August 24

Natalie Watt	Aug 24 (6 days ago)
to me

I have had a very, very eventful week (as in literally it was full of a lot of different events) almost all very good things.

First of all, we had the visit of Elder David A Bednar, one of the 12 apostles, to our mission on Saturday and then again Sunday in a special stake conference. I hadn´t written about it last week because I wrote about it in my paper letter to Dad and didn´t feel like writing the same things twice, It was a very spiritual event and I could really feel the difference when Elder Bednar spoke, that he is truely called of God as a prophet, seer, and revalator. He talked about a ton of different topics, but focused mostly on the need to take action. True faith can never be just waiting for blessings to come, but going out and acting so that God can bless and magnify our actions. I was really impressed by his powerful testimony of the family and of the vital importance of teh Atonement in our lives. The Atonement of Christ is everything for us. It lets us both repent of our sins and strengthens us in our weaknesses so that we can do more than we could have alone. The Atonement also lets us have agency, so that we can freely choose to follow God. All this makes me very excited for general conference in october, because it won´t be just one apostle speaking to us, but all of them speaking to all the world.

Because of this special conference, all the missionaries outside of Cochabamba (at least 50, I think) came in to be with us. This was a really big project pulled off in just a few days. The secretaries (4 elders who work half of the time in the offices, and half in normal missionary work) worked really hard to coordinate everyone. We tried to help out a bit because moving lots of missionaries is always like the brainteaser about the man moving a fox, chicken, and sack of grain across the river. Every missionary needs to have at least a temporary companion. We have to be working normally in our own areas as much as possible. Everyone needs as least a mattress on the floor to sleep at night. And, we want to minimize how much we have to pay taxis. All this cannot be accomplished at once, and often the not paying too many taxis has to be sacrificed to be able to not leave any missionary without a companion.

I did get my transfer this week. I´m going to train! I´m a bit nervous, but not too much. I´m fairly confident in my ability to teach someone to be a good missionary. What I´m a little more worried about is being a good first companion who can help her love the mission. I need to be loving, and balance correcting her so that she can learn, with helping her feel confident and capable and being patienct as she learns for herself. One Wednesday, I´ll find out who my companion is, so I´ll let you know next Monday. However, Hna Hansen will probably have it on the mission´s facebook page with photos before hand.

The other surprise is that Hna Gonzales (my pervious companion) is also going to train. Her current area is far away in Tupiza (almost to Argentina), so she´s staying with me until we get our companions on Wednesday. It´s pretty cool to have her back in Cobija with me for a few days. 

I am finally able to upload my photos from my new camera. I think they are a bit better quality than with the old camera. The photos are as follows:

Me with the cat who belongs to the owners of the house. His name is George.

Hna Simons when I accidently hit her on the head. We were talking about zombies and I clearly said how much zombies freak me out, but she decided to act like a zombie for a minute and pretend to bit my arm. Thus, I paniced and wacked her on the head with my Book of Mormon a bit harder than I should have. Thus we bought ice cream for her head and to feel better.

We took pictures with Hna Eguino because she is going on vacacion to visit some family members in other cities for a few weeks becasue the temple is now closed for two weeks and she gets a bit of time off.

Hna Simons really liked this limo, so we took pictures with it.

Various photos from Alfonzo´s baptism. I think I´ve already written a bunch about it. The bishop baptized him. Also in the photos are: Marisol, his youngest daughter, Kaessy, Marisol´s daughter, Loida, Alfonzo´s wife, and Luis Angel, another grandchild, who´s parents are living in Peru.

I had never taken a photo of this past transfer´s agenda. It says ¨All things indicate that there is a God, that there is a Supreme Creator.

This next agenda is of a pretty flower from the Liahona from general conference, and 2 of the 5 wise virgens from the parable of the 10 virgens. You can see their lamps and extra oil.

A cat in a tree.

We did a great activity with the elders and sister from the Ingavi ward to try to contact more people. As you can see in the photos, Elder salmons and Elder Farnsworth dressed up as the Bible and the Book of Mormon and we gave out free ¨refresco¨ (juice is not really the right translation because it´s made out of toasted grain). It was a moderate success, because we didn´t have as much time as week should have nor the perfect location, but we are going to try again in a bit. The costumes at least turned out great.