Teaching, finally meeting the Bishop & Freezing cold Rice...it's what's for Dinner!

Lunes- You guys saw my photos from last week I went to the AMAZON! so RAD we took like a bus about 3 hours in and it was so green and tropical, most amazing thing ever. 

Martes- I don´t know if I said anything about this before but my comp is really really jumpy, so I bug him a lot but with love.. With love.. So we were going to bed and as he turned off the lights and got into bed I waited a minute and with the ninja like stealth that I have I got out of bed and got on my knees and crawled over to his bed.. As I was crawling over not making a sound.  When I reached his bed I got really ready and I jumped up and screamed his name!! And without a second of hesitation he screamed, he screamed like bloody murder screamed! I was laughing so fetching hard and my comp after a second or two started to laugh, pretty sure he hates me but I thought it was really funny! 

Miercoles- Today was our Christmas conference for the zone, President Montoya is such a stud! He knows his doctrine so well! He was showing us scriptures in the Bible about the apostasia, one that I really like was Acts 3. 18.21 go check it out! After which he gave us like an hour and a half to talk with everyone and just relax, and his wife makes the best cookies I have ever had! Or in Bolivia at least :) 

Jueves- We have one investigator that his whole family is members but him no, he came to church last week and loved it! So we asked when we could meet with him and we found a time, we talked for about an hour and he really just wants to start over he wants to change his whole life and face Christ! He was so awesome and has a huge testimony of the Savior and The Repentance process, we dropped a date on him in the first visit, but first he has to get married. But way cool guy! 

Viernes- Something that is really good and really bad about this area is we have a lot of ¨investigators’" that come to church regularly but never meet with us! We have this family a family! with a DAD that come every week for almost 3 weeks now but they never have time for us! And we even cancel other people for them but then they just end up falling through it really blows! They show their faith but they are only receiving partial blessings. 

Sabado- In the morning we started the day with 7 lessons planned but before noon 4 canceled on us! ha-ha so we had a little time to contact.  My area is really poor, most the people here can´t buy drugs and beer.  But the ones that work , work just enough to buy it use it a lot .  This one area I have named Matadero every time I visit there I talk with some drunk dude, fetch they are so dumb I know everyone is a child of God and  I love them but they are so dumb, like kids we were talking to one about like his family and then he just fell over just right over.. We tried to help him up but then he started to just roll around on the ground! We let him be and walked away.

Domingo- Today was a pretty chill day here in area lindo, we had barrio council today and it was the first time I met the bishop.. I have been here for 12 weeks ha-ha. But he is really cool but talks wayyy fast! But was cool cause we set all the missionary goals for this area for next year, after which we had our dinner with the Pension and she is dope and really funny but she forgot to make us food so she hurried and put together a plate for us but this was a plate with potatoes chicken and rice normal all good, but it was cold.. Like freezing the rice I was eating was put in like a freezer I think because it had ice crystals on it ha-ha have you ever eaten a whole plate of cold rice! Let me tell you it blows.. 

Pretty good week all in all, also got my transfer I’m staying here for another six weeks and with a new comp named Elder Varela he is from Chile too.

Love you guys really excited to speak with you in a week! All is well down here!

​Bishopric 

 House of the pension, my comp is no fan of bananas ​so here is a photo of him with one 

-- 

- Elder Clayton 

Bolivia Cochabamba 

A Great Week and the Blessing of the Sacrament

I guess the month of Diciembre is usually really dry at hot but like this week it rained, like a lot, all day every day. so much rain that it started to flood or all the streets here, there is this road here called Panamaricana and they had a pipe break this week and it just smells terrible! And then the rain hit it and just flooded like all the streets here, and it just smells so bad with the rain and the brown ahhh water.. But people love talking about the rain here so it’s fun to see it rain so much.

Lunes- pretty chill p day last week we played some bball and we were really happy to finally get out of the house and start working again.  I bought some things at the cancha that is really popular here.  It’s called mata.  I don´t even know how to describe it but it’s really good and everyone loves it here.  I’m trying to make it really good, but its way hard  cause there are a lot of steps in making it.

Martes- We got invited over to a recent convert house Silvila because she wanted her kids to receive a blessing so we found a time to visit her and we went over around 5.  When we got there we found out that it was their birthday!  So they hooked us up with some cake and way good chicken and as we were about to leave we asked if we could share a short message with the father who is SUPER Catholic, and like hates us and he said yes! We shared a Mormon message and the spirit was so strong and you could tell that he felt something in those few minutes.

