un año, y actividad de estaca - One Year & Stake Activity

Well gang it has now been a whole 370 days sense I have seen you when you dropped me off at the cárcel que también se llama la CCM. But it's all good jaja.  I miss you guys a ton and hope you know that I  think of you all the time, everyday! But it's fine because I'm doing something amazing! Something I've always wanted to do and I'm so happy I'm here! Just always remember that and know that I love y'all! So as you can tell from that note that I have passed a year and I may have or may not have celebrated it by burning a shirt. It's kinda sad cause I have to do my laundry by hand so why burn it? well.. It just seemed like the right thing to do!

More than that we had this huge activity in the stake this week where on Saturday we had a talent show with everyone it was a huge success! We had up to 500 people there! We  had about 20 different shows with people and songs it was a huge hit and the last show was a play by the missionaries, and guess who had the main roll, yup this guy! The guy who has never acted in all his life! So that was fun, someone has a video of it somewhere so I'll try and send it to you. What we did was the story of two people that knew each other in the pre-mortal world and then they find each other in the world through the gospel!  It was dope but I think my acting career is over.  But the activity was until almost 11 at night and our mission presidente called us and was so happy cause he has never heard of something with that many members and good so he was way happy and fine that we were out so late, kinda funny.

Also this whole week has been a huge party if you have seen my area is about 30 minutes from a city called Quillacollo where that is about 40 minutes from Cochabamba so it's really far and this week was a huge party in Quillacollo almost the whole city goes there and just drinks all day and sleeps all night. After that, they do it again. for about 5 days in a row so it was just about impossible to find people home and even harder to find them sober ha-ha but the party is over and now its my time to call them to repent!

Yeah sorry kinda lame week the big hit out of all things was the activity we now have about 10 new references from our ward and a ton of happy members it was way awesome!

All is well here love you guys!

--
- Elder Clayton
Bolivia Cochabamba

Mana Tiempo - Quechua meaning no...Translation - No Time

Well if you don't know Quechua, like many don't mana means ¨no¨haha and Arì is ÿes¨ so as you can tell I didn't have much time this week.  As you might have seen from maps in Cocha I'm very far from all the missionaries here, my zone leaders live about 40 minutes away and my mission president is about another hour from that. so it's far.  But this week we had just about everything going on, as interviews, zone conference and our weekly reunions. but its cool we just don't have anytime to study which is kinda hard I'm still making my way through the Bible and Book of Mormon. I'm in Juan 6 y 3 Nefi 12, both are so awesome I love reading my scriptures!

Well let's see here new things this week. We had a really cool contact this week with this dude who lives in the same house as an investigador, we shared the message of the restoration with him and he stopped us half way through and just gave his testimony of the fact that Jesus was a prophet and had 12 apostles and the true church has that... and we were speechless cause lots of times nobody knows that and it was way cool to hear him say that! Turns out he was a Evanglico preacher! he knew his stuff, but we had a good conversation with him and he said we could pass by and talk with him anytime which was cool and nice of him to say.

Oh yeah! the other week we found a Muslim! Here! in South America home of the Catholics! He is one of 30 here in Bolivia! and he lives, and works in our area! He is way cool and also knows a ton about religion! He was black, not very many of them here. But he was way cool and we just pass by and talk with him every now and then for a few minutes which is cool.

Something kinda cool going on this week is we have a huge activity coming on where we have the whole stake doing a talent show and they have been working like animals to get it huge and us too, we are doing a play, about a missionary.. real original but its about a dude and a missionary and they knew each other before in the vida preterrenal and now they have to find each other in this world its cool I'm the main dude kinda lame cause I got a truckload of parts but it's cool and will be a way big success.  It's this Saturday!

Well gang sorry that is like all I got for you I got some pics in my drive with zone conference, my normal breakfast and today we went to this really cool like forest and had a BBQ with the zone!
ALLISWELLHERE LOVE YOU GUYS!
SO HAPPY YOU GOT THAT LITTLE PACKAGE! LOVE YAALLL
--
- Elder Clayton
Bolivia Cochabamba

Zone Conference

My normal breakfast 

Oh, how we love pictures!!!

