Send me Letters

so hey everybody.

don't have to much to write i think but I'm sure i'll fill it up with something. if only because mom will get mad if i don't. but that's a good enough reason for me.

so this week we put two people with fecha for the 12 of sept. one is faustina who is about 22 years old and speaks very little spanish. understands it though which is y we can teach her. but she's living with some members and is excited. the other is a golden child. 9 years old and ready. so we should have two even though, like with bryce, the baptisms always come hard. you always gotta fight for them. but it's worth it.

so outside of them, we didn't find too many new people to teach and it's getting hard. we still are working and visiting the members and helping a lot. there were close to 4 inactive families who went to church this week on top of the 6 investigators there. but 3 of the six have told us that they don't even want us to talk about baptism. kinda funny. they go every week and most people think they are members but because the missionaries b4 us would always hound them to get baptized they have a bad idea of what it is. we are trying to be their friends more and then, hopefully, they see that we don't want them to get baptized for more numbers or anything like that but because we know that it'll really help them. in any case it'll be really fun working here

and like i said last week the leaders just don't give you a break. this week we were working a lot in the bottom part of our area which is huge. the are so many members and they want to go but have to pay between 40 and 50 bolivianos each family to go to church every week. needless to say it's hard to get them there. and then the leaders here say just teach them about sacrifice. in all honesty from my point of view the church should be able to help after the members do everything they can. it's funny cause even though almost all the members down there are inactive they give us more references and work with us more than all the members in the upper part. but that's life. we're trying to find some way to make everyone happy.

o and amanda just soes you know and this isn't just applying to amanda, but anyone when i say write me a letter you don't need to send it through my mom. you can write directly to me. or at least I'm 95 percent sure. all the other missionaries receive letters so i don't think the pres holds a special grudge against me. but thank you mom for always being willing to do that.

and just soes you know yes i have gotten dear elders. on thursday they gave me a bunch so you can send those too.

ok that's about all i think. bye

Wow, what a first week in Bolivia

ok, so what's up everybody from Bolivia for the first time...

wow. it's kinda weird that I'm actually here. so lets' start from the beginning i guess

got here on Tuesday but stayed in a hotel for two nights. during those two days we got to meet the president. president maynes who is really cool and a nice guy. ooober oober strict but that's the best type of president i think you can have. even though i think some rules are way too extreme....I'm starting a new mission this week and so I'm gonna try my best to be 100 percent obedient. which in this mission will be really hard actually.

so then on thursday we got to our area. i'm in the sixth ring of santa cruz. inside the city but on the outskirts. in fact my area actually runs to the limit of the city. my area is called fortaleza and it's fairly big. like i said it doesn't have a limit on one of the four sides. my comp is elder titto. he's a peruvian but from cusco. he has four and a half months in the mission and is a great elder. we get along great which is gonna help us a lot. in our area the missionaries were taken out a year ago. they went nine months without any missionaries and then three months ago two missionaries came to open it. now me and elder titto are taking their place...we are both new to the area and the missionaries who left didn't leave any investigators for us, outside of one young kid who's gonna be baptized this saturday. that's nice but outside of him literally there is even the area book to work with. it's kinda sad but we'll see.

so the thing about santa cruz is that it's very unorganized. there are very little street names and the houses don't have numbers. so it makes finding anything almost impossible unless you know the area. so me and titto have been walking around just looking and struggling to find any member and then asking the direction of other members and references. it's gonna be hard but we are starting to get to know the area really good in such a short time. we're confident you could say.

so this sunday was interesting. the ward had us share our testimonies and elder titto is apparently ...how do they say it...stage fright or shock or something like that.. .he doesn't like to be in front of a lot of people and talk. so that was fun...mine was a little more normal and trying to animate them to work with us. well, the member seem to be chill. they gave us a bunch of references and their directions by drawing a little map and so we should have a lot more to do this week, so we're even more excited.

now about bolivia. the mission here is ooober strict, like a said. the rule that i hate the most and will have to put everything i can to obey is that we can't receive letters from anyone who is not our parents, brothers and sister. basically if they're not direct family we can't read them. and we still can't write to anyone outside of those same people. in all honesty i don't know why they do that. i understand not being able to write them but not even being able to read messages from friends seem a little too much for me...but we'll see what we do. maybe y'all can send me a letter by emailing it to my ma first and then she forwards it to me but i don't exactly know. but if you send it directly to me i can't open it or read it. something ridiculous like that. but it's a rule and I'm gonna try to obey it even though i don't understand it.

