Another Week of Miracles

This week has been incredible. I am starting to get used to things here. The traffic is crazy. The cars have the right-of-way, and neighborhood street speed limits are probably 80 miles an hour. No sidewalks in my area. The people who live here are either extremely poor, or extremely rich. The rich live here because it is beautiful. The poor live here because of how fertile the land is. I love getting to know the people and feeling their spirit. The poor have so little yet are so happy. Our area is really huge because the houses are so spread out. The only place in Cochabamba where houses are not piled on top of each other. I walk approximately 8 miles daily. I’m not complaining, I really actually love the walking. It takes about 30 minutes to an hour between lessons, but this is when some of the other miracles happen. Because I am the only gringo in the area, people come up to me and ask a lot of questions. Its a really good way to bring up the Church. The food here consists of rice, potatoes, and chicken. You would be surprised at the many ways you can cook chicken. Haha. I do really love the fruit. Here in Bolivia there are hundreds of fruits you have never heard of, and the ones we have in the US taste WAY better down here. The juice here is real juice. I love the juice. We can’t have the water here and so we usually have juice. My favorite drink is the Fanta. I am pretty sure Fanta gets all of its money from Bolivia. Bolivia is the only place I know of where you can buy Fanta, Papaya, mango, and peach. They also have this soft drink flavored grape fruit. I don’t remember what it is called but it is EL MEJOR!! (the best) Today we had a really fun zone activity! We had a water fight. I didn't know it was allowed but the president approved it. After, we went over to "The Bishop's" house (the man who does all the missionary immigration paper work) and he made steak for us!!! I have never been so happy to see steak. He made tons so I ended up eating 3 steaks. I have been losing weight so I have been trying to eat more. This week has been incredible. I absolutely love contacting. It is so important when contacting to have something to relate to with the person. I love hearing the stories of these people. We have been teaching a less active named Fabiola. She is an incredible lady and is probably the poorest person I have ever met. She has four kids and of which are all super funny. All of them are under six and all of them are like my brother Andrew on steroids. The youngest child of Fabiola is the perfect mix of Andrew and Josh. He is so sweet like Josh and so hyper like Andrew. He knows about as much Spanish as I do so I love talking to him. Every time we visit he runs right up to me and hugs my legs, and he starts to talk. We taught Fabiola the importance of the temple, and the Spirit was so strong. She is not married and the father of her children ran off. We talked about preparing to enter the temple, and how we need to build a temple in each of our homes. This Sunday she went to church and is preparing to enter the house of the Lord. She expressed the desire to be sealed to her children and to a future spouse, but she is not married. Please pray that she will find that special someone and that she will take the steps to go to the temple. She has such a strong spirit and such a strong love of her children. It is incredible what she has gone through and overcome.