August 3

 I was thinking about trail work and Robert´s adventure this morning as we went to Inkachaka again and I could see the steps and trails that some had made before to help us explore the jungly mountain. 

I am going to buy a camera. Hopefully, next week, if I can find the time. I think it will cost about $100 and work better than my current camera, with which you have to hold the button down for a full second to take a photo. It was fun to go to Inkachaka without worrying about taking photos, but now I have to bug everyone to share their photos with me. The most important thing is that the camera be rechargable or take normal double A batteries. I already know where in the cancha to buy it because I spent so long looking for batteries and also a hair drier for Hna Gonzales. 

I do have some photos this week from Hna Simon´s camera. [I'll add them soon. --Kathie] Last saturday the stake had a dance festival. Each ward presented one or two traditional dances from different parts of Bolivia. They were really pretty and fun. Afterwards we went with the elders to visit a ward member and helped her make a cake to bring to her sunday school class the next day. I was very happy with my french braids.  However, that evening when I took the braids out and brushed my hair it turned into a poufy mess that was so impressive we took a photo of it. 

This Sunday (yesterday) Jose, who got baptised about a month ago, blessed the sacrament for the first time. I was so happy to see how well he is progressed and how happy he is with his decision to be baptised. Even when dificult things happen in his life, he is so commited to living the gospel.

Since it was also Fast and Testimony meeting Hna Simons and I shared our testimonies (totally her idea, but a good idea). I was able to share my testimony of the priesthood and how happy I am when I see the people I know in the ward arrive at church. As a missionary, I´m able to be really happy in other people´s successes. I shared how even though I can´t see my own family members bless and pass the sacrament, I am really happy to see Hno Jose do so. I feel so blessed to have the authority of the priesthood on the earth. All the ordininces of the priesthood help us so much, from baptism and the sacrament, to blessings for the sick and the temple ordaninces.

Also this Sunday was the bishop´s birthday and the relief society made a big cake to share with the whole ward. Hna Maria Antoniette Alegre, one of the sisters in the ward who liked my testimony says hi to you (Mom and Dad) and hopes that you will find it funny that her last name means happy.

The internet shop we were in closed and we had to walk a long way to try to find another one open and with space avaliable. (and I lost all my train of thought of what to write about) It feels very hot out today, but I think I just feel it more because I´m in jeans instead of a skirt. Inkachaka is refreshingly humid, and reminded both me and Elder Salmons, who´s from Virginia, of home.

Thanks for your encouragement. Knowing that you think I´m doing a good job counts for a lot. I´m trying to not worry too much what my companion thinks of me, because I can´t really know and it just stresses me out.

Umm, I think that´s about all that happened this week. This coming week we have our trip to the temple and zone conference, which I am really looking forward to.

July 27

Hi Mom and Dad and brothers and everyone else,

Thanks for all the photos. I was also able to see the shutterfly book, which came out really well. One of the things that I didn´t expect to learn as a missionary is scrapbooking, but I seem to be doing a lot of it. For example, everyone makes ¨recuerdos¨ (a page of photos and memories and your contact information) for other missionaries that you get to know. I also cover my agenda in pictures and quotes and occasionally make birthday cards or I´m thinking of you notes for people. 

A few little things: would you take some of the photos that don´t include people in them out of my dropbox? Please save them on the computer at home so that I can have them later, but I´m going to run out of space in the dropbox. 

I´m not going to be able to find camera batteries for my camera here. Would you prefer that I buy a new camera (about 100 dollars) or that you send me a bunch (4) camera batteries. I´m thinking that buying a new camera is better, but won´t have time today, so it would be next week or the week afterwards. 

Hna Simons took great photos of a dance festival  that our stake put on, but I couldn´t get them to load on this computer. She is having a ton of trouble with virus in her photos and I think it´s better not to bother her about the photos I would like to send you. 

I´m a bit short on time so you are getting a copy of part of what I wrote to the mission president. 

I am really happy to be working with Hna Simons because she is making changes that our area really needed, but I miss Hna Gonzales a lot more than I thought I would....... I could have made the changes that Hna Simons is making now, but I didn´t want to upset my companion. 

