2013-09-23 We had a surprise baptism this week.

Hey everyone,

Happy Birthday Mom!!  Hope you have a great week.  

This was a pretty crazy week.  We spent one day in a training meeting with Elder Calderon of the Seventy. It was good and then the next day he met with all of the bishoprics in Cochabamba and told them that the wards should be more involved in helping the missionaries.  That should help us out a lot to get people to go do visits with us and give us references.  Then I spent a day in the hospital, not for me.  Another elder had his appendix out and we are taking turns spending the day there. It was actually a really fun day. They brought me Burger King for lunch and the elder who had his appendix out is American so it was easy to chat with him.  Marco, Anghi, and Arthur came by to visit too.  

 

Last Monday I went to visit the Flores family too.  They made us pizza and it made me miss my old area. Arthur put my name and his in the cement in front of the house.  The other missionaries who are there put their names too.  (the other two names).  Sebastian and Kimberly both called me this week. As long as their mom gives them permission they said that they are going to get baptized this Saturday.  Jhonny Diaz called me to tell me his mom has a baptismal date for next month too.  That’s pretty exciting.

We had a surprise baptism this week.  Edward who already had all of the lessons in the past called us on Wednesday to say he wanted to be baptized on Thursday.  This time I called to the church offices to get them to send us a water truck to fill the font so we would have clean water.  It actually made me feel pretty good that I was able to get that all worked out over the phone in Spanish.  It means my Spanish has improved significantly.

Today for p-day we played soccer against another zone.  I got to see Elder Chavez so that was a lot of fun.  We walked for forever to get to the field though.  We walked for like an hour and a half down this pretty dirt road. I’ll send a picture. 
 

I'm in los Alamos, now.  We will truck in water from now on for baptisms.  [The Flores family] lives like 20 minutes away from me by taxi or 30 to 35 by trufi.  Yes, they pick up and drop off my laundry.  I told them they didn't have to.  They don't have a car.  They came in a trufi.

Mom, could you do me a favor and look into how much it costs to fly between here and Salt Lake City (both ways, starting from both locations)?  Also look into what the Flores family would have to do to visit us in the US (only have passport or more?)  Also I heard we can send them an invitation of some type that makes it easier to do the paper work to visit.

My companion is a good guy but our personalities don’t really match very well. It’s working out though.  I figure I’ll only have him this one cambio because he has been here for 5 months already.

This week I got to thinking about how I’ve lived one of the most blessed lives of anyone.  I’ve really never had any major trials or problems and I’ve always been successful in what I want to do.  I figure I have the Church to thank for that.  There are some people here who are just incredibly lost without the church to guide them.  They live a low quality life and don’t know how to change it. I don’t think I ever realized before the extent of temporal blessing we receive for being obedient to God.



Elder Howlett's buddy, Raul--nephew of his pensionista

Also, I’ve been thinking that I’ve had two great successes so far in my mission.  One is the baptism of Jhonny. He is absolutely incredible and more committed to the gospel than the majority of the other members here.  He also introduced us to 14 or 15 of his friends and brought them all to church at least once.  Six of his friends and his mom currently have a baptismal date.  The other success would be with the Flores family.  They were almost completely inactive when I arrived here.  They are active again and doing everything they can to live the gospel.  Arthur, especially, has turned things around.  He had gotten his eyebrow pierced, was still a teacher even though he was 16, and said he had no interest in serving a mission.  Now he's been ordained a priest and goes early with Jhonny every week to set up the sacrament and bless it.  He is incredibly excited to serve a mission now and is always asking me about how missions are. He went with me to visits at least once a week.  That was really helpful because my last companion always refused to go up high so Arthur always went with me to teach those people.  Hermana Flores told me when she came to visit at the hospital, that he convinced them to go with him and visit the investigators up high in the mountains this past week.  His parents both tell me that he gets along way better with his family than he ever did in the past.  He’s absolutely awesome and a great member of the church.