now about the cool Bolivian weather. so, for those who don't know, santa cruz is like a jungle. it's very green with a lot of trees and bugs and animals in every frikin part of the city. kinda weird to be walking down the street and there is a herd of cows, on the next street a herd of chicken...then horses... then sheep... then frikin bambis...or something like that. it's just kinda funny. I'm gonna try to take fotos and send them but i don't know exactly when. santa cruz is kinda dangerous too. not like too dangerous but there are not too many lights at night so it's easy to get robbed if you're not careful. and like all jungles the weather is just strange. when we got here it was humid and hot. i was sweating like a person from Arizona. but then Friday and Saturday it got really cold. like ridiculously cold. it's windy and they say it will be for about two months more....fun fun. and the best part is when it rains it doesn't sprinkle like in Lima...we're talking like monsoon frikin type rain. you go one minute and you're drenched. it's horrible...but fun. i love the rain and the best part is that i got to use that giant trench coat thing that we got. the first time. I'm gonna have to buy boots though. o ya so the entire thing is mud and mud and wind and sweat and cold all at the same time. it's crazy. that's how you can describe the weather.

so ma, when i was in the airport i had to pay for the suitcases which was a ridiculous 214 dollar but the office is supposedly gonna give us that money back. if you noticed that's why it disappeared. i don't even think it'll be possible to use 214 dollars in Bolivia in a year. but ya I'll let you know how all that goes. but ya so when i need something it'll be a million times cheaper to buy it here then to have you send it so i will never ask for any packages or anything like that. if you wanna send something, send money....and even then remember that 20 dollars is 140 bolivianos here and a lot of money. so ya.

let's see don't know too much about the rules, the things are very different here than in Peru. so we'll see how all this goes. I'm still trying to get used to the schedule and things like that.

o on a random note, this Friday was my comp's birthday. so i bought him a cake and we had a very mini party type thing. with cake and dinner and some good old fashioned Disney music. it was kinda weird but i got some cool fotos and I'll send those out to y'all.

OK so i don't know what else to write...I'm excited to be here. it'll be fun. the people seem really chill and me and my comp are gonna work like crazy people to have some success in our area here.

ya so that's about that. bye

A slingshot keeps the dogs away (and also a truck)

hey everyone

so this week was absolutely amazingly awesome. we found another family to teach. which is great bc one that we were teaching for two months sorta fell through. but this family is a family of 5 and really cool. a reference from a member and were excited to be visiting them. as we are with all our investigators. so ya.

yesterday, Sunday, was really kinda interesting. we got to church and our mission leader says .... elders you guys are gonna give the talks today. 15 min. great we say.... so we did whatever we do and gave two very good talks considering we had ten min to prepare it. i normally speak very good now, but i don't know why yesterday i just couldn't speak. i was fine until i hit prosperaria ..... which just threw me back to the mtc days spanish. fun fun. but i got through and it turned out good. then the more fun begins. they didn't have a teacher for the Sunday school adult class and asked me to give it. i said great. and didn't even have a min. to prepare it. just had to give a lesson about Doctrine and Covenant and i think that one turned out ok too. and then more fun... the third our primary class teacher wasn't there and the primary leader.... my tia cosa asked me to help. well, actually the kids asked her to ask me , but she did and i taught my third impromptu lesson of the day. three hours and three lessons that i didn't have time to plan. i loved it. i was not a good speaker before but the mission has helped me to teach and talk publicly. so benefits.

ok Bryce Happy birthday and farewell party thing. i asked papi fierro if i could call you before u go since it'll be three years till we might see each other, he said he'd get back to me. so maybe.

in other news... well i can't think of any other news actually. but i bought a slingshot and have been attacking the dogs that have been trying to eat me. my revenge... sorry Amanda and mommy number two but a dog who tries to eat me is no friend of mine. but on one of my sling shot bonanzas i hit a car. well, a truck. kinda funny. luckily the guy didn't care or anything, he just wanted to try out my slingshot.

o in terms of food, for breakfast now I'm drinking oatmeal. it sounded weird to me but that's how they take oatmeal apparently. it's like a drink so ya... i haven't eaten anything too strange but they say they are gonna try to buy alligator and turtle for me to eat.

which reminds me we have two new pets. a dog that they call leon... i call cow... and a turtle that has a quechuan name whose translation i don't know if i can say. so our pets are cool but the dog tries to bite me unless i have food. the turtle is super turtle i call him .. the amazingness of the ninja turtles combined in one super special oober cool turtle... kinda a long name but it suits him.

ok so i think that's about all. happy birthday everyone whose birthday it is.

I'll talk to y'all next week.

bye