This is something I´ve noticed about myself. I´m too willing to go along with whatever my companion wants to keep the peace. I am trying to change this about myself. Starting with encouraging Hna Simons to follow the morning schedule more exactly. Hna Simons has also pointed out that I usually let my companion control all of the lesson in an effort to not say or do anything that she wouldn´t like. Hna Simons said that she feels like she´s teaching alone when I do this, so I am trying to take more decisions in the lessons to introduce the next part or leave the commitment and invite them to say the closing prayer. I´m not scared of messing up or saying something wrong to the investigator, but I´m nervous that my companion will criticize me after the lesson if I do something wrong. I really liked the talk that you assigned about how we need to fear God more than man and that includes my companion. 

Overall this transfer is off to a great start. The members are all happy to support us and visit with us. We just had to ask, which we never did much before. We are trying to talk with everyone. Even if the person doesn´t want to hear about the gospel. I feel more motivated to keep working after the conversation, because I know that I am being obedient and did the right thing to talk to them. Our recent convert, Jose Yaipen, is doing great. He just received the aaronic priesthood and is eager to have a calling and do home teaching. He´s reading the scriptures and is always punctual at church.

 We are teaching Alfonzo, who is the husband of an active member, and he accepted a baptizim date. He´s not very talkative, but come to church every Sunday and from what he says in the lessons understand what we are teaching him. We are really excited for him because he´s the last of his family (except for a son who lives far away) to get baptized and the family will be able to be sealed in the temple. 

This week I reached my nine month mark in the mission, but I still feel like I have a lot to learn. I still don´t feel like a very good missionary. Somehow in my 3rd and 4th transfers of the mission with Hna Nuñez I felt confident in my ablity to teach well and speak Spanish well. Now, I don´t feel like I teach as well as I did and, although I can see specific ways that my Spanish has improved, my companion doesn´t always understand me. Reflecting on this, I think Hna Nuñez was just a really great companion, who always made me feel confident and capable, because I can see the little ways my teaching and Spanish have improved even though I don´t feel as confident overall. 

 At the moment, I´m stressed because Hna Simons seems to be blaming me for her photos disapearing, but in general we´ve been getting along just fine and learning quickly to work together well. 

Thank you so much for your lovely letter and pictures and news from home. (Although the news about Potosi didn´t say anything new.)

July 20

Thanks so much for your email and news from home. I was hoping for a
bit of international news too because the rumor in the mission is the
the US and Bolivia aren´t getting along that well at the moment.

I´ve had an interesting week because Hna Simons is as different from
Hna Gonzales in personality as you can get. While Hna Gonzales is
quite introverted and doesn´t like big activities or new people that
much, Hna Simons is super extroverted and loves to talk to everyone.
This is a very useful trait in missionary work, but it is also a huge
change for me and is a bit much sometimes. For example, Hna Simons
pretty much shouts ¨buenas tardes¨ at absolutely everyone. She is very
confident and very eager to work hard, which is great because the area
has a lot of potential, but needs a lot of hard work.

You´re right that her name is European. Her father is originally from
France, but has lived in Bolivia all his adult life.

The talk of the mission at the moment is all the problems that Potosi
is having. They are having what appears to be called a civic strike.
None of the stores can open, nor transportation, nor really anything.
The miners are striking for more industry in the city instead of just
the mine and it´s really difficult for all the people and missionaries
there. Although there is food, no one can open the stores to buy or
sell it and the missionaries had a very hard time leaving and entering
again during cambios. I think President Hansen changed as few
missionaries as possible because my new companion, who came from
Potosi, had to walk with her luggage a long way and then the bus took
a longer route than normal to avoid the protests. This doesn´t really
affect us here in Cochabamba, but we are a bit worried about the
members and missionaries in Potosi.

I am also worrying about what I´m eating, but as you say I don´t have
a ton of control over it. I also enjoy my pensionista´s compliments
that I always eat everything I´m given. I enjoy Bolivian food for the
most part, but I am aware that an awful lot of it is fried and
starches. Generally, a plate has either meat or chicken, rice (or
maybe noodles or potatoes, but mostly white rice) and what is called a
salad. A salad is not actuallly salad, but chopped vegatables (usually
cooked) and often with sauce or mayo. We also eat soup first most
days, which is usually a delicious noodle soup with vegetable and a
bit of meat or chicken. This is all generally pretty healthy; it just
needs more vegetables and fewer fried things or sauces with a lot of
oil. Vegatables are super cheap, but as often more of a garnish than a
main part of the meal. I walk a lot every day, but still seem to be
gradually gaining weight. I hope to go to an area with a lot of hills
in October, but if not I will just have to try to excersize more in
the mornings.

