January 26

The news about cambios is that my campanion will be Hna Nuñez. I´ve never met her, but everyone says she´s great. She´s already got 14 months or so in the mission and I think is from Peru, if I remember right. I´m generaly happy about the cambio, but I still don´t know very much. I just know that every intercambio I´ve done has gone fine, so I hope I can work with just about anyone. 

This last few days have been a bit of a mess because Hna Aliaga has end of mission activites. I´ve been on the other side of Cochabamba in Frutillar with Hna Capito, whose companion is also leaving, since Saturday and will be here until Tuesday morning when we get our new companions and things go back to normal.

It was really hard to not be in my ward for Sunday because no one was looking after my investigators and we also missed ward council which does not help the ward´s opinion of us as missionaries. However, there really was nothing I could do about it and I sent lots of text messages Sunday morning to try to get our investigators to come to church and to remind ward members to go pick people up or call them.

Frutillar is super different than villa mexico, mainly in that is is way richer. It is also a lot steeper and greener and remindes me of when I got lost in the super steep parts of San Fransisco. The missionaries here actually have to knock on doors to meet new people because there aren´t many people sitting outside their houses like in Villa Mexico. 

Between our normal interviews, Hna Aliaga´s end of mission stuff, and a couple random councidences, I´ve seen a lot of President and Hna Hansen in the last two week, which is really nice. They´re great people and care a lot about all the missionaries. Hna Hansen works hard to make all the missionaries feel at home and that they aren´t being forgotten. Her Spanish has also improved a lot in the time I´ve been here. 

Lambie is still sitting in my closet waiting until I have time to patch her paw, but is all washed and dried. 

Hna Hansen (not the mission president´s wife, the other missionary in my zone), who had her ingrown toenails removed, is supposed to stay home and walk as little as possible for more than a week, but I don´t know is they´ve been able to do that. A week without any missionary work just isn´t possible. I´m worried about my area and only had to leave it for a day and a half.

I am learning to be a lot more flexible and okay with constantly changing plans because everything has been a mess these last few days. I left villa mexico Saturday morning not knowing how many days I´d be gone for. As long as I have my plack, my agenda and clean socks, I´m okay and I just have to pick one or two firm goals or requirements and let everything be flexible. 

Would you google gastritis ( or gastrisis) for me? It´s some for of stomach illness or parasite that I hear people talk about and see a lot of different medicines and natural remedies for and I´m curious. 

Did I write about Noelia last week? I think I did. She continues to be a really great investigator and we had a great lesson with her mother too this Saturday. I just hope things won´t change when school starts again in a week or so. She went to church again even though she is really shy and knew that I and my companion wouldn´t be there. We are having less success with Nicole, who was baptismed a bit more of a month ago. She missed church for the second time in a row this week. I hope it´s just because she´s young and doesn´t understand how important it is. However, the ward members are remembering to support her more, which is really good. 

The other missionaries, especially the latinos, think skiing and cross country skiing is pretty cool. They also asked about sled dogs. :)

I´m glad you liked the photo of the whole group by the river and that I look comfortable. I was squatting awkwardly and did not feel comfortable

enjoy all your snow!

Cambios

January 19

Thanks for your letter and for getting the boys to write. :) 

I´m all fine now. My scabs are all healed and were almost all though clothes so dirt wasn´t a problem. We told the zone leaders immediatly and President Hansen got informed by them and then called to make sure I was okay, but no one even mentioned calling the police, probably because nothing was robbed and the license plate of the car was covered.

Also, Bobby, the little dog, stole Lambie from my bed for a third time and this time she was all wet and dirty and her paw is torn. We try to keep the door closed as much as possible to keep Bobby out, but he sneaks in when we aren´t looking. 

It´s starting to rain almost every day now, which can get rather cold, but I think the rainy season´s all over by the end of february if not sooner, so it won´t last for long. 

Hermana Hansen (not the mission president´s wife, another missionary) has had problems with ingrown toenails and just got them cut out last week. Is that the same thing that happened with Robert as I was leaving? How long did he have to stay off his feet?

The 6 week period is called a cambio in Spanish. I think it´s called a transfer in English. Yes, this is the last week. Next Sunday I find out my new companion and next Tuesday she shows up and Hna Aliaga goes home. The last couple days, starting this Friday or Saturday are going to be a mess because Hna Aliaga has end of mission activities. I think I´m going to be with another missionary whose companion is also leaving for some of those days, but I still don´t really know how it´s all going to work. 

