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

2014-03-24 I love it here and I’m going to be very sad when I have to leave.

2014-03-24 I love it here and I’m going to be very sad when I have to leave. 

Hey Everybody,

I’ve had another awesome week here in Satèlite, Potosì.  Everyone is willing to listen to us.  We are teaching as many lessons per week as I ever have in my mission.

This week we got to do a lot of divisions with people in the ward.  We spent all of Thursday, Saturday and Sunday afternoons in divisions.  We had a pretty good experience on Saturday with it.  One of the 2 people who were supposed to go with us bailed and we really needed someone else because we had booked double appointments.  We called a bunch of people and couldn't get anyone to help us.  We said a prayer about it and 2 minutes later as we stood in the street trying to decide what to do, Jhamil, a less active youth, came walking down the street,  He stopped and talked to us and we asked him if he could accompany us.  He agreed to go with me for all 4 hours we needed which is really impressive since he barely comes to church.  I had a great time talking to him as we walked between visits and it worked out perfectly.

This week was a multi-zone conference.  It was for all of the missionaries in Potosì and the Tupiza zone also came to Potosì for the conference.  They got into town at 3 am and 4 of them came to our house.  It was pretty crowded with 8 missionaries in the apartment.  The conference started at 9 am.  I got chosen again to teach a practice lesson as part of the conference just like I have in every single conference I've attended since arriving.  This time our zone leaders forgot to tell us ahead of time though so we just had to wing it.  It went alright though since it was about the book of Mormon.  The food was terrible this time though.  I don’t know what happened.

You can buy a meal here from just about any restaurant for 5 to 15 bolivianos which is 75 cents to two dollars.  Lots of times I by food on my way home for the night.  I really like salchipapas, french fries and sausage with sauce and milanesa de pollo, chicken pounded into a big circle and battered and fried.

My companion is a pretty cool guy.  He was only baptized 3 years ago and he’s 25 years old. 

This week I’m going to hit the 1 year mark.  I can’t believe how fast it feels like this year has passed.  I love it here and I’m going to be very sad when I have to leave.  Luckily I've still got 1 more year.

Love you all and hope you’re going to the temple as often as you can.

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. Alma Chapter 24

2014-03-17 Don't forget to pray tonight.

Hey Everyone,

Elder Howlett thinks these candies are funny

Well we had another good week here in Satélite.  We teach a lot more lessons per week here than I did in Alamos.

It's been pretty overcast almost every day since I got here so that's really nice. When there is sun though, it burns me super fast here.

We find tons of new investigators here too.  We teach at least 10 new people every week here.  It's a lot of fun to teach people for the first time.

Today I'm writing late because our zone activity was to go to Betanzos, a little pueblito an hour outside of Potosì.  We were all supposed to meet up to go together but we had to go visit a hospital this morning to give someone a blessing so we missed meeting up with the zone and decided just to take our own bus.  We asked someone which bus it was and they told us and we got on.  Forty minutes later though, we found out we were on our way to Chaqui, some other little pueblito.  We got off out in the middle of nowhere and waited for a different bus to pass that would take us where we needed to go. 

Betanzos

We waited for a long time and it never came by so we flagged down some car and the guy took us to Betanzos.  We got there and weren't sure where the missionaries were.  We tried calling but realized there's no signal in Betanzos.  We took some pictures, bought some food, and got on a bus to go back to Potosì. We went to a restaurant and had the best pique macho I've had.  The meat was like good steak. 

My companion and I get along really well.  I like him better every day which is good because normally I like my companions less as the time passes.

This week a really hard investigator, Jose Puma, told us he'd gotten an answer to his prayers that the church is true.  He been talking to missionaries since his family got baptized 5 years ago.  That's really exciting.  His baptism is set for the 12th of April.

Yesterday we were on divisions with ward members for 5ish hours.  I was with Esbeld, who's 24 and getting ready to leave on his mission.  He's a really nice guy and was baptized less than 3 years ago.  We gave a blessing of health to an inactive sister in the ward and it was the first time he'd given a blessing.  She felt the Spirit strongly as we gave the blessing and told us afterward.  That really impressed Esbeld and got him excited to go on divisions again.

I hope everyone has a great week!  Don't forget to pray tonight.

 

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. John 6:38

P.P.S right: guyaba fruit.  Super sweet and it tastes good.  I had it as juice but this is the first time I've eaten the fruit.

2014-03-10...it's a tradition here to buy a live llama and kill it...