I really like my area and am happy to be here for more time. However,
all the cars and too many people are frustrating and I do not think I
would be happy living in a city for a long time. On the other hand,
living in a place is very different than being a missionary in a
place. If I was just living and working or studying in a downtown area
like Cobija, I would spend a lot of time inside and not have to be
walking around and trying to cross busy streets all day. What I really
like about being a missionary in a downtown area is that the tall
buildings provide shade and all the streets and most of the houses are
helpfully labeled.

I still haven´t found new batteries for my camera, but I still have
more pictures from previous weeks to send you. These include:

Also at the temple, Luis Angel was really cute reading his new Book of
Mormon with big letters because he´s just starting to read well and
the little letters are harder to read. He´s Hna Loida´s grandson. The little girl is Casey, her granddaughter.

The last few pictures from the temple. includeing when we ran into Hna
Ana Eguino, a new member of our ward who works in the temple three
afternoons a week. She is a good friend of ours and we visit her at
least once a week to help out in her house and sometimes go visit investigators with her, if they don´t live too far away.

Photos from Jose´s baptism. Hno Angelo, the elders´ quorem president
baptised him. His fiance, Shirely, is also in the picture and gave the
talk on the Holy Ghost. It was really cold and rainy that day, but we
got the baptism fount water to heat a little (not much) and people
showed up for the baptism.

The mission asked us for photos of our house. This is our house. It is
very nice and comfortable. It is on the second story, which makes it
warmer and have fewer ants (a month or two ago we finally killed all
the ants, and I am very happy to notice that they haven´t tried to
come back).

The view of the mountains with snow as we can see them from Cobija.

Tunari: Missionaries in the snow, somebody brought a plastic washing
tub thing to try to sled, but it broke before I got a turn, a little
iced over creek, llamas from the window of the car as we returned, a
little village that is either abandoned or only used for collecting
the llamas and sheep at night (there are sheep too, but I didn´t take photos of them).

I have been using my retainer once in a while and lately, hardly at
all, because I never have time in the evening to clean it before I can
put it on. I´m trying to make time, but lately we are taking a long
time to do daily planning for the next day in the evening and I barely
have time for anything afterwards.

The other benifit of living in the city is that we can put our trash
in the dumpster half a block away whenever we want to. In Villa Mexico
we had to wait for the dumptruck to come by once or twice a week and
run outside with our trash.

With Hna Simons we are having a lot more success in Cobija. Mainly, we
are making our lessons much shorter and more to the point, which lets
us visit a lot more people each day. Also, we are working more with
the members to have references and invite them to visit with us.
We have also been inviting more people to come to church with us even
if we have only taught them once or twice, . Even if they don´t end up
coming, whether they accept the invitation or not tells us if they are
really interested in learning more about the church or if they are
just friendly enough to let us come talk to them a bit.

July 13

Hi Mom and everyone else too,

Everything wraped up just fine with Hna Gonzales. She´s really a really great missionary. I might have complained a bit, but we got along okay the majority of the time. We just didn´t communicate as well as we should have. For example. she found the noise of the cars in our area really stressful and I didn´t realize that until a few days ago. I think some of the times that she was really stressed had nothing to do with our relationship, but with other things going on with her, it just affected our relationship a lot.

I´ve also been thinking a lot about the book you were reading a couple of months ago on ways different people show and recognize love. [The Five Love Languages] I finally realized that it´s really important to Hna Gonzales that I do little acts of service for her, such as wash a few dishes, or clear her plate at lunch occasionaly. She shows that she cared for me by tidying my desk or shoes, which I took more as being overly obsessed with cleanliness and messing with my things.

Besides different ways to show love, there are also different expectations on how much different people express their love. That is also a cultural difference that several of the missionaries from the US have remarked on. Latin companions expect more outward demonstrations of love than we are used to. In the US we don´t say that we care about people as openly, which makes a lot of the missionaries from the US come off as cold and uncaring. However, once you start to understand the culture better, you can adjust and remember to tell your investigators ¨le queremos mucho¨ (this translates as more of less We care about you or we love you or literally we want you) Spanish is great in that it has different words for romantic love (amar, amor) and nonromantic love (querer, which is also the verb to want). 

I forgot my memory reader in the house, so I won´t be able to send any pictures this week. I also don´t have many new ones, because my last battery died and I have to try to find a new one for the camera. There´s a radio shack in the center and I hope to find one there.