I´m a bit nervous about who my companion is going to be, because I get along really well with hna aliaga and I might not get along so well with this new person and it will certainly be awkward at first and I can´t figure out how to say awkward in spanish. I´ve asked around and no one else knows how to say awkward in spanish either. 

I´m sorry to hear about everything going on with Beth. What you´re discribing sounds to me like a group home, those exist, don´t they?

I didn´t realize that the bookshelves were in the sitting room. I thought they were going in the futon room. What are you going to do with all the space in there?

This week we have some great new people we are teaching and more than are starting to progress more, which is really nice. I wanted to do a sort of spotlight the investigators with some of the people I have photos of to give you more of a sense of what I´m doing, but I don´t really have time now. If you have questions about the pictures, ask. 

The family in the last few pictures are Carola and Alex(not pictured), we made umentas (tamales) with them, which was fun, but they came out kind of gross tasting in my opinion (too much cheese). They are a really great family. Their two little boys get along and play together all the time and tell me all about dinosaurs and which ones eat plants and which ones eat people. Alex and Carola really love each other and are motivated to listen to us so that they can be sealed in the temple. 

Every Tuesday we have a missionary night at the church, which just means that the missionaries plan the activities. Last Tuesday was our turn (we alternate with the elders) and we had a great scavenger hunt with different clues from the scriptures. Afterwards we talked about the parables from the new testament that compare the kingdom of heaven to a treasure and how valuable it is. 

 Se regalan gatitos aqui...Kittens are given here!

January 12

I got Christmas cards from Allentown grandparents and from Aunt Heather this week, if they ask. I´m planning to write to Gramma Bibi next week. The letter from Aunt Heather is great and is so her voice. Both are up on my wall, which is looking a lot less bare lately. Because our house is smaller than a lot of missionaries´ houses, it looks a lot more lived-in, which is really nice.

I don´t have any pictures for you this week because I forgot to bring my memory reader with me and Hna Aliaga will be using hers the whole time. She got a virius in her memory last week and has been stressed all week waiting to hear if someone can recover her pictures. I think she´s got most of them, but they are all out of order and not as good quality. 

Congrats to Robert and Charles!  That´s great. [Nordic Skiing] I keep losing track of Acton weather because things are pretty constant here and the school schedule is different. The new school year starts in the first week of February. There should be better snow now that it´s so cold, but, if not, you can all go ice skating with Hazel instead. 

Yes, Harley was that nuts before. In Alaska they put a bit of chicken blood in the sled dogs´ water to get them to drink it all before it freezes. Maybe you could mix a something that Harley likes into his water so that he drinks it quickly outside or will drink it inside. 

This week I ate rabbit with out knowing what it was. I did notice that it was a bit weird, but I try to not to notice if food is a bit weird. I´m feeling more confident with eating whatever I´m given, but I´m happy that meat is almost always completely well done here. The only thing I really don´t like is cheesy rice because the type of fresh cheese just isn´t good melted. 

The main news this week is that I almost got robbed. On Thursday night on our way back to our house, a person in a car grabbed my shoulder bag from behind. However, my bag goes across my body and it´s really strong so it didn´t break. The downside of that is that I got dragged for a few seconds before they let go. I got a bit scrapped up and bruised, but not as much as you´d think from what happened. Hna Aliaga was really shaken up because she thought I´d been hit by the car for a few seconds, but I didn´t really realize what had happened until it was over, so I wasn´t particularly upset. My glasses are bit bent, but the glass is fine and I have my spare pair until I get them fixed and my bag only lost the decorative button from hitting the ground.

 We´re trying to walk home i different routes now and walk on the sidewalk more, especially at night, but the day I almost got robbed was one of the only days we were actually getting home on time (we´ve supposed to be home at 9 or 9:30 if we are in an appointment), so besides pay more attention to our surroundings, there´s not a ton we can do. 

There´s a new mission in Bolivia that was just announced! I don´t know anything else about it besides that´s centered in El Alto, which is kind of part of La Paz. Would you look up for me if there´s any other info about it? There might not be, but maybe it´ll affect our mission boundries. 

Thanks for the info about OTB. It makes sense from how I`ve seen in on signs. Dad´s thing to google for me this week: DAKAR. I think it´s a car race, but it might be connected to a plan to build a new highway. I also want to know what the logo is a picture of. It looks like a guy in middleeasternish clothing to me. 

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.