November 23

Thanks for all the fotos and the thanksgiving wishes. I had forgotten that it was thanksgiving. 

I´m happy to hear that you finally got my card and letter. I had given up on that letter and thus have not sent Mom anything physical for her birthday.

Hna Callata (with two l´s I discovered) and I are doing well. We´ve gotten off to an interesting start with two of the sister missionaries in the zones we cover not getting along at all. We knew that their personalities would clash a bit, but we didn´t realize that it would happen within so short a time. We visited them, did an exchange (intercambio) for a day, and tried to get them to work together. I think they are okay together now, but wow, was that an exciting way to start being a capacitadora. 

My new ward is actually very mountanous. You can see in a map that only about half of it is in the mountains, but we do most of our teaching there. It´s very pretty and very good exercise, but also very hot and sunny. I am having to put on sunscreen several times a day and this afternoon we are going to go buy hats. We recently got permission to wear hats if the weather requieres. Usually we try not to wear hats because we already get confused with the Jehovah´s Witnesses enough and they always have hats and umbrellas, however it´s just too sunny to not have a hat. Expect photos next week. 

The Photos:

The view from really high up. We are up at the hight of the cellphone towers. 

We bought really good ice cream from the first ice cream truck that I´ve seen in Bolivia. We think he was a church member, because he refused to let us pay for the ice cream.

The panaramic shot is out of our window. 

The church building. You have to go down  a flight of stairs to enter. 

We had a baptism this Saturday. Her name is Brenda and I only met her once before her baptism, so I don´t really feel that she counts as my baptism. However, she is really awesome and has a strong testimony of the church, the Restoration and the Book of Mormon.

We are with the Hna Cicotte in the pictures because she is in trio for a week while her companion had to go defend her thesis in Ecudaor. It´s pretty wierd that she got permision and we hope she comes back. 

Brenda with her friends, Amanda and Emily (or Amielia).

The return missionary who baptised her, Jorge. They are not dating at the moment, but everyone thinks they will. 

Photos of our awesome trio leaving the house this morning. You can also see that the room is pretty, but pretty small and not all that organized at the moment. 

My cards and fotos and my pinecone.  

May I suggests another book for your studies? Our Search for Happiness is not all that long and is sort of an introduction to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, written by the Apostle, Elder Russel M Ballard. I have only read it in Spanish, but I am sure that it is equally good in English. I´m not sure if you can get it from the library, but if not, I will send it to you for Christmas. I really liked the book because it is interesting to read and also walks you through a lot of the basic beliefs of the church in a way that is not complicated, but isn´t overly simple either. I learned a bunch about the beginnings of the catholic church with Linus as the bishop of Rome and also more about the reformers. 

That´s all the time I have today. I hope you have a great week. 

November 16

A surprised cat, who doesn't live here, but kept coming in to the patio.

Yes, I got transfered. I was actually pretty sad about it at first. I decided at last minute that I would really rather stay in Cobija with Hna Garcia and the great ward leader. Also, the bishop invited us to his house for Christmas. However, my opinion has no effect on transfers so I am going to the cala cala ward as a sister training leader. As you will find out when you look it up on lds maps, cala cala is Cobija´s next door neighbor. I was a little disappointed because it is also a rather wealthy area. However, I had enough experience in the mission to know that the transfers are inspired and that I need to be in cala cala.

Another thing that helped me feel more positively is that I called my new companion, Hna Cayata, last night. She is so excited and pleased to have me as her companion and her positive energy wore off on me. My replacement here is Hna Greenhaugh, who I know vaguely to be a good person and I have assured Hna Garcia that she will be great. 

Hne Cayata told me that this is her last transfer in the mission, so I know going in that I have to learn the area in only one transfer, which feels manageable. Also, as a sister training leader (capacitadora) I will do intercambios (exchanges with the sisters in universidad and sacba stakes). I am not a huge fan of lots of intercambios, but this also feels manageable. It was not a huge surprise to be called as a capacitadora because I now have a good time in the mission and our mission has received so many new missionaries recently (30% have 3 months or less) that I am among the oldest.

Modeling my aguayo that I bought last week. It can all work as a table clothe, picnic blanket, or baby blanket.

I finally made the hummus recipe. It turned out really garlicy, but still good and very hummusy.

This morning we went to play basket ball as a district first thing in the morning. Afterwards, we took a photo. Elder May, who is recently joining the district today, took the photo, so I got a photo of him afterwards.

on the way back to the house I took some more photos.

I don´t particularly like this metal horse, but I walked past it at least 3 or four times a day.

One of the bigger avenues in the area.

Best mural ever.

The three pets of the house´s owners. as seen from our door on the second floor.

Hna Garcia waiting for me to finish taking photos.

We live (d) at Suipacha and general acha, which I said several times a week to taxi drivers. Taxis are cheap enough to take when we are running really late.

November 9

I really miss you and hearing that you accidentally brought out a place setting for me made me cry. Everything is fine here and I am getting along super well with Hna Garcia, but I still miss you. I feel that I am getting towards the end of my mission, but at the same time I still have many months left. 

Next week I will know if I have a transfer. I´m pretty sure I will, but I actually might  perfer to stay here. I get along well with Hna Garcia and we have lots of plans to work hard and improve in this ward. I know the ward members well and we have plans to visit the last few active members who I don´t know. I know the streets and can find directions quickly and we never get lost anymore. When I go the area will no longer have someone who knows it well because Hna Garcia has only been here for one transfer while I am on my 5th here. However, I think I will leave in a week.

