2013-07-29 [I] probably won't ever be the pianist at a wedding again.

Hey everyone,

Sorry I don’t have a ton of time this week.  All the missionaries in the world had to fill out a questionnaire for something.

The news came at 11 o’clock last night.  I will be staying here in Villa Graciela.  My awesome companion is leaving to be a zone leader in Potosí though.  I’m super excited to be staying though.  I will meet my new companion sometime this week.  He has a ton of time in the mission and will be the new district leader here.

Elder Chavez will be the new secretary of records for the mission so I’m super sad that he’s leaving. The offices aren’t too far from here though, so I’ll get to see him every once in a while.  Another American is coming to replace Elder Chavez.

There is a picture of us making funeral potatoes with my dinner pensionista.  We burned the bottom but besides that they turned out well. Ovens just have gas fire and you can’t choose a temperature. Everyone thought they were very good.

My companion dressed up as a homeless person for an activity in another ward to teach about seeing people as they can become not as they are.

My lunch pensionista’s husband was baptized this week.  They were just waiting to get married.  The marriage started half an hour late, what a surprise.  Bigger surprise was that they asked me to play apologize on the piano during the wedding.  (Surprising because Elder Howlett doesn't play the piano.  He learned 2 popular songs by watching YouTube videos before his mission.)  I just played it slowly for about 20 minutes including as they walked down the aisle. Probably won’t ever be the pianist at a wedding again.

Over half of the new missionaries arriving are hermanas (sister missionaries) this cambio.  Pretty crazy.

Elders Olson and Rhoton are leaving but Elder Crankshaw is staying in my district.

I got to go on splits with Elder Rhoton this Tuesday.  Our Spanish is a lot better because we did a lot of door knocking and didn’t have any trouble communicating.

I’ll write a longer letter next week, have an awesome week!

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. 1 Ne. 4:6

2013-07-22 miracles happen for me too

Hey everyone,

This was a pretty awesome week.  We got 8 ward missionaries called on Sunday and I’m excited to work with them.  Most of them are priests.

I woke up on Tuesday feeling the sickest I have in the entire mission and was really worried about it because we had some important appointments that I didn’t want to miss.  I said a prayer that morning and when it was time to go to the district meeting, I suddenly felt almost completely better and we were able to visit all of our appointments that day.  It is incredible the help we have from God.   My understanding of God´s power has grown substantially since I’ve been here.  I’ve always believed that God has the power to do anything but I never really expected to see miracles.  The people here expect miracles and they happen.  I’m learning that when I have the same faith that the Bolivians have, miracles happen for me too.

We also had a great experience with one of the families we are teaching.  We’ve been teaching them for almost 2 months and one of the biggest obstacles has always been that the 16 year old son never wanted to listen to us and didn’t want his family to listen to us either.  However, this week he came to sacrament meeting alone and asked us to visit just him.  When we visited him he told us that since his family began to pray, his life and his relationship with his family has just been happier and more peaceful.  He is excited to learn more.  The next time we visited him he had read everything we had left him and was prepared to discuss it.  This was probably one of my favorite experiences so far in the mission.

The Flores Family is great. I think I’ve written about them before but they told us all about their conversion this week.  They were baptized less than a year ago.  Before that their life was really a mess.  The dad was a heavy drinker and drove a trufi for his job.  Since he was too drunk to work a lot of the time they never had enough money.  The wife worked all day and when she came home she took the trufi and drove it at night with Arthur her son who was at 11 at the time.  Arthur is kind of a rebel now but did a lot for his family during that time. He cleaned the trufi up and got it ready to go every day for when his mom got home.  Since he was always in the trufi he learned how to drive and as an 11 year old, when his dad was drunk in the city and his mom was stuck at work, he would go pick up his dad in the trufi and bring him home.  The two daughters in the family were just never at home.  One of the daughters had a friend who is a member and she started to go to mutual with her though.  She really enjoyed it and started going to church.  She brought the missionaries to teach the family and in about 3 months they had completely turned their lives around.  Now they are my favorite family in the ward. The wife takes vacation days to come to church on Sundays and the husband is careful not to travel on Sunday so he can go to church too.  They are planning on getting sealed in September and I hope I’ll still be here to go to the sealing.  Also when you and dad come to pick me up they said we can go to their house for an anticucho barbecue. (Those who know me are laughing uproariously at this.)  They are also the family that does our laundry every p-day.  We go in the morning and then eat breakfast with them while the clothes wash.  It’s awesome to see how happy they are now as members of the church.

