Marriage Advice

Wow...it sounds like the the tenth ward is dying off quickly. Might what to start buying up some burial lots or else all the old people will get the good spots, just like in Church for parking lots and benches.

Reading Natalie's commentary I can sure tell you that in any foreign mission you can find yourself in a lot of strange situations. Such as carrying around machetes on the bus, tracking down your investigator's cows, helping people strap furniture to their cars, and trying to find where the dog is the sacrament meeting of 270 people crammed packed into the small chapel, that somehow wandered in.

This weeks counsel is for Natalie and Stephanie who are surely desirous to get married. About 90 percent of the people here are not married, therefore just about investigators is going to have the Law of Chasity talk about how they need to get married. I have found over and over that there are 3 basic ingredients for a successful marriage. 1) the desire. Most of these people have been living together for 15-20 years and have a full grown family with grandchildren and still have fears that the don't "really" know the person or expect that their marriage should be problem free before getting married. This is generally the easiest factor to deal with. 2) the papers. everyone needs their identification and certificate. This is hard sometimes because to get a new one is a little tricky process. 3) the money. This one is the hardest. Marriage here cost 500 bolivianos which is like 70 dollars. But if you have this 3 ingredients...boom...instant marriage. 

We have been working with this one family to get married for months and they finally have the desire, the papers, and a member helped them with the money and we go with them to the office to get married and the sisters identification was in bad shape so she has to get another one which is another process. So close...in fact identification paper close.

The other thing is just let the natives cook what they normally like to cook. A member invited us over for pizza. They cooked it by using ketchup as the sauce, a little bit of squeaky cheese, pineapple, peaches, and jalapenos. And the lady that makes us lunch told me she was going to cook hamburgers which turned out to be meat with vegetables in the shape of a hamburger. There is simply no American food here.

If you haven't sent the flash yet, please also send another one blank to back up my photos on and the video of the testaments and whatever church videos you have on disc.

Here are some pictures of daily life.

A general idea of what I eat everyday, a recent picture of me with my companion who is excited, and a random corner street so you get the feel of what it is like

Anyway that what I have to say for this week

Elder Gilbert