Me Voy a Punata!!!

Transfer information came in last night! I'm leaving my first area and headed to another area, about 2 hours away from the city!  The name of my area is Cliza, and is a pueblo, or a small town where they nearly only speak Quechua.  I spoke with my new companion last night about the area, and he told me sacrament meeting is in quechua, unless the bishop speaks.  I am super excited to be going there!!

SO back tracking to this past week, here was a typical day in Boliva:

I wake up, 6:30. It's still dark outside. I flip on the lights, but the electricity is out.  This means 2 things. 1, I can't see anything until the sun comes up at 7 or 7:30. And 2, cold showers.  All of the showers are electrically heated when the water hits the shower head, so I suffer through a cold shower.  After, I get ready and study in the window since there is only light there.  It's a Tuesday, so we have a district meeting in Quillacollo, about 30 minutes in a Trufi.  We get ina  trufi, go about 5 minutes, and run into a blockade. Nobody can get through in either direction, and Cholitas are sitting in the streets. Nobody ever seems to know why the blockades are happening either. SO we get out of the Trufi, and start walking on the highway, along with everyone else.  This particular blockade had 2 parts. One side of the blockade was about 2 kilometers from the other, so we walk, and walk, and walk. Finally we reach the other side, and take another trufi to the capilla there. When we get there, we find out the capilla just got robbed the night before. They took all of the chairs in there. SO we sit on the floor to have district meeting.

It was a long odd series of events, but things like these happen every day here.

This week we gave service to a lady who was carrying over 100 pounds of cement mix in a wheel barrow in the street.  She seemed to be struggling, so we lended a hand to her.  We did not know it at the time, but she had to bring this wheel barrow full of cement more than 10 blocks.  With the bags spilling the powder everywhere, and us sweating from head to toe, we finally arrived at her house, exhausted.  A few minutes later, she began to cry, thanking the lord for 'sending 2 angels' to help her. She told us it would be inpossible for her to have done it alone, and she was positive the Lord sent us there for a reason. She could feel the spirit, and we were so happy just to be able to help her. It was a great experience!

Elder Potts III

jacob.potts@myldsmail.net

Bolivia Cochabamba Mission

Past 2 Weeks: Blessings of Health, General Conference, and Sickness

First off, sorry for not sending a letter last week! I ran out of time writing individually and couldn't send the normal big letter! But this letter will include the stuff that happened the past 2 weeks.

Last week, we taught a kid who was like 14 or so.  It was an investigator who we found knocking doors, but he seemed very interested in all of our information.  He was raised catholic, but knew a ton about the bible, new testament, and old. It was the first lesson on The Restoration and everything seemed fine with him. We taught him about the book of Mormon, explaining what it is, how we have it and so forth, and Then we asked him was his thoughts were on the book of mormon... Ironically, he happened to get sick at that very moment, and threw up! All over my companions shoes too.  It was ironic, but so gross too. We ended up helping him clean up, gave him some water, and he ended up being ok.

General conference was also the weekend before last, as you all know.  I never knew how busy it would be as a missionary.  Everyone watches it in the capilla, so we spent all morning preparing the capilla; blocking out the windows to see the screen, cleaning the floors, setting up all the rooms for Spanish and Quechua, etc. After, we spent our time right before runnign around gathering up less actives and our investigators to attend it! I swear, if we don't knock on some people door every morning, they don't remember that church  is on Sundays haha. The actual conference went well, and I watched 2 sessions in spanish, and 2 in english.  I Learn from watching in each language, but watching a translation from your native language just isn't the same.

Yesterday a member asked us to give a blessing of health to one of her family members who is not a member. When we got there, we learned that this person is very sick. She has not eaten anything solid in 2 months, and has only had liquid. She is old in age, and is in a very fragile condition. We proceeded with the blessing, my companion and I, and during it, I could tell the woman felt peace. She went from pains of groans to peaceful resting. The family members are not members, but we have scheduled an appointment to talk with all of them, and about the plan of salvation. They already seem interested in the idea, since it will answer the questions of where she will be going, and other difficult questions. I believe the family is now ready to hear and accept the restored gospel!

This morning we awoke to a number that was not programmed in our phone. I contested the phone and only heard a histerical woman on the other end of the phone... It was a mixture of weaping and mumbling in a combination of Spanish and Quechua, and I think she was talking to me, and her family at the same time. Confusingly, I asked who was speaking and what the problem was. Finally she calmed down, and explain she is from the Mamani Family, that we visited and gave a blessing of health to last night.  She is the daughter of the sick woman, and called to tell us her mother finally after 2 months, ate a solid bit of food, a piece of bread. The called to thank us for blessing her mother, and said her whole family could feel the effects of our spirit when we visited.

Elder Potts III

jacob.potts@myldsmail.net

Bolivia Cochabamba Mission