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

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