The First Members of Bolivia are in my Ward!

Family,

I have had a very good week in my mission, but it feels like I just wrote you all yesterday.  The mission flies by!

The first thing of this week is that the mission boundaries are changing for me.  They are creating a new mission, Santa Cruz North, and so the Santa Cruz mission is taking part of our area.  The cool part too, down near Argentina! So I will never get to go there. How sad. This also means a few of the guys from my group are being absorbed into the other mission.

I have also started an English class here in Bolivia.  I started it originally because of one inactive member.  He is from the Ramos family, the one who has been inactive for 10 years.  He hasn't attended sacrament meeting yet, but is starting to come to the activities.  Anyway, there are so many people here who want to learn English. They did a study here that showed that if you are fluent in English, then you will make on average 4 times more money per year.  So many of the members come to this class.  Most of them being adults, which is interesting.  Even though I can't speak the language perfectly, I can speak English, and this is what they all want to learn.

The best part of this week was meeting some of the first members in Bolivia.  Back in 1981, the first 4 missionaries of the church entered the country.  3 of them were American, and there was one who was a Latino, but lived in the US.  There is an elderly couple in the ward who were baptised by these missionaries!  They even have an old record, with 2 songs on it from the missionaries, and other pictures of them.  I will send pictures of these in the other thread. So this couple lives in a place called Motecato, which is in our area, but very very far up towards the mountains.  It takes about 30 minutes in a trufi, and then another 20 minutes or so of walking on a small dirt path to get to their house.  They are great members though, and love having the missionaries come!

I miss all you guys.  Have a good week!

Elder Potts