Like a Rockstar

We went to the bishops house yesterday for lunch after church and his mom, this old sweet lady, goes to the fridge and brings us each a rockstar energy drink haha they are the coolest family, the oldest son looks exactly like andy samberg, and acts like him too, we had a good time

We had a bunch of Conferences this week, and other stuff to do so not much of an update

Went on splits in my old area, Quillacollo is my favorite

We taught a guy about Joseph Smith and the restoration and after asked him what he thought of it and he's like i believe you, you're from a church you cant lie.

He will go far with that attitude

Last p day our appointment canceled so we were just kinda walkin around aimlessly and right when we happened to be walking by a members house, the door opens and a missionary from this mission that went home like 4 months ago from Colombia walks out, so we ate really good colombian food with the member family, blessings

More cool stuff happenned but i can't remember

Elder $wenson

Teaching in Swim Shorts ;)

My comp Elder Davis from Oregon

Yesterday a huuuge pouring rain came out of nowhere so we stopped at an investigators house and they were very nice and gave us clothes to change in to and let our church clothes dry, so we taught a lesson in swimming shorts, and i was in a tiny sweater that was almost a belly shirt it was great

Got canceled on like all week so we walked a ton

It rained like crazy and our apartment flooded :D

We get in a taxi on Tuesday and notice the guys spanish isn't very good and his phone is in english so were like where are you from and he said EGYPT, so we spoke in english he had a super cool accent, taught us a little bit of arabic, and the coolest part was that he is Christian :D he was interested in the church cause he said he couldn't really learn much about it in Egypt he said its very hard being a Christian there

We worked with a member one day, one of the days we got canceled on a ton and he's a suuuper good guy, after getting canceled on he's like ok this isn't working, lets go to your house or to the church or something, we need to pray, unfortunately we were far and didn't follow his council and kept trying to visit other investigators in the area, but he had the right idea

Thats all

Contacting Trufis

Were eatin with a fam and the cake has a coffee flavor and the lady was like yeah its mocha its super good huh, were like does it have real coffee? and she's like yeah so we told her we couldn't consume coffee and it made the atmosphere nice and awkward cause we just left like half the cake, it was good tho

A lady got robbed on the street we live on the other day, like a tonnn of money, we helped her to the police station

Recently we've been contacting trufis which is super fun, a big one will have 11 or 12 people in the back part (or if were lucky its a bus of like 25 plus) well just talk to all of them then hand out cards, at first we were like yeah we could do like one a day and now its like every time we get on, its quite fun

We couldn't leave the house Saturday or Sunday this week due to Bolivian elections, and before almost throwing myself out the window due to boredom, i got a lot of good reading done, the scriptures are great, go read them. 

We couldn't even go to church yesterday which was weird... 

Thats all folks

Awesome Week!

Awesome week, we were busy with non missionary stuff so it was sort've like a half week

Went to the temple and i absolutely love the temple, it put me in a good mood for like 3 days, i hadn't had the opportunity to go since i was in my first area

I love my mission president he was talking to us and he's like, if theres a girl in the mission that you have feelings for, good, it means you're human and Gods plan is working, but just don't act on any of the feelings during the mission, then after the mission get her email and write all the novels and love letters

We have a super good investigator that wants to turn his life around, he said he wanted to repent of things, and also that he is struggling and doesn't really have a social life, after the first lesson with him he came to church this week, and between the 3 hour block at church, of all the lessons and talks, the only 2 topics were fellowshipping among the members, and the sweetness of repentance, so that was awesome

We got to watch the face to face with Elder Oaks and Elder Ballard it was suuuuper good

So 2 stories for the week...

We went to a members house for a family night, and here they always sing before they start but i've noticed that Bolivian mormons can not sing, and neither can I, also it was after a long day and we were very tired with not a lot of will power, so were singing this hymn and its just so off key and everyone just sucks at singing and while listening to it i could not help but just burst out laughing, my comp also did the same, even tho we cant sing were better than most so we kind of lead the singing so when we stopped the room was a lot quieter and we were just laughing and couldn't stop, and it was 23450923184 times funnier cause it was a time we shouldn't have been laughing, so yeah it was interesting, thankfully it was a member and hes super cool and didn't care

The second one was a little more spiritual, I don't want to sound cheesy when i write this but i learned more about what the gift of tongues really is, and how it is one of the gifts of the spirit. We had an appointment last Monday night and i noticed a difference, the gift of tongues isn't just for learning a new language, when someone has the gift of tongues they speak with the spirit, they know exactly what to say and what will help the person and what the person needs to hear, and the words are powerful, which is something that everyone has heard before and probably already knows but it was just cool to experience it first hand, and i know it has happened at other times in the mission but i just didn't really realize i guess, i was speaking very good Spanish and saying things i hadn't really ever said before, and was excited to answer the questions it was great

Twas a good week

Miracles Happen

The area is great, we get lots of lessons in, and the members are great with referrals. There's this one who every time we go to his house we whips out his lap top and pulls up 2 tabs, one of google earth to show us exactly where they live (cause streets don't have names) and the other tab is facebook to show us the name, face, and personal information of the person. I feel like a CIA agent, and they're good references too, he gives a ton of info and he's like yeah go say this, tell em jared sent ya, and they'll listen, so references are great!

