June 29

Natalie DID write on Monday, but she sent her email to Charles, who failed to share it or even mention its arrival. It is interesting to me that when I emailed the Mission President's wife on Monday evening, concerned by the lack of an email, she responded in a way I now see was "covering" for Natalie by blaming the zone activity.

Hi Mom and Charles and Dad and Robert and everyone else who reads the blog.

I have a ton to tell you and respond to and everything, but I have no time at all and will probably have less time next week. 

Today we went to a barbaque with the whole zone (about 16 missionaries) and it took way longer than expected and then we had to go shopping at the cancha because Hna Gonzales needed a new duffle because she´s almost certainly having a transfer in two weeks and needs to be able move her stuff. Next week is even busier because we need to visit Villa Mexico and also Hna Gonzales´ old area in Sacaba.

I got the skirts and quote. Thank you!!!! They are very comfortable and pretty and all fit well, but they are all a bit short. I have to sit very carefully to wear them. Who is Rainer Maria Rilke?

I want to tell you all about some of our investigators, but it will have to wait until I have more time.

This week I learned that the US legalized gay marriage. Detailes? All I read was one tiny paragraph in a gossip newspaper that only has a half page on international news and the main story was that british tourists got killed in Tunez.

Charles, the voice of your writing has changed a ton in the last few months. I bet you´ve probably changed a ton too. I also miss family dinners. You eat so much . :) 7$ for dinner ought to be more than enough. Or maybe I´m thinking of Bolivia. A full lunch (soup, main dish, juice, and desert) costs about 20 bs, which is less than 3$. A nice restaurant cost maybe 40bs, less than 7$.

I do remember our long weekend rowing, but am now compeletly out of time to write.

June 22

We´ve had a pretty normal week without much to write about as well.

Aw, the birthday card [to Dad, which has never arrived] was pretty. It didn´t say much more than happy birthday, but I decorated it nicely.

We are really starting winter here, which isn´t that big of a difference in temperature, but it´s noticable. For one, it hasn´t rained for a few months now and it´s quite a bit colder, especially in the middle of the city where there´s more shade from the buildings. It still gets sunny in the middle of the day, but not at all hot. Occasionally I keep my thin sweater on all day. San Juan (the winter soltices) is the official start of winter and opinions are divided as to when it ends (some say that by the middle of August it´s getting warmer, some say that October is still winter).

It´s interesting to hear a bit of news from the wider world. [Church shooting in SC] Race differences is a very interesting topic. I see it more here in the language difference between latinos and nortemericanos in the mission. A lot of latinos feel that we are in Bolivia, here we speak Spanish and get rather annoyed when a group of the nortemericano missionaries start speaking English together because it excludes the others. In my experience it´s more that all the latinos group together and when we find that everyone in the circle of people talking speaks English we switch to English.

In Bolivia I don´t hear almost anything about guns and thus think that it´s not a huge problem. Probably because guns are expensive. However, people still manage to rob and all the rest without guns. Some policemen seem to have a type of rifle thing, but I´m not sure what it shoots because it seems too simple and plain to be a normal gun.

The guy from Last Week Tonight did a program on gun laws in Australia before he started last week tonight, which was really interesting. Basicaly, Austrlian used to have the same problems as the US with guns. They changed the laws, the government bought back most of the guns and they have have much fewer shootings and other problems since. It shows that the US could completely change their guns laws and it would probably work out very well. [John Oliver gun control trilogy]

This morning I realized that I didn´t have any new pictures for you and took a few. 

The wall with some of my things stuck up there. 

Hna Gonzales washing dishes this morning.

A really cool street art thing a few blocks for our house. 

This morning we went to the cancha (GIANT market). I bought a new sweater, even though I said that I didn´t need any new shirts or sweaters and would just look at things while Hna Gonzales tried to find what she needed, but it´s really soft and I like the color. I bought a bunch of mandaries (oranges? really big clemintines?), peanuts, and cereal to eat for breakfast. Hna Gonzales was very patient as we tried to find the cereal.

We also ran into Hna Graciela and Noelia in the cancha, which was really nice and made plans to get together next Monday. They seem to be doing well. 

June 15

Thanks for your letter and the pictures too. I also got your box this week and was very happy with all the things. The economist article made me miss sitting at home eating breakfast and reading the economist or atlantic. I am wearing one of my new shirts and the toiletries were exactly what I was hoping for. The other missionaries who were there were dissapointed by the lack of chocolates, but I am prefectly capable of buying my own chocolates here if I want to.