Miércoles- We had intercambios (splits) today with some missionaries that are just not working as hard as they used to so we had today planned to like really motivate them as the day went by me and an E. Condori de La Paz we visited one person and got back to our house to study and my comp calls at 12 and just goes hey my comp for today is sick let’s trade back, and it was 12! haha we started the cambio at 8 and ended at 12! hahaha 

Jueves- Today we had our interviews with President he is a really rad dude that really knows his doctrine, and he is just the coolest guy to talk to.  After that we had intercambios with my zone leaders and I had to go back in Cosomos.  I described Cosmos last week; it’s literally a mountain like straight up a mountain, so I was ¨lucky “ to go there twice this cambio when my comp went cero...

Viernes- Chill day today because my comp is district leader we get to go to all the interviews for the people in our district.  Sso at seven we went back to Cosomos and I just hung out with my zone leaders for a couple hours.

Sábado-One way to contact is we will be in a trufi and we will have a pamphlet and we will drop it, on the ground and then someone will pick it up and be like here you go and we just go nope its yours and that’s how you break the ice!  But this time my comp had his pamphlet and he had a plan to drop it into the lap of this one person but as he was about to drop it, we hit a bump and he threw it! and it hit this kid in the head!  1 pamphlets  have sharp edges and 2 it’s a nino! so he just starts crying and screaming because it hit him and and  I’m just dying!  My comp was trying to save the contact but it was like impossible, he kept the pamphlet but i don´t think he’s gonna call us.

Domingo- Because last week we had those illegal thing and we couldn´t leave the house church was cancelled and I haven´t had the Sacrament in two weeks.  So one thing that’s was really special was we got to bless it! First time I have done it in like 4 months!  It was so awesome and  I felt like I was back in the old 5th Ward!  But the santa cena is so rad! Like the minute I took it I felt so much better and just happier and excited, and I know that it was because of the sacrament. 

Pretty chill week all in all, it rained a lot and we keep having our investigators  falling away! they get so so close and then one day they just don´t want to come to church or school gets in the way and their dates fall through.  We had about 5 people with dates this week and next week but all of them fell through until later in December.  It’s  hard work but if it was easy it wouldn´t be worth it.

All is well Love ya all! 

 -- 

- Elder Clayton 

Bolivia Cochabamba 

 Elder Burrow from Utah

Tall Enough to Serve and Stuck Indoors

Due to the elections and such, they had to stay inside for a couple of days.  And no pictures this week.  Being in Bolivia is hard to send any packages and with his brothers we have always sent a small Christmas tree and ornaments with decorations for their apartments.  It has been hard to know that I can't do that.  I am always amazed that Heavenly Father knows so well the whisperings of our heart.  He did send me a personal note that read: I HAVE A TREE in my house! I forgot to say this in my email, but the first councilor loves us and gave us a tree last night its 6 feet tall and is super rad! i have a photo of me with it and I will send it to you next week, sorry! Matt what a awesome dude! love you mom i´m excited to here from you guys in a few weeks!   What a tender mercy and answer to his mom's prayer!

Enjoy...

What’s up fam! hey kinda lame but my card reader that I have for my camera is not working so I can´t share any photos this week lo siento! 

Lunes- Last week you saw in my photos for P´day or 1st councilor and his wife took us to like a lake and we ate some way good pique Macho, it was really weird cause it was just like a car ride through some mountains and we were  on the side of a lake and because it was a Monday morning no one was there! It was sweet we had like the whole lake to ourselves.

Martes- Pretty chill day nothing really special.

Miércoles-we had splits day and it was super rad I went with Elder Hammond in my area and we taught a way fire lesson with a person with a baptism date next week.  This lesson was way sweet because it was just like a ping pong lesson we both just like knew what each other was going to say and it was so smooth.

Jueves-Another intercambios but this one was in this area called Cosmos and it is literally two mountains and straight up, like I’m not kidding straight up! ha-ha the whole time I was like why do people freaking live here?  ha-ha but it was way fun and it was with an Elder Stevensen from Vegas.  It was way fun and when you get to the top they have this look out where you can just see all of Cochabamba!  It’s so cool!

