Chicken (feet)... It's What's for Dinner!

Learning to eat how Bolivians eat... sucking the juice out of chicken feet

Look closely to see Elder Swenson...

Getting along great with the new comp

New comp Elder Varela, suuuuper awesome, complete opposite of the last comp, wants to work, cool guy, not annoying, a lot more like me, it'll be good. President came in clutch with the transfers.

Area kinda sucks tho, did a tonnnn of contacting and not much really resulted from it, its like were opening up a new area basically, tonns of walking and contacting, but at least its progressing a little, its at least moving forward

Watched a good talk from Elder Holland called feed my sheep, got me pumped to work, the best quote was "Don't be scared to be bold or persistent, my wife has an avon saleswoman thats more persistent than a lot of missionaries." 

I'm not tryna get out hustled by an avon saleswoman!

This guy in church bore his testimony about how he slaughtered a Jehovas Witness, he was talking to him and was answering all his questions and then finally was like, "hey do you guys have a prophet?"

"no..."

"Well we do, come talk to me when you guys have a prophet"

good stuff

Elder Swenson

True Love Leads... to Baptism

New comp from Chile, since were our own district out here in the middle of nowhere im the district leader lol

Had a marriage and baptism this week! I'm got lucky cause nothing ever happens in Uyuni but while ive been here they've sent out a missionary and had a marriage and baptism! 

The government building was closed for a while so the marriage would've had to wait till like June but on tuesday we found another place to do it, and they wanted it for this saturday before my comp, left so the bride came and filled out all the paper work that tuesday but the groom was at working and the government worker was like well i need a signature, so my comp forged the signature haha i love bolivia, also the groom had a surprise when he got home from work that night, like surprise you're getting married saturday

We spent most the week helping them get everything ready, and friday night we went with the groom to invite all his friends and family to the wedding the next day haha, i love how things run here, hey im getting married tomorrow at 2, ok sweet ill be there

Apart from that, did I mention I'm getting a new comp?! :D

Listened to a super good talk this week about gratitude, by Thomas S Monson in I think Oct 2010 conference, he told the story about Gordon B. Hinckley and how his dad used all their saved up money to put electricity in the house and to buy his wife a laundry machine, and then one thanksgiving they didnt have much cause it was a bad year, and their dad turned off the lights and lit the oil lamps and then they realized how blessed they were because of jusst the electricity, super good talk yall should listen to it, put me in a good mood for the rest of the day and week

Yesterday I was saying the prayer to bless our dinner and they wanted me to do it in english so i started in english but kinda got lost cause i never pray in english, so i started speaking english with spanish grammar, and then finally just busted out in spanish without thinking about it and my comp started laughing and i did too so i finished the prayer and no one said amen they all just stared at me like you're an idiot, it was pretty embarassing but hilarious

Have a good week all

The Lord Blesses

Went on splits this week, super awesome cause we actually worked, they had to take a 7 hr bus one way lol and theres no road its super bumpy, sucks for them

Zone conference in potosi, super cool, they always get me motivated

SKYPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was using a members phone for a modem for internet for skype and it fell on the ground and wasn't really working after, it was ok cause we had backup, but this morning we were on the way to return it and i felt super bad, i was preparing the apology in my head and gonna tell her obviously id pay for a repair  or whatever, and on the way to her house after a few prayers it started working! Theres my spiritual experience for the week

One more week with the comp

Went to the salt flats and thankfully theres still water for the cool pics!

So I knew the tour was gonna be all day, which means we wouldn't have really had time to work tonight but im not about to lose my streak, ive worked every p day on the mish and its not gonna break, so i brought some contact cards with us today and we were all eating lunch together with our tour group, and we were all just talking and asking where everyone was from, and what we did for work, and it got to me and it was like BOOM perfect opportunity im a missionary, blah blah blah, heres some cards, and they were all pretty interested, they asked a bunch of questions about missions and the church and we ended up talking about the church during lunch, so long story short, the Lord blesses you with opportunities to share if you're looking 

Got a new niece today :D Congrats sis love you

Elder Swenson

A Reader Lives a Thousand Lives

Tryna walk into ward council without getting decapitated

 

Bought some cholita leg sleeves that dont fit me at all but are extremely comfortable and warm so heres a retarded pic with me wearing them

"Golden" ... I contact and teach everything

View of Uyuni from the apartment

Comp got sick with the altitude this week so we weren't able to get much done, I guess the good thing about that is I had a tonnnnn of time to read and study which honestly is one of my favorite things to do on a mission, and what has helped my testimony the most. Its also super motivating reading because most of the book of mormon and Bible is about the missions of different people, of Jesus, Paul, Peter, Alma, Sons of Mosiah, etc. they kinda put my mission to shame but whatever haha.

Had nothing to do one night so we stopped by an investigator who was closing up her shop and invited us to her house for dinner, she's sort've rich and has a super nice apartment|penthouse and syrup lol no one has syrup cause it's super expensive so we made a million pancakes which doesn't sound that cool but my diet is super basic and bland so pancakes were a blessing, also made tacos a few days later.

After eating with an investigator we were gonna teach a lesson but i had no idea what to teach and was stalling the small talk as i thought of something to teach and then finally she asked us about polygamy so we had a nice lesson on that lol.

Nothing happened this week, my comps feeling better well do cooler stuff this week I promise.

Skype in 6 days!

Elder Swenson

Take it With a Grin of Salt

 

Yerba mate addict

Set a date with someone in Sipe Sipe for baptism and then came to Uyuni, he got baptized 2 days ago, does that count? lol

Trying to learn from every companion that i have, its sort've hard when they're lazy and don't want to work but at least i'm learning how to compromise with an 8 year old and have a lot of patience

The Uyuni branch is sending out its first missionary ever, tomorrow morning. It's the pension's son we went and helped her clean every square millimeter of the house for the farewell party just like we did at my house :D

Antibiotics are my favorite thing ever

They have a holiday for everything, today is workers day (first day of may) and they celebrate it by not working, no one goes to work everyone has it off, thank goodness we found an open internet place

Happy workers day! Don't work too hard today

Elder G

Totally forgot to mention the best part about the missionary that leaves, yesterday his girlfriend came to church and the last hour we were all together (since it was the last sunday of the month) for sunday school, and she came and sang 2 love songs about the mission about how she was gonna wait for him, and then bore her testimony about how she will wait for him no matter what because she loves him so much, right in front of everyone at church, sort've interesting, didn't know that was a thing to do haha the branch president stood up after and was like well i've never seen that before, but anyways that girl has wayyyy more guts than me cause id never do that

Now you can have a happy workers day