2014-05-12 all that really matters

Hey Everyone,

This was another good week.  This cambio has flown by.  There is less than a week left.

 

Elder Van Horn and me with an American flag in Potosì because we are Americans in Potosì.

This week we met a blind guy and helped him get where he was going.  When we got him to the building where he needed to be, my companion started talking to him a little bit about the church and asked him if he could read with his hands.  He said, "yes" and my companion pulled out a pamphlet and handed it to him and asked him to read it.  He felt all over the pamphlet and couldn't read anything.  My companion, starting to realize that it would be pretty much impossible to read something printed in ink, guided his hand to his plaque and asked him to read that.  The blind man said something like, "Well I can feel something but this isn't braille."  To top it off, my companion wraps up by saying something like, "Ok, well it's a beautiful pamphlet we have."  I couldn't control my laughter.  The blind man seemed like a pretty smart guy and it seemed like he got a kick out of it too.  We did get the guy's information though, so the missionaries can go visit him because he doesn't live in our ward.

We had a great lesson with Hermana Nelly (mom) and Selina this week.  They both say God has answered their prayers that the church is true and they accepted baptismal dates.  The mom said something about wanting the whole family to get baptized together so she said she is going to work hard at getting a time for us to talk to her husband who is almost never home.  If we get permission from our leaders, then this next month we are going to go with them to a little village about 3 hours outside of Potosì to where Nelly's very old parents live to help them harvest potatoes and turn them into chuño.  The entire family is awesome and the kids always come to all the activities at the church.  The only hard part is we cannot find the dad to talk to him.  

 

the grandma there saw that I was burning and gave me the hat to wear

We also had a day of service with the Benavidez family.  They are building more rooms behind their house. We went and helped mix cement and pass it in buckets up to the 2nd floor of what they are building. We passed buckets of cement for over 4 hours.  Even small buckets of cement are ridiculously heavy. When we were done, they made us a barbecue.  We ate oka with it which is similar to a sweet potato but I like it better.  It was sunny, rainy, and hailed during the 4 hours we worked.

 

the 4 missionaries and Benavidez family kids after the service project

Last Monday, I left my wallet in a taxi and didn't notice until the taxi was gone.  Between my companion and I, we remembered that the taxi was white.  Since I didn't remember anything else to help me find the taxi, I was pretty worried about how I was going to get it back.  Especially since it had all my money, my mission and personal debit cards, and my Bolivian and US IDs.  I said a prayer and immediately knew the taxi would come back if I just waited on the street corner.  That was a relieving feeling.  We sat down and 10 minutes later the taxi was back and the driver waved me over and handed me my wallet.  That was a good prayer experience. Praying makes things happen.

While I was talking to my family yesterday, I mentioned how I feel so bad for so many people here.  And I do. I grew up with so many advantages that these people don't have.  I never experienced trials anything like what so many of the people here face.  I've always gone to good schools, had both of my parents, had money for what I need.  I've never had serious health issues, never had to worry about what I'd eat or where I'd sleep.  It makes me so grateful for my wonderful life.

My mom asked, "Aren't they happy though?"  It got me thinking last night.  Some people are and others aren't. Just like the people back at home.  Meeting so many people and seeing which are happy and which aren't has taught me two important things:

One is that relationships with other people has a far greater influence on happiness than anything material.  A united, loving family is happy with no money, living in a one room concrete hut with one bed for every 3 people. It impresses me.

The other thing I learned is that personal worthiness is a huge determiner in happiness.  A guilty conscience destroys anyone's ability to be happy.  A certainty of personal worthiness, together with an understanding of the gospel, allows anyone to be happy regardless of their circumstances.  People whether they are members of the church or not, naturally feel guilty for their sins.  The greater a person's understanding of the gospel, the greater their guilt.  Those who aren't members but live worthy lives don't have the guilty conscience but still sometimes find themselves uncomfortable with their own lives because they don't understand God's plan. That is why everyone needs the true and restored gospel.  When they understand that their personal worthiness is really all that matters in this life, their confidence grows and they find themselves happy, overlooking the difficulties of this life in favor of an eternal perspective.

