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