March 21

please excuse the lack of capital letters. the key is stuck and doesn´t make capitals.

i´ve had a busy and wierd week. in summary, hna bender went to the hospital because we were certain that her appendix was bad, but they declared her perfectly healthy and sent her home even though her stomach was still hurting. We participated in the ward talent show with barely two minutes of preparing our act (we prepared a different thing, but at last minutes dicided that it was too dark and violent. it was a christian rap song that brayan found online called el assaltante, if you want to try to google it.) We had stake conference on Saturday night and sunday, which was very nice and one of our investigators sang in the young woman´s choir. we also were invited and tried to go to a catholic baptismal service of robert and brayan´s neice, but we got there too late and it was already ending. We still got to poke around a very busy catholic church for a bit. It was palm sunday and very full. 

i think it was very different from Dad´s experience with the early morning latin mass. we were in a big cathlic church in the mid afternoon it was full of noisy parishors, people on their phones or taking picture, a few beggers, and a lot of people outside selling palm fronds, rosaires, and snacks. It was very pretty with all the paintings and candles, but made me remember when Christ cast the people selling things out of the temple for lack of reverance.

Oh, Happy Easter! Here is a cool easter video. I was looking for another easter video to send you, but there are too many to choose from on biblevideos.lds.org

the photos are generally self explainitory. last monday we went up into the mountain again and looked at an old building,

Hna Bender made me a cool little note with minions.

A tiny kitten in an investigator´s house.

Sorry for the short email, but I am trying to find time to organize my photos.

March 14

This week I am getting a few weeks worth of photos to you. Starting with some wierd flowers that we ran across. 

You should also find pìcture of:

Steven, a beautiful white cat that likes to hang out with the sisters in the villa graciela ward. We can´t have pets, but their neighbors´ cat spends a lot of time in their house and is totally adorable.

Several pictures of Hna Bender trying to climb a tree. We are in Hna Isabel´s yard, which is very pretty and 

peaceful. 

Hna Bender was very tired and feel asleep in the middle of reading a conference talk out loud. It was very funny and I took a picture. (we are in Hna Isabel´s house.)

There was a cool rainbow the other day.

Hna Bender resting while I prove to her that Nephi´s brothers did try to throw him off a cliff once. 1 nephi 17:48. I found it, well, it only says that they tried to throw him into the sea, but if you are on a beach that isn´t going to do any damage. It must have been a cliff. 

Hna Bender took a photo of me showing Hermano Antonio picture of the prophet during a lesson. I don´t know how no one noticed the camera. Hno Antonio came to church with us this last Sunday. 

I was in intercambios in barrio Las Cuadras this week and took a cool photo of the view from a small, but very steep hill. You can see the Alalay Lagoon and the Cristo in the corner. 

Some hurried selfies. (it´s not the type of neighborhood where you really want to take your camera out.)

Hna Bender with a small pig. Usually we don´t see any pigs, but we were really high up in the mountain, where it is a lot more rural. We also saw a lot of cows, but didn´t take any photos. Oh, there are photos. They were very big and very close.

About working for those 5 weeks, I would like the dog walking job and I will ask around about baby sitting. I feel much more confident about baby sitting than last time I tried it (I think I was in jr high or a freshman). 

Hna Bender finishes her mission in June, six weeks after me. She is going to go to school in Orem, Utah, so we are already planning on spending time together after the mission. We are hoping to stay together for as long as possible, but I think it is likely that I will be transfered in 2 weeks and spend my last 6 weeks in a different area. I hope that if I have to be transfered, I will get to go to a different city, or at least to the outskirts of Cochabamba.

This week we had several funny experiences. Ester´s dog peed on my foot, which was very funny and also very annoying.

Also, a few nights ago we got home and there was a wierd sound in the bed room. It was a sort of slurping noise as if a medium sized animal was eating something. We opened the door briefly and didn´t see anything unusual, but there are lots of spaces that something could hide, such as under the bed or behind the extra matresses or the dresser. Also, in the bathroom there is a large, purposeful, but uncovered hole up to the crawlspace where something could come in.

Thus we quickly left the house and called Roberto, because we knew that he would both be willing to help and also capable of getting the animal out of the house. He showed up in a bit with his brother Brayan. They went up and listened at the door. There was definitely something slurping in our room. With broom and large squeege in hand they carefully entered the room and looked around nervously to listen to where the animal might be hiding.

However, upon entering the room and getting a different perspective you could see that the floor was wet and then notice that water was dripping from the cieling. There had never been an animal, just a slurping sound of drops of water hitting the floor. We talked to our very nice land lady and got it all fixed. There had been leaky pipes in the crawlspace above us. 

