2014-10-06 ... since we didn't want to get robbed...

Hey Everyone,

This was a good week.  I really like General Conference.  I didn't remember to get ready to tell you what I liked about conference--some scattered thoughts--I really liked Elder Eyring's talks in both the general session and the priesthood session.  I felt like there was a lot about finding or strengthening your testimony of the church and gospel.  I also liked ElderAndersen's talk about Joseph Smith.  I liked what Brother Godoy said about living to see all the promised blessings of your Patriarchal blessings realized.  I enjoyed President Uchtdorf's "Is it I?" talk.  It was fun to see the Spanish talks being in a Spanish-speaking country.  I enjoyed the last talk by Elder Bednar too.  The service was so bad during L. Tom Perry's talk that we couldn't understand it.

Wilfredo came to 2 sessions of conference.  Luis Miguel and Kevin also attended conference.  The signal was awful in our chapel while we waited for the Priesthood session to start and we didn't want to miss again like we did for Elder Perry's talk.  So we went to the Alamos chapel where the missionaries said the signal was better.  That was fun because I got to see the Alamos people.  I sat with Gerardo, Junior, and the Parras (Edwin and Liam).

Kevin and his family at their home

Kevin's 9-year-old brother, Samuel, really liked church last week and we started teaching him this week.  We actually had a really good lesson with his whole family.  His mom returned to Spain today which is a bummer but she promised to look for the missionaries there.  She's really nice and I do think she'll be baptized before she returns to Bolivia the next time.

Wilfredo is still awesome.  He's read the first 20 chapters of the Book of Mormon (5 chapters between every visit) and marks what he wants to talk to us about.  We've confirmed that he doesn't drink alcohol--he doesn't even drink coffee.  He's excited to be baptized on the 18th.

Hermano Daniel came to conference.  He's doing better with the coca but still not perfect.  I imagine that his baptism will be the end of this month at the earliest or November.

the zone at capture the flag

Roxana didn't come to conference.  We went to visit her and rescheduled her baptismal date for the 25th because we didn't feel she'd be ready for the 11th.  She wants to be baptized but is having a hard time putting in the effort she should to prepare herself.

area where we played capture the flag

Today we took the zone to the mountains to play capture the flag in the morning.  It was the craziest game of capture the flag I've ever played because it was just in a pretty dense forest except for a dry river bed which frequently had 5- to 10-foot drops.  Also it poured heavy rain for about 45 minutes straight.  No one ever got to the other team's flag or even got close. After about an hour and a half, another guy in the forest got robbed at knife point close enough to one of the team's jails that everyone in the jail saw it happen.  That made us a little uneasy and since we didn't want to get robbed we decided to end the game there.

One of the things that I noticed and thought about while we taught Kevin's whole family together is that it felt really good.  I think we may get even more help from the Spirit when we are with an entire family.  Even though Kevin's dad really isn't very interested right now, I think just being with his family and us for that 45 minutes was a very good experience for him.

I hope everyone watched conference and learned something.  I hope you do something different because of what you learned.  If you missed some or all, go online and watch it.  What the Prophet and Apostles say is very important.  What I've heard during General Conference has influenced my life a great deal over the last 8 years. I'm certain that Thomas Monson is the chosen Prophet of God.

Love,

Elder Howlett                              

P.S. D&C 128:18

2014-09-29 "Of course, I want to hear the prophet's voice."

Hey Everyone,

This week went great!  Kevin got baptized and it was a great baptism--well attended and spiritual.  His entire family came too.

He's probably one of the most prepared investigators I've ever baptized.  He bore an awesome testimony in his baptism too.  He talked about how sure he is that this is the true church.

His mom and brother came to church the next day too.   They liked it and asked us to visit them on Tuesday.  I hope they get baptized too.  The problem is that the mom is probably going back to Spain in a couple weeks.

Wilfredo is the friend of Luis who was baptized last week.  He came to church again this Sunday and is the best investigator ever.  The first time we went to visit him he had already read the first pamphlet and starting with the introduction had read up to chapter 3 of First Nephi in the Book of Mormon.  We talked about President Monson on Saturday and when we asked if he'd go to General Conference, he told us, "Of course, I want to hear the prophet's voice."  On Sunday, he told us that God had responded to his prayers and he knows he needs to be baptized.  His baptismal date is for the 18th of October. 

Luis Miguel was ordained a teacher on Sunday and is excited to pass the sacrament.  He showed up early for his interview on Tuesday and is doing great.  Also his mom sat in on a lesson again this week and told us that she likes how we pray.  Hopefully she bends one of these days and joins the church too.

