March 30

I´m sorry my last email made you worry about me. I really am enjoying Villa Mexico. Although I am looking forward to a transfer and getting to know somewhere new, I will also miss this area and all the people a ton. I feel comfortable in the ward and haven´t gotten us lost for ages. 

The fact that the last few months of one´s mission are the hardest to focus is well known among the missionaries. This feeling is called being ¨trunky¨ or ready to pack your trunk. Although, not all the Spanish speaking missionaries seem to realize that this is a word in English and not just mission slang. (and spell it tronki)

I´m glad you saw the pictures of our sister missionary gathering. It was a lot of fun. We had some lessons from the sister training leaders, a self defense class, a really nice dinner, and watched the general women´s broadcast. The self defense class was super short, but we learned some good, martial arts-y moves to get someone´s hands away from you or off your bag. The main difference with Impact is the length of the class, but also that Impact's main advice was not to be afraid to elbow or knee them as hard as you can, while this was more learning different moves that you can use to control the situation. 

Easter is a little confusing because for all the catholics the whole week is equally important (I think) and not just Easter. Also, we have General Conference this weekend, so there´s no Easter program at Church at all. Also, Easter is pedestrians´ day in all of Cochabamba, which means there are no cars or motorcycles anywhere and everyone has to walk or bike. This is a great idea in general because everyone dusts off their bikes and the little kids can use the whole street for tricycles and scooters without worrying about cars. However, it´s always on General Conference and some of the members live really far from the chapel. Dia peatonal is always the first is april, which happens to be easter this year, but is always general conference.

there weren´t any cars Sunday either because of elections (cars, motorcycles, and gathering of large groups are prohibited on election day). We couldn´t have church either.

The animal from last week wasn´t there anymore. I´m not sure if it got sold or just kicked out for eating someone´s pet bird. 

Pictures this week are of Hna Nuñez reciving her ¨carta trunky,¨ which has her instructions about the last few weeks of her mission. She has only one more transfer after this one. Behind her you can see the votes for what we are going to do the pday after this one. The decision is paintball again, because there isn´t really much to do in Cochabamba. Aparently, there used to be bowling, but the bowling place closed a few months before I got here. Today is going to be really boreing because it´s the very end of the month and no one has any money. 

Then there are two blury pictures of the temple at night. The mission home is just across the street from the temple, so I took these pictures as we were leaving. President Hansen also gave us roses, which I put in water bottles on the counter. The pink one is mine. 

Other news is that Jose Maria Leyes won the election for mayor. Since we don´t read the news I know the names and colors of the different parties well, but not any of the issues. 

Also, Hna Nuñez has had a cold and bad cough for days now, which I have still managed to avoid catching. I think it comes from the way the weathers been lately. Cold, rainy nights and really hot during the day. I got sun burnt again, but not too badly. 

This week we had intercambios with the sister training leaders and I went with Hna Rumaldo to her area, villa luz. This intercambio wasn´t as eventful as the last one and was really just a normal day in someone else´s area. They eat lunch with two pairs of elders and the elders are fun, but just as immature as ours were when we ate with elders. 

Thank you for all the pictures. Who took them? They turned out very well. I think Charles looks different, but I´m not sure how. 

March 23

Thank you for your emails, for your thoughts and the news from home. The news here is that we thought we were going to be stuck inside for all of next Sunday because of election, but it turns out that we have a normal day, except that church is canceled. The elections are for mayor, governor, and some other smaller things and are a much bigger deal than those are in the US, as far as I remember. Gathering in large groups is prohibited and thus, we don´t have church.

The other big news here in Bolivia is that a few weeks ago the main bridge to Santa Cruz gave out and now trucks have to use a really old and out of shape road to go to the west of the country. I think this affects most fruit prices because most of the fruit come from Santa Cruz, but I don´t pay enough attention to fruit prices to really notice. 

We´ve had a pretty good week. Although almost all the members who were going to come visit with us canceled on us, which is disappointing. I also reached (I don´t know what verb to use here. In Spanish we use cumplir-to turn (an age)) 5 months in the mission. I´m not brand new anymore. 

I have plenty of photos this week.