So get yourselves worthy and go to the temple.  If you are going to the temple regularly you won't find it difficult to stay worthy.  And that's all that really matters for the 85 years or so that we hang out here on Earth.

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. Helaman 14:30

2014-05-05 She doesn't know how to read but she does love God.

Hey Everyone, 

This was a really great week.  Yesterday was really great day too.

with Savino

Yesterday we had 9 investigators come to church, and 7 of them have baptismal dates.  They were Savino, Mery, Raul, and their son Carlos Raul--Wendy, Suzana, and Christian--Jesus and Salina. That made me really happy.  I talked with Savino while we were at church and he said his family wants him to get baptized Catholic. He said he doesn't want to be Catholic and he thinks he was meant to be Mormon.  He's supposed to talk to his dad about that again before our appointment on Wednesday. We are trying really hard to get his dad to listen to us too but he doesn't want anything to do with it.

Juan Francisco Flores was inactive when I got here. We visited him just 2 times and now he's come to church every week for 6 weeks.  Yesterday he was called as the stake Sunday school president which is pretty great.

I'm very excited about Mery and Raul and their family. The three that came to church all listen to us twice per week.  They also have a 14 year old daughter named Anahi but she's not too interested and we've only taught her once.  We did find out this week that Raul has a big smoking problem though.  He wants to quit--he just hasn't been able to though--so that's good.  Right now they have a baptismal date for May 31.

me and Benjamin--he is 3 and always comes up to me in church and says hi elder Howlett and he says my name better than 90 percent of the people here.  We ate lunch at his family's house yesterday.

Wendy, Suzana, and Christian are Benedicta's kids.  She was out of town again on Sunday so she didn't come but her kids always come to church and to every activity.  It's going really well with them except that the mom is always gone.  They have a baptismal date for the 24th of May but I think it is probably going to get pushed back a little so the mom can get ready and they can get baptized together.

We got to talk with Jesus and Selina's mom, Nelly, this week.  She is very nice.  She doesn't know how to read but she does love God.  Only her kids showed up to church yesterday though and I don't know why she didn't come.  One of the things that makes it kind of hard to teach here is that lots of people have trouble reading. Probably almost half of the adults and 25ish percent of youth.  Lots of kids just randomly don't go to school for a year here and there.  I'm not really sure why but I think that's probably one of the reasons they don't read very well.  The Book of Mormon is really hard for a lot of people to understand.  The good thing is that everyone has a firm belief in God and seems to be very receptive to the Spirit.

 

with Sabrina--kids here love having their picture taken and they always want to see it as soon as you take it

The whole (all the members) Benavidez family came to church again.  We also went to their house on Friday and got to talk to the grandpa again.  He used to not even allow the missionaries but we had a good conversation with him.  We invited him to church but he said he's going to some pueblito on Sunday. We told him to come the next time he's in town for a Sunday and he said ok.  We also are going to have a family home evening with them tomorrow.

with Jose in the Benavidez house

Yesterday after church we went on divisions again. I went with Manuel (the same guy from last week) and we had a terrific afternoon.  The Castro family has an inactive 14 year old nephew who lives with them who we've been trying to visit for months. We went yesterday and he not only was there but seem happy to talk. We taught about the Priesthood.  He was ordained a Deacon but not a Teacher.  We told him that God needs him to fulfill his Priesthood duties and asked him if he'd prepare to be ordained a Teacher. He said he would.  He hasn't been to church since November but he promised he'd come on Sunday and he has an interview with the Bishop on Thursday. One of the things that surprised us is that he seems to have a strong testimony.  Most inactive members who we visit don't have a testimony.  His dad died unexpectedly almost a year ago and I think that had a really negative impact on him and was why he stopped going to church.  

