Christmas Fun and Another Baptism!

Super awesome week!!!

Went on splits with Elder Davey again, in his area. Its called Bella Vista which means good view, and for a reason. Its up on the mountain and its a better view of Cocha than from the Christus statue. Also they farm flowers there so its super green and beautiful, buuuut I forgot my camera so I will send good pics next time we do splits.

Christmas caroling Friday night was sweet, we caroled in the Plaza of Quiacollo, there was actually a ton of people and there was a huge crowd, and we picked a good spot cause they lit off fireworks behind us. The plaza is huge and was just packed with people, there was a parade in the street too, and random street performers. We sang and gave out 35 gallons worth of hot chocolate lol we contacted a ton cause they were willing to listen after we just gave them hot chocolate and bread, fun night

Christmas eve we had a baptism!!!! Super cool guy, named Costo, way friendly and nice, his friend baptized him, after we went to the ward mission leaders house, with 2 other elder companionships and a sister companionship, and had dinner and cake which was awesome

Christmas day was unbelievably clutch, one of my best Christmas´s actually. My awesome parents sent a nice Christmas package which I opened in the morning, much needed letters and pics and candy and some other things. We went to church which was just an hour then watched the best two years, forgot how funny it is lol, especially funny and motivating too when you are on a mission. After we had lunch then SKYPE! Christmas skype is life

Merry Christmas to all, have a good week!

Elder Swenson

From Mom:
Some really interesting things we learned about Bolivia while skyping!

Boli-VIA Tri-VIA

This is mom. Just wanted to share some things we learned about Bolivia while skyping:

• The sweetest thing ever is that the Bolivians pray for the elders and their families! Even when they are working with investigators and they ask them to pray, they will say "thank you for sending these elders and please bless their families!"
• We sent a small package to Elder Rivera, his companion. He had never heard of Skittles or Starburst.
• There are no street addresses or street names in Sipe Sipe (for the most part)
• Milk comes in pouches, not jugs or cartons
• There is a mashed potato dish with black potatoes literally mashed with feet
• Second hand American items are BIG, he knows a young boy who got a cheerleading jacket that had a girl's name embroidered on it, but he loves it!
• American movies and music are pirated and very cheap 
• There is an open sewer system, and many houses have outhouses, no bathrooms 

Six Days Until Christmas!

So not gonna lie most of the week actually really sucked lol I will keep my complaining short.

I got a bad stomach infection and could not eat at all, some of if not the worst stomach pains I had ever had, along with being super nauseated, so from Monday to Friday I would miss dinners and breakfasts and eat a bowl of soup from my pensionista, and some little snacks, like not even 1000 calories a day. I was able to work but just had no energy or strength.

On top of that I had an extra bad "Get hung out to dry" moment from my comp which was wonderful. Gave me a little anxiety cause I definitely didn't want it to happen again and yeah didn't help the week.

Buuuut there were some good things this week

I was nervous to go to the doctor cause I am not super comfortable with the Spanish yet so I was praying a lot and the doctor spoke super clearly and I was like magically understanding everything, and the nurse that was also there after a couple minutes was like do you speak english? Cause I do, which was super clutch.

Got drugs, feel like a champ now.

Praying for help too with the Spanish so I can talk and understand better cause I need to start leading everything now, and in just this week it has gotten a lot better and I am able to understand more, it takes a tonnnn of focus to pic out words and hear what they're saying which is annoying cause id crush it in english rn.

The church put on a play this week for christmas and did a bunch of funny skits, we couldn't act so some others did for us, it was actually pretty well done. Also the Sipe Sipe Branch Christmas Primary Program was yesterday, which was awesome

We have the best investigator that we met with Thursday. She speaks super perfect, clear Spanish I can understand her completely, even though she talks fast she talks clear, she'd be a way good rapper. Anyway she is the nicest, friendliest, cutest lady she's like 5 ft tall but has a lot of love haha, we taught her and then after we helped her put up christmas decorations (She has a nice, American style house) and listened to music which was awesome, it was a much needed time to chill and relieve some stress. It reminded me of home so kind of trunked me out.

Played basketball today with a professional Bolivian player, he's pretty good, he would be a good player at your local Vasa fitness, which for Bolivia, is, well, professional haha. The missionary bod has already set in, I feel like those 45 year old men who roll up for Elders ball and try to go hard cause they think they're 20 years younger but suck horribly cause they have 0 ability, that was me haha still in shape in my mind, but my body can't do anything, its ok cause I'm in 10x the spiritual shape i was in.

Aaaaand that was the week! More interesting news next week hopefully, thanks for the emails love you all!

Elder Swenson

First Baptism!

