Fat Baby and Fluffy Dog

Good Morning

It warms my heart to see that Grandma still can do the jitter dance around these days. 

There have been lots of preparations going on to prepare for the new President Rodriguez. I think he will be getting here in July. Today we are writing a letter to introduce ourselves and everything, so that took up a little bit of time.

 I don't think I have ever told you much about the Rosado family, but they have a baby. And it is one of the fattest babies that I have ever seen. The baby's name is Katerine and she has like 9 months, and she rolls around talking gibberish and she grabs the dogs tail (they have a small super soft dog) and the dog starts making funny noises. It is really funny to watch. I will have to take a picture and send it to you next week.   

Well, dad is telling me that the stake president will release me on Saturday. This week a missionary got back from his mission and since it is a branch, President Willard is the ¨stake president¨ for the branches and Puerto Suarez is ten hours away he just released him on the cell phone. Interesting...

Last week I went shopping and it went well. I have something for everybody.

Anyway, sorry I wasn't able to write much but I hope you all enjoy the bike trip.

Love 

Elder Gilbert

Brownies and Alligator

Good Morning,

Thanks for all the birthday wishes

It has been a good week. Last Monday we ate alligator and then made brownies as an activity. It was funny because after we ate the brownies we had to eat oranges to help pass the sweetness. Lets just say people here are not accustomed to eating sweet things like that. 

Things are moving along with the investigators. Our biggest challenge is helping them to get married. It is always a nightmare with paperwork and money. The Family Rosado is ready to be baptized he just has to present the paper that shows that he is divorced and have that put into the system and then they can get married. The Jordan family wants to get married but they want to wait until August and so now we have to hasten the work there too.

Yesterday was quite busy in church. Since there are not a big pool of members available to give talks I was chosen to be the concluding speaker (usually a 15 or 20 time slot). I talked about the covenants and told the story of one our ancestors and the impact that it has had because they kept their covenants. Afterward I taught the gospel principles class. It always keeps up on your here.  

I have a small challenge for mom and dad. I know how much you two love to plan church activities and I was thinking that you guys could help me. In the Branch we need to ignite the spirit of doing missionary work (such as the members sharing the gospel with their friends). I was hoping that you two could brainstorm together this week and send me some ideas of an ward activity that we could do to encourage the memories to share the gospel. By the way, Bolivians love activities that involve food.

 This is our picture with elder Montoya from the conference

 A really big bug

 Here is a picture from when we were getting home in the morning

 The alligator that we ate last week

 When we made brownies for p-day

  The car converted into a trailer (I thought dad would get a kick out of that) 

Dog Power

Dear Family,

I was pleased to get my birthday package. Thanks for the card, perhaps we could start putting the card's advice in practice and celebrate for a whole year. I thoroughly enjoyed the dog whistle. The first dog I tried it out on about jumped out of it's skin. It gave me a good laugh and gave me new sense of dog power. 

We went to Santa Cruz on Wednesday. It was quite the adventure. We left here at 9 and got there at 6 in the morning. I was just glad that the police didn't get on to check identity cards because one of the elders forgot theirs. It was a nice conference with Elder Montoya. He told us to be bold or notable missionaries. I was also able to visit one of my converts in Santa Cruz and he was pretty excited to see me because he made me a new scripture bag. We also had to buy glasses for my companion. Turns out that his eye went up a full point. Practically I was exhausted when the day was over because we were running around in taxi and buses the whole day and the cell phone died and it was all very exciting. 

Anyway the family Rosado is yet to be baptized. Turned our that they spent their money to help their sick son. But we have lots of more people getting ready to be baptized.  I don´t remember if I told you but the familia Jordan was able to go to church today, so now they are on the path.

Anyway thanks for everything,

Love Elder Gilbert

Fans and the Gospel

Good Morning

It was nice to see you all again yesterday. I still can´t believe that Justin´s voice has changed so much. Always when we talk I have no idea what to say, there is so much that I could tell you but I always forget. oh well... Yesterday they also asked me what airport I want to arrive at, so they should be making my itinerary soon. 

In the priesthood meeting a family from Corumba showed up and told us that they needed to take us to meet a family urgently because they needed to be baptized. We find the family and we gave them a health blessing (one of his lungs was full of liquid--possibly tuberculosis). They are a family of 6 with 4 to baptize. They were all very prepared and accepted baptism. It was definitely a blessing. 

We also found a family where the mom is a member (she was baptized when she was 12) and her husband who is Brazilian. There were going to come to church but they didn´t make it.

President Willard came yesterday and spoke in the sacrament meeting. He pointed out there were exactly 10 fans in the room and that one of them was not working (supposedly for a bad connection). So he started to talk about how 10 Hebrew is complete and that sometimes there are members that are not working because they lack something. But then someone went back to the switches and turned it on and it started working. And then he made the analogy that some of the members (less actives, new members, etc) just need to be switched on with a visit or an invitation. So now whenever we look at the fans we think about that. 

It sounds like we will be traveling to Santa Cruz this week to meet with Elder Montoya. It always cool to have conferences with the seventies. 

Anyway hope you all have a marvelous week.

Love Elder Gilbert

 The Family Choquevillca 

 My shoe

 Some street shots of my area

The dock in my area

Bolivian Economy

Good Morning,

Wow,  to all the changes that are going on. Never expected Katie to be getting engaged.

To tell you little bit about the area: Lately the economy of Puerto Suarez has been going down hill so it feels kind
of like a ghost town.There were also 4 branches in the area Puerto Quijarro, Corumba Puerto
Suarez and fronter. Corumba got put into the Brazil mission and Puerto Quijarro got closed. And so the missionary work here is interesting. Before there were about 8 or 10 missionaries here, but now there are only four.

We have a family to be baptized for the 14 of May. The Family Rosado they have to finish their marriage papers and then they are good to go.This week will be having a conference with president, the assistant and us (the 4 missionaries). It should be interesting.

Also Elder Montoya wil be coming this next week to visit the mission.

I will be calling some time probably around 1 o clock Utah time to confirm the details. I think I will be available anytime after 1:00 Utah time. Or in the morning at 5:00.

Anyway, I will be talking to you soon and mom could you send me the recipes for brownies, pizza, and cinnamon rolls and the family wedding picture (with everyone) again in high resolution. Thanks.

The pictures is a lake (there is piranha) and those are other missionaries and my companion.

Love, 
Elder Gilbert