OFF TO COLOMBIA!!

Hey friends and family and many admirers of Quinn Garlick Larson!
Sorry that this blog hasnt really been updated enough as of late.
Luckily not all too much has happened...but its starting too now!

Quinn was delayed leaving Utah to Colombia due to his visa.
He finally got it and he escaped on Tuesday morning at like 3 am!
We got to talk to him while he was in Miami waiting to fly out and he was sooo excited to finally be leaving. It was great to hear his voice and we actually get to hear it again not too far off around Christmas time.

So hopefully thats a good enough little update for everyone. I feel like this has been neglected too much and because I love Quinn so much and its crazy how much I miss him, I decided it really has to be my obligation to keep up with this. So check back every so often for pictures and letters.

-Kalan Nora Larson

Heres a little bit from his letter he sent on Monday
((oh p.s - Missionaries get days once every week called P-days or Preparation days and Quinns is on Monday. That means its his day to get caught up on laundry and cleaning and writing letters. So we get an email from him every Monday sometime so just to let you know when he'd be able to have some time to write you all. ))

This place is crazy dirty smelly green muddy wet LOUD hispanic hot humid and great. I´m not sure where to start so i´ll start from when i finished talking with you all in the airport. So we got on a plane to Bogota and said goodbye to American stuff for 2 years and flew for three hours... We took a taxi from the airport to the office and that made me pretty woozy. They drive taxi´s MUY MUY LOCO in Barraquilla (which is nothing like Bogota, Bogota was nicer than south philly by far). They drive alot of motorcycles here and they were weaving in and out of all the taxi´s and buses, if we come back and visit barr. there is no way dad is driving a mini van full of us through the streets...The next day (thursday) us 3 greenies split up and i met my companion, elder Moran from Guayaquil Ecuador and he is great. He is only a month and ten days older than me because his dad is a mission president so he got his call when he was 18. He is about as tall as my shoulder and speaks pretty good english so he is a really good teacher. Which brings me to my spanish which is hilarious. I´m really good at telling people how to pray and why they should keep commandments but everything else is not so hot. But i learn a little a day and before i know it i´ll be habloing espanol gringo missionary style (then colombian a little latter). My area is a smaller town outside of Barr. called Puerto Colombia right next to the ocean, which i have only seen from on top of a big hill that we like to teach on. So this is how most of our lessons go, i get to listen to elder moran speak spanish and then i get to say my name and that i´m a gringo. Then i start out with ¨Dios nos ama¨ and pretty much say that a few times and then Elder Moran teaches some more and i talk about the BoM and how great it is. it´s really fun teaching and i´ll get better in time but elder moran does´nt have to reteach what i teach so that is a good sign. WE do alot of our finding with the poor and they are poor. Most houses are a brick rectangle with a half wall in the middle and dirt floor and some bare light bulds and a couple pictures of the virgen(or bob marley) and a crucifix and maybe a few old appliances, those are the decent ones. The really poor ones are mud and stick houses and one light buld (they still steal their electricity) and some pictures of the virgen or Bob. They are great to teach because they love to listen and commit to things but it seems the bigger problem is getting them to do what they say they will. I think i´m going to get really at persuading here in Colombia...All in all colombia is pretty much what i expected it would be hot, sticky, dirty, and friendly. Spanish will come and so will my love for the people especially because they are really easy to love. Thanks for your prayers and your support, type to ya next week.
Elder muy gringo Larson