After victor, we went to visit the Bautista family.  Two months ago I ran into 3 young men close to the church and talked to them.  They said that they'd gone to the church before and told me their names and that they live in the pink house as far north as there are still houses.  I thought that that should be pretty easy to find but it turned out that there are way too many pink houses.  In the past couple months we knocked liked 15 pink houses out in the middle of nowhere.  There aren't even dirt roads where we were looking, just trails.  Finally we found it on Thursday.  On Saturday we taught them the Restoration.  Yesterday Manuel and I decided to go see how they are doing.  None of the kids were there but the mom was.  I talked to her and found out that she's a member. She and her parents and siblings were all baptized a long time ago.  She said she was very active in the church when she was younger but that she hadn't been in a long time.  She also said she'd been thinking a lot about the church lately and wants to come back and she said she also wants her sons to receive the missionary lessons.  So that seems really really good.  We have an appointment to talk with her whole family on Friday.

This is God's church.  It is His gospel.  And there is no better, happier, or easier way to live life than living faithfully to God, His church, and His gospel.  I am completely sure of that. 

Have a great week everyone!  Go do ordinances for someone who needs them in the temple.

Love, 

Elder Howlett

P.S. D&C 88:78-80 

2014-04-28 He's really short.

me with Jose--he goes with us when we teach Christian's
 family, because he's Christian's buddy

Hey Everyone,

This was a fun week.  We are halfway through this cambio which is pretty crazy.

My current companion is Elder Severiano from Iquitos, Peru.  He's a good missionary and we get along great. We work really well together too. I'd be happy to stay a 3rd transfer with him.  He's really short.

Yep it's still getting colder.  This week has actually been really cold.  I'd guess that in the house it's 45ish degrees but I really don't know.

On Friday we left for Sucre at 8am and didn't get back until 10pm.  We had a conference there from 2 to 6. We got there at 11 so that gave us a little bit of time.  My companion started his mission in Sucre so we went to visit his old pensionista and we ate lunch there.  Sucre is a pretty place.  The whole city isn't white but the church where we had our conference was in the white part of the city so we got to see that.

We also had a stake priesthood meeting which was really good. One guy had a really good talk about home teaching and used Elder Bednar's talk that I think is called Powers of Heaven. Home teaching is a disaster in all of Bolivia.  In the wards where I've been I've never seen a month where even 5% of the members were visited.

It would make sense that seeing as how we have the only true gospel, and the power and authority of God that we would be very diligent in fulfilling or religious responsibilities.  I think that in general the reason that people aren't more diligent is that they don't have a strong testimony of the gospel.  Those who understand how important the gospel is and believe it to be true devote much more of their time to doing what God asks of us.

Esveld, who's planning on leaving for his mission in August, went with me on divisions.

I hope everyone has a great week.  Be faithful in your callings, even if you don't have a calling you are still responsible for helping others receive salvation.  There is plenty to do as a member of this church and that's the way it should be.  Pray and search until you have a testimony and then don't be lazy.

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. D&C 107: 99-100

2014-04-21 you can still go again instead of waiting until you haven't been recently

Hey Everyone,

This was a good week.  It was Holy Week here in Bolivia.  That means that people don't eat meat so I didn't eat any meat.  I ate a lot of mashed squash which was actually a lot better than you'd think.  It's called locro. It also means that I ate a lot of arroz con leche.

look, I found a baby donkey (it's actually pretty common to find animals where ever you are here) I ran through a herd of llamas chasing a soccer ball while we played today

It is going really well with Savino.  He is completely sure that he wants to be baptized.  He's tried to get his dad to listen to us but his dad doesn't want to. Savino is reading his Book of Mormon for 15 minutes every day and he always prays.  We are just waiting on permission from his dad so that he can get baptized.  His cousin Brandon is also progressing well now, he's just having trouble making the decision to go to church instead of playing on his soccer team on Sundays.

Helping the Benavidez family peel potatoes.
We peeled 2 5gallon buckets worth of potatoes.

It is also going great with the Benavidez family. Jhamil got his inactive aunt and uncle to come to church on Sunday along with his siblings and a cousin.  That made 6 of them on Sunday.  I also got to chat with his non- member grandpa when we peeled potatoes this week.  His grandpa isn't a big fan of missionaries or the Church but I think it went really well and now I talk to him when he's around and he doesn't try to stay away from us. That's good too.  I love the Benavidez family and would love to see the grandparents baptized before I leave. Jhamil was telling me a little about his family yesterday while we did visits together.  Jose, Jhamil and Anahi live with their grandparents because their mom died a little over 4 years ago and their dad has another family and lives in another city.  I feel bad for them but  they've all turned out to be really good people.  I think they are probably some of the hardest working people I've met.