Members Giving us Referrals and a Visit from someone from Home

This week we got a wonderful surprise from a friend that I met from my work who had her kids in treatment and is from Cochabamba.  She was traveling there and circumstances ended up going back to the area that was sort of in the area where Caleb was serving.  She found another set of missionaries who gave his contact information to her and she called him and asked if he wanted to send anything home to his family.  Which he did.  A wonderful picture of the Savior, ties for Wayne and his brothers and the best; handwritten letters to each one of us! I will forever be grateful to Lorena for seeking him out and bringing these treasures home to us. She says he looks so great.  She said he is so funny, his shoes are very dusty, his Spanish is fluent and he needs new shirts; he is so thin...ha-ha.

We had a pretty weird week the truth. now that I'm in a trio it's so weird like when you start the mission you have your comp and you are always with him, and then when you are in a trio it's with your comp and then your other comp. it's kinda weird to now have three of us always together but its OK for now.  We had to move the whole house around to get him fitted in we now have our beds all together in the main room and had to change our room around and put all our closets and stuff in there. It's really weird but it's alright so far. 

So first off that one family we are teaching are way awesome but literally have no time for us they have gone to Sucre for almost the whole week and could not come to church again with us which was sad but they are way awesome and they still want us to visit with them which will be good, but nothing new for them this week. Sorry gang. 

But we also got a reference from our Elders quorum presidente last week and we finally found a time to meet with them on Tuesday. It's a young couple who are 20 and 21 they are way cool and best friends with the Elders quorum pres. We went to visit them last week and the whole family was there, cause they had a brother pass away just a few days ago so we shared a short message with all of them and then yesterday, Sunday they all came to church, well like 5 people but that is a lot for a ward of about 40 so that was awesome and we visited them again in the night and we ate some Steak!  It was really good everyone was laughing cause I was talking to them in Quechua but I only  know like 15 phrases and that's it ha ha but it was a really good time and again shared a cool message with them. 

Yeah nothing really new this week but all is good here, love ya guys and hope everything is going well up north, something funny it snowed here, well in the mountains, its really pretty and looks like the mountains in Utah when there is snow on them.  I also forgot my camera so i have no photos sorry gang but all is well here.  Love ya guys!ª 

-- 

- Elder Clayton

Bolivia Cochabamba

Triooo...Sipe, Sipe, Sipe

Well like I said before my comp is famous for emergency transfers but this time we are not leaving but we will be in a trio! The E. Miller was training a new elder but he went home early. So now he will be with us for the next four weeks! I'm excited but not really ha ha, its hard enough to get in houses with two people now three. But it has be good and I hope it all will go smooth.

well a funny story my comp ate something really bad on Wednesday night and he payed the price cause he was throwing up like crazy all night in the toilet, the sink, and all over the floor. Nasty right. but to make it worse we had no water! For now three days! So do you know how that water went down or how we cleaned the sink¿ we didn't cause there was no water! When things got chilled down I woke up and had to use our good drinking water to clean everything up and flush the toilet, freakin sucked, didn't get water back until the next day! How is not having water here in Bolivia... normal¿ if this happened in the states the whole world would know about it, and be a national dilemma! But I got it cleaned up and we are all good now.

Okay good story. The family that I talked about last week we visited them again and are so excited and love us, we shared the plan of Salvation with them and they loved it and had tons of questions for us they are so awesome, and have a baptismal date now which is cool they how ever could not come to church this week because they had a meeting cause they own some company in Cochabamba it was cool and we will teach them again this week super prepared!  When we were leaving they asked us for something to read and we gave them a book of Mormon and were really excited to read it.

Yeah that is like all I got today the Sipe Sipe trio will be hitting you guys up next week call us Sipe Sipe Sipe, love you guys have a good one.  All is well here! And I added some more photos too! (note from mom: I could only find this one)

--
- Elder Clayton
Bolivia Cochabamba