Also time is FLYING.  This week I’ll have been here for 6 months!  I can´t believe it.  It freaks me out that time is going by so quickly and it motivates me to do more every day because I’m afraid that I’ll look back and think I could have done more.  I can’t imagine how I’ll feel going into my last 6 months.  

I love you all, have an awesome week!

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S.  Alma 36:3

2013-09-16 ...the water was kinda green and murky looking...

Hey everyone,

I sent a bunch of pictures so this won’t be too long. 

I have enjoyed being in my new area.  There are a lot of really good ward members.  I still miss my old area though.  My new area is in the city instead of up in the mountains like before.  Not downtown Cochabamba but still in the city.  Elder Grigor (Canada) and Hermana Jones (Ogden) from my MTC group are in my zone. They are both great.  

We had a lot of rain and overcastness this week which was nice.  I like it when there’s no sun.

The family we live with is really nice.  They made me pizza last night that was actually quite good.

 

We live on the 4th floor of a building which is the highest floor. We have a big outdoor patio/balcony thing which is probably my favorite part about it.

We have electricity which is something I had missed for the past month.

The water usually works here but not always.

[My new companion is] Elder Campos
[from] Otavalo, Ecuador
[He’s been] in the field the same as me, 4 weeks less over all because Latinos aren’t in the MTC as long, I shared a room with him in the MTC.

I haven’t seen the Floreses yet but they have called me every day since I left.  I am going to see them today. We’ll take a taxi, they are going to make pizza.  None of [the Flores family] speak English but they all know random phrases.

We have a cell phone, almost everyone does now.  I imagine everyone will soon.

No IPad or facebook for now.  If it happens I think it will be June or July of next year.  (I think facebook is likely but I can’t see us being known to have IPads here being safe.  I think that would lead to a lot of missionaries getting robbed.)

Johnny Diaz’s mom called me when she found out I was leaving and we went over there because she made me food and wanted to say goodbye.  They gave me a picture from Johnny’s baptism with a nice note on it.  I’m glad she’s finally listening to the missionaries.

We had a baptism of a family of four on Saturday.  They seem really nice and I'm excited to get to know them better.  We filled the font and the water was kinda green and murky looking, then we went to lunch and came back an hour later and it was a dark brown.  The family Parra got baptized in it anyway though and we just didn't say anything.  Afterward, the mom was talking to me and told me she had pictured a blue water.  I told her, "me too."  Turns out she thought we had filled it with herbs as part of the ceremony.


Somehow we didn't have a single other investigator with a baptismal date which is absolutely crazy. We have a lot of work to do here.



 

We got to go with the ward to the temple to do baptisms [for the dead].  It was a ton of fun and the baptistry here is beautiful.  It also had a picture of Jesus being baptized that was really cool and I've never seen before.

 

 

We have the same pensionista for lunch and dinner.  She runs this little restaurant thing at lunch and at night we eat in her house.  It's good food and she doesn't mind if I don't eat everything.  I think I'm really going to like this family.  Her name is Mercedes and she has 3 kids, Fernanda 14, Junior 12, and Isabella 3. They've only been members like 6 months and gave their first talks this Sunday.





Love,
Elder Howlett

P.S.  Alma 36:21

2013-09-09 Yesterday was a lot of fun until I got my cambio.

Hey Everyone,

Well mostly my news is that I’m going to a new area.  That’s not at all what I was hoping for but I’m sure it will be alright.

We are having a family home evening with them (the Flores family--one presumes) tonight and I’ll see them for my last lunch tomorrow.

Yesterday was a lot of fun until I got my cambio.  Sergio and I went on cambios (I think he meant splits) and it poured all afternoon and night.  People are more likely to let you into their houses to teach when it is raining so we got to teach 4 lessons in 4 hours in houses and I love the rain.  We found an 18 year old kid who lives alone way up in the mountains who seems really interested.  He wanted to talk forever and said a really nice and sincere prayer to finish our lesson.

Things are going well with Brenda who was baptized but never confirmed.

