Sipe Sipe

Well what's up fam? As you have known I am back in Cochabamba Zona Quillacollo area Sipe Sipe with a Elder with little time in the mission called Elder Pusarico from La Paz Bolivia, out of all my areas this is the least country but it's still way country haha its pretty cool here and we are trying to contact a ton so we can find more people to teach.  So far it's we find a lot of people but when we come back for the lesson they are not there. But it's all good!  We will find those who want to hear our message, my comp is pretty chill and we are trying our hardest. 

So one thing really cool is that the other Elder here when he left have this one really cool kid who is going to be baptized this week his name is Albert and has been coming to church for about 2 or 3 months now, he is a really cool kid who is really prepared.  We are currently teaching the commandments and is really excited for his baptism this week pray that everything goes good! 

So every Friday here is a special activity, English classes! haha so the old elder that left this area was a gringo and spoke Spanish who was then replaced with a new gringo ha-ha so I taught my first ever English class haha we talked about parts of the body, and face it was funny and cool, we had like 5 people come so that was good.

Sunday was pretty cool so back in Betanzos it's a ward that should be a branch and here in Sipe Sipe its a branch that just got turned into a ward like 3 months ago ha-ha, so it's pretty small there was about 40 members who came to church so that was cool I only had to bless the sacrament which was normal but than no talk, and no class. 

So today for p-day we went to Tunari which is the highest mountain here in Cochabamba I think ha-ha but its freaking  gnarly high and we hiked it! ha-ha it was way fun cause there was snow! yes SNOW in south america Bolivia in June! ha-ha it was way cold but really fun we did it with the whole zone which was cool, I got some cool pics, pretty fun to see all the different things here in  Bolivia it has a little bit of everything, I put a new folder on my drive so go look for that! 

All in all a chill week getting to the new area it's fun.  My comp is kinda quiet but it's all good Il'l get him to come out more! Love you guys. All is well down here! O and it;s a ton warmer here! haha like the nights are cold but then all day is awesome! Love y'all! 

-- 

- Elder Clayton

Bolivia Cochabamba

New Transfer, New Me

Well, looks like he is headed to a new area and as always his attitude is upbeat.  I was able to be on and chat back and forth with him and he will miss this area.  It was hard, but it molded him and he learned a lot about  himself and just how tough he is.  Funny thing as you will read and as we joked about on his Mother's Day call, the bikes got finished just as he was ready to leave, and his warmer clothes that we sent, well...he will get those three days after he arrives in his new, warmer area.  Typical.  But, still he reports; all is well.   And, he added more pictures to his drive, so I gave you a few more to see, too.  Enjoy, it another great one. 

Whats up gang? So these six weeks are up with E. Baros and I will be heading back to Cochabamba tomorrow.  I'll be going to zone Quillacollo and the area Sipe Sipe, to be with an Elder from La Paz,  Bolivia, he is new in the mission with only about two months or so but it will be more campo which will be fun.   I'm excited to go back but I'll be sad cause this place is way hard but it's a fun area, and E. Baros is a beast too ha-ha. 

Well this week we have both been kinda sick here in Betanzos and has been kinda a slow week which is kinda lame it was on and off me and him sick which was lame but with the time we did find we got some things started.  As you know we have a weekly activity in the church that nobody comes to ha-ha but we decided to change the area for the first time this week where we went to the little town of our bishop and we had it in his house, and it was awesome!  We bought some juice and cookies and shared a small lesson about helping the missionaries, and we had like 10 people there which is about as much as we have at church!  So it was dope!  But the best part about all of this was we finally got the bikes back!  ha-ha after almost 5 weeks and three days before I leave but I got to use them, at least once haha,  but we had to ride back from our Family night threw these up and down hills in the pitch black ha ha!   I had taped my hand flash light to my bike and that worked out good but it was gnarly but really fun haha we got back in time and all was good, 

Something that they do in Bolivia that is super lame is pedestrian day where there are no cars!  People park their cars in the middle of the road at like 4:00 in the morning so people can't drive around literally can't drive around, so you walk but they did it on Sunday and this week was Stake Conference en Potosi, so we had to leave Saturday night in Potosi, sleep there for the night then stay all day, until around 7 when there was the conference, cause they end the pedestrian day at like 6, it was way lame cause we were  there all day and not feeling good but it was a good conference, we had our pension come and that was it out of ward betanzos. haha 

Well yeah that's just about it for me here, I'll be heading to back to Cochabamba tomorrow so that will be fun, excited to go back but it's fun to be outside of Cocha too, love ya guys! and all is well!, also I put the rest of my photos on my drive! 

