Teaching the Art of the Dab, and His First Official Baptism that He Does

 You are probably a little confused on why I am titled this Dab, but its because here in Bolivia, or my ward/other missionaries I am known for one thing I dab, haha, am I proud of this? no. But this place has never heard of it, and it is my favorite thing to see other people dab for the first time. I´m not kidding these people are so funny they are so humble and down to earth and why they dab! Ahh kills Me! There is a video in my drive of a chilita Dabing she speaks only Ketchua, I speak more spanish than she does haha but she is dabbing in it super funny! 

Monday- First day of playing basketball! Ahh so sweet, we got a game together with our 1st councilar and an invistigador, i´m no Lebron James but put me up with a coupld of Bolivians and a Chillian and I shine.. But seriously super fun and then later in the night we had the interview with Advirtina for babtizm she was so nervous but she is really ready and this time she was ready all the way! 

Martes- Something kinda funny this day, my comp bought a hat yesterday because the days are really hot here and you can wear those like cowboy hat )Testifiers  of Jehovah hats) and I’m not kidding looks like a Jehovah Witness! ha-ha but funny story we were contacting when we met with this one guy and we shared a short message with him and after we asked if we could close in a prayer he said yes and then offered to say it.. The prayer exactly.. ¨God thank you for this day, thank you for my family, and thank you for these Jehovah Witnesses..... In the prayer my comp laughed! I told him the whole time! ha-ha we sit him straight after.. 

Wednesday- We had a lesson with Jonathan and we were talking and you could tell something was bothering him, like he had a question so I asked him what was up and he just like exploded with all these things that he read on Facebook and YouTube about Joseph and the Book of Mormon just all this false doctrine! and he was so confused, and his sister goes to another church and she was just talking all this heat on los Mormons, we asked him what he felt when we went and visited the temple and when he was in church and he said peace and happiness, but he was so confused, it was so hard to say that who you should be asking is God and not YouTube, he didn´t come to church this week that was really hard, keep him in your prayers Jonathan Parra. 

Juaves- In our area we have this one town that’s all dirt roads and everyone is just scattered around on mountains and we were contacting here when we found this one girl Avian, she agreed to meet with us last week and today was the day, we had visit planned at like 7 and it was pitch black outside, and we are walking on this dirt road with dogs barking at us and the only light we have is lighting flashing every like 20 seconds, seriously like a movie. So we just started walking down this dirt road and after about 15 minutes we are losing hope, and we just start to call out her name Avian! Avian! But nothing was happening, we started to make our way back but this door opens in the distance and a voice yells  “you´re late!  It was her!  She called off all the dogs and we made our way down to her, we started talking and she said that a couple days ago she prayed to know what church was true and she was really confused on why there was so many different churches, and then next morning she met with us! She KNEW that was her answer, we gave her a baptism date and I´m really excited to talk with her again. OH yeah I drove a car today, it was the 2nd councilors car and I talked him into it and it was only like 5 blocks but seriously super awesome! The gear shift was on the other side of the wheel?  I don´t know 

Friday- Thursday night we had like these cake things and they made me like really sick, I don´t know and they tasted so good too!  But all day I sleptjust slept. My comp studied and marked up like his whole Bible ha-ha, it was uneventful. 

Sabado-  Baptism! it went through! Her name is Advirtina Bautista Aguilar, she is super chala! I don´t know if you remember but she is the one where I asked if we could get on our knees and ask God what to do? But she is so awesome, probably the only person here in Bolivia that is on time ha-ha, But she is really shy and nervous but, oh man when she prays it’s so awesome! seriously sounds like she is talking directly with God, which she is, but it’s just amazing, OH tambien I did the Baptism, and it was good the first time! 

