January 5

I´m doing well and have had a particularly busy week, but in a good way.

I´m try to answer your questions, but have a lot to say myself.

One of the highlights of this week was that I finished reading the
Book of Mormon (in English) in time for my goal to finish for the new
year. This is only the second time that I´ve read the Book of Mormon
from start to finish and it was a really great experience. We are
always asking our investigators to read the Book of Mormon and pray to
know that it´s true so it´s important to do so as well. Now I can
testify with more assurity that God will answer their prayers.

We also had intercambios again this Friday and I am Hna Hinton were in
my area for the day. It was great to teach with her and learn new ways
to teach the same doctine. I realized that I know the area better than
I thought and that I can teach better than I thought too. Hna Aliaga
and I am struggling a bit as my ability to teach my share of the
lesson changes so rapidly. We aren´t really sure how to share the time
between us and work together. Before I only talked a very little bit
and now I still stuck in the pattern when we work together, but with
Hna Hinton or when we do splits with members I can direct the whole
lesson myself and only struggle with the social bits at the beginning
and end.

However, I also really missed Hna Aliaga with the intercambio and all
the splits we´ve been doing this week. We worked a lot with the
members this week because our zone had a goal that each companionship
could have 5 lessons with members this week. We were already doing
that because our ward is more suportive than some, but we tried even
harder to get members present in our lessons and had a lot of
successs. Having a member present helps so much because they can share
their experiences and testimonies and just be the person´s friend,
more than we have time for.

Another thing I learned from Hna Hinton is to tell people, le queremos
much, a lot more, which feels awkward, but they love it. I also had to
focus a lot more on what we were doing with her because I was the one
making most of the decisions on where to go and what to teach. Thus I
did n´t have time to let my mind wander, which made me a lot happier.

As you can see from my pictures, the zone meet our goal of lessons
with members present and went to
see waterfalls in the jungle about 3 hours from here. We hiked a bit
in a ton of mud and rain and saw some water falls that were bigger
than I had ever seen before. However, I had never seen any big waterfalls
before so that isn´t saying much. It was also fun to ride in a bus all
together and talk.

I got Robert´s email with the pictures. The bookshelves look great. I
also got the three exersize videos. Thank you! They look amazing.

What you mention of investigators who like talking to us, but don´t
want to get baptised is a real problem. If they aren´t ready to be
baptised that´s okay, but they need to progress, which means accepting
and keeping the commitments we ask of them, such as reading the Book
of Mormon, praying, and coming to church. If they don´t we have to
stop visiting them, or visit them a lot less frequently in order to use
our time well.

Knowing when to drop investigators is really difficult and we try to
avoid it by explaining well when we start visiting someone that we are
here to teach and to help them come unto Christ, not just to talk
about God and religion with them and share our opinions.

All new members get our support and visits for the first year after
they are baptised. Some don´t need it very much, but we still keep
track of how they are doing.

Pets: almost everyone has a dog or two to bark at people who come to
the door and are regarded as good home protection. However, these dogs
(and pretty much all dogs) stay outside in the yard. Cats also stay
outside most of the time and wander whereever because they can climb
over fences and go through smaller holes in gates. Beyond cats and
dogs, parrots of various sizes are fairly common and I have seen one
family with a pair of hamsters and another with a pair of rabbits.

Yes, there are farms on the outskirts of the city with little fields
and some cows and sheep or maybe a pig, but none in our area. A few
houses have tiny little gardens or a fruit tree or two.

Sacrament meetings are pretty similar. There are a few hymns in
Spanish that don´t exsist in English, but very few people know how to
read music and we have to remember to explain to investigators how
verses work in music, that you read the top line of each part first
before reading the second.

Speakers are really very similar. The wards are on average smaller,
but not by that much and the ratio of children and adults is only
different in that there is no seperate singles ward, but they have
their own Sunday School class.