My health is now good, but was a bit off for most of the week, mostly with a lot of gurgurly stomach acid or somethings like that. However, I finally took some sort of digestive thing recommended by our pensionista´s husband, Armando, who is a doctor, and it went away at the end of the week. Earlier in the week I was afraid to take anything stronger than an antiacid because none of the things you buy in the farmacy come with instructions or even label (other than the brand name). You just ask the farmacist for something to help your stomach and she tells you to take this or that. I tried to ask exactly what it does and was just told that ¨it helps¨ and she wouldn´t give me the box to read (you buy the pills individually). Thus I didn´t take what she sold me until several days latter when Hno Armando said that I should. Thus I am feeling just fine now, but am a bit frustrated with Bolivian farmacies.

Also, Hna Gonzales and I seem to take turns being healthy. As soon as I was feeling better, her stomach and chest started to hurt again and we are going to have to make time to go to the clinic this week.

We also celebrated Hna Gonzales´ 22 birthday this Saturday (see photos), which was nice. I was worried that we didn´t have anything planned and I couldn´t do much to plan anything because I´m always with her, but I gave her a card and necklace in the morning and the rest of the pension pulled together a few gifts and bought a really delicious ice cream cake. 

We have had a really good week with our investigators. Hna Vilma came back from a trip of several weeks to see her family in Sucre and we were worried that she wouldn´t be as excited to visit with us anymore, but nothing had changed and she accepted a baptism date for the 4th of July and came to church on Sunday. Hna Vilma is a really spiritual person. I can tell that she really ponders the things we teach her and asks questions when she doesn´t understand something. She understands the covenent of baptism and I can´t wait to teach her about the temple and that she can be sealed to her husband who passed away several years about.

We are also teaching Hno Jose, who moved here from Santa Cruz already having the goal to get baptised and then sealed to his girlfriend who is already a member of the church. He has a very strong Christian background and we are focusing in making sure he understands the importance of having the authority from God to preach or baptise, etc... Hno Jose also came to church even though his girlfriend couldn´t make it yesterday, which shows that he´s not just doing this for her, but truely wants to learn about the church and be baptised.

It´s very nice that we are probably going to have baptisms in a few weeks after this area hasn´t had any for so long. I just hope that they are truely prepared by the time July comes.

Congratulation to Charles for his rowing success! And also to Robert for the last few weeks of his freshman year. Lots of luck for exams.

If you run into Hazel, remind her to write to me.

My Spanish test didn´t work becuase of slow internet and I still haven´t heard if I will have to try it again. I think we sometimes recive results, but they don´t affect anything, so most people don´t care or check them.

Cobija has much less Quechua, but a lot more people speak a bit of English. Some people even speak enough english to carry on a conversation, for example, Felix Garcia, a member of the ward, speaks a lot of English because he lived in the US working in mining for a decently long time. Also, a sister in the ward teaching high school English and Quechua and speaks both decently. She studied liguistics and I would love to have more time to talk to her about that. Linguistics still appeals to me a lot as a major.

MTC time defintely counts, thus the midpoint is at 9 months and is near the end of July. The elders genearlly celebrate the passage of time by burning things. A tie at 6 months, a shirt at one year and a pair of pants at 18 months. I´ve seen that some sister mark their 9 month midpoint by taking a picture with a pillow under their skirt, but I think that it silly and will defintly not do it.

I hope that I´ve matured in the last almost 9 months. I´ve definitly learned a lot about getting along with other people and listening to them. I hope I´ve learned how to use my time well, but I also dream about being able to get up late and sit over my breakfast reading for a really long time, so I don´t know how much is an internal change and how much is a temporary adaptation to mission rules.

I´ve been thinking about what to study at college and am still really drawn towards arabic. There is a synegoge (nope, still can´t spell at all) in our area and from the tiny bit of Arabic I remember and a slight knowledge of hebrew letters, I can tell that the second half of the hebrew letters on the building are the second half of the ten commandments. I remember to read right to left and can see that they all start with lamed, aleph (or whatever the name for the letter a is), which means each sentece starts with ¨la¨, which means ¨no¨ in Arabic and probably in Hebrew too because they are from the same language family. The second half of the ten commandments are all ¨thou shalt not¨ or more simply ¨don´t¨. Also you can tell that it´s the ten commandments because it´s in the two stones like the ten commandments are always writen, but it´s cool to be able to read it a tiny bit. I hope that if I try arabic again, I´ll be more dedicated about studying and will also be able to find a study group, which I didn´t realize was important until it was too late last time. 

June 8

I don´t think I have any photos this week and don´t really have time to deal with them if I do because I need to take my online spanish test which we take every 3 months or so.

I´m glad to hear that the grandparents are well. Everyone looks great and very sunny. It is also rather hot here today, but only in the middle of the day. Before 10 or 11 and after 6 it gets rather chilly. I went to church this sunday with a scarf and gloves and everyone was talking about how cold it was.

 Thanks for mailing the skirts. The other things still haven´t gotten here, but I´m hoping they´ll come next week.