Domingo- We have this one investigator that is around 18 years old and he is way awesome he when he asks questions they are really from the heart and you can tell he loves this Gospel, but he is really hard to set visits for, he has been an investigator with a date for almost 4 months no and its cause he shows really low faith, so yesterday we sat him down and said we can´t visit you anymore because you are not really progressing, it was so hard because he is really awesome but when they are not progressing you can´t teach them, so we gave him an ultimatum, he either has to come to church tomorrow at 10 for all three hours or, we can´t visit him. And then we left his house, feeling really sad and depressed we went to church the next day and we sat down about 5 minutes before and in walks Alex! The investigator! It was so awesome, he was so happy and he got work of somehow to come with us, it was so sweet, and we were so happy and the end of church to ask when we could visit him again?  Milagro 

All in all pretty good week really up and down, love you all.  All is well down here! 

Babtizm

Olmado, an area that over looks sivingani

-- 

- Elder Clayton 

Bolivia Cochabamba 

Livin Live and English Speaking Contacts

This week he added pictures of his apartment.  Here's what I asked him about the one with the bed in it...

Mom:  Love the pictures.  None of you, but your house looks great, and is that your bed with the very tidy made bed???

Love you pal.

MOM

Elder Clayton:  yup, thats me..

Mom:  I'm so impressed.  But, not surprised.  You do like things tidy.  Grateful for that.

Here's his email...

Monday- Last week we played paintball and that was super fun; it was a good send off because a lot of people in our zone got new comps.

Martes- This day we had like 6 lesson plans but almost all of them fell through on us; it was really weird this was like the first day that we actually studied for all the normal amount of time. Ha-ha. yeah that’s about it Martes was kind of lame.

Wednesday- We have this one gal that is getting ready for baptism and this was the last lesson so we taught the word of wisdom and then gave the baptismal questions, her name is Advirtina and she is SUPER shy, like wow shy, when you ask her something she knows the answer but she won’t answer it cause she is just so nervous, she is really hard to teach, but When she offers the closing prayer the spirit is so strong and you can really feel her love for this Gospel and our Savior.

Jueves- This day we had two interviews for the other wards baptisms and I was hanging out with an Elder Hammond from Texas all day, it was way sweet just to talk to him, that night we taught a lesson in this one area way up in the mountains with dirt roads and when we got out of the Turi there was a gringo in this soccer field, as we walked by she was speaking English! We went and talked to her and it was so weird to contact in English, she was from the UK and she works in Bolivia doing Political stuff ha-ha! Super funny, and as I was leaving our lesson I saw another Gringo! but this time it was a dude from somewhere in the states and he was selling some TV stuff or something he was super stressed and all alone and when we talking to him I was like dude I speak English, and he was so happy, we pointed him how to get home and he was so glad that he found us, but Three English speakers in the middle of nowhere in Cochabamba super random.

Friday- My comp got made to DL this week which is pretty cool because now I can be able to go on a lot of splits with the other missionaries in our area,  Something really cool we were contacting today and just knocking doors when we came across this one house and this 16 year old answered the door and we let us share a message and we shared God is our Heavenly Father and Gospel Blesses Familias, the spirit was so strong I then asked her to be baptized a new investigator I knew this girl for like 30 minutes but she said yes! It’s pretty amazing how strong you can feel this spirit even when you are just sitting on the side of the road on a curb.

Sabado- Our baptism for this week got cancelled which was a super bummer but it’s all good the other ward had two in one day one at 11 and one at 6, during those 7 hours somehow we planned our week, taught two lessons and still found two knew investigators ha-ha, it was a really busy day.

Sunday- Yesterday was stake conference and it was just wild, first off how we got there was everyone in our two wards in our chapel met at the church and how we got to the stake center was we took a bus with everyone jaja it was so fun, just imagine like all of the people in Orchard 5th ward take a bus to like Provo or something it was super dope ha-ha everyone was singing and partying! jaja, we also had a person from the 70 come and it was so dope! And later in the night we had a lesson with Jonothan the only kid that likes basketball here, and we were talking to him and he was asking like the weirdest questions like Joseph smith had 14 wives and like the book of Mormon is another religion book and then we finally asked where he was reading all this and it was from his sister that was showing him all this stuff on Facebook! AHHHH we told him that who you should be listening to and reading are the scriptures and God and he was really touched by that so I have good hopes for him.