Water fight with young single adults for Carnivale

Hey everybody,

Everything is going very well in my new area.  The only thing I don't like is that I miss the people from my last area a lot.  It was a weird week.  Due to Carnivales, we didn't work on Monday, Tuesday or Sunday because it's nuts in the streets.  We only went in p-day clothes to eat those days (Monday we were allowed to be out until 4:00).  Those days the people in the streets sprayed us with water and threw water balloons at us.  While we were in downtown Potosì on Monday I don't think a single car passed without spraying us with foam.  People were dumping buckets of water from their balconies in downtown.

 

 llama charque--fried llama meat, egg, (purple) potatoes, giant corn 

The llama charque is traditional.  I  guess it's a tradition here to buy a live llama and kill it and then throw its blood on the outside wall of your house.  They use the meat for a barbecue.  Llama charque is pretty good.

I think I told you a little bit about Savino who we found last week.  He and his wife are members but went inactive over 10 years ago.  Savino is doing really well about coming back but his wife not as much and I don't know why.  They also live with almost all their kids and their families so there are a ton of non-members to teach at the house too. 

On Sunday, Savino brought his grandson, Carlos Raul, to stake conference.  He has a car and gave us a ride which was nice since Sunday was the last big celebration day of carnival.  Where they live, they have a little restaurant thing which makes rellenos in the morning, fried mashed potato balls filled with meat and seasonings and some kind of sauce.  We stopped to eat that a couple mornings ago and met Savino's son-in-law, Miguel.  He'd visited a bunch of churches before and when I asked him why he said it because he was looking for the correct church.  That made a good transition into the Joseph Smith story and I'm excited to see how it goes with him.  There are over 10 non-members living there and Savino is really helpful.

Stefani is a recent convert who I've visited quite a few times since I got here.  She's 15 and a really good and smart person.  She going to leave in June for a foreign exchange program and will either go to Switzerland, Germany, or the US.  Her sister-in-law, Monica, is one of our best investigators now.  She has a date for April that we put this past week.  They are a very pleasant family and there are several non-members who I haven't met who live there as well.

Hermana Mercedes called me this week to tell me she'd sent me a package.  She sent it by flota, which is bus. A different missionary picked it up for me but she'd sent two grocery bags full of fresh fruit, nuts, bread, and ramen noodles.  It was very nice that she'd taken the time to send it and the peaches were very good.

On Sunday I sang in the choir for the stake conference.  We sang "A Child's Prayer" and "I Believe in Christ." It was almost all missionaries with just a few members.  I had an hour and a half practice on Saturday and again on Sunday.  I was sitting next to Christian the whole time who has his mission call to Lima.  It was fun chatting with him. On Thursday he going to Cochabamba to be endowed.  He's really excited for that and it made me miss being able to go to the temple again.

 

making empanadas at a member's house

The four missionaries from our ward all live in the same apartment.  It's actually pretty big and by far the nicest place I've lived during the mission.  It's also definitely the best shower I've had.  It's a constant temperature and I haven't been shocked once.  The members here help a lot more than is normal so we get to have lots of lessons with members.  Potosì is a ridiculously hilly city.  I've never seen such steep streets. It's is really cold when you're not in the powerful sun.  The sun sometimes makes it feel hot.  The weather changes between rain and sun in an instant.  Almost every day we see both.  One of the new things with investigators here is that we have a lot who need to get married.  I haven't had to deal with that too much in my other areas.  We'll have to see how that goes.

People here have some very incorrect ideas about repentance.  They just don't understand how it works. This week while we were talking about it with an investigator she asked if there is punishment for sin if God forgives us.  Of course there's a punishment for sin but it doesn't affect us thanks to the atonement.  Lots of people think repentance is wanting to be a good person and that you pay a punishment for the bad things you did before you go into heaven.  They don't understand the idea a being clean through repentance now. There are too many people who think they are past repentance too.  That is probably one of the saddest things I hear.  There are people who truly believe God won't forgive them.  I don't believe we see the love that God has for us in any way like we do through the process he has established for repentance.  There is nothing like knowing that you are clean and worthy.  Christ suffered the punishment of our sins.  There is no reason for us not to repent and have to carry the burden that we feel when we sin.  God the Father and His Son love us. You really should repent if you need to, it's a lot better than the unhappiness of living unworthily.

I hope everyone has a great week.  Potosì is actually a really pretty place and I'm loving it here.    

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. 3 of my favorite repentance scriptures in addition to what I sent a couple weeks ago.  Doctrine &Covenants 19:16-19,  Isaiah 1:18, and Mosiah 26:30

making llama charque