Another full week of experiences here in Bolivia! I am actually in a ghetto internet cafe right now at the bottom of the hill from the Christ statue here. We hiked it as a zone this morning, and it is basically stairs that go nearly straight up. It was far, but worth doing at least one time. I got a ton of good pictures too, so I will send them after!
This past week, we were running late to an appointment from a service project, so we decided to take a taxi to the house to change quickly. We got into the taxi, and the first thing I noticed was a bunch of stickers of Christ all over the window and dash board. We got to talking a bit, just about futbol and such, and then he asked what I was studying at the University. I guess he assumed we were students, since we live across the street from the Universidad Adventista Bolivia. I love it when people ask us that, because it always gives us the opportunity to explain why we are here, and what we do. So I told him we are missionaries for our church, here to help people, and invite them to Christ. Then something suprising happened. He turn and asked me if I was from Santa Cruz. I quickly replied no.. I'm from the US. He turned to look at my face, and laughed, asking how long I have lived here. When I told him I only have been here 5 months, he didn't believe me. Now I honestly don't thnk I speak like a Bolivian. But he might have mistakn me as one since I can't roll my R's with some words. Convienently neither do most of the Bolivians. They use sort of an 's' or 'z' sound, so I guess I have started to pick that up too. and it is easier. Anyways, we left the taxista with a pamphlet and our number, not expecting anything out of it. That night, he called me, we took out an appointment, and now he is one our new investigators!Monday, September 23, 2013
Cristo de la Concordia, Bolivian Accents, and Reactivations!
Monday, September 16, 2013
New Companions, Weddings, and Dirt in My Bed!
Well, things are a lot different now for me than from last week. My old companion left to Potosi, and my new comanion arrived at the airport the same day. His name is Elder Cortez, and it turns out he is actually from La Paz, another city in Bolivia. He is waiting for a visa to go to his mission in Venezuela, but they put a halt on all visas from Bolivia, so he and about 40 other missionaries will probably be staying here for their missions. Anyways, he is a very hard worker, but is very shy. He doesn't hardly speak, which is a huge change from my last companion who never stopped talking. This means I have to do nearly all the talking. In lessons, in contacting, in just everyday activities. It is helping my spanish and my teaching skills a ton, but we are working on getting him to open up a little more.
The missionaries in Vinto got to go to the temple on Saturday, for a wedding actually. ONe of the Elders, Elder Supayabe had an aunt that was getting married, so President gave us permssion to attend the wedding. Unfortunately the sealing room was too small, and one of the elders forgot his reccomend, so we couldn't enter in for the ceremony, but it was still a good experience to go to a wedding at the temple here.
As for missionary work this week, I about killed over dead. I'm the only one who knows our area, and I'm also senior comapnion now, so I have to make the plans. Not only that, I teach just about all of the lessons. So I am not only physically tired at the end of each day, but mentally too. Last night, we got in at about 9 oclock at night, and I was so tired, I went to sit on my bed to rest. The next thing I knew it was 6 am, I was still in my dirty proselying clothes and shoes, and my bed was covered in dirt because of my muddy shoes. I am hoping my body gets used to working even harder here. We have been having lots of success though. In only 2 lessons , we invited 3 of our investigators to baptism, and they accepted. So we should be baptizing even more during our time together, since we both can handle working harder.
Elder Potts III
jacob.potts@myldsmail.net
Bolivia Cochabamba Mission
Up in Motecato for lunch yesterday with the other Elders.
My new companion and I in the elevator
After the temple we went to a Peruvian restaurant. This is Arroz Chaufa, a super good rice plate.
My companion and I at the Cochabamba, Bolivia temple.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Transfers, No Water, and TV Celebrities!
Well family, This are going to be changing for me here. We got the transfer information last night, and my companion and I are being separated. He is going to Potosi, the middle of nowhere, to be a zone leader. I am staying in my area, and getting a new companion who's from Peru. Apparently he is pretty new and only has about 2 months. Another Elder also told me that he speaks english, which will be interesting!
The past week with my companion, we have putting it in overdrive. Everyday I came home at night and passed out as soon as I hit the bed. We taught more lessons and visited more families than I thought was possible. On Saturday, we had our last baptism together. When we got there in the morning at the capilla to fill the font, we found out that soemhow there was absolutely no water in the capilla. The reserve tank also had broken, so we had no water t ofill the baptismal font. We called the bishop and told him what the problem was. He came down to see it, and we were right. No water. SO we started making the plans to have the baptism in a river closeby the capilla. The only problem is the is the drought season, so when we checked the river, it was mostly just rocky and had almost no water. The baptism was at 6, and we still didn't have water when 5 o'clock came around. Finally, we got ahold of a company that fills water and had a truck come and fill it for us. WHat a relief. WHile the water was cold, we got the baptism done without anymore problems. My companion got to baptise this time, in the cold water, and I conducted. On Sunday morning, my new little convert asked me if I would confirm him. I have never confirmed before, but I accepted and it turne out ok.