Yeah Don´t know but this week went by really fast, I have really learned what blessings come when you are exactly obedient, its hard but it’s worth it. Love you all keep grinding up there and ill keep grinding down here, all is well love ya!

--
- Elder Clayton
Bolivia Cochabamba

Service with a Smile

Each week that goes by his emails become better and better.  I can tell that he is getting more familiar with the culture, language and people  That is an answer to our prayers.  We sure miss him, but oh these emails and experiences make it so worth while.  Enjoy...

Lunes- last P-day is when I got the package, I just wanna thank you mom for everything, love ya those Oreos honestly made my day, after p-day we had a Family night with this one family who has a kid with his papers in to serve a mission but after the lesson was the funniest part we were walking back to go home for the night and we were running late so we were kinda rushing, when there was a drunk guy in the road which are the worst! ive seen very few drunk people in my life growing up in North Salt Lake Utah but you can tell one when you see one, but anyways he was standing in the road and we walked by when he stopped and talked to us we just kept walking but he started to scream so we knew we had, but he was super drunk and he was just pretending to have a gun and was shooting the people walking in the street? frekin dumb, we started to leave when he asked for money, which this is my favorite part because instead of money I like to give them pamphlets, and most popular with drunk people is.. the word of wisdom haha, its always satisfying to give a drunk man that.

Tuesday- We had a lesson with this really cool recent converts family around 25 years old and they are really cool, we were teaching them the 10 commandments because there shop we can see if it is open from the front door of the chapel haha so we were going through and at like 3 or 4 Rodrigo messed up on a word and his wife was making fun of him, really harmless but after about 2 minutes of that he screams ¨Shut up¨in English! I was dying! we were laughing so hard and we asked if she understands, but she didn’t! we just let it be.

Miércoles- Temple trip, we went to the temple as a zone this morning and it was super sweet, even tho I understood like half of what was going on it was so amazing and the spirit in the temple is unforgettable, its so amazing to be surrounded in this very dry poor country but you still have the temple to lift your spirits and remind you on why you are here.

Thursday- In front of the chapel is a little channel and it is just full of dirt and garbage and a bunch of dead trees, so we had a service project in the ward to clean that all out its kinda like the channel at our cabin but imagine the green is all trash, so what they did was throw all the trash and weeds in the channel and than me.. the gringo with a rake would push it all to one side about 50 feet wide, but after we cleared it all there was just a mountain of.. Everything so the next step they brought a wheelbarrow down with the where a hermano jorge and I shoveled all this dirt and stuff in a wheel barrel and then we pushed it out of the ditch. each load was probably 75 pounds and we did it about 15 times, the worst part about this was I had some normal clothes on and my deck got so cooked because it usually has a color to protect me..

Viernes-Pretty chill day we have this one investigator I don’t know if I mentioned him but I contacted him in the cancha playing basketball! he loves it! We have seen him three times this week at the chapel just balling up! he is was cool, also we have a baptism this week its with that one girl that we prayed together to ask if she should be baptized. so pray for us.

Saturday-This was probably the hardest day in the mission, this week we had service two days Wednesday previous and today but this time it was at an investigators house and we tilled the ground for potatoes! It was probably the hardest thing I have ever done, it was about 20 x 40 feet long but the ground was like cement, and i bet i picked up 100 rocks haha, my body was shaking, and i have like 5 blisters after, but it was really rewarding because the next day they came to church with us and they said they really enjoyed it so that was awesome!

Domingo- Yesterday was fast Sunday which is way awesome because I can understand everything people say during their testimonies, also something that is really cool and funny that they do here is when someone is talking for to long the bishop walks up and puts a paper on the pulpit that says you have 2 minutes haha! We really need that in the Orchard 5th ward some days.

