Dec 8

I´m doing well. I still feel very busy all the time because we are busy all the time. So far with p days we´ve been doing less, usually just going to play soccer or no planned activity at all. However, we have lots of things we have to do mondays. We clean the house, shop for food for breakfasts and any other errands we have. 

I will always tell you when I get a letter or package. We generally get packages and letters on Tuesdays when we have district meetings.

I don´t have any reason to use my debit card at the moment. The allowence we get for the month is generally enough and the money I already had with me from the flight will last me a while longer. The 40 dollares I have is more than 200 bolivianos. A boliviano in Bolivia has about the same purchasing power as a dollar in the US.

Sunday services are exactly the same schuedule wise, plus we as missionaries go to ward council afterwards with the bishop and leaders or the different organizations. The ward buidling is pretty much the same, a bit smaller, no carpeting and more white, plus the basket ball court is outside instead of in and doubles as a parking lot for the half dozen or so ward members who have cars.

The rest of Sunday is just like any other day expect that we are more likely to have ward members visit with us, which is great. We are trying to get more people to visit with us for the rest of the week to become friends with the investigators and help us teach. 

I am generally feeling happy I really love the people we meet and having so much time to study the scriptures. What makes me want to cry is when we get home really late because all the trufis were full and then we have to plan for the next day and I can´t understand what hna Aliaga is saying because I´m too tired. However, she´s really patient with me and then I get to go to bed. 

I feel mostly settled in here. I don´t know my way around that well still, but I recognize a lot of landmarks and like our routine. You´re right I don´t look forward to transfers. I want to stay here as long as possible to get to know the area and the ward better. It´s very unlikely that I´ll change this transfer or next (because Hna Aliaga leaves in the end of Jan and someone who knows the people and houses needs to stay), but after that who knows. At the moment, I´m just waiting to hear who replaces the people who are leaving from our district this transfer. We find out next Sunday night and the changes happen on Tuesday, I think. 

I think 18 months will feel short compared to the last 18 months of my life (which covered highschool granduation, peru, byu, and the arete project), but it´s still 18 months, a very long time. Ask me again in a while. 

To discribe a typical day I will tell you about this last Friday, which was a fairly normal day:

The mornings are almost always the same. We get up at 6:30 pray and exersize for about 20 minutes. Then we have an hour to shower, get dressed and eat breakfast, generaly instant oatmeal with yogurt and camomile tea. Then we have an hour of personal study from the scriptures and preach my gospel. I am working towards finishing the Book of Mormon by Christmas. We also think about what we can share with people that day and what assingments we should give them. Then we have an hour of study together where we share what we studied, read preach my gospel and the missionary manual (little white booklet) and talk about what we can improve either that day or in general. Because I´m in my first 12 week, we have an extra hour of study from the 12 semanas book and videos which teaches how to be a missionary and we do practice situations where I have to teach hna Aliaga something as practice. We are supposed to then have an hour of language study, but this week we had time for that only twice in 7 days. 

At noon we left to contact references that we recieved from the missionaries working at the kiosk in the center of the city, but none of them answered their phones, so we went to visit an old investiagator, who the missionaries had stopped visited several months before because she didn´t understand why she needed to be baptized and wasn´t coming to church, but she had moved. We instead talked to her neighbor (multiple families usually live behind the same garage door with many rooms on one courtyard) and made plans to visit him later.

Then we had lunch with Hna Anavel, who is our pensionista and also the relief society president. I´ll try to remember to take some pictures of food this week.

After lunch we visited Nicole, who is 12 and one of our best investigators, and her little sister Malena, who is 7. We talked about baptism and then drew pictures from the chapter in the Book of Mormon that we read because Malena likes drawing. She hadn´t been prepared to be baptised on the last date she was supposed to so we gave her a new date of the 20th of december. 

Then we went to visit the mother of Mariceillo, who is a less active member, but no one was home so we went to our next appointment,

Adela owns a little store and is looking for the true church, but is really afraid of making the wrong deciecion. We talked about how she needs to pray for an answer and the Holy Ghost will answer her question. One of the Jehovah´s witnesses, who are also visiting her, came by which was a bit tense because she, the Jehovah´s witness, was trying to start an argument and we need to be really careful not to argue with them because it really doesn´t help anything. However, she eventually left and the lesson continued.

We then tried to visit Roli and his family, but no one was home, except for a cousin who doesn´t actually live there. He was really interested in learning about the church, but doesn´t have a phone number nor does his road have a name, so all we could do is give him a pamphlet and directions to the church. 

By this point it was about 5pm. We briefly visited Sherlin, who is also about 12, and her grandfather, who are members, but Sherlin doesn´t usually come to church. We read the Book of Mormon with them and talked about the chapter. Sherlin told us about her friend who might like to learn about the church and we made plans to try to find a time when they were both home.

We were then late for dinner and stopped really quickly by Lili.... and her family, who are inactive member, to set up a new appointment and then went to Anavel´s for dinner.

After dinner we went to the chapel because we had an apointment with Lourdes, who is really interested in the church, but her husband, who is less active member is not interested in returning. However, she didn´t show up. I called her because I am supposed to be starting to use the phone more and not just Hna Aliaga. She said she could come and sorry for reasons I couldn´t understand over the phone. 

Finally we went home and planned what to teach the next day.

That added up to no lessons with members (our goal for the day was 3). Three other lessons. One reference recieved, one contacted (one of the phone numbers was wrong on the references we had recieved earlier and there was no address so that counts as contacted), one new investigator (the neighbor of the old investiagators), one new baptism date!, and two lessons with less active members.

In that whole week we taught 17 lessons to investigatores (our goal was 22) and 9 to less active members or recent convert.

We try to always teach one of the 4 lessons for Preach my Gospel (the restoration, the plan of salvation, the gospel of Jesus Christ, or the commandments), but we often end up teaching only a little part of one or sharing a scripture, which is also okay. 

We are always late for everything, but some of that is just a cultural difference, that I need to adjust to.

......

My good shoes will not last the whole mission, so if I need new ones they are keen´s size 8 and I took some pictures of them too. 

Yesterday was dia de peaton (pedestrians day), which means for most of the day no cars were allowed. There was a nice festive atmosphere and lots of bicycles, but church attendence was low. 

Yesterday we also watched the Christmas devoational, which I highly recommend, at least the second half is awesome, we missed the first half.

There is also a short christmas video out called El es la dadiva (He is the gift), which is really nice. I bet there´s a english version too.