Didn't realize I look reallllll tall and lerpy, especially next to darker, shorter, more stout people

Her name is Matilde, we baptized her yesterday, super awesome lady. I was praying everything went ok cause she is 81 years old, and we have had two baptismal dates fall through already, but everything went perfect! Except the water heater haha the water was cold but she was fine with it. Yeah awesome experience, a lot of the ward stayed after church to support her, and it was good to see how happy she was. She was crying tears of joy and all her new ward member friends came up and hugged and kissed her on the cheek, it was awesome. We were working with her granddaughter too but she got into some anti mormon stuff and also has been getting teased a little by her neighbors for having elders over which is super dumb, she was very ready too. So we will keep working with her.

Other than that is been real trunky here haha, my comp E' Riv got his Trunky papers they're called,it's info for your last week and the stuff you need to fill out and send back to the mission home and they send you your flight plans home, so between that and Christmas we have been a little trunky, but it's all good we're still working just fine. If anything it's a good thing cause he is always in a good mood, and also jamming out to Christmas music puts us in a good mood so yeah, December and Christmas is awesome.

Also, Bolivian food is not for white people holy crap (Lol literally...)

Had the Christmas mission devotional which was awesome, felt the Spirit super strong listening to the music and hearing everyone's testimony.

Also forgot to write about this like 2 weeks ago but we got to meet Elder Falabella, from the Quorum of the Seventy, I loved him cause he spoke very nice clear Spanish that I could understand. I think he's from Ecuador? He just taught us to work hard and motivate us and yeah.

That's pretty much it, not too much this week other than the baptism, thanks for all the emails!!

Elder Swenson

Mastering the Rubix and "Door" Approaches

 Pondering what to do now that I'm not in Incachaca

 Here's what looks like an old western saloon

Good view from Sipe Sipe

So I don't feel super great cause I got crazy heat stroke or something today, long story short thought we were just gonna bus to cocha to buy food and come back so I didn't bring water but we ended up`doing much more, so I learned my lesson.

Also I am gonna shut up about the baptisms haha it fell through again, cause she wasn't quite ready and they want to be baptized together. 

Highlights:

Get to play the game Mad Gab whenever the Latins try to speak english lol

Zone leader: Elder Swenson, what it mean, deeskguys

Me:... these guys?

ZL: No no no, Dihskys

Me: Ohhhh the skys

ZL: Nooo, Dihszguys

Me: Ohhhhh disguise!

ZL: Yeahhhhhh

Also

Puchohenso = put your hands up

Keys = Kiss

(Dont worry they make fun of my spanish too)

Ummm learned how to do a rubix cube lol, there's lots of dumb things/ toys to buy for whatever downtime (Don't worry there isn't much.) And all the Elders here are masters at rubix cubes. It just sits on our desk and whenever someone uses the bathroom they take it in there mixed up and bring it out done lol.

So in Bolivia when you have a baby the government gives you a ton of free food every month at the beginning, for 6 months, so this week our neighbor (Who is the ward mission leader's son, his wife is the nice lady that does my laundry, we all tight) Hooked it up with a ton of food so we're rollin.

Also the Christmas devotional was awesome! For whatever reason it's ten times cooler listening to our prophets when you're on a mission, probably partly cause you are directly doing work for them. Made me trunky though seeing temple square haha — Christmas is a trunky time, they're bustin' out trees and lights now.

Also random kids invited us to play soccer and we played for like 30 min then contacted their whole fam cause, which I am not big on soccer but that's way better than knocking doors, had it been bball they would've been so impressed we would have been able to cut straight to the baptismal invite' 

More Highlights

Yesterday we went to an appointment, we took a member who is their acquaintance, and we had been there twice before and they were cool. There house is 3 walls and the back, away from the street, doesn't have a wall and it's sort of😉😉😉 the entrance to the house, so we walked around the first wall, standing on the side of their house, definitely not in it, and just calling there name cause that's what you do when they don't have a door, she wasn't there so we just kinda chilled for a sec wondering what to do, when she appeared out of nowhere, suuper mad, going off in quechua, and then her husband came around our side, freaking out at us, saying we were trespassing, its illegal, he could call the cops, we should have known, how could we think its ok, its not in the Bible, Jesus didn't just have horrible manners, he cant just walk into my house in the United States, etc. And we had no idea, total mistake, for the first 30 seconds we felt bad but he kept going off, for literally close to 10 minutes, finally he accepted our 100th sorry, lo siento, disculpe, perdon,so 100th times a charm, and calmed a little, and we actually got a return appointment lol, really weird, must've been an extra extra bad day for them, cause we honestly weren't in house at all, and we were just doing what we normally do, plus were missionaries, were not trying to steal a sack of potatoes, but yeah just funny story, alls good, he calmed down and accepted our apology

Aaaaaand that was the week! Hope all is well back home, love you all

Elder Swenson

Amazon — Amazoff

This describes the area!

Visiting the Incachaca (Inca Bridge)

An abandoned power plant

What large bats!