We went to visit Roselyn and her baby on Wednesday. We only got to see the baby for a few minutes, but she´s adorable and is named Valeria. She has tiny, long fingers and everyone says she looks like her father, although I just think she looks like a baby.

Each agenda is for one cambio and has a page for each day.

Yep, success in the mission is determined by how hard one is working, how obedient you are to the mission rules, that you can feel the spirit as you teach, etc... However, it´s much harder to keep knocking on doors or walk half and hour to an appointment if people always say that they are busy, or are catholics or if when you get to the appointment no one is home. It´s the difference between finding internal motivation and being motivated by the people and events around you.

You can caption the photos for 3 mile yourself, I don´t know what I would say. I was thinking of tmi this week on a cold morning when I smelled a wood fire and thought of sitting by in fire in the minutes before breakfast.

Usually, I have a list of things I want to write to you, but this week not much happened to write about. We knocked on a lot of doors because we are trying to increase the number of investigators we have and a decent number of people said we could come back latter. The new missionaries arrived like they do every 6 weeks and we got to take one of them with us for the afternoon to our appointments. It was pretty cool because it made us more concious of how we are teaching and encouraged us to do everything just right, for example leaving good, clear commitments and ask for referals.

Right now I´m just feeling really tired because I wasn´t feeling that great this morning. I get sick so rarely, that I´m really wimpy when I´m feeling a little bad and just want to go back to bed. Hna Gonzales is much better at going out an working even when she feels poorly or tired. She has some osrt of bacteria or parasites in her stomach, which went away when she took some medicine against them, but now seem to be back. Also her back and feet often hurt, but she finally got new shoes today, which I think will help a lot.

Prayer is really helpful. We pray so much everyday, to ask for guidance, to have the Spirit with us, to pray for the people we teach, everything. You touched on a really important part of prayer, listening. A lot of people forget that prayer is a two way communication. It´s not just us talking at God, but also Him responding and we have to be patient and listen quietly to know the answers. We have to learn how it is that God speaks to us specifically, whether it´s more in our thoughts or our feelingings. Learning how to listen to God{s answers takes practice and also faith to keep praying as we slowly learn to listen, how to know what is the Spirit and what are our own thoughts. Something we always recommend to investigators is to ask specific questions so that they can get specific answers and understand them more easily. Because the Spirit isn´t a loud voice, or usually even an audible voice. It´s a whisper to your heart or mind that says yes, that´s good or, for me, reminds me of a scripture that answers my question or gives me guidance. There´s a scripture in the Old Testament of the prophet Elijah´s communication with God that says, ¨11 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: 12 And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. (1 Kings 19:11-12).

June 2

June 1

Happy Birthday, Dad! 

The photos came through just fine. The yard looks very green and summery. We are feeling the winter more here. It still gets really hot and sunny in the middle of the day, but for fewer hours than it did a few months ago. However, the seasons aren´t that distinct and San Juan´s day (the winter solstice) is celebrated with barbaques. 

You were right that we didn´t change at all this cambio. I wasn´t that surprised because we had only been together one cambio, but Hna Gonzales was really hoping and half expecting to leave, so she was really sad. She seems disappointed more easily by the lack of success here in Cobija, but we are learning to get along a bit better. 

This week we had stake conference and in the middle of the Saturday night session they announced that Elder L Tom Perry, one of the Twelve, had died. It was sad, but President Hansen reminded us in his talk (the stake had invited our mission president to give a talk) that Elder Perry had lived a long, good life and was now reunited with his wife and other family members who had died. The conference in general was really good, but none of the people we invited came.

Hna Gonzales and I eating choripan (chorizo is sausage and pan is bread), a close realitive to a hamburger, but with a sausage cut open and grilled. In addition to tomatoes and onions it has cold, cooked carrots.

 More cool street art that just recently got painted, but the pictures didn´t turn out well because cars kept passing. 

My little cactus thing. I think it´s adorable, but none of the pictures turned out very well.

 Cool street art that I took a picture of to send to Hazel. 

My new agenda, which I think came out pretty well. I really love the quotes that Sister Meyers sent with me to put on agendas.

There are about 210 missionaries and about 20 missionaries per zone, so I think there are about 10 zones. At least 6 of which are in Cochabamba. Everyone pays a lot of attention to the new missionaries because we are interested in who they are and where they are coming from and if they´ve seen the latest movies. The missionaries who are leaving get teased. 

I don´t really remember Joshua. [I told her that my cousin and his wife are expecting a baby in September.--Kathie] Is he the one that teaches history?

Thanks for the photos. Robert looks a lot like Logan in this photo and the rocks are all crisp and in focus. :)

I love you all.

-Natalie

PS I´m going to try to send you some of the photos from the mission´s dropbox, because I´m not allowed to give you the password and name. 

PS There is a graduation gift for Charles that I left. It´s wraped in brown paper with yellow and blue ribbons.