August 26, 2013

Hello everyone! This past week was a FANTASTIC week, mainly because I had the sweet experience of seeing Andres and Marcelo enter the waters of baptism!! It was incredible. A freezing cold day (as I've said before, when it gets cold here, it gets COLD, like bitterly bone-deep cold), but warmth in all our hearts. Wow, that was painfully cheesy, ha. But seriously, it was great. The baptism was planned for Saturday afternoon at 5:00 but we told everyone to be there at 4 because everyone in Bolivia is outrageously late to everything. And, as predicted, we didn't get started until 5:30 ha-ha, but it was still great. The Spirit was powerful when both of them entered the waters of baptism, and I just kept thinking, wow, this isn't just two new members of the church. Marcelo is a future missionary, a great blessing to his mom and sister, and Andres is a future dad in the church, who is going to get sealed to his girlfriend Jhosselj in the temple and raise a righteous family. I'm just praying and going to do everything I can to help them stay strong. Poor Andres and Marcelo were really tough. They were baptized on a freezing cold day in tepid, or maybe a little colder than tepid, water. At least it was tepid - that in and of itself was a mini miracle because they don't have hot water in the pipes at the church and they have to warm it by hand. But anyway, it was so great, and it was great to see them get confirmed in church the next day. I'm so happy for them and I'm excited to see Soledad and Karen get baptized next month, along with a few more children in the ward that are more than 8 years old and so fall under the responsibilities of the missionaries! One is Marcos, who is waiting for his brother to come home from the mission so his brother can baptize him. Another is Augustine, who is only waiting to get baptized because he wants to do it with his cousin Abacuc. Abacuc is the tough one. He's ten years old and knows he needs to get baptized, but is deathly afraid of being submerged in water. We're praying to receive guidance to help him overcome his fears.

As for your questions about daily life, first off, housing: There are houses, and then there are big complexes of one or two room "apartments" with a central dirt and cement area, and often with a central bathroom. But in all of the housing it’s the same, there are lots of families. In the complexes of course there are lots of families, but in the houses too. One person owns the house and the other people rent one or two rooms to live in.

The food here is FANTASTIC. I love basically everything, including chuños, which are freeze-dried potatoes and apparently are the ultimate test of if someone truly likes Bolivian food. The only thing that's an issue for me is the water, which I can't drink without getting bad stomachaches. But seriously, the food is great. A lot of meat, potatoes, yucca, salads of broccoli and beets (which are great, who knew?), and TONS of rice. Mom, get ready to put me on a serious diet when I get home, ha.

We basically always walk in our area. If we need to leave our area like for internet and for zone and district meetings, we take buses. I have only taken a taxi twice. Depending on where you are, the roads can be paved or dirt, but in our area, they are mostly paved. The weather isn't too bad now, not TERRIBLY hot because its winter. I hear that in a few months, I'll basically want to die. There are lots of dogs and cats here. Everyone owns like four of each, so I'm becoming very comfortable with animals. We have a cat and a dog in our living area too, and the cat likes to come in the house.

Not much else this week. Hermana Castañeta is going home to La Paz this week, so we'll see who my new companion is on Thursday! I'm really sad to see Hna Castañeta go. It took us a while to really get into a rhythm of working well together, but now we really have a lot more unity and are working really well. Right before she leaves, of course. I'm going to miss her! But Thursday we're going to visit her old areas as part of what the missionaries do before they leave, so that will be fun.

Dad, you were asking about service activities earlier. We had our first service activity as a zone on Saturday morning. We just were serving other missionaries in our service, helping some missionaries move houses. But hey, it’s something! And one other fun experience from yesterday. We were walking to a lesson when a man in the street said, Hey, I want to talk to you two! I was nervous that he was either a thief or a drunk, since normally men don’t stop us in the street to talk to us. But turned out, he wasn’t either of the above. His name is Hugo, and he stopped us because he really wants to change his life and had a feeling that we could help him do so. Once again, miracles of the mission! Luckily, we were really close to a member’s house so we walked over there with him and had a lesson! He has had a tough life and is really sad, and has a strong desire to change. We had a great lesson on prayer with him, really powerful. Unfortunately, turns out he doesn’t live in our area, he lives in the area of our district leaders, but I'm really glad we got to talk to him and pass on the reference. It was a super cool experience that he just felt like he should talk to us for help with his life. I know that the gospel is true and that it really does have the power to change lives for everyone that is willing to accept it. I know that the Lord loves each and every one of His children and always wants us to turn to Him and accept His love and mercy!

Love you all!

Hermana Chelsie Faulk