First are several of us with Luis Fernando, who is currently our best investigator. I don´t know why he´s not smiling in the pictures. He is generally a very happy person, despite all the problems he has in his life. He is 76. He always surprises us by how much he understands the Book of Mormon because he sometimes doesn´t seem to understand us. However, I think it´s more that he doesn´t feel the need to directly answer our questions when he has other things he wants to talk about. He hasn´t come to church yet because his wife is very sick and can´t be left alone and his two teenage grandchildren, who live with them, aren´t very reliable. However, he´s a really awesome person and, now that the ward is starting to take him seriously, I think he will progress more. Also, he has a really old Book of Mormon because his stepson, who died several years ago, was a member of the church.

Then we have pictures with Brenda, who is the cousin of members of our ward and lives just around the corner from them. We aren´t teaching her a lot because she´s only 10, but she likes to come to activites and made us cute little foam thingys. 

We went to the temple with Noelia and Graciela this week. They are doing great. I didn´t realize until now how much Nicole, who got baptized in December, is struggling in comparison. The Cochabamba temple is really beautiful. I like how the walls for the first floor are slanted like Incan building are. (You can´t really see it in the picture.)

Magali, Estefani, and Corala have a new pet/animal that happens to live in their house. They already have a ton of small dogs, a rotating half dozen cats, and a random sheep. I don´t think what this thing is (I forgot), but it is very much a wild thing and not a pet. Carola is the girl in yellow and the little girl is her younger sister, Leonor. Magali and Estefani are a bit older and are not in the photos. The older 3 were baptized a little more than a year ago and are technically active in the church, but need a lot of support. 

This week we finished an assignment from the president´s assistant (2 elders who serve as councilors). They gave us a 3 week long schedule of scriptures to read and things to ponder each day all on the topic of Christ and the Atonement. I enjoyed it because I read closely a lot of great scriptures that I can now use in lessons and because it really increased my testimony of Christ and the importance and reality of the Atonement. 

I find it hard to believe that Robert is taller than Dad. You all sound really busy and constantly doing new and different things. I am also really busy, but always with the same things, just the people change occasionally. 

March 16

This week we had a fun activity with a bunch of the young single adults. We (the 4 missionaries in the ward and the ward mission leader, Hno Lopez) invited them to come on Saturday afternoon to talk about missionary work and make and eat pizza. Everything ran very late, but it turned out well in the end and we hope to have more people who want to come visit with us.

We continue to visit Noelia and Graciela several times a week to keep supporting them. We also really enjoy visiting Noelia and Graciela. They are doing well and happy to see us. It makes me really happy when Noelia asks us questions that show she is reading her Book of Mormon really closely and how excited they both are to go to the temple with us next week.

This Sunday one of the leaders from the stake came to give a talk in our ward, reviewing a few things from the stake conference the previous week. He gave an example of how we should try to learn from conferences and lessons in general. Once there was a penguin who knew how to fly. All the other penguins wanted to learn too, so he said he would teach them. The next day all the penguins came to learn how to fly and practiced all day until they could fly. Then they all walked home. He explained that when we learn something in conference or at church we also need to apply it and remember it when we go home.

This Sunday, like most, I felt like I was herding cats trying to get everyone to go to their classes. Daniela wouldn´t enter relief society without us, but we had to go track down Loida to get her to go too. Also, everytime we turned around Alejandro and Kevin escaped from young men´s. And, half of the primary is always in the hallway, which the ward is trying to work on and isn´t really our responsibility, but we try to help too. We finally got everyone into their proper classes more than halfway into the hour and finally entered relief society ourselves. Herding cats.

The photos are: my continuing adventures in braiding my hair, a cheap hard candy called ¨watt´s,¨ and a bunch of photos from today. We went to pyramani, which is more or less and national park. We barbaqued, which was very yummy, but just like in the US had lots of flys and some bees. We also hiked about 20 minutes to see a small waterfall and some very steep cliffs. This is all about an hour and a bit from my area, on the other side of the city. 

Oh, my shoes came. They seem great, but I will try to wait at least a month more before using them. 

