Sleepwalker

I GOT MY PACKAGE, SO SE PREOCUPE! 

 

 

Well the other day i was sleepwalking in Spanish! that was funny.  I had forgotten to tell Hermana Cuadra that i might do that.  She didn´t think it was super funny hahaha.

 

So today is hermana Cuadra´s  ¨Birthday¨it is actually wednesday but we decided to celebrate today.  WE went to a pension´s house and had cake with other missionaries.  A few of my white friends were  there but they got to leave after a while, i didn´t haha and after a while i was the onl y white person there.  It really wasn´t fun at all.  Hermana Cuadra was happy though and she had fun so that is really all that matters.  I am glad she got to have  a little party!    

 

So i told Presidente Claros, he is the in the stake, that you would look for a job for him in Utah.  He said it has always been is dream to go there!  He said even if he was working in fast food, it is work and he will take it.  He was in the military here so he also said he could be security guard for Presidente Eyring! He is currently security in the temple! 

 

Speaking of the temple, we get to go thursday and have our conference de zonas!!

 

WEll this last week, was kind of just like any other week.  Nothing too special happened. Cintia was running away from us so we couldn´t have a lesson with her.  Then we found her and she said she was mad then left again. 

 

Dana is amazing and has been coming to church alone so i feel a lot better about having her baptism! She asked me to speak at it hahaha.  

 

Ian and lorey are great but I don´t think they are ready to be baptized, they can be but they can´t go to church without us picking them up and taking them!  Hermana Cuadra thinks they are ready but i don´t so we will see how that goes!

 

I told Arturo that I wanted to be here for his baptism on the 30 so we have to have more lessons! They are going to look for time.  Yessenia told me she wants me there too.  Otherwise and Hermana that they don´t know will be there and no one wants that! hahaha.    

 

Wendy came to church an hour late yesterday so we had to move her date again! To the 30! Someone will be baptized then hahaha.  Which makes me sad because if I leave Cocha in 4 weeks I wont be able to go to the temple with her.    

 

WE had to break into a house the other day, that was fun ahaha.  It really wasn´t the house ok,. It was the apartment door.  He wasn´t picking up his phone! When we got up to his place he said that he has done that before so really it´s chill.

 

Talk to y'all Sunday!

In Bolivia Waiting For a Package

Hermana Cuadra is great! She is from Nicaragua and we are dong some good work.  She is different from Hermana Routsong, so it is taking time to adjust.  She has a bit of a short temper and is very straight forward, but i guess i might not be the easiest to work with either.  She already has to much love for the people in this area and is doing all she can to help them.  Pres just told me in an email, ¨Hna Cuadra doesn´t have any support at home and often feels alone.  She has a hard outer shell but with patience and humility I know you can crack it and be a great team.¨ She does have a hard outer shell and I am learning just to cope with what she wants at times, but the mission isn´t about me, and I am blessed to be with her, to learn this patience and humility, that will so greatly help me later in life.  She is an amasing missionary and i am glad that we can both help eachother.  Her name, in english, translates to, Rachel of the Angles Block.  HAHAHAHAHA i was laughing when she told me that. 

 

So we found out why Cintia was having all these problems, she is scared.  She doesn´t want to get hurt again, because she was a little innocent girl and someone tried to take advantage of her, or did, i am not sure.  Now i just pray we can find her mom and talk to her, we haven´t been able to at all.  

 

Dana came to church alone again, well she brought little David, but i am feeling so good about her baptism, yea she is only 11, but she is way better than i was at 11!  May 30! maybe my last saturday here i will be able to see her be baptized, and Hna RS said she will come too! 

 

Ian and Lorey said they are going to stay here until their baptism and then move to where the Elders are.  I am excited! If they get married like scheduled, they will be baptized with Dana!! They are soo cool! 

 

Wendy didn´t come to church again, so she can´t be baptized as schedluled, pucha! She is pretty golden, i am sure their is a good reason, i am just way sad, we are moving her date to the 30th too.  Someone will get baptized then!!! 

 

So it has been so weird without Hna Rs, a little sad, but haha, it happens.  She is close! We were able to eat our saltañas today together so that´s pretty awesome! We had a ncie talk about all the things she is missing, she is sad to not be here and her other area is really hard.  Really hard.  i said she is welcome to come back and work with us! She said she didn´t need to because i have it under control.  Actually this whole week i just kept thinking, ¨Would Hna RS do this? What would she do if she were in my shoes.¨i was unable to think of some answers so i just did what good ol carol would do.

 

Funny story, Hna Theresa has a new living set, that i bet is from the states.  It has a recliner.  Her brother said to her, ¨I bet your daughter from the states would love this!¨He was right i did enjoy it while we were waiting for an investigator!! 

