Bolivia, Charcas—Week 11

There are the prettiest trees here with flowers that look
like something from Japan and they are all in bloom

Dear Family and Friends,

I hope this week was great for all of you and that you are feeling the spirit of Christmas!

I've Got Two Tickets to Paradise

I’ve had these words/song stuck in my head all week. We had three investigators tell us they don’t want us to visit them and that when they decide that they want the lessons again, they will find us (which means they aren’t going to find us).

We’ve been having a bit of a difficult week finding people who want to listen. Almost all of them say, "I’m Catholic" and sometimes we just want to tell them that we have the truth and without it, they aren’t going to be very happy when they die. We say this in nicer terms, but when we do, they don’t want to hear it. We are still going strong and working hard, so don’t worry about me. I’m not losing hope or anything, I just think that we are having this trial to test us a bit. But we can do it!

Skype for Christmas

We will be able to Skype for Christmas! We'll be using iPads from President Quezada and he said we can call on Christmas Eve to let our families know what time and such, so keep your phones on and charged. 

Baking
We don’t have an oven and the cookies don’t taste the same because the flour here is different, but we make them with families once in a while. It’s fun for the families to learn because they don’t make that kind of stuff here. We have plans to make a chocolate cake for the bishop this week because it’s his birthday on Friday.

Headaches
The headaches and heat passed. It was just that week that was the hottest. After this week will be rain and rain and more rain.

Transfers
I hope we don’t get transferred either. I’m praying that we don’t.

Christmas Spirit
Yeah, so there isn’t much Christmas Spirit here. I’m so used to seeing close to every house lit up for Christmas from Thanksgiving on, but here, we’ve only seen one house with a real set up with Christmas lights and a tree and everything. It's kind of a bummer. But hey, no big deal. I don’t think it will be so sad because things are so different here (like no snow and such) that I won’t be reminded of everything so much.

I'm sorry this letter is mostly just answers to questions. I tried to send pictures of my journal, but the internet is too slow today. I'll try to send them next week. Thanks for all your prayers, letters, and love. I can feel it all here and you are all such great examples to me.

Have a great week and know that there is someone in Bolivia praying for you.

Love you all,

Hermana Nelson

Hermana Soto and I chopped down a tree
for Eduardo's family with a Machete!