August
25, 2014
Dear
Family,
Well
transfers have come, and luckily, I don’t have to go anywhere. I will be
staying as district leader in Zona Andalién. Elder Bence is going to a branch
in Linares, at the northern limit of the mission, about 5 hours away by bus.
I am going to really miss him, we got along great. My new companion
is Elder Zevallos, from Rosario, Argentina. Hello, Rosario!
This
week we have been working hard, but just not seeing any real results. The
same people keep not going to church, and this week we are going to drop anyone
and everyone who doesn’t want to progress, so that we can find the people to
accept and live the gospel.
We
did have some cool experiences this week, one of which was when we were
contacting in the street, on the way back to the house. I was with a
Columbian Elder, Elder Garrido, who is relatively new in the mission and is
very timid. He was trying to get someone to stop for a moment, and a lady
didn’t want to, and tried to assertively use her extended umbrella to get her
away from the gospel preaching situation. It was raining, and I also had
an extended umbrella, and I wasn’t going to make it easy on her. I placed
myself in her path, and she kept going, so I walked slowly backwards, cutting
off every one of her escape attempts. After about 10 steps, we came to a
car and there she was pinned. The entire time (less than 15 seconds of
deceleration), Elder Garrido was talking to her, and she kept saying
conversation ending phrases like oh that is nice, see you some other time.
She wasn’t aggressive enough, and I was so happy to have helped Elder
Garrido reach his goal for contacts that day. We later met up with the
other Elders and they saw the entire thing and thought it was great, and we all
had a good laugh.
We
are changing houses, and will be moving in the first of Sept, at the latest.
The new house is significantly bigger (the current one is very small) but
I am not so sure we will still have a washer and dryer.
I
love you all so very much, more than the number of Lincoln logs it would take
to make a Lincoln log office building 90 stories tall with 120 offices on each
floor, and 2 bathrooms every other floor. The lobby would be spacious.
I love you all more than that many Lincoln logs, and that is a lot of Lincoln
logs!
I
really mean it,
Elder
Withers
Dear
Family,
Oh
this week was awesome! First of all transfer news...........I’m not going
anywhere, and neither is my companion. We are both staying here, and we
are both pretty excited about it. At the end of this transfer I will have
6 months in Beltran, just like La Paz.
This
week last week was SUPER HOT, with crazy humidity......just like summer.
The crazy thing, is that we are still in winter down here.....and it
should still be very cold. But nature went back to normal, and on
Sunday we had to put our big winter coats back on. And these last 2 days
we have had a very harsh wind. It’s cold, and with humidity it’s bone
penetrating. But we are doing well.......and we are heading into the last
of winter.
On
Saturday we had an activity with the Relief Society, there were 2
workshops and a clothes donation, it went well and was really fun! We
also had interviews with President Zanni this week, and he is so awesome.
I absolutely love him. He is a good president, who demands a lot
with very high expectations (like all presidents should) and he has been a very
good change. Everyone only has like 10 minutes in their interview with
president, but I always learn new things and walk away with new things to think
about. I love it.
On
Sunday, Mauro went to church!!! We finished teaching the lessons this
last week, and yesterday he had his baptismal interview......and all is good to
go! He is getting baptized this Saturday at 3pm!!!! He is
awesome, and is a future priesthood holder and leader in the church. A
miracle really. I am so excited for him.
This
last week we also moved back to our apartment, and it is so beautiful to be in
our own space again. The only problem, is that we still don’t completely
understand how to work the new water heater. It makes the water BOILING
hot....but we have gotten better at using it and have learned a few tricks.
If you leave the kitchen faucet on while showering, turning the hot water
knob a tiny little bit and cold water all the way.....it’s all good. We
are in the process of figuring out who can help us turn the temperature thing
down all together so that it heats the water to a normal temperature...but it’s
all a process. I have gotten good at surviving :)
The
most eventful thing of the week.............we got locked out of our apartment.
But not just locked out of our apartment after a day of work, that would
have been much too simple. We got locked out when we were in the process
of moving back. We had the guy with his moving truck and all our
stuff.......and no way to get into the house. Ha....I should have been
more cheerful about the situation, and I smiled through it all....but inside I
wanted to smash something. Our spare key we had left with our landlord who had
been coming and going with repairmen all week working on the apartment (she is
almost always home, but in this moment she was of course gone for some
reason)......and our keys had disappeared. We were fairly sure that we
had locked them in the house (it’s a complicated situation...that time doesn’t
allow me to completely explain....but its sufficient to know that we had no way
to get in and a truck full of stuff to put into our apartment). The guy didn’t
have time to wait for a locksmith, or for the landlord to come back from where
ever she was.....so the whole situation looked hopeless. The guy unloaded
our stuff for us, and put it all on our front door/porch thing. This was
a day that was burning hot outside with horrible humidity (at least it wasn’t
really cold)....and we honestly had no way to get in, a porch full of stuff
(luggage, mattresses, pillows, bedding), and district meeting in 2 hours. Ha......we hopelessly just scooted our stuff
together, sat on our luggage with gloomy faces.....and tried to think of a
break in plan. The windows are covered with metal bars, so that was out,
but we realized that if we had a long enough stick we could poke it through the
window, opening the little window on our door, and from the window on the door
be able to grab the keys. It was brilliant. We found several large
sticks, taped them all together (good thing we had tape) we put the plan to
work....ha and the stick broke and fell on the other side of the window inside
the house. Shoot. We tried it again. More sticks, more tape, and
same story.....it didn’t hold up. At this point we really gave up.
A nice old man who lives across the street came over and tried to help
(trying all of his keys in case one of them worked, he was so very kind) but
nothing. And after all of that.......we honestly gave up. There was
no way to get in, except wait for the landlord to come back and let us in.
We ended up waiting outside in the heat for 1 hour, hungry and
impatient.....but our landlord FINALLY came back, we were able to eat and make
it to district meeting on time. It was quite the experience, and we
carried on with the rest of the day as usual. The only thing that really
suffered was our pride. Tons of cars drove by, and we were scared that
someone was going to rob us again (we were very vulnerable out on our front
porch with all our stuff) but nothing happened and it all ended okay.
Sorry there are no pictures. I was too scared to take any.
I
hope you have a great week and know that I love you more than all the unique
keys there are in the world!
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