We had a good lesson with Raul and Mery and their family this week.  We talked about eternal families and temples which seemed to catch their interest.  Their 9-year-old son is by far the best investigator in the family. After about a month of praying to know if the church is true he was excited to tell us that he'd gotten an answer this past week. The mom still hasn't prayed to ask if it's true.  She told us this week that she's afraid that God might say yes and she doesn't really want to have to leave the church where she is.

Making empanadas with Hermana Janet ( we live close

 by her little restaurant and so once every week or 2 she

 calls us when she gets a big order and we help her make

 empanadas)  it's pretty fun and I've become a pretty

 good empanada maker.

People seem to have celebrated the end of Holy Week today by drinking until they pass out in the street. 

Hermana Benedicta and her family are also progressing well.  They all have a baptismal date for the 24th of may.  They've all been to church once or twice now.  One daughter says she's received her answer.  And they always let us come in and teach when we pass by. They've become good friends with the Benavidez kids too who go by and visit them on their own.  They had a Liahona this week and when I asked where they got it they said Anahi had come by with another one of her friends and given it to them.  Anahi also says she wants to go on a mission now which is great.  

O and they just told us that we are headed to Sucre on Friday for some special training.  We'll just be there one day but I'm excited to get to go see Sucre again.

activity at the church 30 min after it was supposed to begin.  There was only 1 person.  It wound up starting with about 25 people over 1 hour late.  Nothing ever starts on time here.

Today we played soccer again.  I'm definitely getting a lot better at  soccer.

Have you been to the temple recently?  If not you should go.  If you have, you can still go again instead of waiting until you haven't been recently.  Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. John 21:15-17 (watched a great talk by elder Holland in the MTC if you can find it online.   I think it's called Feed my Sheep.  It goes with this scripture)

2014-04-14 It was a nice parrot that didn't bite us.

Hey everyone,

me at the door that say warning: Mormons prohibited

This was another great week.  Things are going really well with Savino and we found a couple other new families who we are teaching.

This week when we went to visit Savino he told us, "I want to be a Mormon, how soon can I get baptized?"  I told him in 3 weeks if he comes to church every Sunday.  He came to church yesterday and is very excited.  He is going to try and get his dad to listen to us too because he wants him to get baptized too.  He also wants to go with us to visit other people and he wants to introduce us to a couple of his friends this week.  He's been getting along really well with his dad this week too.

my favorite soup (not really)

Besides him, we had 7 other investigators at church which is the most I've had in Potosì.

Weather here in Potosì is absolutely crazy, it hails all the time.  It's hot when there is sun and cold when there isn't.

One of the families we found is Lydia who lives with her 2 grandsons, Oscar and Jhonatan.  Jhonatan has a parrot and he let us play with it.  It was a nice parrot that didn't bite us.  The grandma is great and very excited to be listening to us.  She has 2 kids who were baptized like 10 years ago but don't live close by.  The first time we talked to them she let us come inside and sit down in their little cement room.  Teaching them reminds me a lot of teaching Julia and her grandkids in Villa Graciela.

 

me with Timon the parrot and Jhonatan the investigator. (he's wearing an oba mao shirt)

It's going really great with the Benavidez family (Jhamil's family).  Jhamil, Jose and Anai all came to church for the 4th week in a row.  Jhamil did visits all afternoon and evening on Saturday and Sunday with us so we could do divisions because we had too many appointments.  His sister, Anai, is also coming to all of her church stuff and wants to go with us to do visits.  She came with us on Sunday and when we finished, she asked if I could give her one of each of the 6 pamphlets so she can read them and be able to help teach next time.  We just need to get their Aunt Sulma active.  She came to conference the past week but hasn't come to church in several weeks.

On Elder Alarcon´s birthday we made salchipapa for breakfast.  French fries with fried sausage and a fried egg.  It was really good.  Then we smashed a dozen eggs on his head and threw flour on him because that's what you do here.  It made the house smell terrible though.