HLJ

We went paintballing today as a district and this is a welt I gave to an Elder Hammond from Texas. haha

I had a really good photo of the temple of me in the day but I deleted it on accident enjoy this photo in the noche

- Elder Clayton
Bolivia Cochabamba

Everything is "Chala"

Buenos Tardes Familia 

​This week we were supposed to have an expectation of our house by the mission President so every day we were sweeping and moping, and it’s really hard to keep a house clean when you walk around in dirt roads all day and our house has white floors! But it was all a hoax because he never even came by! but atleast this week our house looked like a temple all week, white and clean 

Monday- Mondays are pretty much the same but its different from our normal weekly routine so it’s nice every now and then, I had to get a haircut this week and I was really nervous about, I walked in and all i said was a like it short on the sides and long on top.. haha but it turned out pretty good. I think

This week, Elder Fisher's mom sent me a video of him opening the package we were able to send with someone visiting here.  What a blessing it was to see and hear him.  I will try and attach it here for all to see.  There was also some extra pictures.  We are so proud of him and sure love weekly emails.  Enjoy!

Martes- We had a zone Conference  this week and it was super sweet it was our mission president and he talked about the sacerdocio and he only used the BIBLE it was really nuts, my mind was blown and it was way cool to see everyone again, the whole zone was there so I got to see all my buds from the MTC there. Also was my comps birthday and I had everyone sing to him, that was really dope. 

Wednesday- Well something got messed up and we had another zone conference this week haha but this time it was with Elder Montoya from the 70, it was really cool to listen to him, and something he said that was really cool is when you are making a promise to someone promise in the name of Christ. I thought it was kinda weird but I used it in a lesson and its super sick! It really brings the spirit and it seriously just sounds sweet.

Jueves- We lost another baptism this week, last week we lost a 16 year old to Brazil and this week we lost this way awesome single mom to Santa Cruz.. Freakin Santa Cruz. We had a lesson with her about prayer and how we should talk with the lord with all we do, (Alma 37.37) she was on the fence about moving so we asked her if she would pray and ask God what she should do and she said she would, and then that night she called us and she left the next day, real bummer, but she said she is moving back in January, and I will still be here sooo.. Maybe there is still time. 

Friday- I went on splits with a dude from Spain today, it was really different because he spoke pretty good English and the whole day we just talked about movies and music, it was so awesome. I liked it a lot. And it was super weird to be talking in English all day, I have noticed that its now alot harder to think in English as days go by, I´m surrounded by Bolivians all day so I really don´t have a chance to speak it haha.

Sábado- Third Zone Conference this week haha, again this time it was with Elder Montoya, this conference was not that inspiring because he really just hammered the missionaries on how we can do better and what we need to work on.. But all in all I had three zone conferences this week so its not the bad haha.

Sunday-  We have this really chala investigator named Jonathan, we founded him playing basketball in the cancha all by himself so I went up and we started to ball out together, probably the only kid I have seen that likes basketball here. Anyways we had a lesson with him this week and his mom is really anti Mormons, which is hard because she won’t let us into her house so we teach his lessons on the side of a curb outside haha, but he is way sweet and he came to church yesterday and he really loved it! We asked him to babtizm and he said yes! Really excited for him.

​the word cool down here is "chala" and I use it like all the time, we had a family how evening last night and we read a chapter in the Book of Mormon and after in my closing testimony i said the chapter is super chala haha the 2nd councilor was dying, and he drove us back and the whole time he was like, that car is super chala, this road is super chala, adios Elders thanks for the chala lesson​ haha, All is well down here love you guys!

-- 

- Elder Clayton 

Bolivia Cochabamba 

Me and an Elder Ferrañan he is from Peru I went on splits with him last week or something like that. he is way funny. the only thing he knows in English are. "I am the fastest man in the world" haha 

Me with my buds from the MTC!

 A package from home.  This was a tender mercy and great blessing to be able to send this to him from someone visiting from Bolivia!

 Pday with Elder Fisher from our home stake

 All the other elders in the zone!

Lunch with the other Elders; including Elder Fisher