Johnny Diaz has helped us out a ton, he has brought more than 10 of his friends to church and we are actively teaching 7 of them now.  We only baptized him less than 3 months ago.  Brian and Sebastian are introducing us to friends too and one of their friends is a serious investigator.  His name is Ario (18 years old) and I really like him because he is really level headed and calm, not at all like Sebastian and Brian.  I love them too but Ario is a lot more like my friends are.  He is really excited to introduce us to his family.  It’s just hard to get a day to teach them because both of his parents work and travel for work a lot.

I can’t remember if I’ve told you about Rudy who the Huaraña family introduced us to.  He is a great investigator but plays on a soccer team that has games on Sunday.  He is 22 and studying in the college here. We took Johnny with us for a lesson this week and it was probably one of the most spiritual lessons I’ve had in my time here.  Johnny told his story of dropping out of his volleyball team during a tournament to be able to come to church and he knows he made the right choice.

I was remembering the other day when while we still lived in Provo we were all eating orange creamsicle ice cream in the kitchen and then we all grabbed dish towels and were running around the kitchen trying to hit each other.  That must have been at least 10 years ago and I have no idea why I remember it but I do.  

Sorry I don’t have a ton of time to write today but I’ll have lots to tell you next week.

Remember not to do anything that will keep you out of the Celestial Kingdom and have a great week everybody!

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. Isaiah 1:18 

2013-09-02 I got to climb up in a tree and use a machete to chop it down.

"There are these really cool bright purple trees all over.  They were normal trees until they all got purple flowers last week."

Hey Everyone,
I only have a minute to write right now but I’ll write more later.

Yesterday I went to an appointment to visit a young man we met last week.  The only person there was a little old lady who only speaks Quechua though.  I asked her if the guy we were looking for was there and she answered me in Quechua.  I only understood “manu canchu” which means something along the lines of “there aren’t or isn’t any.”  I think she was telling me he wasn’t there but I’m not sure because Quechua is hard.

This was a rainy overcast week which was really nice.  The sun is way too strong here and I’m always getting sunburned.

 

We went and did service this week up in Villa de Mar where Veronica, who got baptized, lives.  We did service there before too.   I got to climb up in a tree and use a machete to chop it down.  We moved a pile of bricks too.  I don’t really know why.  She made us a ton of food while we were there. We had ecco, camu camu, madarina juice.  Also bread and rice with a fried egg and I think it was carrots cooked in garlic.

We ran into Brenda Lopez.  She got baptized a year ago and never got confirmed.  We met her family too and I’m excited to be teaching them.

Elder Chavez came back to visit during dinner on Wednesday so that was fun to talk with him.  I miss living with him.

Today is Angie Flores’ birthday so we’re going to their house right now.  I’ll write more later.

Love,

Elder Howlett
 
In answer to some questions I asked...
I have gotten a letter from Miranda and Adri but not Kiana or Britta.

no package except for the photo book (from anyone)

Yes, I’ve gotten multiple letters from all my grandparents

Ya I’m pretty much always happy.

Ya it’s insane that I’ve been here 5 months.  I feel like it’s going to be over before I know it.

LATER...

2013-09-03

after-food-fight hair styled by Arturo

Hey everyone,

I got my package today that you sent July 31.  I opened it with the Flores family at lunch today. They loved the Wonka bumpy jelly beans and chocolate.  Some of them liked the beef jerky but some of them didn’t like the teriyaki flavor.  They said it tasted like it was coated in sugar.  They didn’t care for the wheat thins though.  They have more flavor than they are used to and it made Arthur cry. I got a kick out of that, he told me it tastes like it’s covered in ajo, a spicy pepper they use here.  It’s just sun dried tomato basil flavor though.

They had an egg and flour fight during Angie's birthday celebration

I had a blast with the Flores family yesterday too. We spent all of p-day with them.   Arthur went with us to the store and we bought everything we needed so I could make chicken avocado sandwiches.  It was pretty expensive to get ranch and cheddar cheese here but that’s ok because everything is super cheap.  We brought everything to the house to cook while we waited for the rest of the family to get there.  While we got the food ready, my companion and Arthur taught me the salsa.  I don’t dance well, but that’s alright.

