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)