March 9

Something I was thinking about this week is that as missionaries we only really see the people who are struggling in the gospel. We had stake conference this week and I realized how many really active, happy members there are in the stake. However, we only visit the less active ones who are having problems in the church and, often, problems in their families too. It can be a bit depressing because we can see what will make them happier, but we can´t do it for them. However, we also teach a lot of investigatores who are learning about the church and whose lives are improving. However, they still need a lot of support and help from us.

I was thinking about that and also about how doctors only really see people who are sick and social workers only see families that aren´t working and a lot of other jobs deal only with the people or the parts that aren´t working out, but beyond that there are a lot of things that are going well, but that don´t need the attention. 

Anyway, here are my pictures:

First there are a lot from the last zone meeting. Elder Aguilar and Hna Aguilar are showing that they have the same last name and Elder Harris is making kissy faces because he know it drives Hna Aguilar nuts.

Then there are several blurry photos of my success in french braiding my hair. I think it came out really well, but I haven´t had the patience to do it a second time. 

This Saturday an investigator of the elders got baptised and they had me give the talk on the Holy Ghost. Actually they told me ahead of time, but I thought they were joking. Anyway, I wrote my notes on my hand during the talk on baptism and I think it all came out pretty well. I will be impressed if you can read my notes in spanish.

This week we also had intercambios with the sister training leaders, which is my opinion didn´t go that well. I got sick that morning and still don´t understand why. It wasn´t the normal stomach thing (I actually have been completely healthy this whole cambio) and I think was stress related, even though I didn´t think I was stressed and couldn´t think of any reason to be stressed. However, I learned a lot from Hna Santeco, especially about how to do daily planning better and the importance of keeping the area book more up to date. I didn´t get to show her how well I´m doing, but that really isn´t what the purpose of intercambios is supposed to be. 

February Temple Trip

March 2

First we have Sebas (Sebastian) hiding under a washtub waiting to scare Hna Nuñez when she gets out of the bathroom. He is the 4 year old son of our pensionista, Hna Anavel, and is adoreble, He is also just starting preschool, and while he enjoys it, we can also see that he´s pretty stressed by it. Did you ever have trouble getting us to eat when we were little? Hna Anavel´s kids never want to sit down and eat their lunch. 

The close up is of a sort of bland popcorn snack, that is made with the big, tougher corn that is common here. We think it´s called tostado and also that it´s really cheap because investigators often give us a lot to take with us. 

 Next we have photos from the baptism of Noelia and Graciela and also the card we made Noelia. I did the design and Hna Nuñez wrote the message because I hate trying to think of thoughtful things to write in cards even when I really care about the people. Can you read the Spanish?

 The baptism was a really special experience for everyone. Noelia was really nervous before we started the service, but after her baptism gave a simple, but hearfelt testimony that she was happy about the decision she had made to be baptised. Hna Graciela, her mom, has been incredibly firm in her decision ever since she started to listen to us and stop opposing Noelia´s desire to come to church. Pablo, an investigator of the elders was also baptised at the same time. 

The baptism was a really special experience for everyone. Noelia was really nervous before we started the service, but after her baptism gave a simple, but hearfelt testimony that she was happy about the decision she had made to be baptised. Hna Graciela, her mom, has been incredibly firm in her decision ever since she started to listen to us and stop opposing Noelia´s desire to come to church. Pablo, an investigator of the elders was also baptised at the same time. 

Noelia´s grandma, brother, and sister also came. I´m really happy for this family. I´ve really seen how the gospel has changed their lives. Noelia and her mom get getting along much better and Noelia is making friends at church and she was super shy when we met her. They are hoping Alejandro, who´s 12, will want to be baptised too and Dayan will be able to be baptised when she turns 8 in a few years.

Pablo was also a miracle for the elders because he showed up in the ward a few weeks ago from Santa Cruz and told them that the missionaries were teaching him there and that he wanted to get baptised, but had to move here for work. The elders were about to call the missionaries in Santa Cruz and confirm everything and finish teaching Pablo.

The other person in the photos are Hna Tania, our lovely young women´s president, with her baby.

Noelia and Graciela are so special to me and so eager to keep learning from the scriptures and the classes at church. Noelia also became good friends with another of our investigatores, Valeria, and I hope they will be able to support each other to be firm in the gospel. 