On Sunday I went on splits with Sergio Vilca who is one of the youth who hadn’t gone on splits yet.  I was kind of worried about what he thought about it because none of our appointments were there so it was a lot of walking and only 2 visits in 3 and a half hours.  He’s a really nice kid though and I enjoyed walking around and talking with him.  That night I got a text from him thanking me for taking him, saying he’d learned a lot and hopes we can do it again.  So that was nice.

in Elder Crankshaw's area (next to Elder Howlett's)

I also went on splits with Elder Crankshaw to his area this weekend.  It’s only the second time I’ve left my area.  It was a lot of fun.  Most of his area is a lot more wealthy than mine.  It was weird to see such normal looking neighborhoods.

Cambios are this Sunday and I really don’t want to leave.  I think it’s about a 50/50 chance that I stay which is pretty good considering that I’ve already been here 3 cambios.  

On Thursday we had a young men’s activity of a dinner and soccer.  We got 6 investigators together to go and of course the ward hadn’t gotten a dinner ready.  Instead we went and got pizza at my pizza place with them and it was a ton of fun.  We pulled out the photo book and ate and chatted for a couple hours.  It was only like 10 dollars for everyone’s (8 people) pizza and drinks. Then we played soccer.  It’s crazy how much less organized the wards are here.  I’m in one of the strongest wards in Cochabamba and it still lacks active members in a lot of the essential callings. Half the wards here don’t even have a ward mission leader so it’s awesome that we have a really good one.

bringing water from the river to a little old lady's house-I don't know what she does with it, maybe washes clothes and cooks

Happy Birthday Maddie!  Hope you have an awesome birthday.  Go get your learners permit.

Also thanks for the cards, Maddie, Grace and Liv!

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. 2 Timothy 4:7-8

2013-08-26 I continue to be amazed at how we find new investigators.

Hey Everybody-

Only 2 of the Vasquez family were baptized.  Fernando and Paola.  I found out the day before the baptism when I was doing the paperwork that they had been wrong about how old Eloy was.  I found his birth certificate and it turns out he doesn’t turn 8 until May next year.  That was a bummer because he’s wanted to get baptized since June and he’s my best buddy in that family.  Also the oldest, Jairo, told us he couldn’t leave his soccer team that plays on Sunday down a player in the middle of the tournament.  He’s going to quit the team after the tournament so that he can be baptized though.  That should be within the next couple weeks.  He’s been doing really well though with everything.  He left a game early to come to his cousins' baptisms.

My new place will finally have electricity tomorrow and it’s alright.  It’s a lot closer to our area.

Brian and Sebastian and Kimberly just keep getting better.  Sebastian stopped smoking.  Also we met the parents of Sebastian and Kimberly and it turns out their dad had met with the missionaries a lot before and really liked the church.  He would have been baptized but moved and lost contact with the missionaries.  Pretty much the same thing that happened with Brian’s dad.  We have an appointment with them tonight and I think they will all be baptized together in September.

I love the Flores family and never want to leave my area here. 

 

The Flores family is pretty much the best and they help us out a ton--especially when we need people to go on splits. They’ve made me pizza like 10 times since I’ve been here which I love too.

 

They are gonna start saving now so they can come to my wedding they said.  I hope that’s actually true because I think it would be way fun to show them Utah. 

One of my favorite experiences during the week was looking for a family of recent converts who supposedly moved into our area. We knocked the door where we thought it was but a little old Quechua-speaking lady came to the door with her 14 year-old grandson instead. I almost left when we had confirmed that it wasn’t the family we were looking for because I had no idea how to teach someone who only speaks Quechua. I felt like I needed to try though so I asked if we could come in and teach and they said yes. I taught the lesson to the 14 year old kid and the grandma just kind of sat and listened. It turned out that this kid had recently decided that he needed to join a church. He had been reading his Bible that morning when we came and was super excited that we were there. He asked me when he’d be able to be baptized. I’m excited to meet with his parents tomorrow who speak Spanish. I continue to be amazed at how we find new investigators.