Also this week I bought chicken and actually cooked a few of my dinners instead of just making a sandwich or a cheese quesadilla, which made me feel pretty grown up. I asked Hna Bender and she says that we definitely count as grown ups now. I don´t know when that happened, but she must be right. All of the leaders in the mission are young adults, except for the mission president and his wife, who we only see about once a month. Yet, everything runs smoothly and we make a real difference in a lot of people´s lives. I think we must be grown ups now. 

Photos

Early this morning, we went up into the mountain to watch the sun rise. When we got up there it was already pretty bright out, but we got to wait for the actual first rays of sun. See pictures. We could also see most of the city from the mountains. You should find photos of: panaranic of the city, another one with Hna Bender who thought I was taking a photo, the sky gradually brightening, our shadows, long in the early morning, Hna Bender doing something, I don´t know what.



studying outside



We moved out!

We have had a very busy week. Did I ever tell you that we were looking for a new apartment? Well, we were for all of february, walking around looking for for rent signs, searching the classifieds, asking members, everything. We finally found one this week and moved in on Saturday. It is so much nicer than the little suite we were in before where we studied, ate, and slept in the same room. Now we have a tiy study, a kitchen, and a bedroom. Best of all, we have a kitchen sink now! I hope to send you pictures next week. 

After moving on Saturday, we were hoping to have a restful Sunday, but it did not turn out like that. First of all, we had to pick up and drop off some young investigators, who´s mom couldn´t come at last minute. They seemed to enjoy church and their mom promised to come next week, she had just had a parent´s meeting at the school at late notice. 

I like eating oatmeal, Hna Bender likes taking selfies. We multitasked.









Salchipapas con Roberto 



It was raining...really hard 

March 7

Thank you for your touching and also very funny email. I can totally picture that after dinner conversation. Yes, I remember dinasours alive and well. I remember that eating a banana gives you energy to sleep for several hours, but only enough energy to bike for 12 minutes. 

Yes, I will use some of my money on my travels home, because Hna Bender and I are day dreaming about milk shakes and american hamburgers. 

I agree that I am learning a lot of things that I really needed to know in the mission and learning a lot about myself. The mission is great experience of identifies things that one wants to improve, setting goals to change, and seeing the results. Sometimes with little things like; remembering to turn off the lights, and think before you speak, and sometimes with big things like learning to explain complex ideas simply, and how to apoligize, but not too much for every little thing, because that´s annoying. I am still working on being on time for things and not taking forever to get ready in the morning or before bed. I am very hopeful on how I can apply these things to college classes and all that real world stuff. 

Also, speaking of learning how to understand people, I have lots of chances to practice that. After most lessons I talk to my companion about how the people we visited are doing and what we need to teach or help them with. We try to understand their motivations and exactly what is difficult for them or is motivating them. For example, if Antonio keeps changing the subject while we teach about prophets, is it because he doesn´t want to take about prophets, or because he already gets it and is bored, or because he just really wants to take about his grandchildren, regardless of what we were teaching?

I am enjoying Bolivia a lot. I love speaking Spanish, and about 5 words of Quechua (I know how to say how are you and my name is and count to 3. This does not help me at all in every day life). I love studying the gospel (in the new testament I am currently in Paul´s letters, which are so cool) and teaching people. You would think that one would get bored teaching the same thing over and over, but honestly, I feel that something is missing if we go more than a day or two without teaching about the restoration of the gospel. 

There are always things that I don´t like. It is often very, very hot and sunny, unless there is pouring rain. This week I got a cold and was very sniffily and headachy for a few days. I am feeling better today, but still have a cough. Our new house occasionly doesn´t have running water for a few hours, which is very annoying, when I just want to wash my face, but it came back on again and we are going to fill a plastic bin  with water just in case so that we can still wash hands and all. 

This week we had a cool experience teaching a new investigator, Primativa, about the restoration of the gospel (what is a prophet, how did Jesus establish His church, why are there so many different religions, who was Joseph Smith, how can one know the truth for themselves (prayer)). Brayan who recently got baptized, came with us to share his testimony. It was lovely to hear this share the story of Joseph Smith´s First Vision. (we made him read the part that we have memorized ¨I saw a pillar of light....¨) However, I loved how Hna Bender brought the Spirit into the lesson when she testified of Christ and how much she loves Him. Even though, we teach lots of different doctrines that people need to learn, the most important thing we can teach and of which we can testify is Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Savior and Redemer of the world. Here in Bolivia sometimes we don´t put enough focus on it because few people doubt that Christ is their Savior, but it is still so important to teach about His Atonement for us. 

Also, Hermana Isabel came to church yesterday, which was great. She was one of the pioneers in Bolivia and was baptised in the 70s when the church was still very new here. However, she hadn´t gone to church for many years now and finally decided to come this week. I was so happy to turn around after the Sacrament Meeting ended and see her there. 

I love you a ton. I miss you all too. I hope you have a great week.