2013-06-10 It was only kind of funny for about 3 days.

Hey everybody,  

First of all, I did finally get some letters this week.  I forgot to make a list of whose I got though, so I’ll let you know next week.   

We had another baptism but for some reason I can’t upload pictures today so I’ll have to send them next week. It was a woman who had a dream about the First Vision that night after she was first taught.  She was ready and willing to do everything we asked her after that.  She was also really fun to visit because she is a dentist and more wealthy so she had a pretty modern house with comfortable couches and clean glasses to drink out of.  Her member friend who introduced her to us baptized her.

There is a delicious little pizzeria close by our house which is awesome because there really isn´t very much pizza in all of Bolivia.  We stop there whenever we have a little extra time at night.  I get a personal pizza which is decent sized with a huge glass of fresh squeezed maracuya (passion fruit I think) juice for 15 bolivianos (less than 2 dollars.)  The pizza is really good and the juice is probably the best I’ve had.  I also have pictures that I’ll send next week of this.  We´ve gone 5 or 6 times so we know the owner lady who is always there.  The plan is that next time we invite her to listen to us.  We usually are the only ones there so we’ve chatted with her a lot.  She lived in Virginia for almost 20 years but has been back for quite a while in Bolivia so her English is similar to my Spanish.  She is really nice and I´d love if she got baptized. 

Elder Chavez is awesome and I’m so glad we live with him.  Elder Chavez is thinking about going to BYU after the mission so he was asking me about it.  He wants to be a commercial (not military) pilot and I don’t know how you even do that.  Can you study it in college or are there special training schools for it? Also could you just send a list of BYU’s majors and I can print it off here.  I probably say it every week but Elder Chavez really is the best. He is an amazing missionary and he speaks several languages (French, Portuguese, English and Spanish) so he is good at explaining Spanish to me.  Cambios (transfers) are on Sunday and I really hope he stays with us.

Teaching here is really different than it would be in the US.  People enjoy talking to us.  They all believe in Jesus and want to talk about the gospel.  They want to get baptized and join the church but they aren’t interested in actually doing anything.  They don´t read and pray about what we ask them to.  They don’t want to live the Word of Wisdom (found in Doctrine and Covenants section 89) or change their schedule to be able to go to church. If we could just baptize people without testimonies who will never go to church, half of Cochabamba would be members.

I really enjoyed the zone conference this week.  I particularly enjoyed Elder Eyre´s remarks regarding the Holy Ghost in the morning.  We are on the Lord´s errand so if we will just do what we should as missionaries we will have revelation everyday to help us in teaching investigators.  I also liked what he said about inviting more people to be baptized.  We don´t have the right to withhold their opportunity for salvation because of how we might think they will respond. (part of what I sent to President in my weekly letter, I thought you might want to read it too)  Elder Eyre is whose blog we looked at and I see him a good amount here and also think he is a great missionary.

I’ve been thinking that I would like to try to learn Quechua while I’m here.  It’s  actually not at all uncommon that we run into people who only speak Quechua and I hate when we can´t talk to someone who seems willing to learn.

I’m out of time, but good news, from now on I’ll have 1.5 hours to write instead of just 1.  I hope everyone is enjoying their summer.  It’s weird that it’s winter here and I get really very cold in the morning since there is no heating in the houses here.  Also, I haven’t had water in the apartment for almost a week straight.  I showered once at Elder Crankshaw’s apartment but I prefer to shower more than that.  I also can’t wash clothes and we have to go to a well and use a bucket attached to a rope to get buckets of water to flush the toilet with.  I didn’t know those kind of wells existed still.  I don’t know when we’ll have water again but I hope soon.  It was only kind of funny for about 3 days.

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S.  2 Nephi 24:12,16 and Isaiah 14:12,16