It's super awesome that the youth have the spirit of missionary work

Hey there familia!!!

Well im doing great and im loving the mission more and more everyday, the days are flying by more and more everyday too.

So to talk first about the pics,

So last monday night, we all went to Paseo de Compras, which is a huge bolivian owned place that sells a bunch of random stuff and for cheap too. So we all bought a jersey and took a picture when we got home. E Brown is the far left, he´s a stud. E Solum is wearing my river jersey haha and E Dewitt is the other elder.

We are some how surviving in our pension haha no we are having a blast and getting along really well. So my jersey is the new one that just came out, i got it for 80 pesos, it has a sublte red stripe with the red background, super cool!!

The next pic was the hoodie after i was done sewing it, the rip was on my left hand side close to the pocket in the middle. So thanks so so much and i will wear it every morning for good luck this season!! :)

So wow last week of freedom is already gone and by the time you all get this youll be suffering in school :) haha its nice not to have to worry about school for right now, though i do realize that this is the last time and next year ill be getting into it full swing :) But thats awesome that your classes will work out and youll be a great teacher. Haha thanks tanner for your update, im dying with anticipation every week to read your little thought, thanks from down south. Haha braden, honestly you have to learn spanish, the translator is tan mal haha oh well i got the basics of the story and thanks for thinking of my daily spanish practice. Tell the girls that i love them a lot :) good luck with school to everybody.

That sounds fun that youll all go to the temple and that was an awesome experience down here and it really is so so pretty.

Yay!!! congrats to alex for the big accomplishment of getting the eagle scout, yay no more scouts!!! ;) haha

To answer the questions, we dont really need a cook book, we were provided with one to start the mission in our new missionary packet with arg tips as well. oh and i made the cake mix cookies, i burned the last two batches but the first one was delicioso :) yum yum yum yum haha i tried making it with the arg cake mix and ours in america is so so so much better!

oh and yes i have given a couple of blessings and actually have given two in english, but i have given a lot more in spanish though, i struggle saying them in english, funny how that works.

alright a quick blurb for my week.

so last monday night, dont worry about me but i didnt drink enough or eat enough and so by the end of the hot day i had a headache and i had to rest for that night, but i did get some good rest, thats rare haha, at least i dont feel like that every morning haha, but it is getting easier, or at least it seems so.

So it was pouring all day on Tues, well all the week it was pouring haha, so we go trekking around savio in the rain and mud, but we finally were able to find somebody new, we found this one hermana in the street and she told us about her sister that she wanted us to visit, so we passed by and the sister doesnt have too much interest but her 20 or so yr old daughter did, so we left her a bofm. Then we had dinner at the flia cubilla´s house, they are so so awesome, E Rickert baptized Karina and then she converted the rest of her family and so they are an awesome recent convert family and are always willing to receive us, so we played some games and had a great bbq.

Wed, we wake up and there is no water haha dang it, so we didnt get to shower and i was thinking that was only the second time that i havent showered in the mission one morning, the other was the day that i flew down here to arg, which by the way took 10 hrs plus the 4 hr plane ride to atl. but yes i feel your pain dad for the 14 hrs sitting in a tiny cramped seat, not sleeping a wink, i think that ill get a little bit more sleep on the plane ride home haha. So we also received a bunk bed so now we all have a real bed to sleep in and im back on top. So that day we tried contacting a lot of people and it seemed like nobody was home, it was kinda raining in and out all day. we also received two more bikes, just two more money wasters haha

So thurs the E Solum and E Dewitt who are in Maschwitz which is really far away like a 45 min walk, while they were going out there the chain on one of the new bikes broke and the other older bikes were broken as well, so we havent been riding as many bikes as we normally do. but the other bikes are now fixed but its just another hassle, i couldnt imagine having a car to look after as well haha or working in an area that would require a car to cover it all.

Friday, another raining day, so after lunch we go get Karina to accompany us to her friend's, and it starts pouring, then we go to another less active family and had a lesson there and then we returned to her friend and she still wasnt there and then we got back to Karina´s house and Gaston was there, the boy friend of Ana the oldest daughter that is also a recent convert, he has been listening to the lessons for a while now and we had a great discussion about baptism and he accepted to be baptized and then i tried to get it for this last sunday and he said no, he wanted to but just didnt know when, so we almost put a fecha. Then E Brown threw up walking home that night.

So sat, E brown still was sick, he had a fever and so his counsel from the mission nurse was to stay in bed and get some rest and drink more water, so i had my first whole day in the pension. I cleaned dishes and watched a Joseph Smith movie, that was an awesome experience, i love learning more and more about Joseph Smith and his wonderful and difficult life that he led. So that story inspired me to write back Joseph. So i first said a prayer that Heavenly Father would help me know what to say and have the confidence to be bold, i first read through the scriptures to receive revelation and then i read through the entire BofM Liahona and my testimony was just being strengthened by the second-- that's an awesome ensign. So then i wrote a great letter and i challenged him to read the bofm and to look for the missionaries, i felt pretty great to know that i was actually doing missionary work in my own life, i should send that letter soon. Then i went with E Solum on the bikes and we had daily contact with Sasha and so that was good, then a drunk guy contacted us in the street and we started talking and he sounded pretty interested, he lives in another area, but its cool to see that padre celestial is putting people in our paths. Then we bought ice cream to celebrate our confirmation, its a great thing to be confirming somebody haha and it was an excuse to eat ice cream.

Sunday was great as well. So first i found out that i was going to be speaking in church right before sacrament meeting and confirming Sasha, haha i confirmed her but they ran out of time in the meeting so i didnt have to talk haha. Then for lunch, guess again, milenesa, that's the easiest food to cook and prepare so we are always eating that, i miss lasanga haha So we had a great day!! we were all over and the youth were just going with us everywhere. Qori, Karina and a recent convert Hugito came with us everywhere. We were walking back from a cita and i was talking with Qori, he has brought 6 baptisms in the last year or so and is a great missionary at 16 yrs old and hes a convert as well. so he named off 3 people off the top of his head that we could visit, that's super awesome that the youth have the spirit of missionary work. Then we gave a blessing to Sasha´s mom, turns out she has cancer and so she is fighting that right now, sad. Then we went to the flia cubillas house and Gaston was there again and i felt prompted to read 3 nephi 27 13-22, its just Jesus laying down his law and gospel and then the family got into a great discussion and then we got talking about baptism and i asked Gaston if he wanted to be baptized this sunday and he said no again, then i said for the next sunday and another no, then he started smiling and he said well i was actually thinking about this sat! haha the whole family was screaming and shouting with joy and we were also :) what a feeling to see a difficult investigator finally say yes!! so for now we have a baptism planned for this saturday!!

Then this morning we decided to make bbq wings and we did all of the prep and then we fried them and im not so sure that they were cooked all the way through haha, ill survive but a prayer would be nice :) nothing serious ;)

So im excited for you all to get started with school and I'll keep on doing what I've been doing for a while now :) i'm glad to have this pday to relax a little bit before the work week. I just want everyone to know that i have a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and i know that it contains the word of God, i have done the read, ponder and pray challenge and i received an answer. That book will answer all of your questions about God and the purpose of this life and the things that we need to do to be saved.

Thanks to gpas and gmas and aunts and uncles and my loving parents for bringing me up strong in this gospel and thanks for loving me enough to teach me about Jesus as a child and how to pray and read the scriptures at such a young age and as always thanks for your love and support.

Until next week :)

Love,
Elder Ryan Pittard