Is Liz going to the temple? Because she should.  Also, tell Liz to email me from her own email.

This past p-day we played hearts and drank mate.  It really made me miss playing pinochle.

Why haven’t I heard from any of my siblings for ages?

Cambios are this Sunday and I’m afraid I might leave.  My companion is friends with one of the secretaries who hears about plans for cambios and I guess I’m being considered to go train in a different area.  I really hope that’s not what happens and I get to stay here with Elder Mero. Everything is just going really well and I love the ward here.  Also I heard they will be opening an area in the Chaparre rainforest this cambio but at least to start, no gringos will be able to go because it is more dangerous.  I hope that changes before the end of my mission and I get to go.

I have to go but have an awesome week everyone!

Love,
Elder Howlett

P.S.  Romans 1:16

P.P.S.  (from last week)  Joshua 1:9

P.P.P.S.

I have not found a laser that will pop a balloon but I haven’t stopped looking.

The taser hurt worse than the shower.  It was so low power that you couldn’t even see the electricity arc anymore, but it turns out that it can still be powerful without seeing the electricity.

We did get the 10 baptismal dates.  We have 14 right now.  Our entire zone did really well with that goal.  In 1 week we more than tripled investigators with baptismal dates.  As a zone we have over 250 now.

I wrote back to Maddie when I got the letter in the CCM.  If she’s written me since then I haven’t gotten it.

2013-07-15 ...that silver tape you can put on warts




Photo taken after service one day this week.  This is almost my entire zone.  There are 29 missionaries in my zone and we are by far the biggest in the mission.  President told me we will split at cambios.

Hey Everyone,

First, will you please send me a recipe for pancakes from scratch and for funeral potatoes.  Everyone here wants me to cook something.  Also, one lady in the ward really wants me to get the pancake recipe for her to make.

This week I did the sealing for 2 blessings. I need a lot more practice with that.  They both went well though.

I also went downtown on splits with Elder Olson to do my visa stuff this week.  Our companions got stuck in another area and didn't show up that afternoon to switch back so we just went to my area to teach.  That's when I did one of the blessings.  I really enjoy going on splits with the other Americans and get to a lot because my companion is District Leader.

We had a meeting with our Bishop and the Ward Mission Leader this week and we will have all of the Priests called as ward missionaries soon.  I'm really excited for that.  I also had a good, "recognizing the spirit" experience during the meeting.  He asked for suggestions for a new gospel principles teacher. I quickly thought of someone but didn't want to say it because I know almost nothing about her and she is very active so I assumed she already had a big calling.  I couldn't put her name out of my mind though, so I finally said something and the Bishop said she was just about to be released from the Relief Society presidency and that he thought she'd be perfect.  Then I felt dumb for not wanting to say anything before. 

This past Monday we made burgers and played signs and mafia in the church in Sacaba.  It is tiny. You can see the entire building is that one room in the picture with this email.  I have no idea how they do classes for 2nd and 3rd hour.  After that we went to the cancha.  When you come to pick me up you'll have to bring an empty suitcase so we can fill it up with the cheap stuff from the cancha. They had ties for less than 2 dollars apiece so I got 5 new ties.

This morning we were listening to the music on my companion's usb and there was a really cool piano/orchestra version of '1000 years' (one of my favorite songs) and that made me think of you. Also, I don't know why they don't in the US, but every speaker, dvd player, and tv have usb ports and can play anything off of a usb.  It is really cool.

I got a picture book that you made me last p-day.  I really like it a lot and everyone here loves to look at my pictures.  They always say our entire family looks the exact same.  Still no other packages.

I had an interview with president this week and he is probably the nicest interviewer ever.  He only says nice things and I came out feeling really good.   I  told him about how I love my area and companion right now and he said that I can probably stay for this next cambio.  That's really good because when my companion interviewed with him right before me, he had said that he wanted to send me to a new area to train.  I think it would be super fun to train but I really don't want to leave my area.  I'm hoping that I can train someone here the cambio after this next one.  I'm sure what happens will work out though.

Grandma Lori- I'm glad to hear that my mission tree is doing well and I got your letter.

(I asked him what he wanted in a package) I'd like beef jerky and that silver tape you can put on warts. (I assume he means duct tape--but does he want it for warts or for something else?)

