10/4/21: Mi Primer Semana en Bolivia

 Finally here in Santa Cruz, but what a trip its been to get here. In Miami I met up with the other gringos headed to Bolivia. Only four of us, me, elder Barker, elder cuff and hermana Buck,  were on the fight but there was supposed to be 2 more with us but they missed the flight. Other than that it was a pretty smooth trip with only a little confusion at the gate. After a 7 hour flight, we met up with president and the assistants in the airport at 5 am. We took a cab to the assistants a apartment and crashed for a while. There were tons of missionaries coming in and out, all speaking Spanish way to fast for any of us to understand but they did offer us tarere, a Bolivian drink that definitely taste better than it looks.


Later that morning, we went to president's house for lunch and the he briefed us in the whole situation. He said there is only 8 gringos in the mission including us so we may feel a bit out of place, but everyone was excited to have Americans back in the mission. That being said no one really speaks english here, hopefully that will help pressure me to learn quickly.

Immediately after we went to the mission office to meet our companions. My companion is Elder Peñaranda. He's from La Paz, Bolivia and is here in reassignment from his original call to Piura Peru. I definitely got lucky again with companions because Elder Peñaranda is the best, very hard working, likes to joke around and everyone we meet seems to like him immediately. He's also super patient with my broken spanish which has been a bleesing.

Biggest culture shocks have definatly been the mercados and the "micros" ( sport for microbus). The mercados is where we do all our shopping for everything from phone chargers to fruit for breakfast. Its pretty much a grocercy store with ten times the amount of people and various body parts of animals hanging film the ceiling. It also has it own unique stench that you probably wouldn't find  at your local Safeway. But we find a ton of people there and even taught 2 lessons. The mícros are how most people get around here snd there essentially small buses whose drivers had little regard for human safety and health. As soon as you have at least  one foot in the bus there already moving. The driving here is already insane but the micros multiple the insanity ten fold. Driving here is essentially everyone playing "chicken" with one another, including the people and animals.

During conference, President Nelson announced the construction of the La Paz temple. When Elder Peñaranda heard the news he jumped up with excitement, yelling "finamente, finamente!" He was overwhelmed with excitement and told his family has waited 20 years sknce joining the church for a temple come to La Paz!! We shared tears of joy and celebration. It was an awesome experience. 

All that aside the missionary work here in amazing. All the missionaries here are eager to teach the gospel and the people are more than willing to listen. There's lots of work ahead, but I know the Lord will be with me every step. 

Talk to you all next week!






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