There was another blockade here in Bolivia last week, except this time in my hometown, Vinto. So instead of taking a trufi to lunch, we had to walk the streets just like everyone else. We saw a news crew a bit aways from us, but didn't think anything of it. WHen we got to the pensionistas house, she grabbed us and took us toward the television. There we were, close up on the camera on National Bolivian TV! I tried to reach for my camera, but it went off before I got a chance to take a picture.
This is a picture of our zone! almost half the zone is changing now, but it's been a great group of missionaries!
Bolivian money! 7 bolivianos is about the same as a dollar, so you can figure the breakdown. My city, Quillacollo, is the only one who has the 200 bills, and they are a pain because nobody ever has change for them!
This is the boy we baptised on Saturday. He is the brother of our other convert and now their whole family are members of the church!
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Quechua, Baptisms, and the 1920s!
Lot's of things happened this week! I got to do a few intercambios (exchanges) with some Latino elders, and a Bolivian holiday called Dia de Peaton.
The Cochabamba area in general is know in Bolivia as being the dirtiest place in the country. This is probably because it's in the middle of the 2 biggest cities La Paz and Santa Cruz, so there is alot of transit between the two. This means that tons of semi trucks, and goods are moved right throught the city. They don't have any regualtions on the cars like they do in the states, so there is a ton of pollution and trash everywhere. In an effort to try and preserve the ozone layer, the government didn't decide to try and clean up. They didn't try and put regulations on any of the cars, like in other countries. All they did was ban vehicles for a day haha. If anyone was caught driving, (which I saw some of them) they were charged 1,000 Bolivianos (about 150 USD) and their car was taken to the impound lot. This day was yesterday. Luckily it was a Sunday, so we were going to stay in the area anyways. Since my town is already barely a blip on the map, it looked like an ancient villiage without any cars on the dirt roads. People used other means of getting around: There are tons of horses, so they rode those, and bicycles too. I wish I would have gotten some pictures because I felt like I was in the 1920's haha.
I had the chance to go on 2 different intercambios this week, but they were both in my area. The first one I had was with a Peruvian elder. He is the best missionary, and takes the saying "talk to everyone you see" literally. If there was 10 minutes of down time, he was busy chatting with a new person and taking out an appointment to visit them.
The second intercambio I had was with an Elder from Santa Cruz, Bolivia. He is a new Elder here in the mission, only having about 2 months. One of the great things about this elder is he speaks Quechua fluently. So part of out plans were to go up into the hills in my area where they only speak Quechua and contact. He held a Quecha BOM and I held a spanish one. If they spoke spanish, I spoke to them. But if they only spoke Quechua, he spoke. It was so cool hearing the gospel be taught in another language!
This was a baptism that we went to. The little guy in the middle is from a less active family that's starting to come back. He's 8, so the baptism doesn't count for the mission, but he loves all the missionaries, so he had one of the elders baptize him!
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
"I Read the Mormon Book. I like!"
Hola Familia,
Well, another week here in Bolivia. I have 2 more weeks until transfers and it's pretty certan that I will change companions, areas, or possibly even both. I'm excited for the changes though.
This past week, we met with one of our recent converts. She told us before she had to talk to us about something, but wouldn't tell us what. When we got to her house, she started to explain that she wants to serve a mission! We were very excited for her. She had many questions about the mission; how to start your papers, what it is like, where she could go, etc. We answered everything she had and will be talking to the bishop to take the next few steps. For me, this not only means that she will stay active, it also means that she will be spreading the gospel to many others also!
This past week we had a Zone Conference. 3 different zones of about 25 missionaries each, so there were right around 75 missonaries there. During a break, the president's wife asked me if she could share a story I wrote to president. The one about using words that weren't in my vocabulary during a lesson, through the gift of tongues. I told her that was fine, and she proceeded with her talk. In the middle of her talk, right as she was about to tell the story, she said it would be better if I explained it myself, and asked me to come up and share it. I think this was the defining moment of my language skills. One of the hardest things to do is tell a story in depth in another language. I wasn't sure if I would be able to explain everything, but when I got to the pulpit, I was fine. I told the story to everyone in detail, as if I would in English.