Other than that our ward split in half, we had over 100 members that came regularly, now its only like 60 or 70 but that still makes it my biggest ward, the members are awesome i love being at church, on friendly territory, everyone loves the missionaries

So the little miracle of the week, today we went back to the ruins of sipe sipe which are on top of the mountain and its a pretty good hike, we went as a zone and almost killed half of them off, someone after like 1/5 of the hike was dizzy and nauseated and i was praying that this person would be ok, not even that they would make it to the top, after the first little part they got used to it and made it all the way to the top, everyone survived and had a good attitude about it, the hike kicked all our butts though.

That's all
Elder Swenson

Loving Colcapirhua

The new area is awesome

Everyone in my old area is mad cause i couldn't say good bye but i had no time cause i didn't know i was leaving, but i get to go back on splits cause i'm super close by 

The pensionista and her family in my new area are hilarious haha they're just super funny and goofy, and all have contagious laughs. Someone will say something that may not even be that funny but everyone just bursts out laughing like its the funniest thing they've heard, such a cool family

My first area Sipe Sipe was a branch and now its a ward! :D

There were huge changes in Cochabamba yesterday, there was a huuuge multistake conference, and Elder Falabella from the Seventy came, they rearranged the stake and ward boundaries, and added 2 more stakes in Cochabamba so now there are 7

Elder Falabella is awesome he talked about how we don't nourish ourselves intellectually as well as spiritually. He asked if we knew what the last book we had read was, and if we knew what book we were going to read next. He also said that out of the 1440 minutes we have in a day, we should be able to read the book of mormon for at least 5 of them, we cant feed ourselves spiritually all in one day, just like we cant do with our bodies, we have to feed ourselves every day, its just the spirit isn't quite as loud and demanding as the body for when its hungry, also for praying

1. Before you pray think about what you want to tell your Heavenly Father

2. Say it

3. Listen to what He says

That was from his son

The new area is good, ill send pics next week, im with my third white comp in a row, thankfully my spanish isn't suffering 

Thats all

Gar

Buzzer Beater Baptisms!

Nariet C. was baptized!

Nestor was baptized by my comp.

Nestor and Nariet — wedding day

Surprise transfers, I'm going to Colcapirhua, i'm packing up allll my crap to go 5 km to the next, bordering area, same district

Sipe Sipe is 18 km west of Cocha, Quilla collo is 13 km west, and Colcapirhua is 8 km west, so i've been in like the same general area my whole mish almost, none of you know where that is and no one really reads these anyways, but basically i've been in the same place my whole mish

My comp just finished his training and is going to finish training someone else, so i have a grandson

The kid my comp is training was with the same elder as my comp, so they're brothers

My comp is training his brother

Its like president just walks into his offices for transfers and is like how can i shock the heck out of the whole mission with these transfers

Nestor and Nariet Calle are awesome, and the newest members of the church in Quillacollo, they got married friday, baptized saturday, and confirmed Sunday

Other than that nothing happenned this week

Met a General Authority! And Cultural Activities w/Sipe Sipe Branch

Elder Montoya came to the mission and we had 2 conferences with him after our normal conference, so we were in the church all week we didnt do much else

There was a cultural dance activity and my old branch Sipe Sipe was there :D they had more people come than us and we have a ward... its probably my fave area

It was super cool listening to Elder Montoya, i forgot my notes so ill write about it next week but yeah 

He shoots doctrine

A dude was sitting in his taxi, on his phone on facebook, doing absolutely nothing right in front of his house on this street so i go to the window to try talking to him and he looks at me and tells me hes busy lol

A missionary went home so we had a farewell party for him, we went to our area cause there are members with a restaurant, they gave 14 missionaries a free plate of food, andthe next night they were suuuuuuper busy, they sold a bajillion plates, so blessings for feedingthe missionaries

Ah Tampico!

So i thought we had a lot of investigators but like none of them progress so not really

We have a "ward" but yesterday there were 34 members there

Went on 2 splits this week

In one of the areas I went to for splits they average at least a baptism a month

Our area has had 6 in the last 24 months

We should hopefully have a baptism tho, just the moms side of the fam is super catholic and shes kinda scared to tell them so she might not even invite them to the baptism...