We found another family of 5 this week too.  They are great--a mom, Benedicta, her 3 kids, Wendy, Suzana, and Christian, and her niece, Maria.  They also always let us into the house when we come.  We taught them 3 times this week.  They were all supposed to come on Sunday but only Suzana and Maria came.  I guess the mom had gone to visit her sister way out in the middle of nowhere.  The 2 girls were 10 minutes early to church which never happens here.  It's pretty crazy how late everyone always is.  Activities normally start about 45 minutes to an hour late.  I really like teaching that family.  Their house consists of 3 concrete rooms and they have one light bulb on a really long cord that they just move to whatever room they need to see in.  Christian is 9 and loves me even though I don't really know why.  He gives me a huge hug every time we see him and when we come to teach he always saves me a spot next to him on the bed to sit.

my area

I feel like my Spanish has been really good this week.

Also I did get your Easter package, thanks.

Anyone never prayed to be sure that the church is true?  If so, today would definitely be a good day to do that. 

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. Alma 34:28

2014-04-08 Luckily I already know that the gospel fixes family.

view from back of truck from conference

Hey Everyone-

I had another great week here.  I really like Potosì besides how strong the sun is.  Sorry it's going to be short and that I didn't write yesterday.  A big electrical storm came and the internets all closed because of it.  The loudest thunder I've ever heard in my life is definitely here in Potosì.

Things are still going well with Savino.  We stopped by his house on Tuesday and found him and he let us in for a lesson.  Then as we were leaving he asked us if we could come back on Thursday to talk again.  That's good because before he always told us that he only had time on weekends.  I think it's kind of because his dad came in to our lesson and they got into a little bit of an argument.  It turns out they have a really bad relationship. When his dad left we kept talking and he started crying because it turns out their bad relationship is the cause of a lot of stress and sadness for him.  Luckily I already know that the gospel fixes family.  He's very willing to try fixing things between them and talking about how the gospel helps families seems to be what's motivated him to be more interested in what we are teaching.

I also got to go help the Stake President´s wife in her English class on Wednesday.  We were there for 2 of her classes. They were seniors (everything from 16 to 20 year olds) and a class of 12 to 14 year olds.  I stand out pretty bad in a Bolivian high school.  Pretty much everyone who saw me would try and say something in English.  It was a lot of fun though.  

We got a new dinner pension.  It's a lot better than where we were before for dinner.  Our old dinner pensionista is pregnant and doesn't want to feed us anymore.  Its Hermana Rosalin.  She has 3 little kids. Her youngest, Neill is autistic and he's my buddy.  She made us pizza on Sunday which was actually quite good.

Jhamil is still going out with us to visit several times a week and he brought his entire family to General Conference. He and his younger brother, Josè, came to all of the sessions.  That last time I went on divisions with him we were talking about missions and he said he'd prayed about it and is sure he's going to serve a mission now.  That made me pretty happy.

I watched conference in Spanish.  I understand it as long as I'm paying close attention.  My favorite session was Sunday morning and my favorite talks were Bishop Gary E Stevenson's and Richard G. Scott´s.  As we were walking out of the stake center after one session of conference, a big dump truck that a member was driving passed by and he let us get in.  It was a pretty fun ride in the back of the truck all the way from downtown Potosì to our area.

I made ham and cheese omelets for 23 in about 45 minutes in seminary on Friday morning.  It went pretty well.  

At a lesson we were having with an investigator and her member mother-in-law, the mother-in-law noticed my wart and said that she could take care of it.  She didn't really give me an option.  She dug into it with a needle until it was bleeding and then went outside and broke of the stem of some plant and came and put the milky white stuff that came out of the stem on it.  Anyway, my wart's drying up so it might have worked.

 

the 89 year old woman who made us soup while we visited with her son.  She can't talk or hear but when he pulled out my camera to show her I wanted to take a picture with her she took of her hat and fixed her hair for the photo.

We didn't have our weekly zone meeting because our zone leaders had traveled to Cochabamba and while they were gone, a week long blockade of all roads leading in and out of Potosì was started by the miners. They did get back on Saturday though.  