Susana´s (from Potosì) older sister, Fabiola, was baptized on Saturday and their mom has gone to church a couple times and hopefully will be baptized in the coming weeks.

The Parra family finished the temple prep. classes on Sunday and is going to choose their sealing date now.

On Wednesday we had to take Elder Callahua to pick up the new missionary that he was going to train.  They had a short training up by the Jesus statue so we got to go up there on Wednesday morning and it was really cool.  It was early so it was a great temperature and president gave a good little talk.  He talked about the prepared people who aren't members of this church only because they haven't had the chance.  I think Wilfredo is one of those people.

It turns out that the father of the Fernandez family doesn't have records in the church so he needs to be baptized.  He wants to be baptized but he chews coca so we are working on that right now and once he leaves his coca he can get baptized.

I love being a missionary!  It's so awesome.  This is the true church, there is no other and I'm sure of that.  Have an awesome week.  Help your friends be strong in the gospel.

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. D&C 123:17

2014-09-22 We didn't start that late...

Hey Everyone,

This week was awesome.   

First of all, yesterday was cambios.  I'm staying in Colcapirhua with Elder Delgadillo.  I'm fine with that.  We are doing very well.  There were quite a few changes in the zone.  I think 6 of the 20 missionaries were changed.  Only one ward in the zone didn't have any missionaries changed.

Also it was Luis Miguel´s baptism.  It went really well.  We didn't start that late and a lot of people from the ward came.  His mom and godfather also came which was awesome.  His mom was all dressed up and ready to go when we passed by their house to pick them up.  The baptism went smoothly and Luis bore a powerful testimony to finish the program.  He talked about how the church has changed his life and about how grateful he is that God forgives our sins.  I felt the presence of the Spirit strongly as he spoke.

He also brought Wilfredo who lives in a different room on the same lot where he lives.  I sat with Wilfredo before and after the baptism and we got to talk quite a bit.  He seems great and very interested in the church.  He's in the picture of everyone at the baptism standing next to my companion.  He came to church yesterday too and said he liked it.  We have our first lesson with him on Wednesday.

Everything is set for Kevin's baptism on Saturday.  His whole family is going to come and Kevin is very excited.  I hope that going to the baptism will help the family to want to come to church.

I went on exchanges to my old area, Alamos, this week.  That was a lot of fun.  We went to visit the Parra family.  Abigail wasn't there but everyone else was.  They are on the 5th of 7 lessons for temple prep.  Hopefully their sealing will be in about 3 weeks.

Elder Howlett's chapel

Jhenny came to church with her member friend from a different ward yesterday.  I think I wrote you a couple weeks ago about how we felt prompted to knock a door on our way to lunch.  That day we met Liseth who is Jhenny's younger sister.  Well now I understand even more why we had that prompting.  Jhenny enjoyed church and is going to come see the baptism on Saturday.

This week we found Hermana Roxana.  She listened to the missionaries quite a while ago and got baptized but never was confirmed.  I'm not really sure why but she's excited to come back to church and talk to us and we've started teaching her again.  The plan is to have her confirmed (and maybe baptized again, if president says she needs it) on the 11th of October.

Go to the temple.  It's a better use of your time than just about any other thing.  Get someone else to go with you too.  People who go to the temple make better choices.

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. 1 Corinthians 9:24

09-15-2014 we got to teach them and pray with them all together

Luis Miguel

Hey Everyone,

This was a great week.

Kevin and Luis Miguel's parents both gave permission for their baptisms.  

When we went to talk with Kevin's parents they were both a little on the fence but Kevin shared an awesome testimony with them again and then they were both supportive.  His mom even told us that she's excited that he's going to be baptized. She called the rest of her kids and for the first time we got to teach them and pray with them all together.  It was an awesome lesson and I hope that the family will follow Kevin's example a little further down the road.

Kevin is very ready to be baptized.  He's sure that the church is true and he already lives all the church standards well.

Luis Miguel had us a little worried on Sunday because when church started he wasn't there but he walked in a little late and sat down and my companion and I both felt very relieved.  He hasn't drunk coffee since we taught him the Word of Wisdom and he seems more and more sure about the church every time we visit him.

Liseth and Jessica are both still doing well even though they didn't come to church on Sunday.  

Today we went to Pairumani.  It's a park-type place outside of the city.  We went with the whole ward.  We had a pretty good turn out--about 125.  We played games and ate and hiked a little.  

