September 14

All is well, but no blog post this week.

September 7

Wow Robert{s hair is really long and curly! Also, I can{t find the apostrophe key on this keyboard. I guess it{s not very important for writing in Spanish.

I{ve had a pretty normal week as Hna Palma and I learn to work together. She is very perceptive and realized quickly that when I have to multitask I get really stressed really quickly so we are trying to take things a bit more slowly and calmly.

We have a great booklet called Adjusting to Missionary Life that gives all sorts of advice about nor being stressed. It{s helping the two of us a lot. It has different sections depending on what is stressing you (for example: talking to new people, learning the language, having to do exersize every morning), but it doesn{t have a section for flustered and overwhelmed, which from the beginning of my mission has been the thing that occasionaly stresses me. However, I just try to remember that I don{t have to do everything perfectly because there simplly isn{t time for it all. Generally, I{m doing fine and remembering to take a deep breath and take things one and a time. I also make a lot of lists on sticky notes.

Other interesting things this week are that I recieved a wedding invitation in the mail inviting me to Jacob Berrey and Megan Baudette{s wedding. Wow, I didn{t know about that. Has anyone else gotten married without telling me about it?

I don{t have any pictures this week except for one of a new cactus   I have, which can wait until next week. It is a really adorable cactus, but now I have two plants and don{t know how I{m going to be able to take them with me when I leave Cobija.

Yep, I{m going to be in Cobija for a super long time. When I leave I{ll only have 6 months left in the mission, which is 4 transfers. It could possibly be two areas, but probably only 1. I{ve also realized that if I have goals that I want to achieve in the mission now is the time to do them. 

Charles{ dorm and campus looks really cool. I can imagine lots of freshman camping out all over campus.  I{m also looking forward to going back to college. Maybe linguistics or maybe middle eastern studies or maybe something math or computer related, or, really I still have no idea. It depends how I do in my first semester of Arabic.

I was talking with hna Palma, who has never lived away from home before and doesn{t plan to until she gets married, about how little I lived at home the year before the mission and how little I plan to afterwards. Between going to college so far away and possible summer jobs, I have no idea if I{ll be at home much. 

August 31

My companion is Hna Palma, who´s from Ecuador (in the north nearish to the coast, but I forget the city). She´s 19, really short, and already a really great missionary. We are getting along well and learning a ton together. 

First the photos:

I am the village, innumerable people
I have in my voice the sheer force
Give me your hands I see them
on the rough sand
this hand and that hand
and what it returns to be planted
I do not feel alone at night

in the darkness of the earth



We went to the Cristo with the new missionaries, just like when I arrived. The landscape hasn´t changed, but my new camera takes panaramic shots. :)

Try to find a tiny sand colored lizard in the close up shots of the ground. (Hint I can only find it in one of them.)

The laguna Alalay. Villa Mexico is one the other side of that hill. 

Selfies with Hna Palma so that we can send photos of us to our families. 

This has been a very busy week as I get used to being a trainer and Hna Palma gets used to being a missionary. I´ve learned a ton already.

I forgot the first two days that even though she can speak Spanish and put on the appearance of participating fully in lessons, she still doesnt know what to say. When I realized that, we slowed the pace of the work down a bit and starting planning in much greater detail for each lesson, which has helped a ton. I love that she is so eager to learn everything. She easily realizes what she needs to work on and suggests that we do practices on that thing in companionship study. I´ve also realized that I´ve improved a lot since last time I was doing 12 semanas, which makes me feel confident and that this (training, missionary work in general) is something I can do.

However, this first week has been a bit stressful for the two of us and I´m really grateful for the book on adjusting to missionary life. Hna Palma´s been pretty homesick and I´m adjusting to training a new missionary. 

On the other hand, I´ve really felt the Spirit this week. I´ve felt that I could understand the problems and concerns of the investigators better than usual. Especially on Friday, we could see the hand of the Lord. As we were walking to visit someone with a sister from the ward, I suddenly remembered a reference we had recieved for Alberto in the house we were passing. We stopped to ask if he was home and he was and invited us up to talk. We got to know Alberto and discovered that the member used to be a member of the same church where he goes now and she was able to share the story of her conversion. Alberto still has lots of question and doubts, but this was a great start with him. That same day in the night as we were walking to the pension we passed by a former investigator, Marco. We said hi and starting to pass by, but I felt that we should cross the street and go talk to him. We had stopped visiting Marco because he never ever was home even when we had a set appointment. However, he told us that he´s kept reading the Book of Mormon and is now in Alma and really likes it. 

Not everything is perfect. One of our best progressing investigators, Gonzalo, told us on Sunday that he´s not going to have time to meet with us anymore, which really broke my heart. It came out of no where. 