-- 

- Elder Clayton

Bolivia Cochabamba

JWs and Zone Conference

This week he was able to go to Uyuni; they have been trying to go there for a few weeks and it seems to always fall through.  Not this time.  He put several pictures on his drive which I will add to his blog.  I will put a couple here in his email; but if you get a chance to go to his blog there is a lot more there to enjoy, just too many to put on one email.  And as always, thanks for all the thoughts and prayers in his behalf, he appreciates them and always says he feels them.  Enjoy...

Well this week was pretty good we have not had much success lately with just doing door contacts so we have started to go and just find people in the plaza and just invite them to the activities that we have.  So far nothing has really happened but we are trying everything we can to invite people to Christ.

One funny contact we were talking to this one like 20 year old kid and then this elderly  lady came and sat down next to him so we said hi to her and then she kinda just went off on us! turns out she was a JW! ha-ha we tried to just be nice and talk to that one guy, but she just wanted to insult us.  After a few minutes of her just making fun of us in Quechua we asked the two best questions for a JW which is;

1. Where did your Bible come from? beause they use another version of the Bible. which does not say Bible on the front.

2. How did your church start?

Here there is a good amount of JWs and we have had many chances to ask this question and every time they all have the same answer.. (I don't know) it's famous we have heard it a lot we then just gave him a handout and left to talk to someone else and left her.

This week at zone conference was really cool the subject this transfer was Adan y Eva and it was so awesome there is so much crazy doctrine in this story but I love zone conference it is just a spirit high and you get to see all your buds from the other zones for the first time in a few months,

Lastly we finally got to go to Uyuni this week which was way dope! I took tons of pics and it is way cool biggest salt flat in the whole world! Also part of Star Wars was filmed there!

--
- Elder Clayton
Bolivia Cochabamba

Popsicle in the Back of a Taxi

What's up so this week something that was really dope is we had a activity in the church! The first one that has not been organized by the missionarios en three years! haha so we had a lot of old Chalitas come in from Potosi where we are practicing singing in Quechua it was really fun, we just sang two or three songs to practice for Stake Conference en a few weeks.  They want the whole Betanzos ward to come in and sing in Quechua haha so that will be fun!  But after that we then played some soccer with them and it is so much fun to play with these Bolivians.   Me and my comp played with a few of the Men and then some of the youth but after a while we made a team of Chalitas (Chalita is a women who has her hair in ponytails, wears a very bright colored dress and vest, its traditional clothing that their family's would wear) but anyways after we played we made a Chalita team! and it was with like 10 just of the oldest people ever playing soccer! it was so much fun to watch them play think of like very large old women with tons of clothes on to stay warm, playing basketball it's awesome haha then for lunch we made steaks and ate them with our hands. (like en Mexico, shout out to Stetson)

But here en Betanzos there is very little to get excited about so once every like 3 years is a huge Bolivian holiday for potatoes and here in Bolivia is the heart so for four straight days people from all over Bolivia came here to show there potatoes, listen to Bolivia n music and the coolest thing.. Evo came!  Presidente Evo! haha came here to this little pueblo. He gave a speech and I think its on YouTube so maybe go look it up if you want to be motivated by Potatoes.  We didn't see him but saw him fly away in a helicopter here which was cool. 

Kinda a hard week cause a lot of people were at the festival so not home but it was OK we found other ways to find people. In a few weeks we are having Stake conference, and I think Betanzos is going to be made into a Branch so that will be kind of a bummer but I think it will be better. Also when you are in a Branch they can give the missionarios callings!  Which is super gnarly imagine being a missionary and then having to be Elders Quorum president too!  But what ever the Lord will decide on what to do. 

So as you know we are a good hour and a half from where the whole zone is of Potosi so when we need to go into the city we have to sometimes hitchhike cause there are no more buses and this week when we went in at night this one lady come up to us and asked if we need a ride so we just hopped right in, it was  a nice truck and they  had the Beatles playing so everything was good just waiting for the driver.. when all of a sudden he comes and he is holding a whisky bottle!  So we drove the whole way there with a dude who was literally drinking and driving!  Kinda  gnarly he was really nice tho and didn't even make us pay!  I would not recommend it but.. sometimes it's your only option 

E. Baros and I are working like animals to invite people to Christ here and it's a good time pretty good week in all and all is well. love you guys and think of y'all often,  Thanks for all your help on getting me out here.  Lova ya! 

I found a dude working with the exact same camo suit that dad has!  I was laughing so hard when i saw it so i had to take a photo of that like 1960 camo suit 

We ran out of seats in a taxi so I sat in the back, but it's all good I had a  Popsicle. 

-- 

- Elder Clayton

Bolivia Cochabamba 

Sick Week and Mother's Day Phone Call

He did didn't think he was going to write today as they were going to go on an adventure to what is like the Salt Flats here, but they ended up not going; so I was surprised to see a short, but great email checking in and saying hello.  He still even when he isn't doing well with sickness manages to say all is well there.  It was so great talking to him and he looked and sound so good.  Hearing his laugh made my heart so happy.  Love him and miss him; but oh he is doing such wonderful things and growing so much.  Enjoy...