There is a woman who attends the english class we finally were able to get an appointment at her house. She really wants to learn english, but when it came to the gospel, she was only halfway interested. We taught her the restoration, and gave her a book of mormon at her house. It was a pretty normal lesson. Suprisingly, she told us she would read the book of mormon. We were glad she told us she would read, but we had our doubts. The next day, we got a text from here saying "I read the Mormon book. I like" I was glad, but I'm still convinced she used Google Translate.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Gringo Burgers, Llamas, and Baptisms!
Well, another week has past with it being difficult to work. 2 weeks ago was the party of the virgin, which was big. Then we learned that that party was just the pre party. Ukupiña is the gigantic one, and that closed our area down even worse for 2 days. No tiendas were open, all restaurants were closed, and the members weren't even in their house. It was a difficult couple of days, but we got through them.
On Saturday, a group of us went up to the city to get supplies and meat for a cookout that we are doing today for our zone. We got there and went into a super market, and ran into another american, who started talking to us. He owns a burger shack, so he helped us with selecting the meat. We got to talking, and turns out he is a member, and a convert of 6 years! He moved here because his wife is from Bolivia. instead of travelling by trufi, he agreed to take us back if we went to his burger place to try one of his burgers, and helped him set up. We agreed, and he gave us 2 of his best burgers a person! They were the best food I have had since I got here.
The other day, a member was talking about video games with us, and it got me really confused. He told me the name of his favorite game was "Llamas Del Infierno." So using the words I knew, this sounded like a weird game.. Lamas of Hell. He explained how you play and beat the game and all, and I followed up by asking where the lamas were, since that was the title. I expected it to have some demon lamas in it or something. They busted out laughing and had to explain to me that the word "llama" can also mean flame, and call. Flame in tis case. I felt a bit awkward after that.
We have 3 investigators with baptismal dates for September 7th. We are trying to invite at least one more investigator for the same day. They seem solid, so I think we will be baptising at least 2 of them for sure.
If we do, that will mean I will have baptised every transfer so far. My goal is to baptize at least once per transfer, although this mission is not like a Peruvian mission. All of my friends serving there crank out at least 2 baptisms a month. I have realized it takes perfect obedience, and relying on the holy ghost for the work to progress. I have felt the blessings of hard work and obediance here in the mission. It really works!
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Snow, Temples, and Baptisms!
Well, sorry I didn't write yesterday. But there is a story behind why I wasn't able to go to internet yesterday.
So this is what happened: We got a group of 3 zones of elders and sisters (approx. 65 or 70 missionaries) to go on a bit of a trip for Pday. We left early yesterday morning on 2 large busses to go up into the mountains where it had just snowed. It took about 2 hours to get up there. It was great and all, and everyone had fun. When we were getting ready to leave, we were missing a group of elders. We had no idea where they went. We sat waiting literally all day. It was nearly dark by the time they finally got down. What had happened was they got up to a part of the mountain with a lot of snow and ice. One elder slipped and sprained/broke his ankle, and then got stuck in about 3 feet of snow. They had to take turns carefully getting him back down the mountain, and that is what took so long, and the busses couldn't leave until everyone was accounted for. So there was no time to write yesterday, or really do anything.
This past week, with all of the fiestas going on, we had the chance to bring some of our investigators to the Temple, since we couldn't work. This is a special occasion, since you need permission from either the temple president, or the mission president. One of the elders knows the temple president, so he got us permission to go as a group with some investigators. Everybody had a great time. We even got the temple president to give us all a tour of the temple grounds and to answer all of the investigators questions about the temple and all. He is very knowledgable. We also had the chance to do some baptisms at the temple with some members. This is also soemthing you need permission for, which we got. It was great also. While the missionaries can't do baptisms, they can be witnesses and run the names on the camera (which I was able to to). It was interesting seeing the baptisms from a different perspective.
I have gained a testimony of befriending the investigators to build the trust, and allow the spirit to bear witness to them stronger. This past week, we met with a girl who is about 14 years old. Her mother is a member, and set up the appointment with her daughter for us. The first thing she told us was the she does not want to be baptised. Apparently, in Orura, a closeby city, she was taught by missionaries who invited her to baptism on the first lesson, and after 2 minutes of talking to her. So her perspective of missionaries was that we are rebots who just push people to be baptised. We quickly explained to her that this was not our purpose at all, and we only want to help her however we can. It didn't feel right to just jump into a lesson, so we just sat and visited with her, talking about anything and everything. Eventually we realized that she was confortable, and gave her a short lesson. She invited us back two days later, without us even contacting her. That was when she was finally ready to hear about the restoration,a nd the spirit was very strong, since we had already built up that trust and friendship. She now has a baptismal date and is progessing greatly!
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