Dear
Family,
I
am glad to hear that you are all pretty chill with the Minnesota winter. It is
hard for me to imagine how cold it is, because I am in summer. The summer
here is hot, and humidity doesn’t help much. It would be really nice if
it would rain a little bit and cool things off.
The
good news: Lorena was baptized and confirmed this week. I baptized
her, and Bishop Hidalgo confirmed her in church on Sunday. The oldest son was really sad that he couldn’t
go to his mom’s baptism. Benjamin was in Santiago with his grandparents
and couldn’t make it. We are hopeful that he will be baptized too,
because his mom, not us, scheduled an appointment for us to teach him when he
comes back.
Somebody
who lives in the other ward was also baptized the same day, all of his family
are members and he finally decided to join the church too. The guy who
baptized the other guy is from Chile, but lived in Nampa, Idaho for six and
half years. His wife is from Nampa. It was cool to talk with
somebody in English, about Boise Idaho.
Tina,
the friend of Maria, came to church for the second time. Maria rents part
of her house out, and Tina is now renting from her. She feels she has received
an answer that this church is the original, the one and only. It is good
that she will be in frequent contact with an active member. We are quite hopeful
that she will be baptized. We have a
family home evening tonight with her and Maria and some other members.
I
love you all more than the number of hours it would take for this message to
get to you had we been using snail mail. I love you all!
Elder
Withers
Dear
Family,
This
week was another one for the record books. We taught lessons to
investigators and menos activos...and they are all progressing! With some
of them the progression feels slow, but they are all moving forward in one way
or another. Marisa is finally going to Neuquen this next weekend to get
married, and we have several other people who are all kind of at the same spot.
They are listening to us, reading the Book of Mormon....experimenting in their
hearts, and we are working on getting them to the chapel for Sunday and
on date for a baptism. We walked a lot, consumed gallons and gallons of
water, and had lots of adventures!
There
is a watermelon truck that goes around selling only watermelon. The truck is so
old that every time I see it I am sort of surprised and mostly impressed that
they even got the thing to start. There is one guy driving, and another
in the back with a megaphone advertising. They just drive all around town
selling watermelons.
The
branch here is preparing to go to the temple in Buenos Aires. The members
who want to go have to pitch in money and they are all going to rent a big bus
and travel together. (It’s like 6 or 7 hours). They are going to
stay there for the day doing temple work and then get on the bus and travel
home again. They have been planning this event for forever and it’s cool
to see the people who are interested to go and the sacrifices they are making.
Something
that is kind of sad that I have learned is that a ton of people have diabetes
here, but they also don’t have any means or way to take care of it so they are
just sick all the time. It’s really sad.
When
it comes to traffic here....the general rule of the road seems to be "hit
or be hit" If you walk on the sidewalks all is dandy, but the cars
and motorcycles out in the road pay no attention to the speed limits, stop
signs, intersections, or lanes. It’s sometimes scary to watch!
We
had interviews with president this week which really was fun. I love
talking to him. And because we were the last ones from our district to
get interviewed, they gave us a ride in their air conditioned car from the
chapel to our area while they were on their way out of town. It was
sweet.
This
last weekend here in La Paz there was a big triathlon. It’s one of the
only events this town has, so everyone went nuts supporting it. It was
like a parade....everyone lined the streets drinking mate. And instead of
sitting down drinking mate and watching people walk by like everyone here loves
to do, they just watched them bike or run by instead. Also, people stood
on the curb with a pitcher of water in their hand waiting for a racer to come
by....and then they chucked it at them. I’m not sure if it was suppose to
be considered a public service or not.....because it just looked really
annoying. The finish line was exactly 1
block away from our apartment so there were tons of cars and people.....but it
has all cleared out and we are glad it’s over. We feel like we can have
our area back now, because the main part of the course was main road we have to
walk on every day. It was kind of tricky this last weekend...but it’s all
calm again!
I
love you all lots and pray for you all everyday! Keep on keeping on!
Hermana
Withers
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