Me and my comp have to watch extremely cheesy videos cause I am being trained so to help us through it we would pause it and imitate their faces lol I thought this one was pretty legit

We went to the absolute most beautiful place today for P day, but before I tell you how amazing it was I will tell about the other stuff. (Which is also pretty cool)

So our baptismal date was actually this Saturday lol sorry I will send pics next week, we have two for sure on Saturday. Also we have another! We were chillin' at a members house, sipping some herba mate and his friend came over and we were talking to him and we actually thought he was just less active cause we've seen him at church but not every week, and he's actually not a member, so we talked to him and he had all the lessons from previous missionaries, wanted to get baptized, but didn't have time? I don't know haha but we just asked when he wanted to get baptized and he said Christmas Eve which will be awesome, so yeah the other Elders did all the work which is always nice. 

Thanksgiving was awesome! I cleaned our nasty bathroom haha they don't celebrate it here.

K so I was sort've selfishly hoping more of my mission was all nice and green and tropical (which is probably why I am serving here lol) but at least we can go to the forest for P day, pretty much the other side of the mountain is the edge of the Amazon rain forest, i think. So my side is brown and full of sewers and the other side is green on green on green and super beautiful. The grass literally is greener on the other side of the hill, also there's no grass on this side. As we drove there it slowly transitioned from brown to normal to green to thick, luscious (think that's a word) green. I took like 150 pics haha I will probably send more cool ones tomo but pretty much you drive up the canyon and from there you hike down and follow the river which is way cool cause there's a ton of waterfalls, and the river flows through like this little slot canyon it's awesome, the pics don't do justice at all, not even close. Also the weather was perfect, I'm in love haha. There was also an abandoned power plant, full of bats, including me which explains the one pic. So yeah, super cool rainforest. Oh also there was a basketball court on the side of the road on the way up, I could ball there for dayzzz, surrounded by all the green. I didn't get a pic cause we just passed it, and played soccer at the top cause there's not many white people here lol, even soccer was fun with such a cool view.

So yeah that's it for the week! Thanks for the emails, love you all!

Elder G

Battle with the Behe-MOTH!

The moth creature — next to a quarter

Moses reincarnated

Sorry it's long again, it is sort've interesting though I promise!

Highlights of the week:

• Another baptism! Super cool guy, named I. — we showed up for the appointment and he was waiting, with his pamphlet and BoM open, and later on we invited him and he's like, of course! Lost track of how many we have, but one of the baptismal dates is this Saturday so I will be sending pics.
• Went on splits with the district leader Elder Daveys who is from America! English has never been so good lol, we stayed up all night talking, since we both speak English we were bros within 10 minutes. He actually lived in Draper like 5 min from me and I never knew him! Super cool guy.

Everyone wants to learn English (we are starting classes soon hopefully :) and always ask how to say things in English, and occasionally we'll have some fun haha. The day before splits when we knew Elder Daveys would be there the next day, me and my comp taught this girl a "greeting" in English, and we were like yeah you can totally practice it on Elder Daveys tomorrow! (it was Wednesday and every Thursday night we get to play bball and soccer with everyone.) So me, her and Elder Daveys are just chillin', it took some coaxing for her to practice her new English greeting, but finally she turns to Elder Daveys, with a serious, focused, thinking face and is just like, "Hey, umm, I'm single, and I want you." Great moment haha, we told her eventually what it actually means.

The other day we were walking down the street and these two dudes come out from some "building" and are like "Elders! Come in! We have been waiting for you!" Which for a split second scared the crap out of me cause they've been waiting? I thought we were gonna get like abducted or something, but then I was like naw we're missionaries of the real church, we're safe. Plus they were literally 5 ft and like 100 lbs., so I was like yeah we can take them spiritually and physically, and I thought they just wanted to bible bash so I was so down. I went over and shook the guy's hand (Who actually looked just like Ghandi, weirdly enough) and he kinda pulled me in, and no joke everyone in the room looked just like they had time warped straight from 600 B.C., especially the guy at the pulpit who looked just like Moses. He is the guy on the cover of the program/flyer above. Definitely a weird spirit there — you get used to such a good spirit at church and you take it for granted so when you go somewhere else you're like what the heck. They sang weird songs and we told them we had to leave after like 10 min. My comp was telling me the dude that runs the church is actually Peruvian, and there's  a good amount of followers, the guy literally thinks he is a reincarnation of Moses and sacrifices animals in the middle of the street, calling on people to repent, so definitely sort of a cult haha. Which shows people are definitely desperate for religion!

