9-21-2009 E-MAIL

Subject: Just another day in Paradise

Hey everybody, well things are starting to calm down here. And actually Idk why, but the weather has been a lot cooler this week, it changes super fast here. We'll see how tomorrow is. We are starting to organize ourselves a bit better here. We found a better map and so we are trying to mark where some of the members live. Problem is the addresses just say the street name, and each streets goes for about 30 blocks, so thats pretty difficult..We had 4 people come to church yesterday, that was pretty neat. Two of them need to get married b4 they can be baptized, but one needs to wait till her hubby gets divorced from his ex. And the other doesn't have ID. Those are two very big expensive problems here. We also had two people accept a date to be baptized... but they didn't come to church haha. But they are sure they want to be baptized, so thats good too. My first transfer here isn't looking too good as far as baptisms so, with general conference and district conference we won't be having meetings in our town for 2 weeks, and a person needs to come to church 3 times to be baptized. So maybe by the end of October some of them will be baptized. But we are just trying to help the branch out here. I like the food here in Bolivia so much more, and being on the border with Brazil and Argentina helps. Here they eat real corn, there's another type called choclo thats about 10 times bigger with no taste, thats all there is in Peru. And this week I got to eat... MASHED POTATOES. Normally the people here put the potatoes in a blender and make puree, but my pensh knows whats down, so she makes it the correct way. I love it. I have another calling now... Sunday school teacher for the youth, I taught the lesson about the Willie and Martin Handcart company. But theres only one Sunday school manual in the branch haha, so I just sort a winged it. It went alright but no one was listening. Things with me and my comp are going well. We started off kinda rocky. He's a perfectionist and I'm... well 'm not. But we are working better now, and are able to teach with a stronger spirit. Cool story, we showed up for lunch yesterday and our pensh told us to walk across the street and invite this soldier over to eat. She said he'd been sitting there for a while. I just thought that was so great. Idk if too many people from the states would've done that... I'd be lying if I said I would do it.
Crystal- I have no idea what the branch pres has, but they said he's back in town, but still in his house, I might be able to meet him finally.
Valynn- the first week 60 people came... for the first hour, but after only about 40... stayed For the rest of the classes. So yesterday right after the closing prayer we ran to guard the gate, almost no one left this time, after seeing the missionary gauntlet waiting for them, so we had about 80 people stay this time... big improvment. We are slowly trying to reactivate people.We were given two families to visit this week... we never found them, but they ended up coming to church anyways. The city is split in two parts, I have the eastern half, and there are a couple paved roads, everything else is dirt.
Kim- Tell Brennen happy Birthday! I'm trying to look at my calendar to remember peoples birthdays... but I'm only trying, not doing... should probably get on that. After the first day I calmed down alot... my comp is a different story. I'm trying to show him that if we are working and being obedient things will work out. But he's freaking out cuz he didn't write neatly enough in his planner. But ya, we are very slowly seeing results.
Dad- We are trying to organize some activities to get the people excited about church. No one here has problems with americans. We ate lunch with a soldier yesterday, so he was Pro Evo Morales, and he just wanted to know what the states were like. We have a few strong members, but they always give excuses for why they can't have callings. Also theres a lot of stupid drama thats getting in the way of the branchs progress, so we need to work on that too.
- Tell Beau he has to write me a ton when he gets home, I imagine he's going home to Utah right? And tell Kort and Cyd they should email me once in a while throug you guys, letters dont really work too well anymore. A package sounds great right now. It'll probably take a long time to get tome though. And mom PLEASE send ideas for activities, we aren't doing too well with thinking of things to do.
EE-good luck with Bunny, just what a baby needs.
KK-Emily... good choice. K,

gotta goLove you guys