Funny moment of the week: The pensionistas 3 little daughters are suuuuper crazy, within the hour that we spend with them to eat, they go from being best friends to worst enemies like 10 times, so the other day they started whining and crying and the mom was getting upset and everyone just hated eachother except one daughter who was happy to have tampico and so she has her little cup in both her hands and takes a sip and is like ahhhhh, tammmmpico! all happy and smiley, in the midst of all hell breakng loose it was pretty funny

Proposal of the Year

The good thing bout not having a lot of investigators is you really cherish the few you have

Speaking of investigators we have a golden family, they're not married yet and that was the only obstacle, i didn't know how i was gonna talk to them about it, kind of a hard topic to discuss but it went super well

We were talking about their baptism cause they have a date, and i was like yeah you have to have an interview, he asked what the questions were so i showed him a little paper he's just like oh so do we have to be married? and im like wellll yeah, and he's like cool we'll do it, we've been needing to get married and needed something to push us, then he looks at his girl and in english is like "are you ready?" she's like "yehs" that is the proposal of the year

A drunk guy tried to get on his knees in the middle of the street and worship us

Theres a lot of funny things that happen in the week but they're kinda hard to explain and not funny unless you're there, like for example: 

We have another investigator who only speaks Quechua, like not any Spanish at all, and so we obviously don't talk to him much, and we have to go teach him with a translator, he's an old guy who is pretty serious but i found out yesterday he's got a sense of humor lol, i walk into priesthood and he says something along the lines of "zxcmoqwdmxlzksd" in Quechua and some people start laughing and im like what did he say and someone translates, he said "good morning señorita (ma,am)" You should've seen the smile on that guys face haha he's hilarious his name is Ignacio

Another guy after talking about the BoM with him was like wow, do other churches know about this? I was like yeah he's like why don't they believe in it then that doesn't make sense, and i agreed, no it doesn't

Thats all

Gar

Baptism This Week

Beruska Ticona

Pensionista's kids

at the doctor

So we got a baptism this week, Beruska Ticona, she's cool, she was the only investigator here when I got here and she was pretty much already ready so we didn't do much

We didn't have a phone all week cause we lost it again, so we couldn't let anyone know about the baptism, so long story short it was stressful and we got everything ready super last minute but it worked out and was good

Met another investigator who's cool, apparently he's like a competitive rubix cuber, he can do one in like 16 seconds...

President Eyring said that conference should be the walk and talk of the church for the next 6 months until the next one, and another person said that we need to continually learn, and relearn principles of the Gospel, so we've been relistening to conference 

Thats all folks

Conference thoughts

I got ameobas, 5th stomach infection but don't worry we're good now

Didn't do much other than be sick and then watch conference so here's some random quotes, a few of the very many i loved:

• Don't let life´s distractions eclipse heaven´s light
• Most often good deeds go unseen, but they are recorded in heaven
• Once you take a bribe to compromise your integrity, its very hard to get it back
• Spiritual light continually shines on all of God´s creations/as a disciple of Christ, you are light
• Hard is good

So there's the week, i love conference and the Spirit that you feel when you watch it

G

Besitos and the Spirit

The zone

authentic bolivian tire sandals, got em custom made, and they're still a little too small

Here's last week:

Elder Bednar´s son served in this mission, and in this area that i am in now, we met the old pensionista and apparently he came to visit or pick up his son, but he came and ate at her house

Member made tacos for my comps b day, plus our pensionista bought us both cakes for a double celebration for my b day like a month earlier

Officially finished a year in the mish :D 

Aight here's this week:

I love members, we actually had some investigators in church yesterday and all the members came up and were just instant friends, hugging them and giving besitos and introducing themselves and making them feel comfortable

Read a cool talk this week, talking about d and c 50:22 and how when we're teaching the gospel and we feel the Spirit, then the other person feels it too, whether they recognize it or not, cause the influence of the Spirit is there

Also super good talk about happiness by Jeffrey R Holland in this month's Liahona, go read it

Pancakes, Pastors and Mt. Tunari

This was super beautiful, pics don't do justice

One of our investigators right now is a pastor lol he probably wont progress but its interesting to talk to him and bible bash a little, it just makes me realize how blessed we are to have the fullness of the gospel, the guidance that the book of mormon gives us, as well as other modern revelations is truly amazing. I am a 19 year old kid and thanks to the help of the restored gospel i have a more clear picture of the will of God and his plan for everyone, than a pastor who owns his own church and studies the bible every day, the book of mormon is a huuuge missing chunk and that's why we share with everyone

Other than that we still contact a ton, were going to be working more with members this week

Some random guy just started coming to church, he has come 2 times and we're visiting him this week, he doesn't speak much spanish so i'm preparing a very basic quechua lesson for him

Another awesome member always makes us pancakes, like a ton, this week she's making us tacos, her name is Ana, she is going to the Celestial Kingdom

Personal study is my fave time of the day (cause we contact in the sun all day) but the scriptures are awesome, theres also a ton of amazing books by LDS authors, so much to read and learn

Elder G