 

I am happy.  I am Healthy.  I am still in Bolivia waiting for that package. 

New Companion

We had transfers! and we are together again!!!

JK! I now have a latina! Can you guys believe that! Her name is Hermana Cuadra and she has been in Tupiza so no one knows her. i have heard a little bit, but you can´t always believe what you hear so I don´t know!!

 

So we had an interesting week.  The other day i was in Cala Cala for intercambios, man i love that area, it is beautiful! Apparently i missed a big day in Las Cuadras!! However when i cam back, man, Friday felt like a year!

 

We saw the Familia Pary, their son in law sold all of their pension stuff, when we went over he was taking everything out.  They literally have nothing now, he took the lights! He was selling it to another lady who wants a pension but doesnt´have anything to start it, how ironic! It was heartbraking just seeing Lucia standing there while they took everything.  We gave a lesson on fasting and they are going to try that! I know it will work.  They have pure hearts.  I just will never forget that.  I shared a scipture in DC about how our trials prepare us to recieve gloria!

 

Also Friday we went to see Barinia.  ummmmmmm . . . She was dancing around then she sat down.  I was talking to some Elders on the phone so i had my back turned.  I heard a giant crack, turned around and well . . . she was having a seizure! I screamed to her aunt while HNA RS was trying to help her.  It was her first one ever. It was so weird! She is ok though.  For our lesson she taught me lesson 3 with hermana routsong as her companion.  During repentence i was talking about how i can´t fully repent of my actions with my boyfriend because i still see him.  hahaha, i snuck that in there because she still talks to her 23 year old boyfriend micky.  It went really well and Hna Rs caught on too.  

 

Wendy is the best! Hna Prieto said to Hna RS during intercambios that she wants everyone to be like her! We did however, and this was Friday too, have a lesson with a testigo de jeovah.  that was weird.  their religion is quite different.  Then we invited her to stay with us and she said no.  ok, i didn´t want to show you the Joseph Smith video anyways.  I was a little direct with WEndy after that.  All religions are good yes, but they arent´all true.  I think she understands more now.  I hope so.

 

Ian and Lorey are moving soon and i am so sad.  They will be in my district still but it´s too far to continue teaching! They are still planning on getting married in a week though!

 

Cintia, oh man.  The Primary Pres. said yesterday that they are hiring professional help.  WE had a way good lesson though! And yes it was Friday too.  We watched a mormon message about our true identity.  WE had the Young Womans president with us, becuase she is going to complete 12 years next week.  We will see how it goes.  Maybe the Hna Cuadra will have an idea.

 

We started teaching the husband of Yessenia, a member.  He is so cool and wants to know so much! They had a baby so it´s perfect! They can soon be an eternal family! Sadly we have to wait till Sunday to teach Arturo, he has to work a lot.

 

Well it has been a crazy week! This one will jsut be crazier!

 

Hermana Caroline Parry

13 People at Church!

Someone tell Sean he sends mesome of the best Dear Elders!!

So yea, Dana is doing great, her family does kind of oppose her involvement.  Sometimes we aren´t allowed there.  We are going to work with the ward to get her to stay strong in the church!!

 

So the other day Ian and Lorey, some amazing inv. who live together and are not married, told us that they set a date for baptism!!! Honestly we didn´t believe it for awhile.  We are so amazed! They can now work together for their baptism in a couple weeks! Sadly they are moving so we are going to have to give them to our leader de district.  They came to church and loved it.  Ian has a few more problems accepting stuff, but Lorey sees the importance out of it. 

 

The other day . . . we broke the word of wisdom.  Apparently some members believe tea is ok! They told us it was fine, but when we told Hermana Claros she said it was té no mas! Whoops, we had some repenting to do that night!

 

I finished DC the other day and I learned something way cool! When Christ was in the spirit world, he was teaching people in paradise how to preach the gospel in prison.  Because he isn´t allowed to go to spirit prison, he is too perfect.  He only did preaching to the perfect in the spirit world.  I thought that was cool.  He wants us to come back to him so he can see us, otherwise he wouldn´t be able too.  He is too perfect!!

 

We met a little child who is 11 years old who . . . gets beat by her mom, dresses as a boy, and has horrible heart problems.  God gave us a really hard bridge to cross.  She wants to be baptized so badly!  We went the other day with the primary and they are mainly going to work with her change, because we just can´t.  I don´t know what to do! The elders that were in this area thought she was a member because she is always at church so they didn´t teach her! I guess she had to be taught by us, it was the plan of God.  Wow wish us luck, it is quite hard.

 

Carmen left for Chapari today.  I think we just said goodbye forever.  At least she will be at peace, in

her own home, with her scary son. 