Yeah we had a pretty chill week.  Our activity of the family night in the church nobody came again which is all good!  Just gotta keep inviting people and they will come, but we did find a really cool couple of people this week it was these three kids like 18,20, and maybe 25 but they were really interested about how to know if a church is true and why there are so many.  It was pretty fun to talk with them and they had some funny questions cause here there are TONS of churches and they are all different.  So they had random questions from all of them which was fun.  Thursday and Saturday I was sick and we just slept all day. 

Lets just say the double headed dragon vive. 

Yeah we are just working hard to bring everyone to Christ in whatever way we can! 

Love you guys and I was really happy to talk to you all.  Keep having a good time up there in the warmth. 

Todo esta bien!

-- 

- Elder Clayton

Bolivia Cochabamba 

Trabajando - "Working"

Pretty chill week we had a cool lesson with this family we found a week ago, and the dad had a question on how he can get his kids more involved in religion and going to church, that was really dope.  We told him to be an example to his family and start with praying.  It was a cool lesson and we got three new investigators on a Monday night!  That never really happens. 

So one thing we are trying to do is this week we started a new activity where we do a family game night in the church where we just have a small lesson and then play a game and snacks, its dope!  But this week was kinda rough!   We bought some juice and cookies and nobody came. We stayed in the church for like 1.30 hours but nobody came;  kinda hard.

Sunday was pretty rad so, for the last two weeks these kids have come to church because they love singing the hymns, and then we have this one dude who lives about three hours away and comes in to Betanzos to come to church, so he was baptized in a church in Sucre that was really similar but its different, so we started teaching him and he is super interested but he has a JW bible, gotta fix that ha-ha.  

yeah I don't know what else to really share we are just looking and talking to everyone we can.  But it's all good.  Love ya all hope you have a good week!

Also you should be getting your tags for this season soon so here is a photo of me with this 45" that I shot from the switch backs with my sling shot.  ha-ha!  (Looks like he's making good use of his $2 sling shot)

"QUE CHALA" ...and we got Bikes!

It sounds like it was a good week.  I was able to be on with him quite a bit and best part was he sent me a short little email just of thanks.  That's what gets me the most.  Sure am excited to hear his voice next week!

Pretty chill week we are working really hard and looking for everyone we can possibly talk to and share the message of the restored gospel with them!

Well this week was nothing really big but we had some cool stuff happen, first off last week we got bikes! So in this area its really small but, we have little towns that are really far away in mountains and hard to get to by foot so we talked with a guy in the stake and he found us two bikes in Potosi from members, we bought one for 300 and the other for free!  She said if it's for the work of the Lord it's yours!  So we told her blessings for us today and tomorrow for you!  She was so nice and we were really grateful.  One bike is like ready to go only needs a new tire, the other needs some work.   But we are tight with this one dude in Betanzos and we think he will fix us up good.

Funny story we were storing the bikes in the church cause we didn't want to take them to our house and as we were walking these bikes this little kid runs out and asks us what we are doing ha ha So I respond with "this church, this church is true!" and she just kinda pauses for a sec than goes "QUE CHALA" which is just like cool haha but it was so so funny and my comp and I were dying laughing.

Yesterday was pretty funny too, so we have started different activities here in Betanzos to try and get members more active, so we have Wednesday night scripture study where we just teach a class we had three people come to that which was dope, Saturday futbol, where we had three members and like 6 teen age kids come and play with us, but what is fun is every time the church is open like every kid in this whole pueblo knows about it and comes to play with us ha ha so we had like those 10 playing football but like another 15 in the church just hanging out ha ha it's fun.

Sunday we had a solid 20 people come to church and my comp conducted the hymns, I blessed the sacrament, gave a talk and then both of us gave the mission prep class for the second hour and the third hour class for the fourth Sunday! pretty nuts, also its getting into winter here and like half the town goes to Argentina for the winter.. which is going to be really rough, to find more people.

p-day today we are in Potosi and our new Zone Leader E. Swenson is way dope and like 6"7 and loves basketball so now our normal p-day of futbol is now basketball  pretty funny now in this zone of Potosi we have 10 gringos and 6 Latinos but 4 of the Latinos speak English! super funny we are helping them out to learn more which is fun.

yeah my Quechua has gotten a lot better I can say a few things like:

how are you?
I'm fine
what is your name?
my name is
we are misionaros
I don't understand Quechua
see ya later!

yeah that's all I can say.. all is good here tho I Love my comp we have a lot of fun here which is really really helpful, but I love you all up north and all is good here in cold Betanzos!

--
- Elder Clayton
Bolivia Cochabamba

Best email of all:

just wanted to say that I love ya and i thank you for your emails you send and the fotos, think of ya often, love ya mom!