I'd be happy to answer questions from the blog.  Also If you or anyone have questions you want me to answer put them all in the same email and next week I'll print it off and write out answers during the week.  (So, if anyone else has questions they've sent to Elder Howlett that he still hasn't answered or new questions, you can send them to me as a comment or in an email for those who have my email address and I'll compile them.)

Is Bishop Smoot still bishop or do we have a new bishopric?

We got a bunch of rain this week which was awesome, I love the thunderstorms here.

I electrocuted myself really bad when I accidently touched the shower head this morning, my arm was numb for almost an hour.

It's weird that I live so differently here but I'm pretty much used to it already.  I was hardly even surprised when I electrocuted myself.  I don't expect to see couches in houses and the dirtiness hardly even bothers me.

Hey Liz you should be going to the temple.  Mom's gonna buy you and whoever you go with a Dominoes pizza every time you go.  (What?)

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S.

This is a picture of a little party leading up to a night-time missionary farewell for David Quiroga in our ward. I’ll be sad to see him go, he went with us to do visits a lot.  This little barbecue is right outside the church and is where everyone hung out for 2 and a half hours leading up to the farewell fireside.

 

2013-07-08 It turns out even a low power taser is plenty strong…

Hey Everyone,

I had another wonderful week.  I feel really good about the way everything is going for us here in our area.  I really don’t want to leave the area at cambios but I’m afraid I might.  That kind of surprises me because before the mission I thought I would want to be in as many areas as possible but I love it here and love the ward and I’ll be sad when I leave.

Tasers are inexpensive and easy to get here so lots of people have them.  We were with a family and they had a really low powered taser so I let Elder Chavez try it on my arm.  It turns out that even a low power taser is plenty strong…

We went to the temple this Tuesday and I loved it.  I really miss going to the temple.  I understood everything this time which is a major improvement from the last time I went in Lima.  It actually reminds me a lot of the Mt. Timpanogos temple inside.  My companion from the CCM Elder Laidlaw was there too so it was fun to be able to talk to him a little.

I guess that Bolivia and the US government aren’t on the best of terms right now.  They decided to have anti-US protests on the 4th of July so the Americans were only allowed to leave the house to eat at the pensionistas’ in street clothes.  My companion went with Elder Chavez’s companion so they could go to both of our appointments.  We got 2 cakes to celebrate. Elder Crankshaw and I sang the national anthem and we watched 3 episodes of The District during the day.  It was a pretty awesome day and I got to spend the day with Elders Crankshaw and Chavez so that was a lot of fun.

with Elder Crankshaw eating their 4th of July cake 

Yesterday we had way too many appointments to visit so we went on splits with 2 of the priests from the ward. I went with Arturo Flores.  The Flores family are year old converts and my favorite family to visit here.  It was really fun going with Arturo and it made me feel really good about my Spanish. He said almost nothing so I had to do all of the talking and it turned out well.  I can finally speak in Spanish without having to think about what I want to say in English first.  One of our appointments fell through so we knocked doors instead.  We walked by a door and a block later I was still thinking about it so we went back to knock and found 2 awesome new investigators.  They have a cousin who is a member of the church and serving a mission in Uruguay right now. They are both very interested in religion in general and are looking to find a church to join.  They said they were busy cleaning up their house and didn’t have time to listen to us right now so we offered to help and they said sure. They didn’t actually have anything for us to do so we just stood and chatted for a few minutes while they hosed down the tile floor around their house.  Since we weren’t doing anything I asked if we could teach while they cleaned and they agreed and we taught about the restoration for an hour. Arturo didn’t say a word the entire time so I felt really good that I understood everything they said to me and was able to make it through the whole hour.  They both want to come to church this week. Our next lesson after that went just as well.  We visited the Gonzalez family which I’ve been teaching since I got here.  We had a wonderful spiritual lesson and at the end invited them to be baptized. They aren’t married yet so they know they have to do that first.  They finally said yes and are getting their papers together for their marriage and should be able to get baptized 2 months from now. I’m really excited for them.  There is a mom, dad, and 4 kids.  The hardest part about missionary work here is finding entire families who are all interested together.

Market where Elder Howlett finally found an avocado--a huge one!