 I also took pictures of my new agenda for the coming transfer, a photos of a photo from the caroling activity at Christmas, the chapel (the tree is pretty, but it covers the name of the church), Hna Nuñez (this morning waiting in front of the church for the rest of the zone. This is the biggest street in our area, except for the almost-highway that is our area limit on the other side). We all went to internet together because we had take an online spanish test. However, I couldn´t get it to work and we had permission to give up after half an hour of trying. 

Thanks for the letters from Elizabeth, but you´ve right I won´t have time to read them much. 

I am glad to be missing all the stress and endless conversations about rowing practices, but of course miss you all and also all the snow.

I think I will have more success finding a Quechua book here and also don´t really have any time to study Quechua. I still need to study Spanish better. I still constantly mix up hizo and hice and all the other preterite verbs and have no idea if I´m using por and para right. 

My shoes haven´t arrived yet, but I generally get packages on Tuesdays. I won´t need any other new clothes for awhile. 

This 6 week cambio has passed very quickly for me too. 

This week was really great despite the heat in the first half of the week. The ward, especially the laurels and JAS (YSA), is really stepping up to work with us. They come visit with us and also a lot of people came to the baptism. We are super busy and still haven´t visited a bunch of the corners of our area because we have enough to do in the other parts. Part of me wants to get to know another part of Bolivia, like Tupiza, where Hna Nuñez was for a while, but I would also really miss Villa Mexico. (Tupiza is almost to Argentia and actually has a clear summer and winter.)

February 23

Weather report from here in Bolivia is that it gets kind of cold when in rains all day, such as today and we went to a not as good internet in order to get out of the rain quicker. The keys keep sticking and driving me nuts. 

Thank Uncle Ben for the letter for me. I´m printing it out along with the reciepe to read in more detail later.

If you buy a third car I will want it to take to Utah. 

We are supposed to study language for an hour each day from 10 to 11. I study Spanish and my companion studies English. However, we need to leave at 10:40 to go to our 11 appointments. and usually use the other 40 minutes to wash breakfast dishes, tidy up and get ready to leave. 

However, Sister Hansen talked at the zone conference that we had this week about how we really need to do our language study and that it´s just as much a part of obedience as getting up on time and the other parts of the morning scheduel, so we are trying to make time to study.

I also got reluctant premission to study Quechua if I can find a good Quechua book. Generally I spend my study time reading and doing the activites from a Spanish book I picked up from a missionary who´s gone home (I don´t like the one from the mtc). I also have gone through chapters of the Book of Mormon writing down all the verbs and figuring out what conjugation they are. What I need to do is make a list of all the words I am always asking my companion and memorize them.

In the conference we also talked about being a consecrated missionary (sacrifice your disobedience, pride, laziness,etc) and how to do better contacts in the street (be more friendly, ask question that make people think or reflex, find out what things are important to them). We also got to watch the movie, Meet the Mormons, which I highly recommend. It introduces 5 or so different families and is very well put together. I think you will enjoy it a lot. It´s your type of movie about families and people´s lives and made a lot of us cry at the end. 

This weeks pictures all come from this morning. we went and had lunch with Noelia and Graciela, and also Elder Hatch and Elder Grover, the zone leaders. Noelia and Graciela are getting baptized next Saturday (expect photos) and both us and the elders have been teaching them because Graciela works in the elders´ area (the backspace doesn´t work very well and is driving me nuts.)

The photos are: Elder Hatch teaching Noelia new knots for her school tie, Elder Grover doing the same with Alejandro (Noelia´s little brother) and Graciela cooking (french fries) in the background, their dog Coropi, they also have two cats, everyone with the ties. The little girl is the youngest sister, Diana. The other photos are from earlier: Noelia and Graciela are starting a jewlery making business and are good at it. the pictures are from a week or so ago. The pictures of us eating are from earlier today. The dish is once again piche machu, because that it what you make when you invite people over. However, it´s really good so I´m happy to have it. Then we took pictures with Noelia as she left for school (she has the afternoon schedule from 1 to 6 or 7)

Other things I did this week are finish reading Jesus the Christ, which is really good, and hmm that´s about it. It wasn´t that exciting of a week. It´s already week five of the cambio. The week after next, I´ll know if one of us is changing. 

I hope you are doing well and not freezing too much.