 3 investigators.Gerardo 16, Ariel 14, David 12- in Pairumani

One member brought her younger siblings. She's a returned missionary living in Santa Cruz but she's back visiting her family for a while. She has a 19-year-old sister and 16,14, and 12-year-old brothers. Since the brothers were just sitting alone, I went and ate with them.  They are an awesome family. Very well mannered and the 3 brothers all like American music and basketball.  I hung out with them pretty much the entire day. They are gonna start coming to play sports with us in the mornings when we play.  I especially talked a lot with the 16-year-old during the day.  He seems really interested in the church.  We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon.  He recently switched schools and he said that there are a lot of Mormons in his new school.  He said he'd come on Sunday to church too.

We also had a training with Elder Waddell of the Seventy this week.  It  was only 4 zones of missionaries so well under 100 people were there.  He speaks Spanish well and is a great and engaging speaker.  I enjoyed all of it even though he spoke for about 5 hours.  I was amazed at his ability to invite the Spirit through what he shared with us.  We talked a lot about getting people a testimony before they get baptized.  He also talked a lot about obedience and using the Spirit as missionaries.  

A couple of interesting things he said that got me thinking:

1 The Spirit is the most important part of everything we do as missionaries and also everything we will ever do not as missionaries too.  Absolutely everything we ever do--he told us.

2 What we do here will determine how we live after this life.  Then it naturally follows that what we did in our pre-mortal life affects our life now.  He told us that being in this mission at this time is a result of decisions we made before we came to the Earth and that our decisions before this life have very little to do with our nationality.  He then told us he doesn't know exactly what parts of our life are a result of our pre-mortal use of agency and didn't tell us anything else specifically as to what is or isn't.

Another fun thing was that he asked the zone leaders to stay after.  There were only 8 of us so it was neat to get to talk to him in such a small group.  We mostly talked about how we can make sure what we learned gets implemented in our zones but then he gave 10 or 15 minutes to ask questions too. One of the interesting things we talked about at that point is that he believes that there are too many less-actives because we focus on baptism rather than the temple when we teach non-members.

 

me my comp and Gerardo.  He came to accompany us on visits but we wound up helping some investigators move.  That's why my tie's tucked in.

I love being a missionary.  Its pretty crazy that I've been here for so long.  I'll finish my mission in less than 6 months now.

Serving a mission has helped me realize that living the gospel really makes life a lot better.  People who are obedient to God are always more content with their lives. 

I hope everyone is going to the temple.  It's a great opportunity to think about the covenants you've made. Being faithful to those covenants is what will get you to God's kingdom.  It's the only way to get there.  Don't forget the promises you've made with God.  And just as important, don't break those promises.  Going to the temple also gives us the strength to keep our covenants.

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. Job 14:14

2014-09-08 I'm glad we acted on the prompting we had.

with Hermana Nely and family for Brittney's baptism

Hey Everyone,

This week flew by and was a lot a fun.

On Thursday we went to Kami again and we have one solid investigator there named Jaime.  He's probably almost 30 and single.  After that we walked to Collpapampa and started knocking doors. We had a lot of success there.  One family of 6 were all there and let us into their front lawn area and all sat and listened to us for almost an hour.  They were really nice and we are going back there on Wednesday.  We also met 4 or 5 other families in the 3ish hours we were there. The people there have less money and are more willing to let us visit them.  They are very loving and open.

On Friday I was in intercambios with Elder Johnson.  He's been in the mission for 3 weeks and is from Texas. That was a lot of fun and we had a successful day.  I think we taught 7 or 8 lessons which is more than normal. We went contacting way out in the middle of nowhere in the morning and we were kind of late and a long ways from our pension for lunch.  We were hurrying back when we walked by a house all on its own and felt like we should knock it.  We did even though we knew all we had time do is set up an appointment.  We met Liset and set up an appointment and when we went to the appointment on Sunday she was waiting with her sister for us. Her sister told us that she feels like she's fallen away from God a little but that she had a Mormon friend who's been talking to her a lot about the church recently.  Her friend had already explained a lot to them about the church.  They understood what we taught really well and accepted baptismal dates for the 18th of October.  They are very interested.  I'm glad we acted on the prompting we had.  God knows who's ready to talk to us.

This week we set baptismal dates with 8 new people.  That was really exciting.  

Bryan, who a 20-year-old member in the ward, went with us to do visits on Sunday.  I asked if he had done visits with the missionaries before and he said about 2 years ago.  It turns out he went out do visits with Elder Schwarz.