The Flores family is great.  The mom told me this morning that Arthur really loved going out to teach with me. That really felt good because he is kind of a rebel and is always having problems.  We had some good talking while we were walking between appointments.  His mom said he came home and told her he’d miss her when he goes on a mission.  He told her he’s sure that he wants to go as soon as he graduates.  So that was a pretty incredible change from not really wanting to go before (he’s 16 and will graduate right when he turns 18).  Also the reason I talked to her this morning is because she has a washer and offered to wash my clothes for free! They are the best and are making me pizza for when we go to do a family home evening with them tonight. Sister Flores is also taking her vacation days on Sunday now so that she can go to church.  Her husband and she are planning to go to the temple in September to be sealed.

Everywhere we go, people continue to feed us.  This week right after dinner we went to visit Manuel (blind) and they were just having dinner so his wife served us some soup.  I was already stuffed and honestly didn’t think I could get the soup down.  I ate a bite of the chicken in the soup and then lifted the whole thing out of the soup and realized it was a chicken foot.  Luckily, he is blind and I put it in my companion’s bowl.  Then when we’d finished the soup she brought out this massive plate of pasta for each us with a mushed beat sauce.  It was absolutely terrible and I have no idea how I ate it all.  I don’t think I’ve ever been so full in my life.

Testimony meeting here is the best, way better than at home.  As soon as they invite people to come to the pulpit 20 people stand up and all walk up at once.  Everyone here understands what a testimony is and gives short powerful testimonies rather than the story of their life.  I love testimony meeting.

We found a family of 11 this week who are all very interested and I’m very excited to keep teaching them.

Have a great week everyone!

Mom you didn’t tell me anything about Liz’s boyfriend.

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S.  Jacob 6:12 (maybe all of chapter 6 to get some context)

 

2013-07-01 ...my favorite week of the mission so far

I love my new companion Elder Mero.  He is from Guayacuil, Ecuador and speaks Spanish and we´ve been working well together and having a lot of success.   This Sunday we were short 5 baptismal dates to meet the goal set for each companionship in our zone.  In two hours we were able to get 3.  Then after dinner we had one more hour so we said a prayer and went to knock doors.  The first door we knocked was a family with one inactive member.  They invited us in and we taught 5 people including the member and the other 4 committed to baptism.  I feel really good about the way we are doing our work and Elder Mero is terrific companion.  I´ve been able to improve the way I teach a lot by watching what he does.  

This has been my favorite week of the mission so far.  Everything just went well.

I started the week going to a clinic with a few other new missionaries for a bunch of tests.  I think they were to get health insurance but I´m not really sure.  It was not as clean as I would have liked for a hospital but oh well.  They took a blood sample and were really bad at it.  My arm still has a massive bruise.  I was too tall for their measuring tape so they had to take me to a different room to measure my height.  It took a long time but I got to talk with the other Americans in between tests so it was a lot of fun.  After that we got some awesome salteñas and empanadas. 

 

I also baptized someone for the first time this week.  Wara is 14 and her parents are both inactive members.  Her mom is coming to church again but her dad still won´t.  Also, my favorite youth in our ward, Josue, must like her because he showed up early to help us set up for the baptism and brought her a present and card. 

 

We had another anticucho barbecue and I had my camera with me this time.  It is so good.  We literally are still getting at least one extra meal every day.  These people are only poor because they spend so much money feeding the missionaries.

We got to go up to the little towns that are way up in the mountains twice this week.  It’s a lot of fun. There aren’t any roads so it’s just hiking and it’s really pretty up there.  It takes a little over an hour to hike there.  I love how quiet it is. The houses are farther apart and there aren’t cars.  We spent almost 2 hours talking to an old man.  He told us all kinds of stories and between the 3 of us we drank 5 liters of coca cola.  We just sat in little chairs under a tree in the shade and it was awesome.  He is supposed to come to church with us this Sunday.  We have to leave way early to go up there and help him down to the church.  

We have 12 investigators with a baptismal date now and plan on having at least 10 more this week. It’s a lot more fun to work with my new companion.

While we were knocking doors this week we came across a sorta drunk who just wanted to talk.  He invited us in and served us jello. Then every time we finished the jello he just brought us another.  On my fourth cup of jello I realized I needed to leave some in my cup if I was interested in ever finishing.  He showed us all his pictures and told us all about his life.  We have an appointment with him this week for a time when he hopefully won’t be drunk.  There are a lot of interesting people here.  Everyone loves to talk with everyone.  It’s a pretty good culture for a missionary.

