Bolivia, Jardin—Week 2

Dearest Family and Friends,
 

Note: We asked Amanda a few questions and these are just her quick answers. The internet doesn’t seem to be as reliable in her new area, so we aren’t getting as much news or many photos. Hopefully we’ll find out more about how things are going on Sunday. We’re grateful she’s been able to send her journal pages or we wouldn’t know anything!

We weren’t able to have the baptism this week. I will put up my journal about that. We do have quite a few people to teach. More than anything are less actives, but we are helping them all along.
 

I am teaching the Relief Society on Tuesday to make pies. We’ll have to see how it all turns out. 

I am feeling fine. My cold went away.

I will be calling for 5 minutes on Saturday to set up a time and everything for our call. We are trying to find a member with Skype. We will be asking lots today.
 

I got Alyssa and Devan’s postcard from Moab in the mail. It made my day!

I love you all tons.

xoxo Hermana Nelson

Journal Pages

P-Day

We played volleyball with the Elders. It was embarrassing as usual, but fun. Afterwards, we went to the Valencia family’s home and ate a really great lunch, made treats, slept in their hammock, and had FHE with their family. We also watched an old video with the Antelo family.

Teaching

We taught B. who is a less-active member. This is the second visit that I’ve been with her and it was really great. She’s been inactive for a while now, but we read and taught Alma 32 about faith, humility, and testimony. She was having a hard time commenting, but I know she could feel the Spirit. She doesn’t want to come to church and we aren’t really sure why. Hopefully we can figure it out and find a way to help her. We are going to make apple pie with her next week, so that should be great fun.
 

Then we visited G. She’s only 17 years old and is from Sucre (by Cocha). She was meeting with the Elders there, but then moved here and didn’t have the chance to be baptized. Last time we invited her to be baptized, she said her parents wouldn’t give her permission. Today, we talked about the Plan of Salvation and what we need to do in this life to live with Christ and Heavenly Father again. We talked about the importance of baptism and committed her to pray and asks her parents one more time. She said she would and we set a date for May 30th. 

We visited with a member that is having problems in her marriage. She’s really sweet and told us that she’s only been married for a few months, but she has a lot of problems with her husband. We taught her the importance of women and how it is her responsibility to sustain her husband as the head of the house. It was a really great lesson, but ended badly when he walked in and practically asked us why we were there and to leave. He was very rude. I hope I don’t have problems like that with my husband. It was awful the way he talked to her and us and we (my companion and I) couldn’t stop talking about it. I will most definitely be marrying someone who is kind and doesn’t care if I talk to others, including my family.

Then we went to visit with V. again. She’s very inactive, but is a really sweet lady. We talked to her and I hope she got the message we were trying to convey. She yells and hits her kids a lot. She’s also doing a lot of things she shouldn’t be doing. We talked about her example and how every choice she makes affects her kids in some way. She told us a really sad story about growing up and she began to cry. We shared a few scriptures with her about being an example and she said she’ll start to be better. I really hope she does for her kids’ sake. 

Rain

Well, it rained today . . . and that’s about it. We did find a few people, but no one wanted to talk to us seeing it was Labor Day. Everyone was just lazy and slept in pretty much the whole day. We did have some good food, though. For lunch, our pensionista made us BBQ—and a lot of it! Then we went to visit some less-actives and they gave us more BBQ, then we visited the Valencias and they made us a big dinner as well. We were all happy today. We stayed and watched church movies until it was time to go home. It was a chill Labor Day.
 

Baptism Tomorrow?

We’ll have to see if there will be a baptism tomorrow. We couldn’t get a hold of Hermano A. or I. again. It’s been all week with no answer and when we got to their house, they are always busy. Something happened to another one of A.’s sons and he’s going through trials and such today. We are really worried, but hopefully they will be home tomorrow so we can visit them and maybe have the baptism. I’m praying all will be okay.
 

No Baptism

A. was occupied with a lot and called today to ask if we could postpone the baptism until next Saturday. So, next Saturday it is. We stopped by his house to see how he’s doing and all is well. He and his son are still good with their decision to be baptized. (Randy was happy to read the “occupied with a lot” in her letter because he said she’s trying to find the English way to say things that are common in Spanish).

Rainbow

We saw a super clear double rainbow today. It was beautiful!
 

Relief Society

I am going to teach a few classes of desserts and then in a few weeks, we are going to have a dessert competition. The sisters are all really excited, so hopefully it will be fun.