December 29

You should be getting a bunch of Christmas photos and a video of some puppies if I can get it to load.

Notes on pictures: the landscape is from where we went caroling (I can´t see this far every day), the tree is plastic and is in the house of our pensionista (anavel), she is the one on the phone, the Bolivia bag was my gift in our gift swap, the one with marker on our faces is from a Family Home Evening we did ( shared a scripture and talked about it and then played some games. the punishment for losing was getting something drawn on your face), the puppies belong to Loyda, who is a recent convert and also our pensionista for lunch or saturdays and sundays. 

The rest of Christmas was very quiet, which was a nice rest. I got to spend a lot of time reading Jesus the Christ. We had dinner with the elders and Hna Anavel´s family, but it wasn´t a particularly special meal. I don´t think I got too homesick, but with Hna Aliaga going home in a month, it´s hard not to think about home too. 

I´m sure the last week or so of Jan will be a bit nuts with Hna Aliaga leaving, but at the moment the only difference is that she has a lot of other people´s recuerdos (memory scrapebook things) to write in and will want me to write in hers. I get that people want pictures and contact info and a nice note from each other, but I can never think of anything to write. 

With Pdays, the first two here were by far the most eventful. Generally we just get lunch somewhere new, clean the house, and write home. We also often go to the cancha, which is a huge market with just about everything. We are required to take a member with us to help us not get stolen from or lost (really the place is huge and busy). Today for example we spent ages finding a new wrist band cord for Hna Aliaga´s camera, more toliet paper (becuase it´s cheaper there than in the corner stores near our house), and I found some mint tea. We went with Hna Hinton and Hna Morales, who are our sister training leaders and a member of their ward. Hna Hinton is going home soon and was buying lots of souvenirs and a complete ¨chorlita¨ outfit, this includes a skirt with lots of pleats/folds, a lacey pastel blouse that is too short, an apron, and a liner-thing (there´s a word for that, a thing you wear under a shear dress). She was going to get a sun hat too, but it would be hard to transport home. 

As I was starting to explain the other day, The main different is not is different shades of skin color, but those who dress in a more western, modern style, and ¨chorlitas¨ who wear the traditional skirt and top and tend to be poorer and less well educated. I´m sure you can find some pictures online. I don´t really understand all the cultural and social background, but there´s definitely a difference.

December 22

I am feeling much better and also much happier with the food. There are some things that take some adjusting, like sesame seed juice, but in general everything is rice and tomatoes and red onions with a bit of meat, which I like. I honestly like a lot of the things we eat, such as chicken in a spicy sauce or salty meat with potatoes and chocolo (similar to corn on the cob, but not as sweet) and can stand most of the others, such as chuño, which was once potatoes, but have undergone many cycles of freezing and thawing and are now grey with a wierd texture. 

The bad news this week is that the zone leaders lost a small package (exersize bands?) and several letters that were for me. They left them along with a bunch of other stuff in a taxi.

I did get a package that says it has earrings in it and the large envelope last Monday and will open them Christmas Eve! President and Sister Hansen had gifts for everyone who hadn´t received anything yet, so Hna Aliaga has something to open.

Yes, there are new missionaries. We had a short Christmas Conference with all the missionaries in Cochabamba yesterday and I meet a few of them. They seem very nice and now I´m not the newest. Today marks 2 months since I left. It feels like it´s been a lot longer, but every individual week passes so quickly.

In my pictures this week, there are a ton from Nicole´s baptism. Have I written about her before? She´s 12 years old and reminds me a lot of myself because of her age and that she decided to get baptised on her own. We are also teaching her father, Romer. Her little sister, Malena, is only 7, but is making friends at church and goes everywhere with Nicole.

Nicole´s a really amazing person and has a strong testimony of the Church, she was so happy at her baptism. I don´t really feel like she´s ¨my convert¨ or anything, because I didn´t really do much. The previous missionaries did most of it and we were just supporting her this last month until she was really ready ( coming to church without anyone coming to get her, reading the Book of Mormon, and praying more).

