2014-02-03 My companion and I are a powerful team.

Hey Everyone,

pasteles (fried cheese filled empanadas) with api (really good
hot drink made from purple corn) and eggs and beef at the pension.

Well this week was crazy.  I have a new companion.  Elder Melgar went to a different area and Elder Calderon is my new companion.  He is 18 years old and from Piura, Peru and awesome.  He speaks really good English because he studied at the BYU English school and therefore lived in Provo for a year.  He has a little less than 2 months in the mission and I'm finishing his training.  He teaches well and he's smart.  He's also a very dedicated missionary.

I'm very excited to be with him.  It's really nice to have someone I can talk to in English.  He uses the phrase, "It came to pass," a lot when speaks in English which is kind of funny.  He loves Tucanos so he has good taste. Anyway, we work really well together and our lessons are great.

It just keeps raining and raining here.  Some the areas out in the country are just completely flooded (like 3 to 4 feet of water in the streets) but to be honest no one seems very worried or surprised by that.

We taught Miguel and Carmen again.  Carmen told us she prayed but didn't ask about the church because she's afraid to do it.  It took us a while to figure out what exactly she means by that but basically it seems like she knows that baptism is the next step she needs to take and that seems like a huge change to her and uncomfortable.  After we identified the problem, we had a great lesson about the doctrine of baptism.  She promised us that she'd pray to know if it was true this week.  Miguel likes the church and even though he may not have received spiritual confirmation, he believes it's all true.  He promised he'd pray about it this week too. They were both at church on Sunday.

Baptism of Jasmyra,  and my new companion (not my baptism but I know her and her family well.  I taught the rest of her family twice and taught her once and since the hermanas are their missionaries I've gone over to give them blessings a couple of times and did her interview. We are going to have a family home evening with her and her family tonight.)

Gerardo´s mom took us to the house of her friend, Justino.  He lives with his 2 sons.   We set up an appointment for this week and it looks promising.

I've probably talked about Salome before but I don't really remember.  She's a little old lady who can't remember anything.  This week we went to visit her like we've been doing but for the first time in a month I feel like we made some progress with her.  She has a baptismal date and seemed to understand a little bit more than before.  I felt the Spirit incredibly strongly as we taught that lesson.

My companion and I are a powerful team.  I'm excited to see what we'll accomplish together.  I'm so happy to be here in Bolivia.  I love the people here. 

I hope everyone has an awesome week.  You should go to the temple.

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. 3 Nephi 18:1-12