I really like the temple, you should all probably go this week, you'll feel the Spirit.

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. D&C 64:9

2014-03-31 I'm officially over halfway done with my mission.

Hey Everyone,

This was an awesome week.  I'm having a blast.  I have a great companion, a wonderful ward, and everything is going very well.  

This week we had several less active members come to church.  One is a young man, Jhamil.  He also went with me twice in divisions this week to do visits.  He had his interview and received the Priesthood on Sunday.  That was really exciting.  He's also getting excited to go on a mission so that's good.

Now I'm officially over halfway done with my mission. At lunch, they smashed eggs on my head and threw flour on me.  Then for dinner I went with my companion to a restaurant in our area with really good juice.  I ate suprema de pollo.  It was a battered chicken with french fries and fried bananas.  The fried bananas were awesome.  I don't know what they'd  been seasoned with but it was really good.

Last Monday, we went to try a traditional Potosì soup, called K'alaphurka.  It's served with a hot lava rock in it so that it's boiling.  It was pretty cool.  It reminded me of the enchilada or taco soup from Zupas but super spicy. It was pretty good though.  After that, we went to a park and had a llama barbecue with the other missionaries from Potosì.  It was good.  And after that, we played soccer and I actually played pretty well.  It was the first time I've scored in a game here in months. I miss basketball.

Hermana Mercedes called me this week.  She told me that her family all went to the temple together and that they are all going to church regularly too.  That made me happy.

We've been working with the Millares family quite a bit the last few weeks.  Most of the family is pretty active except for the Dad who is completely inactive.  He did finally come to church on Sunday.  They are moving dirt out of their yard so they can build another room on their lot so we went to do service this week. We wheelbarrowed it out of their yard and into a truck which was a little hard since Potosì is so hilly. Wheelbarrows are much easier to control on flat ground.  Their recently turned 8 year old son, Sergio, got baptized on Saturday.

For the last couple weeks my companion and I have been getting up at 6:00 and going running to pick up youth for seminary.  It's been going pretty well.  So far we have 3 who weren't going before who are going regularly now. We just got a list yesterday of everyone who should be going so we will be able to try some new people tomorrow.  We are going to make breakfast for seminary on Fridays.  Last week my companion made Peruvian scones, called torrejas, so this week it's my turn to make french toast or omelets.  Not sure which yet.

I don't remember if I've talked to you about Savino Zunagua.  He's a 15 year old investigator and it's going really well with him. His dad does not want to talk to us but likes that we are teaching his son.  He is going to go with us to downtown Potosì next week to watch general conference.  This week he told us he finally believe he's received an answer that it's the true church.  He's a great investigator because he's always open an honest about what he thinks and he actually reads what we leave with him and he is really interested in making big changes to his life.

At the beginning of my mission I hated contacting people but I realized that I don't feel at all uncomfortable going up to strangers and talking to them now. 

On Sunday there was an activity for the young men and women.  They had to go looking for families to get clues and then I was the last person they had find.  When they found me I gave them a pamphlet and they had to go contact someone on the street to finish the competition.  The team that won did a really good job. I gave them the pamphlet and ran over to a 25ish year old woman and started to talk.   They came back with her name, phone number, and address and they'd invited her to General Conference and Natali is going to pick her up to go to the Sunday morning session.  I was really impressed.  The 3 person team is in the photo. Natali in the middle and Pablo to the right.  The person on the left has a really hard name and I don't remember what it is.  Pablo goes with us to do visits every once in a while and Natali is from the family that was our pensionista for the first week I was here.

Potosì is getting really cold.  It's weird but it's freezing cold in the shade and then the sun is so strong that it stays pretty warm in the sun.  I wear a coat and try to stay in the shade though so I don't get as sunburned. Its also very noticeable that we are at a ridiculously high altitude.  Every time we walk up a hill we are out of breath.

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the spring.  You should all watch General Conference this weekend.  The prophet is going to talk so that's pretty important.

Love, 

Elder Howlett

P.S. Doctrine & Covenants121:36-37