Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Connecting with Colombia

In my life I dreamed of going and visiting Colombia. I am adopted and when I was 11 months a wonderful family brought me home to Utah. I grew up in Bountiful my whole life and I was one of maybe two kids in my entire high school that wasn't Caucasian. My parents always taught me about my pioneer ancestors and made me always appreciate the faith and courage of these faithful saints. However, I always felt a slight disconnect because technically they weren't my "real" ancestors.

Shortly after I came home after my mission from Ecuador, I had the opportunity to travel to Colombia and visit my homeland.  While there, I was able to learn more about my ancestors and the people of Colombia. One occasion that I will never forget is when we went and visited the Gold Museum in Bogotá.



The museum is one of the largest gold museums in the world and has over 5,000 pre-hispanic gold artifacts. It also has special exhibits about the Incas and the Incan empire. One of exhibits talked about an Incan legend of a white man dressed all in white descending from sky. It was at this moment, that I was realized that they were talking about when Christ came and visited the people of Nephi. A sudden sense of peace filled my heart in knowing that the people of the Book of Mormon are my ancestors. It is memory that I will never forget and will always treasure.
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3 comments:

  1. CharlesJanuary 6, 2015 at 6:54 PM

    I always find it interesting to see people's reactions to visiting the lands of their ancestors for the first time. It's almost as if we were made, at least in part, of the land from whence we came. And it seems like people everywhere know something about Christ or at least points of his teachings through one source or another.

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  2. UnknownJanuary 6, 2015 at 6:55 PM

    This is great. I think it’s interesting how you’ve become a sort of bridge between these two cultures. You bring up interesting points about what makes a family. Is it your blood, or is it the people who raised you? I’m glad this experience abroad helped you to see that family involves both your ancestors and who raised you, and that both influence you in special ways.

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  3. MadisonJanuary 6, 2015 at 10:02 PM

    I think it's so neat that your parents emphasized the importance of teaching you about your heritage and took you there when you were older. It must have been so special to feel that connection to the people of the Book of Mormon and have that experience. My parents always told me about my great grandparents, but never about their earlier European heritage. It would have been so neat to me to have gone and visited their cities in England and Denmark. Very cool, Jacob!

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