After the Vasquez family baptism I bought coke and chocolate and we went to their house to celebrate.  It’s pretty fun that they get so excited over stuff like that that costs nothing.  We chatted and it was fun.  Their grandma is really old but her mind still works and so she’s fun to listen to.

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S.  D&C 100: 5 and 6  Share the gospel.

 

2013-08-19 Everything is just falling into place with them so well.

Hey Everyone,

This has been a pretty great week.  I can’t believe I’m already half way through the transfer.  It has flown by.

Congratulations Sam on your Eagle!

Well the first thing I’m really excited about is I found those two young men who we talked to in the street my second day in the mission field.  Remember the ones we couldn’t find their house because my companion didn’t take good directions and I was mad at him?  Well on Tuesday night right after we started splits (I was with Elder Crankshaw) I found them--in the church of all places.  To be honest I still don’t know why they were in the church but it’s a pretty great place to find investigators.  I freaked out Brian when I knew his name but after talking a little he remembered talking to me and “the short one who looked Chinese.”  We set up an appointment to talk to him and Sebastian the next day at Sebastian’s house.  When we talked to them the next day we met Sebastian’s sister Kimberley too.  It turns out she has gone to seminary every morning for 2 weeks but somehow that’s not something that anyone mentioned to the missionaries...  As we started to teach, Sebastian said he’d go grab his Bible.  He came back with a Book of Mormon. I was thinking, "Where on earth did he get that?"  Turns out his boss gave it to him recently and told him he should read it.  We talked for 2 and a half hours because they didn’t want us to go.  We went and taught them all again in Brian’s house a couple days later.  We actually taught them in a Catholic church which is kind of cool.  Brian’s parents are the grounds-keepers for the church and live in rooms behind the church, but we taught in the actual church.  Brian’s parents are great too.  His dad had talked to the missionaries in Santa Cruz a while ago and liked it but just lost contact with them. Everything is just falling into place with them so well.  They came to church on Sunday for all 3 hours and wanted to talk more when it ended but we were completely booked for the day and didn’t have time to.  We have an appointment tomorrow though and we’re playing soccer with them this afternoon. Tomorrow we are going to do Word of Wisdom.  Hopefully that goes over as smoothly as everything else has so far.  I’m pretty sure both of the guys smoke something though.  I was super excited to find them again though.  I’d been thinking about them all week.  Everyone I passed I thought was one of them. Pretty awesome that we found them.

Sorry I can’t get pictures to load so that will have to wait till next week.  I hate computers here.

Remember that lady I told you about who has the Catholic Bishop for an uncle who gave her a photo of Joseph Smith?  Well we visited her again and she told us that he always used to tell her about Joseph Smith.  She doesn’t want to pray about the church though.  Her husband is literally always travelling, comes home maybe once every 6 months, but they have a great relationship.  She says she can’t make as big of a change as changing church without her husband so she wants to wait for him to visit and pray about it with him.  That’s kind of frustrating but it’s a lot better than where we started with her leaving the house when the missionaries came.

Medrano family (added later)

It was also her birthday the day we visited so she made us a huge traditional dish.  I didn’t recognize half the food on the plate, I still don’t know what the meat I ate was.  It was also right after we ate lunch that I couldn’t finish because I was so full.  I have no idea how I ate all of her special birthday food but somehow I did.

The Flores Family had another anticucho barbecue for us.  Marcos (the dad) invited all of his family to come and listen to us too.  It was delicious (well except for they had a sausage this time that is made of blood instead of meat.  It didn’t actually taste that bad but it was gross knowing what it is.) and we had an awesome lesson afterward.  We taught 6 members of his family who already thought highly of the church.  They don’t live in our area though so we have to figure out a way to pass them to their own missionaries.

The 5 Vasquez kids should get baptized on Saturday!  Finally, I found them like my second week here and finally things are working out.  We have permission from the parents and the grandma they live with is coming to church again.  I think a few weeks ago was the first time she’d come since the 1980s.