"Highlights" of the week

I was washing dishes, minding my own business, when the moth from Hell infiltrated our house. The devil himself tried to sabotage the Elders' apartment. I heard and felt its massive wings beating down on me and freaked out. I thought it was a bat or something and I wasn't about to get some gnarly, unidentified infection from Bolivia so I ran into our room, briefed Elder Rivera on the mission, and hiding behind the corner, armed with bathroom cleaner (In squirt mode for the distance snipe) and fly killer spray, we jumped out and just went crazy! haha we got it all over the kitchen, it took like the whole bottle of both to kill this thing. We couldn't have just simply shoo'd it out cause A) we were way too scared, B) it was personal now we had to kill it, and C) it was quite the trophy.

Thats pretty much it for the week! Lots of appointments and investigators, so not too much tracting thankfully. Thanks for all your emails!

Elder G

Living in Bol-LIV-ia

Cochabamba temple, super beautiful

If you zoom in on the pic of the mountain you can see the Christus, pointing towards the Temple

The Sipe Sipe ward, at the temple 

My comp snagged a pic of our next baptism! We invited her and her date is Dec 3

Traveling in style

I found death mountain from Zelda and the Ocarina of time

Birthday party, don't remember his name but the food/cake was great!

I left on my mission 2 months ago today, time to get trunky :D This was a suuuuper crazy week, lots happened, and there were some things I missed last week. We still have a ton of investigators, and one more with a baptismal date! Right before the lesson my comp was like oh you're gonna invite to be baptized and I was like ok. It was our third lesson with her, her name is M. she's an older lady, super nice and humble. We talked about baptism, and then read a good scripture about it, and then had a member with us who bore her testimony about when she was baptized, then I asked her! I felt the Spirit super strong, I hadn't really been feeling it much, day to day, either cause I don't know much Spanish or I'm not recognizing it or whatever but I really felt it, and said it perfectly and she said yes! December 3rd. That makes 5 or 6 I think with a date.

Other Highlights of the week:

• Went on splits with the zone leader. I was super nervous cause for whatever reason I thought he was way strict. Also he doesn't know any english, and he was gonna find out how bad my Spanish was lol. It went way good though, he's way chill, thought my Spanish was pretty good, and learned a lot about each other in just one day, it was a way good experience, he taught me some other good ways of contacting.
• Got to buy peanut butter
• Played wallyball today, which is volleyball in a giant raquetball court, way fun cause you can spike it off walls, also fun when you're tall and the competition is 3 ft shorter.
• Someone's birthday party yesterday, so we all loaded up in a member's van and went to his house, super good food except for these nasty beans but we were outside and they have like 4 dogs so that was also clutch
• On a clear night, you can see the stars soooooo well! Cause you're in the mountains and there is no light pollution

More "Highlights" of the week

• So I pay someone to do my laundry and I gave her my clothes 4 days ago cause she usually does it in about a day, but she hasn't yet! So I have been wearing the same clothes for 4 days now and am beginning to smell amazing.
• Forgot to mention our shower is a bucket of water with a bowl to pour water over your head lol
• People here do not care too much about privacy lol, we were talking to this lady at the beginning of a lesson, about to teach, and her little daughter brought her baby to her, and she started breastfeeding him, 5 ft in front of us, not really trying to hide anything, and then proceeded to do so pretty much the whole entire lesson, reallly interesting...

That's pretty much everything! I tried to make it short but oh well, hopefully it's somewhat interesting, thanks for all your emails! Love you all,

Elder Sweñson

Getting to Know Bolivia!

Forearm day washing clothes

One of our awesome investigators, J., with a baptismal date! And her adorable daughter—so many people ask for pictures with me

P., who also is awesome

This is our ward mission leader's adorable grandson — they wanted a picture of the shortest and the tallest

Making bread on day of the dead

Sipe Sipes only bit of history, and it's covered in grafitti with litter everywhere — it's called Campanario Historico De la Indepencia

​The only green here is on farms so here's like the only green area of Sipe Sipe

​

A lot of people speak Quechua which is nothing like Spanish, it's way different. When the Cholitas speak it (Cholitas are indian ladies that wear very distinctive clothes and they are everywhere) it sounds very different. I had a woman go off on me in Quechua cause I accidentally sat on part of her skirt in a very crowded van. There's also crazy drivers, it's a miracle there aren't more accidents. It's scary to watch when you are in the car because there's so many close calls. 

We teach a lot of kids, because we'll show up for an appointment and their mom will send them out to tell us that she is busy so we'll just be like, can we teach you? And they're like yeah. Two of our investigators are 11 and 12 year old girls, super cute. They have baptismal dates at the end of the month! We have 5 or 6 people getting baptized I am pumped. Our goal is to turn our rama into a barrio (our branch into a ward.) And we need to either reactivate or convert 30 people. Also, no one can say Swenson — haha I guess its hard if you are a native Spanish speaker — they always squint their eyes and are like eehssswensuhnn? And we have basketball scheduled with some ward members right now and we are way late so I will update more next week! 

Love you all,

Elder Swenson