Bolivia Bound

Greetings from La Colorada!

January 7, 2014

Hello everyone, and officially, Happy New Year! Here I am in my new area... La Colorada, Santa Cruz. I didn’t go too far; Mom and Dad, I know you want to know the specifics of where I am, so I’m between the 5th and 6th anillos, a little further from the center of the city, and our house is in the street Pilcomayo, like three blocks from a major street called Radial 13. The house doesn’t have a number to look it up on Google Maps, sorry haha.

But this new area is WAY different from Braniff. For starters, I’m opening an area. That means that we’re the first missionaries in a new area - originally in this ward, there was one companionship of elders. Now, they split the area of the ward in half and gave half to us and half to the elders, and the four of us are in the ward. We’re the first hermanas in this ward for about 10 years, and we’re the only hermanas in the zone. I feel like I’m infiltrating in the zone a little bit, ha, seeing as how all the elders here are very used to being in a zone of only elders, but they’re great and seem to be very accepting of having hermanas in the zone.

It’s also very different because it’s an area that’s a lot more humble. Braniff was close to the center of the city, so it was all asphalt streets and a lot bigger houses, but here the majority of the streets are dirt and the houses are smaller and more humble. There are other differences too - the streets here don’t really have names a lot of the time, while in Braniff they always did (which is tough because you all know how I am with directions), and they don’t really eat certain foods that I got used to eating in Braniff. Things like cuñape, for example, are apparently food for "rich people."

Another change is that here, NO ONE is married, which is a huge roadblock. There are lots of people here that want to get married and baptized but can’t because although it’s cheap to get married, it’s SUPER expensive and complicated to get a divorce here, and the majority of them are already married to someone but living with someone else. It’s different, but I love it! Our new ward is great. It’s bigger than Braniff, with attendance up around 130 people, and our ward leadership is fantastic. Everyone wants to participate in missionary work, and they’re especially excited to have hermanas here for the first time in so long. The sisters in the ward are way motivated to go out and teach with us, and it’s fantastic.

Also, I have a new companion! Hermana Lopez stayed in Braniff and is going to TRAIN there, so I’m already a grandma in the mission - my first daughter has her own daughter, I can’t believe it! And I’m training again, an hermana named Hermana Hincapie, which is sort of fun because it’s a Spanish word for "emphasis." She is so great. She’s from Colombia, 21 years old, very smart and very happy. She’s always positive about everything, even though I know that the change to mission life has been a little tough in some ways. I’m very excited to work with her because even though she’s new, she already teaches really well and she’s motivated to work.

I love it, and I know we’ll be seeing lots of miracles together. We’ve already seen some - our first day here, we met a woman named Salome that told us she’s been looking for a church and praying to find the right one. She’s not married, but she’s going to introduce us to her husband tomorrow and we’re excited to help them understand the necessity for marriage and baptism together. Another cool miracle - in Braniff, we talked to a girl who wanted to listen to the missionaries but lived in La Colorada, so we passed her name onto La Colorada. And guess who I’m now teaching - the same person! Her name is Mikaela and although she’s a little hesitant about accepting a baptism date, she loves our message and wants to change, and I’m sure she’ll accept baptism soon. We also have two people who are preparing for baptism, who were investigators from the elders before on the brink of accepting baptism dates. We showed up, invited them to baptism, and are now working with them, finishing up the work that the elders did a great job starting. So all in all, I’m loving La Colorada.

Well, I wanted to send pictures, but looks like the computer doesn’t want to be very obedient. So I’ll try again next week. Love you all!

Love,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk