Fishing and Lopsided Cake

Good Morning Family 

To finish last weeks email I was saying something along the lines that I had always loved trains since a child, but the time was suddenly cut short so I wasn't able to finish it. My companion has been out almost a year and is from Eagle Idaho.

This week we have had some big progress with the family Jordan. We were in a family home evening with them on Monday and the mom asks us, ¨Can we married before we get baptized¨ And I was like But of course. And they were like ¨Good, because we want to get married next week.¨ And so now they are progressing super rapidly. They only come across a small problem when they went to the notary and found out that there exists three records of the Hno Jordan so he has to present more documents in order to a null the other ones,but I think it should get straitened out today. Hopefully this week they will get married.

There is a fisherman in the ward and he tells us what it is like to go fishing here and from what it sounds it is a lot more difficult than rainbow trout in the river. He fishes piranhas, alligators, other really big fish all while watching out for anaconda snakes, tigers, bugs, and all sorts of wild animals. He showed us the things that he caught and one of them was a piranha and they really do have sharp teeth. You wouldn't want one of them to nibble on their toes. Today for lunch we are going to have piranha soup. 

I also made a Texas sheet cake last week for one of out investigators and I gave it to one of the ladies to cook it in her oven. It turned out quite interesting. First it didn't rest flat on the rake so it come out lopsided. One end burnt to a crisp and the other side thick and okay. And she forgot to put oil on the bottom so it suck to the bottom. Oh well, the family thought it was fantastic.  

I tell you that the cold weather has stayed for a while. Some years it comes and goes in a couple days and other years it stays for a couple months. This year it has stayed for a while. Let's just say that now to take a cold shower in the morning when it is 60 degrees outside makes for a very reinvigorating morning routine. I can't imagine it being any colder than this at home. We should probably move to a warmer place.     

Hope you all have a wonderful week. Until next time

Love Elder Gilbert

Angry Semi Drivers

Good Morning,

This week was the week of cambios and my companion got sent back to Santa Cruz and now I am with Elder Smith from Idaho. It was quite the go around trying to get to Santa Cruz because there was a blockade (angry semi-truck drivers protested and parked all the semi trucks on the freeway) and so didn't have anyway to get to Santa Cruz. So we found a train to take us there. We got on the train at 6 at night and got to Santa Cruz at 7 in the morning. It was a little bit slower but it was nice because there was a on-board dinner and everything. We got to Santa Cruz and we were going to buy tickets to get back and so I was waiting by the ticket office and then they kicked us out of the building to go wait outside with everyone else. And so we stood in the rain a while and finally got in to find out that the tickets for that day were all sold out. And so we bought tickets for the next day but they were a lot cheaper than the one we bought before. That day I spent the day in my old area of Antofagasta (my old companion was sent there). The next day I went to the leaders council where all the zone leaders of the mission and president and the assistant get together and talk about the challenges of the mission and give accountance of all our work (basically stand up and say how many people you baptized and the goal for next month and what you will do to achieve the goal) And then afterwards President Rodriguez skyped into the meeting but we had to go back home on the train. This next train was a little different, it was a lot bigger and stopped at every town along the way. All in all we spent about 21 hours in the train going home. But as I have always said from my childhood years, everybody 

Love

Elder Gilbert

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