Being punctual with the morning schedule is also a lot harder than I thought it would be. Hna Palma just isn´t used to following a strict schedule and we run late for just about everything. I want to set a good example and get her in the habit of being punctual, but I also want to be sensitive to her feelings and needs. I think in this coming week we´ll be able to be more strict the schedule.

In all we are off to a good start and getting along great. 

Congratulations on beating croo in volleyball. It sounds like you had a great time. Next year I´ll be there too, although I don´t promise to help much in volleyball.

Wow, Charles is really starting college. Lots of luck for him. I think he´ll have a great time. Please send me plenty of photos. I´ve never seen Princeton in person. Also, Charles, what are you thinking of studying? What classes are you going to take? 

Extra photos

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.

August 17

Thanks for the news from home and pictures. I also have plenty of pictures, but this internet cafe doesn´t let you upload anything.

Thanks, but I don´t need a new fleece. I could find one here, but I also have sweaters that work just fine. 

Yes, this is already my last week with Hna Simons. Next Monday I´ll know who my next companion is. The time with Hna Simons has passed really quickly for me too and I´ll miss her. She reminded me of a lot of things I had forgotten in missionary work. She´s a really happy person and generally fun to be with. 

I´m glad you are going to be able to go to Three Mile and that I´m only going to miss it once.

I just wrote I paper letter to Dad so I feel like I´ve already told you everything, but I know you won´t get the letter for a bit. Also, this keyboard sticks and is annoying to write with. Thus, you are getting what I already wrote to the mission president with only a few edits (it´s the same topics I was already planning to write to you about).

Our zone has a goal that each companionship should have 50 contacts each week, so we are trying to talk to lots of people. I have no fear of going up to someone and starting to talk except that after good afternoon how are you, I often can´t think of what to say. However, sometimes I can and everything goes fine. We did divisions yesterday afternoon with two sisters from the ward and I did just fine following the impressions of the Spirit to talk to people and either set up a lesson or get their directions if they didn´t live in our area.

Alfonzo got baptised this Saturday and everything went great. He passed his interview without a problem and after the baptism shared his short, but sincere testimony that he knows that the church is true and is happy with the decision he´s made. The baptism was well attended and the bishop is already planning the interview so that Alfonzo can recieve the priesthood and a temple recommed. He still needs lots of lessons from us to help him learn more, but it was the right decision to let him be baptised quickly. 

A bunch of what I was going to write is really just captions for the photos that I can´t send you so it will wait until next week.

August 10

[Photos from August 3 are now added.]

Thanks for all the great pictures. You all look happy and that it´s very sunny out. It is also a bit warmer here and it appears that the winter is starting the end (except that Sunday morning is started to rain in the middle of sacrament meeting and the noise distracted everyone.)

I bought a new camera this week. We didn´t even have to go shopping for it. The grown son of the pensionista was visiting yesterday and had a camera to sell for 100 dollars. It´s new, works great, and is better than the old one. I have only had it one day so the only photos are of me with the cat that belongs to someone else in the building. However, I will pass some of the photos from the mission´s dropbox to my dropbox. Most of them are from pday last week in Inkachaka, Elder Mandujanu has a new camera and took selfies with everyone. We had a great time, but afterwards I misplaced my green fleece and lost it. I assume from your message that you already have a bunch of the photos from the temple trip. Could you post a few on the blog, please?

Although it is only the middle of August, my birthday is in less than two months and it takes about a month for a package to arrive. Just a friendly reminder that I will turn 21 in a bit. :)

Things are going well in Cobija. We have serveral new investigators, and are getting to know the ward members even better. 

Hno Alfonzo´s baptism is going to be this coming Saturday. I was feeling pretty nevous about it because it felt a bit rushed. Once he understands something he doesn´t forget it, but usually we have to go over something several times before he gets it. He also works really long hours and gets home tired and doesn´t have time to read the Book of Mormon much. However, I decided to pray about it first before talking to my companion about changing the baptism date. I asked God if Alfonzo should be baptised the 15th and felt immediatly the Spirit conforting me and saying that it would all be okay. Alfonzo understands the convenent of baptism and the commandments and basic doctrine of the church. The little details can come after his baptism. Also, he has yet to miss a Sundaysince he moved here from Beni (another part of Bolivia), so I´m not worried that he´ll suddenly decide not to come. 

Thanks for the pictures of Charles and the news from his races. I miss sitting at dinner and being told in great detail about all his races and practices and plans.

What are Dad and Robert doing in Boston common? I can´t believe that Robert is starting driver´s ed! I´m glad that Dad is feeling a bit better. 

I do all my braid´s myself, but they take a while and only turn out well with damp hair, so I don´t do them that often. More often I do one french braid in Hna Simmon´s hair because she really likes to have braided hair. I also got my hair cut today, but I don´t think you´ll notice the difference in photos. It´s pretty much the same. 

Thanks for taking out some of my photos from dropbox. Please keep them safe, because I think I deleted them all from my camera memory when I put the memory in the new camera.