Viernes- This day was really weird we had plans for splits with another companionship but they were sick and so we couldn’t go, so we did all of the first 12 week of this week planned our next week and we still had tons of time so we went and talked with a recent convert, our lesson was on faith.. 120 minutes later we walked out and I honestly don´t even know what our lesson was about it was everywhere! 

Sábado- ALL DAY IN HOUSE. that’s what we thought but when went to have lunch with our pension cause thats all we could do and when we went over there she asked if we could help her so of course we said yes, so what we did.  We painted  these metal frames of her house; sounds really easy but they were like 12-15 in the air, and guess who was the only one who could reach the 15 foot ones.. Yup this guy... So I was painting while standing on a table, on a bench, on a bucket!  And after a solid five hours we finally finished, I was so tired and my arms were just dead after painting so long above my head!

Domingo- ALL DAY IN HOUSE this day we studied napped cleaned and cleaned some more and it was only like TWO!  Really boring staying in house all day.

This week was really fast because of all the splits, and two days in house, but I´m excited for this week we also have a baptism this week for a 18 year old named Alex he has had a date to be baptized for like 4 months and this week is the week!

All is well sorry for no  fotos, I will get more next week for ya! 

LOVE YA!

-

- Elder Clayton 

Bolivia Cochabamba 

Another Fast Week and teaching Lots of Bolivians

This week went by so fast! I swear i was writing you guys like yesterday, ha-ha but I mean how can it not when you teach like 4 or 5 lessons a day, something that is really hard down here is time, nothing is on time! We show up to lessons 30 minutes early or 30 minutes late and no one cares, it’s totally normal, like even church starts 15 minutes late ha-ha, In all the houses I have been in I have seen only two clocks and BOTH did not work ha-ha!

Lunes- visited the cancha again, that was really sweet, and after which we had a lesson with a dude named Alex he has been an investigator with a date for baptism for almost 4 months now, and now he is finally interested in baptism he has come to church for 3 weeks in a row and you can really tell the difference when he was just listening to us with now action but now he really wants to be baptized, when you can see the spirit in people’s eyes its so awesome!

Martes- remember Jonathan the kid that likes basketball? I think I told you last week but like his sister is really anit Mormon and we had a lesson today with him and he had this paper with all these questions and scriptures about how the Book of Mormon is fake, as I started to read the paper I got really nervous but then we were like why not look at these scriptures, so we did and every scripture he had said something different! He was so shocked, and he felt so bad, it was super awesome ha-ha,, but no we told him we love him and that these questions and doubt are normal but you need to ask God, not  Facebook!

Miércoles- In the morning we had to go to this place and fill out more paper work for my Boliva I.D and when we were there I got to see E.Dalton, E.Davies, E.Fisher and all my buds from the MTC, it’s so awesome how we only know each other for like one month but we talk like we are best friends and have known each other forever!

Jueves- Most of the time if we have a lesson fall through we will just go and visit little stands that sell like candy and Coke and we just try and have a lesson with them, but this time we were teaching this one girl and the lesson started out kinda normal, how to begin teaching but then like she just like told her whole life story to us and how she has all these questions about God, and she knows we are missionaries and she has wanted to talk to us for the longest time! It was so amazing and the Spirit was nuts!

Viernes- Usually our days we have 4 to 6 lessons plans but usually we will teach like 4 or less but this day I don’t know what was happening! Cause we taught all 6, it was really wild cause we had to take lots of trufies and it was really difficult to get to everyone’s house, but we did all six, and after which I slept like a rock!

Sábado- We had this lesson with this one girl like 18 years old in this park and when we went to see her She started talking and asked if we could  share a message, she said yes and invited her 5 other friends over ha-ha! it was super weird teaching a lesson to five teenagers, but we got other visits for all of the and we made our goal in one day!

Domingo- yesterday was really rad, we have 7 people with baptism dates and 4 of them were at church! It´s so awesome to walk into church and just see all your investigators its like a party in the Lord’s house! Also something not so rad, this week Saturday and Sunday Bolivia police are going to be walking the streets looking for illegal’s and stuff so our Mission President told us that we can´t go outside to proselyte! ha-ha for two days! he said stay in and clean your houses.. SO it’s gonna be a long couple of days..

Days are long and
the weeks are short but
All is well down here!

--
- Elder Clayton
Bolivia Cochabamba