The 4 Vasquez kids have started coming to church again.  I love them and they are probably my favorite investigators to teach.  The 8 year old really likes me and so we always sit together at church.  Sitting with my siblings for the past decade has been good practice for keeping him entertained during sacrament meeting.

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S.  2 Ne. 10:10-13 and 1 Ne. 13: 16-19 Happy 4th of July!

Today for p-day we went to a restaurant like T.G.I.Fridays.  It was really good and only cost like 6 dollars. That’s me and Elder Olson having a pineapple strawberry drink.  I had a teriyaki steak with a brownie ice cream thing that was huge for dessert. 

Last week p-day we made a sling shot and got a rock stuck in a cactus.  Then we went and had ice cream.  They have the richest ice cream I’ve ever tasted here.

 

 

 

 

2013-06-24 It’s cow heart cooked on an open fire.

Hey Everyone,
 

My new companion is a really good guy.  He is a really good teacher.  It’s fun being the companion who was already in the area and knows it.  I get to make most of the decisions about who we teach and I usually take the lead teaching since I know the investigators and their situations.  I think we have a lot of potential together.  We got 5 commitments to baptism this week.

Elder Howlett's new trainer and Johnny

We had a baptism on Saturday for the 16 year old (Johnny) who started going to church with his friends months ago. Funny story though, I was in the room with the pump with another elder turning it on to fill the font when a pipe exploded and completely soaked us.  We called the other elders in our district and we just took turns holding the pipe together so the font could fill.  We got it full just in time for the baptism and it turned out well.

I watched the training last night but the internet here is terrible so we couldn’t understand the first hour because the audio was really messed up.  I hear we get to start using computers or something though.

The clouds here have to be the coolest in the world.

Last night after the fireside we went to a family’s house for an anticucho barbeque.  It’s cow heart cooked on an open fire.  I didn’t think I would like it but it is the best food I’ve had here.  It had a taste a lot like the meat a Tucanos.

This week I had a great experience with prayer while looking for the house of a reference.  We didn’t have very good instructions about where it was but we had a description of what it looked like.  We found a house that matched the description but we knocked and found out it wasn’t the right house.  After looking for a while longer without any success we decided to say a prayer.  After the prayer the next house we knocked wasn’t it but the owner knew the person we were looking for.  We explained who we are and the owner of the house told us she knew some Mormons and wanted to learn more so we have an appointment with that family and we were able to find the house we were looking for.  The help we get as missionaries is pretty amazing.

 

Love,

Elder Howlett

 

P.S.  Alma 39:11 be a good example

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2013-06-17 ...random guys to walk around with guns at night

These signs are everywhere. They basically say, "Armed

Surveillance."  They make me feel protected and safe.

Neighborhoods hire random guys to walk around with guns at night.

Hey everyone,

This week the daughter of Veronica, who we baptized 3 weeks ago, surprised us by deciding to be baptized.  That happened this week so that was fun.

I went on exchange with Elder Crankshaw on Friday.  It was really fun to be able to just speak English and he is a really good guy.  We never had any problems because of our lack of Spanish.  It was a good day too.  We taught a bunch of lessons and found some good new investigators.  A pastor for another church saw us walking by and called us over. He had investigated our church and thought highly of it and believes that it isn’t important what church we belong to as long we follow Christ. He had two of his friends with him and told us that they wanted to know more about our church. The two people listened to us and showed genuine interest in what we had to say. The pastor listened to us too, and maybe we can show him that which church you belong to does matter.  I´m always amazed by how we find new investigators.

 

Someone finally taught me how to use the pump for the font so we had warm water for the first time with this baptism.

I just keep liking Elder Chavez better and better.  He does triathlons and was going to be one of 6 Bolivian athletes to compete in the London Olympics.  He got hit by a car while his was riding his bike and messed up his ankle and lost mobility of his hand until just recently.  Anyway, he thinks it was God’s way of making sure he didn’t miss out on a mission.  He has probably the best attitude of anyone I’ve ever met.

My companion is being transferred to Potosi.  I still have 6 weeks of training so I’ll have another trainer starting Wednesday.  I’m excited to meet him.

Love,

Elder Howlett

Elders Howlett and Ruiz at the pizza place near their apartment

P.S.  Romans 5:6-10