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