 

paintball with missionaries from Colcapirhua ward

This week was overcast and rainy which make proselyting really fun.

Luis Miguel is still doing well for his baptismal date on the 20th.  He went the week without coffee after we taught the Word of Wisdom.

Sorry that I didn't have too much to say this week.  Don't forget to pray every single day.  

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. Moroni 7:33

2014-08-01 now whenever we walk past cows I watch carefully

Hey Everyone,

This week was good.  I love Colcapirhua.

We started playing early morning sports with 6 of the other missionaries in the zone at a soccer/basketball court close by our house.  We wake up at 6 get there at about 6:15 and then play for half an hour.  We switch between soccer and basketball every day.  It's fun and it's nice in Cochabamba in the mornings.

 

Gilber likes to shine shoes

Last P-day we had a barbecue and played soccer with the whole zone at one of the churches. Today we went with 4 other missionaries to play tennis. We also visited the Floreses in the morning. Tomorrow is Anghy Lou's birthday.  Marco had a big breakfast waiting for us.

Jessica and Daniel went downhill this week.  They failed our appointment, and another day when we stopped by they said they didn't have time to talk. Hopefully we get to teach them this week.

I don't remember if I've talked about Kevin before.  He's a great 15 year old kid who comes to church every week.  He wants to be baptized but we were waiting for permission from his parents.  His dad told us he had to wait at least until his (Kevin's) mom gets back from Spain so they could talk about it.  His mom has been in Spain for a long time but got back about a week ago.  This week when we went to visit Kevin his mom was there and joined us for the lesson. We taught about the restoration and it went really well.  His mom seems like a great person and also told us that her son seems completely different from how he was when she left to go to Spain. She says she thinks that going to the church has gotten him oriented and making good choices. Kevin shared a powerful testimony with his mom about how he'd come to know that the church is true.  It was a great lesson and on Sunday they came to church together for the full 3 hours.  We have another appointment tomorrow.  

Things are still going ok with Luis Miguel.  We had a lesson with him yesterday in the afternoon.  The good thing is that this time his adoptive mom sat in on the lesson with us.  (His real mom rented at his adoptive mom's house.  She left Luis there when he was 1.  The owner of the house took him in and he doesn't know his real family)  She is really nice with us always but wants nothing to do with the Mormon church.  She says she is comfortable being a Catholic.  Even though she doesn't want to come to our church she is incredibly supportive of us teaching Miguel.  She chimed in during our lesson several times to say that she reminds Luis Miguel to pray every night.  She also wakes him up and sends him to church.  She even wants him to get baptized. Hopefully with a little time we can get her to give us a chance too.  I think her listening to the lesson yesterday was a huge step in the right direction.

 

Collapampa

These last couple weeks we received several references of people to teach in Kami.  Kami is a little pueblo that's part of our area but about 15 minutes in car from the main part of our area.  This week we decided to go spend Wednesday afternoon there.  About a year ago missionaries worked there for only about a month and besides that there haven't been missionaries there.  I think it's fun to go to places like that where the missionaries don't really have a presence.  We draw more attention from the people because they aren't used to seeing us there. Before we left, my companion and I knelt to say a prayer to ask God to help us to have success in Kami. We packed up lots of pamphlets and contact cards and went.  I felt the Spirit strongly and I felt really good about going to Kami as we headed there.  Once we got there, we went to contact the references we had and didn't really have much luck with that so we decided to just start talking to everyone. We walked around the central plaza talking to everyone we saw.  That did go well and we set up a lot of appointments for this week. Then we decided to go knock some doors.  That went well too.  We taught 2 families on the spot and set up a bunch more appointments.  We also somehow wound up in another smaller pueblo called Collapampa that is also our area. It's basically an extension of Kami but the there were sure to tell us that it's not Kami. Kami look mostly dry except for the part that is Collapampa.  It had a lot of water and was green.  It also had a lot of cows too. One took off running and just missed ramming me (not sure if it was trying to hit me or not). That freaked me out and now whenever we walk past cows I watch carefully to make sure they aren't going to try and run me down.

when the herd of cows was following us

The plan for now is to spend every Wednesday there and if things are working out to choose one more day and spend 2 days per week working there.  I'm really excited about how things will go there.  The people are generally pretty poor and seemed very receptive to us last week.

I love being a missionary.  It's great.  