I haven´t recieved anything yet, but Elder Hansen, who is in charge of the mail, says that I have somethings in the office and he´ll bring them to me when he gets the chance. Packages get to bolivia pretty quickly. Then slow down a bit from la paz to Cochabamba and then slow down even more when an elder has to pick them up from the city post office and remember to bring them to me. 

Yes, Robert sent me some nice, normal day around the house photos. Charles looks way more grown up.

I think that´s it for this week. Things are going well. 

Oh, I almost forgot the most important. We are just starting to teach a woman named Teresa a few weeks ago, she is really nice to us, but really evangelical. The first time we talked about the Book of Mormon, she said, no no no and didn´t want to hear anything about it. We insisted on leaving her a copy and she said she might read it. Well, in the next lesson I asked her if she had read it and she said ¨yes, and it´s a marvel, it´s poetic¨ with a big smile. The Book of Mormon has that power and that effect on people. When you read it, you can feel the Spirit and know that you are reading something good. When you pray to ask God if it´s true the Spirit comes even more strongly. The promise in Moroni 10:4 is true. Later on in the lesson, we asked Teresa if she thinks that Joseph Smith is a prophet. She said that he was a good and a holy man, but she isn´t sure if he´s a prophet because she´s really wary of false prophets. However, this was a huge progress for her and I was really happy to be reminded of how the Book of Mormon can really touch our hearts.

I bought leather scripture covers that many of the missionaries buy. I´m really happy about how they turned out. You will see in the photo the Boston temple and the cochabamba temple and one of my favorite scriptures. The cover will be for an English quad, which I plan to buy when I get home. They cost about 23 dollars, which is really cheap for nice leather things, but took up a lot of my monthly allowence. I will have to take money out of my bank account again this month.

This morning we went to play futbol (soccer) in a part of Cochabamba that I hadn´t visited before. It was fun to run around a bit. We played gringos vs latinos, which not only makes it easier to remember who´s on your team, but also gets more exciting. I played on the latinos team because none of the elders really cared which team the sisters were on and I ¨wanted to win¨, which we were (winning) as I and the other sisters left. We had a lot of shopping and errands to run and didn´t want to stay as long playing futbol.

 

On the way up from the road to the futbol field, we passed a whole bunch of sheep. We stopped to take fotos because sheep are not common in our bit of the city. 

You can see the Cristo de la Concordia in the distance back of one of the fotos. 

Then we waited for the trufi to go to the cancha to go shopping. I bought a couple souveniers, mangos (¨hand over a whole mango, please¨), and got my watch fixed. The wrist band had finally, and after a lot of glue fallen apart, and I bought a new band. 

I tried to take a selfie of us, but I didn´t show up in the foto. Hna Balderrama has a cool shirt that says ¨I´m the fun friend¨

November 2

Hi Mom,

I am feeling much more postive today and really enjoyed your letter. Things that make me happy: it´s monday, we finally found an internet that´s open (it´s a holiday for day of the dead and a lot of things are closed), my photos are loading quickly, we reached a lot of our goals this week and had a ton of people at church.

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Computer programming sounds great. Can I combine it with linguistics or arabic? I totally agree about what type of work enviroment I want. Seeing a lot of different types of jobs here, I am see that I want a job in an office and working for a company, not self employed or creating my own hours and schedule. I enjoyed the one week of programming that I tried an honors week at BYU. I would like to try a more complete class and see if I can do it. You could send me pdf files for me to print here, if it´s easier. 

I´m good with always having the same schedule. I like routine and don´t get bored of it (although I would like to sleep in once a week. I have woken up at 6:30, except for one or two days that I was sick, for the whole year).  

This week we had intercambios with the sister training leaders (24 hours with another person in a different area, while your companion and the other sister training leader stay in our area) this week. I went to siglo xx by the laguna alalay with Hna Wing and remembered what it´s like to be in an area with lots of dust and way too many stray dogs. It was nice and calm, but still had it´s down sides. There are benfits to being in the city. 

Other news this week is that a dog bite my ankle, but before you freak out, it was a really tiny dog and barely broke the skin. We were visiting Juana, a less active member, who has a tiny little lap dog, complete with ugly knit sweater last Tuesday. As we were leaving, the little dog, just came up to me and bit my ankle, which was as high as it could reach. I assured Juana that it was okay and wasn´t even bleeding, which it wasn´t until we got half a block down the street. Thus I bought rubbing alcohol and bandaids (another benefit to being in the center is that there is a farmacy every other block) and cleaned it off and texted hna Hansen. She didn´t text back and the cut is already mostly healed, so you don´t have to worry.

I love you all and am looking forward to Christmas (in less than two months) to skype. 

November 2: photos

I think this is an old photo, maybe from January 2015.

More cool street art. 

The bus number 3 passes right by the temple and thus in it´s list of places it goes has: Tplo Mormon, which is templo Mormon. Cool, huh?

A nativity set I bought. It´s so perfect and I compeltly fell in love with it. I just hope it doesn´t break. 

Sprite in a platic baggie. They very commonly sell soda in a tiny glass bottle (only 190 mL) for only 1 boliviano (less than 20 cents). You have to drink it there and return the bottle, or, if you want it take it with you, they can put it in a plastic baggie with a straw.

Several fotos and tiny video clips from a multi stake activity. We went with Loida and an investigator named Edwin. It was fun although we couldn´t stay for the whole thing, we had to be home at 9:30.

Cool mural this morning. It says: Cut the strings that hold you prisoner. Say no to laziness. 

Hna Garcia and I waiting for the bus after the zone activity (paintball). It is very hot and sweaty. My hair is in braids and are attached together to keep them out of my face. You can see the pedestrail bridge behind us.