Elder Howlett’s Mother’s Day
Skype
Elder Howlett called from his bishop’s house. He said that there are 26 elders in his zone
and explained that a district is smaller than a zone. His (new) area is called “Villa Graciela II”
and is in the more mountainous part of the old mission.
His companion, Elder Ruiz, is from Iquitos, Peru
which is in the jungle. He jumped right into
the conversation. He’s really friendly
and outgoing. Elder Howlett says he acts
kind of like a kid sometimes and can’t resist wet cement. Elder Ruiz said that we all look the same—except
Dad looks like the mission president (who’s also white and bald) and Sam looks
like Macauley Culkin in Home Alone. Most
importantly, Elder Ruiz has very
discerning tastes. He told me that I’m
beautiful and have a beautiful voice and that he likes my smile. He also mentioned that I am very white—he should
see me in the winter. “Plus also,”
People have monkeys as pets in Iquitos and there are also turtles and
anacondas. When Elder Ruiz listed a
tiger among the animals in his city, we asked, amazed, “Can you touch them?” Elder Ruiz responded, “Ai
NO!” It turns out that the tiger is in a
zoo. Elder Ruiz told us that they also
eat monkeys, and jokingly said he’d send us one to eat. We were all grossed out, so he said we could
just keep it as a pet. He also said he’ll
send us a parrot that talks, since we’d like one of those, too.
When I asked what the mission home was like, Elder Howlett
said that they’ve never been there. He
also mentioned that their apartment is very near the big Christus statue. He can actually fit under the shower head, but
he’s always afraid that he’ll get shocked by it, so he keeps his head tucked
down and his neck always hurts after his shower. He was really surprised that no one has
carpet. When I asked him about electric
outlets, he replied, “Outlets are not the same here. Dad,
what do we have in the US?” John answered, “110,” and Steven responded, “Oh
yeah, it’s 220 here. Anyway I need new
speakers, ‘cuz I plugged mine in and they worked for 2 seconds until they
fried.”
I asked if they were still getting bread and hot chocolate
delivered in the morning and Elder Howlett said they are still receiving it and
that the bread is very good. When I
asked if they pay for it or if the people just do it to be nice, Steven
answered, “I’m not sure—I never really know what’s going on here.” I guess he figures he’ll worry about it if it
stops coming. He says that he thinks they live on the
property of some people in the ward (just in a separate building) and he thinks
they bring it.
He irons his clothes—he doesn’t like that, but he kind of
likes getting the wrinkles out—a little OCD maybe? Talking about doing laundry, Elder Howlett
mentioned that they had “a little metal thing with ribs on it” (a washboard) For
all you who’ve never seen one--look up a picture. You scrub your clothes against and it works
the soap in and the dirt out.) He said his companion is going to teach him how
to use it. (I’m not sure what there is
to teach.) He says he’s going to try it
once and then pay to have it done if he doesn’t like doing it himself. How do we think that’s going to end up?
Elder Howlett said that their area pretty small
geographically. They walk everywhere
except to meetings etc. There are trufis,
which are very crowded, but cheap, buses or vans that hardly cost anything, but
he doesn’t like them either—he says they’re too confusing. There are little Bodegas all over. Every 3 houses or so, in the residential
area, there will be a garage door open with certain stuff for sale inside and
that the people live in the back. He said
that they specialize—one will sell paper and writing implements, another will
sell food, etc.
Elder Howlett mentioned in his last letter that they were
supposed to be looking for a new apartment.
They’re looking for an apartment with a kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom
for 800 bolivianos max. They’ve only
looked at one and it was 1000. I asked
how hard they were supposed to be looking and he replied “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on—ever—like ever
at all. I love it when we get to get together
with the other Americans like for random stuff.
Like at the baptism there was another American, and once a week we have
meetings with the zone and there are 3 other Americans from the MTC that I know
and so I like that, cuz no one knows what’s going on, but we get to talk to
each other and understand each other.
Yeah, not a clue—ever—what’s going on…”
He basically thinks that everybody takes everything NOT seriously
enough. It drives him crazy that no one
does anything on time and that they don’t keep their commitments. Their baptismal service started an hour and a
half late. They haven’t been to a single
appointment on time—the people aren’t usually there anyway—and if they are,
they act surprised to see the missionaries and haven’t done or read what they
said they would. They were 1 ½ hour late
to dinner the other day and the pensionista told them that if they were late
next time they’d miss out, but they were 40 minutes late the next night and
still got dinner. Elder Howlett said
that his pensionista has already told the story, TWICE, about the rich snobby Americans
who look at her food and say “I only want a little
of your food.” He said, “All these tiny Bolivians
eat SO much food! It’s too much. I don’t like it.” Who EVER thought we’d hear him say such a
thing?! He also told us he’d had some chicken throat soup (yummm…)—but that his
didn’t have any chicken throat in it.
Apparently, one of her kids doesn’t like chicken throats in his
either. (Thank you, Fabio!) They ate food from “Chicken Kingdom” (like
KFC) at the bishop’s house the other night and he really liked that.
They don’t give Books of Mormon to people unless they are
solid investigators and there are lots of members who don’t go to church, so
they teach a lot of them as well as investigators.
They helped someone move and he had a parrot on his shoulder/back
the whole time he was moving boxes and stuff.
Elder Howlett thought that was pretty cool.
There are little restaurants all over and you can buy a whole
meal for 7 bolivianos (1 dollar). Most
nights, Steven has a coke because he thinks it helps him stay healthy. “Coke cleans you out, so whenever I have
something that I think might make me sick, I buy a coke,” he said. Compared to the meals, a coke is pretty
expensive--5 bolivianos (71 cents).
He says that everything stinks and that there are animals all
over—flocks of sheep being herded, ‘attack geese’, dogs roaming in packs…
I asked him how they email and he said there are little
internet cafes everywhere. There are
always lots of kids playing games because it’s so cheap—only 2 bolivianos/hour
(.25). He said the computers are nice,
but the internet is slow.
Elder Howlett’s mom
P.S. I would LOVE it
if people want to tell us what brought you to Elder Howlett’s blog. Just put it in a comment. I would also love to answer any questions you
may have (also, just write it in a comment, I keep an eye on them.)
P.P.S. I'm going to keep a running list of countries from which people have viewed Elder Howlett's blog (in alphabetical order).
Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Belarus, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Honduras, Hungary, Indonesia, India, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Philappines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, South
Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United
Kingdom, United
States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam
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