This week we also visited the temple because some of the new members and newly active members that Hna Aliaga worked with in Sucre were coming. She and Hna Brindley, who was her companion there went to their sealing and I went with Hna Brindley´s companions (they are in a trio) to their area, which was neat to see more of Cochabama. 

Between going to the temple, the baptism, the Christmas conference, and spending most of Friday doing tramites (sooo boring), we´ve had a really hectic week. With Christmas this week we will have another hectic week, but today is nice and calm so far, so I feel ready for it. 

Other interesting experiences this week are: We helped a women with her bags earlier this week and the ones she gave us to carry contained live chickens! Lunch yesterday was a type of meat that I didn´t know and Hna Aliaga says I will be happier not knowing.

I know Carol from the drug store, you can tell her Merry Christmas from me too, if you see her. I am getting better at remembering names here, mostly because we take notes on absolutly everyone we talk to and writing things down helps. Some of the names are things you´d expect from Spanish class. We know a lot of Carola´s, Juan Carlos´s, and Maria´s, but we also know an Estanislao, a Vladimir, and a Lauro. The only names I really have trouble with are names that are spelt the same, but pronounced differently, like Edith (Eh-deet) and Elizabeth (Elizabet).

The pictures of lights in the night are of a Christmas fair that we walked through yesteray trying to meet up with the people who were giving us and a pair of elders a ride home from the Christmas conference. It was pretty, but we felt very out of place and and little closterphobic.

December 15

I was sick Tuesday morning (vomiting and everything) and we stayed home for the rest of the day because I was still feeling really dizzy and weak, which I think was mostly dihydration, but maybe a fever (I broke my thermomter trying to get it to work by sticking it in a cup of very hot water which shattered it instantly). I´m sure it came from something I ate the night before, but we´re not sure exactly what. Since then my stomach´s been hurting on and off, but I haven´t been actually sick again. 

With two of the elders in our ward going home, I am having to work a lot harder to not think about home and how much I miss you. I really love being here, but it´s also a lot of work and a lot of unfamiliar things that make me miss what I am used to. For example, wierd juices that are made from grains. Not only do they taste wierd, but I´m contantly having to worry about water quality.

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I got Dad´s letter and we know we have packages that have been waiting since earlier this week in the house of some of the other missionaries, but we haven´t had time to go get them yet. We plan to go today. It´s not far at all, but we have to remember to get them when we are heading home. 

The dog in last week´s pictures in Bobby. He belongs to the Fernadez family whom we live with and is very annoying and is always trying to come into our rooms although he knows he´s not allowed (when you shout fuera (out) at him he scampers out again).

Everyone we meet is already Christian, mostly catholic. The other religious groups are various evagelical churchs and 7th day adventists. The Jehovah´s witnesses are pretty much the only ones that proselytize. There is definitly a secular Christmas with plastic trees, and papa noel (but I hear santa claus just as often as papa noel).

Christmas isn´t quite as big a deal as it is in the US, however, there´s still traditional foods to try and the ward is trying to plan an activity involving serving Api (a hot drink made with flour and sugar I think) and inviting people in to see some Christmas videos. One of the pictures I´m trying to send this week is of paneton, a Christmas cake thing with candied fruits and rasins that is delicious. It has a flavor very similar to stolen ( like we eat in allentown sometimes).

Christmas is really sneaking up on us becuase first we were waiting for cambios, which were last night. Hna Aliaga and I are staying put which is a huge relief, but one of the three areas in the ward is being closed due to a lack of missionaries and is being split between us and one set of Elders. Elder Edmunds who was in the area that´s getting closed is moving to a different area and an Elder I´ve meet once but don´t know well is coming in to replace Elder Merino, who´s going home, and to be in the other area with Elder Pinta. 

