late September

PS Please stick on the next blog post (next week) a thank you for Sister Nanto who sent me an I´m thinking of you card.

Friday we went looking for a less active member and came across this cool house with a fireman painted on the wall. We found the member{s house, but no one was home. We ended up not teaching anyone that day, but we helped the young women's leaders decorate the chapel for the stake youth dance that night. 

I found some cool art in an old Liahona. Reading old Liahonas is my main passtime if I have a bit of free time in the morning or evening.

On Saturday we went to a Relief Society Activity in which Jose Yaipen (our recent convert) taught the sister to cook Peruvian food. I am peeling a yuca. In the pictures you can see: Hna Gladys, Hna Haydee Iporre, Hna Berta, Ana Claudia Kennedy (we were in her house), and a glimps of Shirley Navia, Jose{s girlfriend (she has a red and black sweater on).

Saturday night was General Women´s Conference and once again we got flowers afterwards. Hna Hansen also gave me some of the flowers that had been decorating the tables to take home.

September 21

I{ve finally got lots of photos for you, but once again this keyboard doesn{t have an apostraphy. 

It{ve been an interesting week. We are trying to work a lot more with the ward members and get to know them better. Hna Palma is very confident with both the members and the investigators and we are able to work together well. We are talking about how we can get along better even though she feels that we don{t have much in common (I feel like we are getting along fine and have plenty in common). Mostly, we are trying to talk more as we walk and share whatever comes to mind, children{s songs, the plots of tv shows, how to make our favorite foods, etc... We also reorganized all the furniture in the apartments, which was a good change and also a good, small project to do together. 

We have some good investigators, but they keep not being there when we visit even when we call the day before. However, as we get to know the members more we hope that they will introduce us to their friends and relatives. 

This Sunday was really weird because we didn{t have church. There was a small election, a referendum of something, and thus no body could have meetings and there were almost no cars out until about 6:00pm. I was happy because everything is so much calmer without cars and their noise and also we could walk in the middle of the street. 

We had a cool experience on Tuesday with a new investigator. His name is Jorge and we contacted him in the street the week before and set up the appointment to talk more the next week. He called us Tuesday morning to confirm the appointment, which was a huge surprise. When we met him in the afternoon, he invited us to eat Charque (shredded fried meat served with mote (large, bland corn), hard boild egg, a potato, and fried cheese). We got to know him a bit, he{s a retired liturature teacher and taught him the plan of salvation. He had already read the pamphlet we gave him and thus we were able to have a much more indepht conversation about the purpose of life on the earth and how Adam and Eve fit into God{s plan than we usually are able to. He accepted the invintation to come to church next week and I am really looking forward to our next appointment.

We also continue to teach Vilma, who{s just a great person. We passed by on Sunday afternoon when no one else was home to see if we could visit her and she recieved us very nicely. We didn{t have a lesson planned, but we asked her what she had been reading in the Book of Mormon. 

We ended up talking about the Atonement, which I love teaching about. In my own study of the Book of Mormon, I{ve been able to understand the Atonement much better. It{s really so simple. God, through His Son, has prepared the way that we can return to Him, we just need to follow the path that He shows up. To be able to take advantage of Christ{s sacrifice for us and His mercy, we need to believe in Him, repent, be baptised and follow His teachings. I always feel the Spirit when we teach about the Atonement. 

We are trying to prepare Vilma to be baptised on October 10, but she{s still not compeletely sure. We don{t want to pressure her, but we can see that she has a testimony and is ready. She has told us that she knows that the Book of Mormon is true. She feels the Spirit in church on Sundays and she had a great experience listening to Elder Bednar when he visited the stake. 

So, things are looking up in some areas. And, here are all the photos (I hope they all load in time):

My new cactus

Hna Palma and I last Monday with our Cochabamba flags. It was Cochabamba{s aniversary and we went to see the parade. 

Lots of photos and videos of the parade. It was really hot out, but it was pretty cool. In the first video [maybe that will come later], you can sort of make out President Evo. I didn{t realize it was him at the time and was focused more on the video. 

On the way home, we passed a bunch of cool street art and took photos. The frogs say Kocha (short for Cochabamba) se raya (paints/marks/draws line on (rayar doesn´t translate very directly itself). In short, Cochabamba paints itself. 

I also got a cool photo of two orange juice carts. The orange juice is delicious, but probably counts as street food that we shouldn{t eat. 

On Wednesdy, we visited an investigator, Alberto, who was in the hospital. They gave us yellow gowns to put on over our clothes. Alberto was very lonely and worried about his finances, but he{s also eager to learn more about the gospel. He grew up in a home/orphanage run by the Salvation Army, which is much more of a church here (not a vaguely christian charity). Thus he has slightly different ideas about somethings, but he{s really into following Christ and not the world.

We were waiting in a park on Thursday for an investigator (who didn{t show up) and these two little kids came up to us and we chatted a bit. I took a photo of Hna Palma with the little girl. 

I don{t think all these photos are going to load today, but the ones that you don{t get now, will be there next week.

Thanks for the photos from home. You look great. I am starting to understand how the new bookshelves work into the sitting room. It{s been pretty hot out here this week, but it also rained a little bit, which we were not expecting. 

In other news, I got pink eye Saturday and woke up all gunked up on Sunday (I was a bit glad not the have church and have to see all the members). I called Hna Hansen, which probably wasn{t necesary, and she told me I could take what the farmacy recommended me. Since it was Sunday and it was only a bit of a problem, I just asked our pensionista what she recommeded and she gave me some eye drops. Her husband, Armando,is a doctor and often has a lot of sample sized medicines hanging around. After reading the instructions, it looked out and that it was meant to teach pink eye and I{m a ton better today. I{m happy to be able to very grown up about being a little sick (being about the remember and put in my own eye drops, remembering to not touch my eyes and wash my hands and ton, even when it itches, etc...) Generaly, Hna Hansen always tells us to not take what our pensionistas recommend us, but Hna Betty and Hna Armando are probably going to give better advice than I{d get in a pharmacy. 

So, that was my week. It sounds like you{ve had a good week too. I{m really looking forward to Woman{s Conference this coming Saturday, which we are going to see in the mission home again. Check Hna Hansen{s blog for pictures.

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?