 

We went to a really pretty place today in the mountains.  We are convinced it is Rhoan.  We saw some llamas and ate sandwiches.  

 

Yesterday we had 13 people in church.  That is a pretty good record! 

Conference Was Amazing!

Wow conference was just utterly amazing!

 

Yo sé que mi redentor, salvador, y Senor vive!! Con toda mi corazon yo sé! 

 

Conference was amazing! All week we were testifying about the Atonement and Resurrection of Christ.  People here can only focus on the death.  Why? It´s not pretty, it´s not uplifting, yes it was needed but, why focus on it? We went to Dana´s house for two minutes on Friday, Hna RS had to use the bathroom so i was standing in the door tlaking to Dana.  Her uncle, who is a very catholic less active in our church? haha yea it´s weird.  I think he was mad we were there.  He comes up to me, really close and puts his hand on my shoulder and says, ¨You know today is a holiday.  Christ died today! My mom is at the church celebrating and i am leaving soon.  Maybe you guys should go, Dana can´t have a lesson.¨¨Sorry we just wanted to invite her to conference, we are leaving.¨ As we left i couldn´t help but thinking that it was so sad that he could only focus on the death! YEs Christ died, but more importantly, Christ lives!!! Now we can too! When we baptized Carmen the other day, She is going back to chapari and is choosing not to have her surgery so she probably won´t make it another week, when we baptized her she wasn´t ready but under some circumstances, we had too.  IT was so comforting to think that in a short amount of time she will be without pain, without her 5 tumors.  She knows that Christ lives and soon she will be perfected too.

 

Sooooo we got to watch conference in English in the stake center!! PS I call Elder Holland´s talk as my favorite when the home teachers ask.  It was amazing.  Saturday all the gringos in the zone were watching it in the stake center.  Since we had our baptism after the first session we didn´t have enough time to go all the way back to get lunch so we packed peanut butter sandwiches, fruit and a coke!! Sunday was earth day or something so no cars! WE walked to the stake center, 30 minutes away.  I felt like someone who sacrifices a lot to hear the voice of the prophet! Hahaha sort of, others sacrifice a ton more! Like those Africans!! We packed sandwhiches again! Then walked back! It was so worth it! WE were the only ones there.  

 

So there is a new rule, we aren´t allowed to eat ANYTHING WITH ANYONE!! The only house other than our own we can accept anything is our pension, no water no juice, no store bought food.  Too many people are getting sick.  It is a blessing, but now we have to awchwardl tell everyone that we can´t eat their stuff.  

 

Someone in our ward urgently called us over to his house.  He wasn´t there, but his 6 year old son

was there.  Alone.  Since 10 in the morning.  Locked in a room.  He climbed out the window when he heard us knocking. I think that is illegal but i am not sure, there seem to not be any leyes here, well except no one can have guns.  Well after 30 minutes of calming him down, getting his shoes so we can play, we called Teresa, our mommy.  She came and offered to take him to her house.  Then his dad came back.  He lied as to why he wanted us there, maybe he didn´t want to saying anything in front of Teresa, he said, ¨Oh just wanted you to talk to my son,¨Yea . . . right¨. So yea it was weird.  HE said that his son is ok to be home alone.  Yea no! WE are talking about him in the next ward council because that is NOT OK!! 

 

We had easter eggs yesterday, mine had a dragon it in.  

Bolivian Money Explained

 

So today we went to Incachaca!!!!

 

jk sadly we didn´t, other missionaries couldn´t get enough lessons with members to meet our goal, so we couldn´t go.  We were sad . . . I still am sad.

 

Oh well!!! I ate two saltañas to make up for it.

 

Life in the Blocks is great! Just another week.  We actually when to the mission home saturday to watch the woman´s conference and have one of our own. PRESIDENTE AND HERMANA HANSEN MADE US MEXICAN FOOD!!!! WE HAD LETTUCE! WE HAD REAL CHEESE! oh now i am sad thinking that i can´t have any for along time again . . . it was amazing and the talks were beautiful. This time i didn´t even get an inkling of homesickness listening to good ol´Hal.  we also had really good cake.  It was so good!! We were talking to some gringas and one said that she missed Taco bell.  dude aim higher, it´s all about the zupas, Fiiz, Cafe rio and Cheesecake factory, or just clean water. Def not about the Taco Bell.

 

What else . . . i actually feel like i just talked to yall, this week flew by!!!