This is sad because now only the two of us will eat lunch and dinner together and our already very large area is getting even bigger. However, we now have more ward members in our area who we can ask to visit with us and some great new investigatores.

Hna Aliaga is the second youngest of 5 or maybe 6, I forget. Her family converted when she was 10 and most of them are active, I think. I think she´s getting a Christmas package, but she´s also going home in 6 weeks, so she might not. She plans to work after her mission and finish college (agricultural engineering, which she has 3 years in already). Everyone teases her that she´s going to go to Columbia to marry a missionary form there, but I´m not sure how much of that is just joking and how much of it might be real.

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Oh, those pictures are just of us fooling around with Sherlin and her Chirstmas decorataions. The tree I´m holding isn´t much bigger than you can see in the picture.

We see some grandparents living with their extended families, but more often younger siblings living with their older siblings family. I don´t think we know any single mothers, one single father and one family that´s just a mess in a somewhat confidential way. We don´t see any homeless people here, but I think there are plenty in the center. 

Spanish vs Indigious isn´t that important because everyone is some sort of mix. More on this subject next week, because I´m out of time. 

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.

Photos

I think that is the temple just left of center. --Kathie

Natalie's apartment seems to be this bit to the left of the big house. I recognize some of her clothing.

December 1

I don´t have any pictures this week and also forgot to bring my thing to put them into the computer with me, but I´ll try to have at least a few each week. We aren´t supposed to take pictures while prosylitizing, but we take a lot of pictures with the other missionaries.

We rarely have planned community service, but the ward mission leader, a calling in the ward, occasionaly plans something. We also offer to help people with their cleaning or laundry, which they occasionally take us up on. I think the Elders do more moving rocks and digging and such, but we don´t get invited as much and are happy not to. Elder Melgar dropped a rock on his knee last week, which really ruined the week for him.

Every time we visit someone, we make an appointment for the next visit in a few days or a week depending on who they are and their schedule. We have a phone and do a lot of calling.

We have an excersize dvd, I just don´t like it very much. We have half an hour to exersize first thing in the morning. We generally strech and do jumping jacks in the part of the yard that has cement. Maybe it´s in a picture. We have a dvd and cd player and lots of training and church videos, but nothing internet connected. We also have a a thing that plays music from a usb drive.

We finished eating with members this weekend, but have yet to find someone to be our pensionista for the weekend lunches. I have been a little sick just for one day, which I blame on the fried chicken place we often go when Anavel gives us money for dinner on Sat and Mon, but we have other options for other places to eat. 

Hna Aliaga is learning English, but we rarely have time to practice. I´m not sure how much she speaks, but it´s a lot less than I speak Spanish. At lunch either we all speak in Spanish, or I speak in English with Elder Edmonds and Hna Aliaga and Elder Melgar speak Spanish. Also, sometimes the elders are on intercambios (exchanges?) and Elder Racker is there instead of Elder Melgar. 

Most people have recourdos, which are notebooks that other people fill with photos and notes including addresses and email to keep in touch. Also, I think there´s a facebook page for rms. 

News this week is our first intercambio and tramites. I went for a day with Hna Gardiner to alalay, which is on the other side of the hill/small mountain and Hna Morales came here. They are the Sister training leaders in charge of us. I think the point is just to get practice in another area and for them to see that we know what we´re doing. I am now used to my area and didn´t really like changing, but they are really nice and I got to see their area, which is so much smaller than ours, but much hillier.

All the new sister have also been doing tramites, which I think just translates to procedures, for our paperwork to stay in Bolivia. This involves going into the center of Cochabamba and writing our names and signatures on a lot of forms. I never really know what´s going on, but there´s a bishop who does this with all the missionaries and he just tells us where to go and what to say (generally: name, occupation, and that we are applying for ¨migracion¨). This morning we went to the hospital and they drew blood and looked at our teeth and lungs and everything, which I think it the last step for a while. The dentist told me that I had a lisp, but besides that everything went smoothly.