Usually for transfers we get a call Sunday night and then transfer Tuesday morning. However, early  Saturday morning, Hna Gonzales got called and told that she was going to Tupiza and would be leaving Sunday afternoon due to the problems with bloqueos and strikes in Potosi. Potosi is on the way from Cochabamba to Tupiza and has a lot of miners, which occasionaly go on strike and block all transportation into the city. I´m sure you can find more news online if you want to. 

Thus everything was really hectic as Hna Gonzales packed and said goodbye to everyone and then left Sunday at 2:00pm. Since then I´ve been with the sisters in Ingavi, the ward that shares our chapel. They also share our pension and are very nice. I like being with them, but their house is way too small  for three people. I´m looking forward to going back to Cobija Tuesday when I´ll get my new companion.

My new companion is going to be Hna Simmons, who is from Santa Cruz, a city in Bolivia, but outside the limits of the mission. She only has one transfer left, so I will stay in the area after she leaves. Hna Simmons is known for working really hard, which is great. I´m looking forward to working with her and bringing out the potential that Cobija has.

Thanks for all the photos and the news from home. I have a question: what happened to my little laptop? Is Charles going to take that to college? Also, thank Grammie for her package, which came this week. I am putting all the things to good use and especially enjoyed the cute sticky notes and lifesavers.

What other news is there here? Well, the week before last, Jose got baptised, and I´ve barely been able to write anything about him. He´s a really amazing person. His girlfriend is a member and introduced him to the church, but as we taught him and he read the scriptures and came to church, his interest and then testimony of the gospel became separate from his love for his girlfriend. He´s always been a religious person, but now feels much closer to God and bore his testimony after his baptism saying that he knows the church and the Book of Mormon are true. Our next goal with him is that he can go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. We also went to the temple for the first time with Loida (a sister in the ward whom we visit) and she is now constantly trying to find more opportunties to go and we are starting to teach her husband, Alfonzo, who is almost the only member of the family who isn´t baptised. 

I hope you all are having a great summer. It´s been really cold here (cold for Cochabamba, a little chilly for MA), but is starting to get back to normal for this time of year (highs in the 60s or 70s and lows in the low 40s at night and until midmorning). 

I love you all. 
-Natalie 

Any news from Charles in Florida? When and how long will he be in Brasil?

July 6

Sorry about all the confusion with the emails last weeks. I just hit reply like normal, but it only went to Charles. I got a phone call from Hna Hansen Monday night asking if I was okay, which I was. 

I am very well aware that the Pope is going to be in Bolivia. It´s a pretty big deal, but the only real impact is the the price of traveling has a apparently gone up since so many people are traveling to see the Pope. However, there are posters around reminding people of it. If they televise the visit, we might catch a glimps of it.

Thanks for all the world news.

Wow, Charles is going to Rio!!! If there are picture, forward them to me please. 

I love hearing about all the news from home, but never have time to respond to it all. Today, it looks like only you [Dad] are going to get an email and not Mom.

There are a ton of photos, because I didn´t have time to load them last week and both weeks I took a lot. 

First are a lot of photos of Roselyn and her baby. They are so adorable together.  These photos should not go on the blog because Roselyn doesn´t want the photos of her and the baby to be so public. 

The big new map of our area up on the wall.

Some of the things up on the wall next to my desk.

Cool art of different catherals/churchs on the wall of an alleyway.

Last pday our zone went to a barbaque for the birthday of a friend of the secretaries, who helps them out a bunch. It was really fun, but started late, took a long time and then a bunch of us stayed late to help wash the dishes. Thus we were really rushed last pday.

We went to the temple with Hna Loida, a less active member, who was going for the first time to do baptism for the dead. Her two grandkids came with us and were adorable. The temple grounds had snapdragons and I took a lot of photos. 

A celebration at the local cathoic church. We stopped to watch the dances and took some videos, too. It was really pretty. We think it was probably for the patron saint of that particular church because it was only there, not in other parts of the city. 

There are more photos, but I don´t think they are all going to load before we´ll have to go.

Today we had to cancel all of our plans to visit former areas because we had a zone activity. We went to Tunari where there was snow. This last few days have been unusually cold and it rained on Saturday, which was very unusual for this time of year. Thus, the mountains were full of snow. It was rather cold, but I dressed warmly and wasn´t as cold as everyone else. 

Thanks for your letter last week too. I have thoughts to respond to it, but they will have to wait til next week (when I will also have news about my new companion).