket that'd be cool cause as much as I love looking like a blueberry... Besides, I'm pretty sure if we can help it, we are supposed to wear dark colors. Like a black jacket from t-shirts plus would be cool or something like that. They don't make you wear your suit coat over the sweaters and stuff so people wear jackets.. It doesn't really matter as long as its big enough haha like XL probably.

Entonces, creo que el campo es mucho mejor que el CCM haha pero esta bien. Espero que todo esté bien allí si alguien tenga alguna pregunta de cualquier cosa me gustaría contestarlo. Sé que este es la obra del señor y trabajo cada día a ayudar las personas a venir a Cristo. Chao

Elder Chase at Cristo Rey look-out

Cristo Rey

View of Cali from Cristo Rey

Elder Chase and Elder I.