 

We invited 5 people to baptisms this week! One is Dana, she is the 11 year old. We did a lot of praying about this and with counsel from Pres Hansen we have a plan.  She has a mommy, sort of, in the ward. If for every sunday until her baptism, last saturday in May, she gets picked up by her mommy, we will baptize her.  We don´t want a child convert that doesnt ever go to church.  The other day she actually asked us for a test on all of her panphlets.  so yea, she is pretty golden.  

 

Bryana Claros, our pensions daughter, was baptized satruday, Dana and two other of our investigators came, Lorey and Ian.  It was a party! She´s been planning it for a year, no joke! it was frozen themed.  There was aclown though, i don´t gt why people think they are funny, they aren´t, they are scary! Actually Bryana kicked him so yea that was funny!! We sat in the back with Lorey and ian and well after waiting for our lunch, since they are our pension, for an hour, we had to go! We had to be in the mission home at 3! So we bought saltañas for lunch! Ian and Lorey are 18 and 19, they live together and aren´t married, that´s actually like 70% of the people here.  He is Chilean and i can´t understand him, but he knows english so it´s funny to hear him practice haha.  They are great and understand a lot.  WE have them the Law of Chasity pamphet and he said, chasity, oh i hate that word.  So pray that they will get married or move out!!! They are pretty golden, maybe silver.  They have a baptism date for 2 of May.  

 

President said in another email how happy he was with our work and he thinks our numbers are great! So yea that always makes me feel like i am doing good stuff.  

 

So i have developed a testimony of health care!! So many people are sick or hurt here but they don´t have money to go to the hospital sothey can´t! Or they just keep getting sicker becasue they can´t buy medicine, they also eat horribly so that can´t help.  Barinia might have an STD. It wouldn´t surprise us, she hasn´t had a very easy life, but she can´t get it checked becasue she doens´t have money. Really no one has money here, it´ssad.  To put it into perspective, our rent is 700bs, we get 600bs to use in a month, that is about $100.  Milk is 7 bs, coke is 9bs, taxis are like freaking 20bs, and truffis are 2bs, but we use them a lot.  So stuff isn´t expensive, but you go through it fast!! the fruit is like 10 or 20. We always compare it to american dollars then feel better, we are spending less than a 1 a day sometimes! 

 

well life is good! i am happy!! After this week i will have 5 months! WOW!!! where does all the time go? 

Stake Conference

Well family,

 

All of our best investigators are references from the ward.  So that is amazing! We are actually busy now! We don´t have enough time to do all that we need to do!!

 

We started teaching a girl who lives with the bishop, she has cancer, well she is a really old lady hnot a girl.  We were supposed to baptize her saturday, and that wasn´t decided until tuesday or something, but the water was cold, so we couldn´t.  The bishop decided not to tell us though so we were waiting at the church for an hour!! it was frustrating.  All the ward showed up and we were all ready, manucanchu Carmen though.  So yea, yesterday she said she doesn´t know if God exists so maybe it was better she didn´t get baptized, she has no faith because she is in such bad health.  

 

We have a way cool reference, Leandro! he is 14.  When we called him to set a visit, he said, come now please! Can´t you guys come now! He also can´t wait to go to church, although we won´t have sacrament meeting for two more weeks.

 

The other day we had entrevistas with Presidente.  First off, dad i thought a lot about what you wrote in my last email, how everyone loved jake and how they were running to him and said all those amazing things.  I realized i want that.  I want my president to trust me.  Well, in my interview, he said, i just want you to know that i am REALLY happy about all the work that has been going on in Las Cuadras.  I love how you guys are working with the ward and focusing on the right things.  you and Hermana Routsong are a great companionship and that´s why the Lord needed you guys together more.  Well dad, i don´t have to worry anymore! That was an answer to my prayers! 

 

We had stake conference this last weekend, my first adult session on Saturday hahaha.  We went with the familia claros.  Sunday morning there was a future missionary meeting, it made me realize how chevere it is to be a missionary! Well all the missionaries in the stake, or my zone, sang the closing song.  First four started then every line in Called to serve, a companionship would go up from the crowd.  I thopught it would be cheesy but it was way cool! Presidente and hermana Hansen surprised us and came up from their seats at the end! I had goosebumps.  

 

The husband in the Familia Pary decided to make a reapperence and well Lucia is sooooo happy now! She has stopped asking us for money! We have decided that he is the key, if we can help him find a testimony the whole family will follow! now we have to start all the lessons over and hope he finds his testimony along the way.  

 

Today Hna RS and i decided to go visit some pretty churches.  They were all closed but one! It actually brought back a ton of memories! They are so pretty though! Two were convents and i think still in use.

 

All is well here, the dresses mom are light pink and the other purple in the back of my closet.  Hna RS suggested you guys send a camera cord this week! She will leave soon! Also can you send one a day vitamins! Still alive and FYI no more bacteria.