I have found that doing good things makes it easier to do more good things.  Almost everyone has good intentions and from time to time feels very motivated to be better.  The hard part seems to be keeping the motivation they feel.  Motivation in the gospel commonly seems to come when people have gotten lazy and stop doing as much good or start doing bad things.  Something makes them feel bad about how they are living and they suddenly are excited to fix things.  That's not ideal though.  We can keep ourselves motivated always to live the gospel by being strong-willed and thinking about the eternal consequences of our decisions.  Those who do good receive spiritual support and protection that help keep them doing more good things.  Choosing to do good things is not always the easiest or funnest thing to do in the moment.  But God doesn't just ask us to do the funnest and easiest things.  He asks us do what's right.  As you choose the right it will become easier and easier to do. 

Helping others makes us feel good.  Pray for opportunities to perform meaningful service and then serve when those opportunities present themselves.  Have a great week everyone.

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. James 1:16,22   

2014-08-25 I love being a missionary.

Hey Everyone,

This week went by really really fast.  

I think part of the reason is that on Thursday we had the leaders' council.  That took up almost the whole day. All of the zone leaders and the sister training leaders meet up at a church in Cochabamba and we talk about how to make things better here in the mission.  It was really fun because 10 of us were from my MTC group and I hadn't seen some of them in a long time.  It was also interesting and well done.  President spoke a little.  One of the new things they announced is that in the coming weeks they are going to launch a mission Facebook page that Hermana Hansen will be in charge of.  You can look for that in few weeks.  It was a good spiritual meeting and I left excited to try some new things in our companionship and in the zone.

My companion and I are still getting along well.  He's a good guy.  I don't remember if I mentioned that he's kind of a clean freak though.  This morning I swept the study room and then he went in right after and redid it.  The house is always really clean though.  It is a lot of fun to be a missionary especially when you have an awesome companion.

my area

I ran into two converts from Alamos this week. One was the Parra family.  They are all doing very well and are planning on getting sealed the same day they were baptized--Sept 14th.  I'm super excited for that. Especially since you can always get permission to go to the sealing of your own converts.  I also ran into Oliver Torrico and his wife Consuelo.  He is the ward secretary now and they are also doing very well with church stuff. They were the ones who got married and then he got baptized that same day. They are also planning to be sealed during the coming months.

We found a great brother and sister this week. They are Daniel (14) and Jessica (17).  We taught them the restoration this week and they were very interested and understand well the idea of praying to know if it is true. We stopped by last night to see how it had gone with their prayers and Jessica told us that she believes she received an answer that it is true.  Daniel said he didn't get an answer yet but told us that as long as he gets an answer he wants to be baptized.  We have an appointment with them and their mom this week. We talked to the mom for just a second on Sunday and she also seems very nice.  Their baptismal date is the 27th of September. I really think that they will get baptized. 

walkin' in my area

Everything is still going well with Luis Miguel.  We had 2 lessons with him this week and he came to church. The only thing that's not going that well is that his mom has no interest at all in listening to us. She really likes us a lot and makes sure her son is ready to go to church by 7:30 and likes that we teach him.  However, she says that her life is calm and she doesn't do bad things but she doesn't like going to church.  Hopefully we can get through to her one of these days, she is a really nice lady.

This Sunday the bishop gave me about 15 minutes heads up that he needed me to give a 15 minute talk.  I spoke about ordinances and filled the 15 minutes.  I think it went pretty well.  It was easier than the last time I did something similar so I think that means that my Spanish is still improving.

The kiosk we have to do once a week in this zone--I enjoyed it more this week than last week.  Its surprising to me that almost everyone I contact knows someone who's a member of the church.  I don't really feel like having the kiosk up makes too much of a difference because even though most people can read, probably about half of everyone doesn't read very well.  If we ask them about the question on the display they would struggle to sound it out.  That doesn't work very well for 2 reasons.  One is that a lot of people are self conscious about their difficulties reading and two they can't really think about how to answer the question because they are so focused on figuring out what the words are.  It's basically just a few hours of street contacting when we do the kiosk.

you can see a lady and her son reading a pamphlet we gave them in the background

I love being a missionary.  I really do.  It is so fun to go around and just teach people about the gospel.  The gospel is truly the best and most important thing anyone can have.  The gospel has been a huge blessing in my life.  It is incredible how much God does for us.  He's done a lot for me.  I'm grateful for that. I know God is aware of us and loves us.  I know the Jesus Christ lives.  He is our Savior.

Make sure that you are living the gospel.  Life is better when you are.  Help your family and friends live the gospel.  When you do, you are participating in our Heavenly Father's work.  

Happy new school year to everyone too!  I hope it's a good one and I'll be back before this one ends.

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S.  Joshua 3:5