People don’t do a very good job keeping bugs out of the food here and I guess I’m used to it because I realized I drank a glass of lemonade with at least 20 or 30 ants in it and it didn’t even bother me.

We had 13 investigators in church this Sunday but we were still missing about 10 other important investigators. It’s actually pretty hard to manage that many people at once and get everyone to the classes where they should be.

Well I’m going to go play soccer with Elder Crankshaw and Brian and Sebastian so I’ll talk to you all next week.

Have fun starting the school year everyone!

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. Alma 34:32-34

2013-08-12 It made me a little homesick to see and smell all of the fireworks.

Elder Howlett standing in his area

Hey Everyone,

I'd really like an mp4 format copy of the mormon message, "stay within the lines."  (in Spanish)

Last Monday we went and ate at a restaurant.  I had a really good pineapple and milk drink.

Tuesday was Bolivian Independence Day.  We didn’t do much because my companion was sick.  I was in the house all morning with him.  Then in the afternoon, the guy we live with stayed with him and I went on splits with Arthur.  We went up to the really high village which was fun.  I hadn’t been there for almost 2 weeks.  We taught the lesson and then he was in a rush to get back so we just ran straight down the mountain instead of using the roads or trails.  Bolivia has some really sharp plants with huge spines.

Then that night there were tons of fireworks.  I sat and watched them for half an hour before I went to sleep in the night.  It made me a little homesick to see and smell all of the fireworks.



putting together the closets in the new house

Also this has been a crazy busy week.  First we switched pensionistas at lunch to the Flores family. Lunch is so much fun.  I love visiting with them and they make awesome food.  Also, we moved on Thursday.  My companion and I live in the apartment next to the dinner pensionista’s house.  We finally finished getting it set up yesterday. I think I’m gonna like living there.

The Medrano family is awesome. The 5 kids from 11 to 24 live at home with their mom and their dad works all over South America and sometimes comes to stay here.  All the kids are baptized but the mom is super Catholic. The missionaries started to teach the kids 2 years ago and at first she wouldn’t even stay in the house when they were there.  She’s warmed up to us quite a bit and she loved Elder Chavez.  I was afraid she wouldn’t let us visit anymore now that he’s gone but I found out from her daughter that she likes me too.  That made me feel good. I’m the only gringo who has liked her hot corn drink, wilca pula.  Elder Chavez would always do the dishes when we ate there and I would help and the daughter said she liked us for that too.  Anyway, this week she saw a picture of Joseph Smith in one of the pamphlets and said she knew who he was. When she was young her uncle was a very prominent leader of the Catholic church in Potosi.  Before he died he gave her a photo (she says actually a photo) of Joseph Smith and told her it was Joseph Smith.  She said it had always hung in his office.  We taught her about Joseph Smith and for the first time she showed interest in the church.  She said she would pray about it and ask her husband to pray too.  That is super exciting and exactly what we needed.  Even though she was nice and listening, before she would never commit to do anything.  

 

 

The high counselor in the ward here told us another cool story from his mission in Peru.  They met a man who had found part of a copy of the Book of Mormon in the street.  He had from Enos to Moroni.  He had read it many times and understood it.  They found this guy because they heard someone reading a verse from Book of Mormon.  The church was called, in English, something like the Church of Jesus Christ in These Days.  The guy formed his own church and had 140 people attending.  He agreed to be baptized the first day he met the missionaries and his entire congregation was baptized too.

I fasted for our investigators to come to church this weekend.  Then we had 14 of our investigators at church so that was awesome.

I gave my first blessing that I felt like went smoothly in Spanish this week.

We met a 14 year-old kid named Daniel and taught him a 5 minute lesson in the street.  We asked him to say a prayer to finish and he said an awesome prayer that also gave us a lot of information about his family’s problems.  It’s too bad that doesn’t happen more often.  People here are usually super nervous to pray.  I think he will be an awesome investigator.

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. Galatians 4:9, and 5:7-8