Gonna keep it short this week, probably.

I turn 20 tomorrow!!! Can you believe it? There is no better way to spend my birthday than in the service of the Lord. :)

Haircuts.... *sigh.* I'm doing all in my power to make my hair grow faster. I'm even taking Biotin, haha... I think it's helping. My hair, ever since I cut it short, practically doesn't grow... It's also been falling out a lot.... My hair has gotten a lot thinner since I got here, haha.....BUT.... I'm going to take good care of it... And have long hair again someday.... Hopefully.

It's starting to heat up a bit here in Bolivia. It's still cold in the morning and at night, but during the day it is SUNNNYYY.... Been getting my tan on... It was crazy how much of my tan I had lost over the winter. My companion saw the tan lines from my shoes and said "I thought you were white, but you used to be even MORE white."

Yep. Pretty much.

Speaking of my companion, she is a POWERHOUSE. We have seen more miracles over the last week. This week we were in a lesson with Jefferson and Carla (These names seem so white, but they pronounce them differently, hahaha) and we talked about how the spirit will answer their prayers to know if the church is true... My companion described how the spirit feels, and then I asked "when have you felt like that before?" Jefferson said "I felt it right now, when she was talking." They don't believe in infant baptism and they are PURE GOLD. The only problem is that they aren't married... We're going to talk to them about it today though, and hopefully bring another awesome couple (the husband is a recent convert and they had to get married for him to get baptized). Pray for this awesome couple! :)

Also: Yisela and Victor

Elizabet and Israel

Felix

That's it from me this week! :) Love ya!! :)

                                                  photos from Vivian's baptism


 My companion is Hermana Limo from Chiclayo Peru. She's 26,
got baptized at 11 and has been dying to serve a mission ever since.
While we were walking around on
the first day she kept saying "I can't believe I'm on my mission!" and
"I can't believe I'm with my trainer!" I feel a little bit of pressure
to show her the very best of mission life.... but she's SO prepared to
be here. She keeps talking about how much baptisms we're going to have
though... Which is a little intimidating for me. I hope I can live up
to her expectations, haha...

I'm healthy as can be. My clothes are... Hanging in there. There are
always those little markets here where you can buy American clothes
here, so I've been able to buy what I need. You have no idea how many
times I've been asked by my companions (in all seriousness) "Do
Americans only wear their clothes once and then donate them?" There's
also a rumor that we don't shower....? I don't even know.

This week we've found a couple of couples! Jefferson and Carla, and
Yisela and Victor. They're both AWESOME, SUPER prepared, and both were
blown away by the thought of eternal families. Carla asked "how can I
know that that's true?" My companion is a POWERHOUSE of a missionary,
and she has so much faith.

We're also working with someone named Felix, who is the husband of a
member. He has gone to church practically every week for 7 years with
his wife, and leads family home evenings with his family. The problem
is that he has a couple of doubts that hold him back. But his wife,
Yuli, went to the temple to figure out the whole thing with him not
being a member. We taught him for the first time on Tuesday, and we
felt the spirit SO strongly. After we left, his wife chased us out,
and told us that their 10 year old son had dreamt the night before that an
angel was baptizing his dad... And
that two nights before he had dreamt "this. What's going on in the
front room right now." He had dreamt that me and another missionary
(I wasn't even with Hermana Limo yet) and Hermana Isabel, a member,
were teaching his dad in the front room.... Please pray for him,
because he's just a step away. We're seeing miracles with him.

You guys really are the best. My companions talk about their families,
but I just know that I have the very best one. :) I love you guys to
the moon and back, and I hope you have a great week. :) Keep us and
our investigators in your prayers!

So, transfers on Sunday nights wasn't just a one time thing, it turns
out. Now they'll let us know of the transfers on Sunday nights, and
we'll change on Mondays...It's kind of a crazy change, because there's
not much time to clean or wash clothes or anything.

Well... Last night while we were waiting for the call, and we were
speculating. Our prediction was that I was going to leave the area...

But they called us and told us that I was staying... And that I'm
training. Hermana Kofoed, even though she's only been here a transfer,
is leaving for Santa Cruz again. Poor thing was in Santa Cruz, came
out here to Tarija for only one transfer, and then left again...for
Santa Cruz.

I'm really sad to say goodbye to Hermana Kofoed... We have had the
funniest transfer ever, and I'm going to miss her a lot. She is a
MACHINE of a missionary...But she's going to kill it wherever she is.

I'm going to be with another sister from our zone for two days and
then on Wednesday morning we go to Santa Cruz to pick up our new
companions.

Okay. So getting to this week. The 6th of August is Bolivia's
Independence (sorry if I spelled that wrong... no spell check) Day.
The stake (ALL of Tarija...A giant stake of 10 wards) had a huge
activity where each ward was assigned a department (kind of like a
state) of Bolivia. Then it was their job to prepare a lunch of food
that's traditional to that department, and organize a dance that's
traditional too. We got to go for a couple hours because our
pensionistas were there and if we didn't go we... like....wouldn't've
been able to eat. It was AMAZING. Every ward had a stand, and there
were people in traditional clothes EVERYWHERE... It was amazing. So
fun.

That's pretty much all that happened with us this week. We've been
finding some AMAZING new investigators... But I think I'll have more
on that next week. :)

I love you guys! I love missionary work! I love Bolivia! :) I hope you
have a great week! Love ya!

This week was... interesting. Well, mostly this weekend.

So, on the weekends, we eat lunch with the members and the relief society gets who we're going to eat with all figured out.

Well, Aeropuerto, as a ward is HUGE. It doesn't have a limit until it hits Bermejo, which is a city south of here, right on the border of Argentina. Our relief society president lives like 20 minutes out of the city in car, like a block away from her first counselor.

This week, we were going to eat with a member, supposedly, that lives a good ten minutes out of the city.... But once we got there, they told us that she was going to give us lunch NEXT Saturday, and that the 1st counselor in the relief society had to give us lunch that day.

So we were just like... Stranded in the middle of nowhere for a good hour because none of the little bus/car things that haul people out there would stop for us and we had to go FARTHER into the middle of nowhere. Finally, by some miracle, the relief society president passed by with her family in their car and hauled us out there...

Then, yesterday, we had a couple of free hours and there's a part of the area that had been closed (that's ours now) that we hadn't had time to go into yet.. So we went out there yesterday and it is straight up farmland. Like pigs, and goats, and chickens and cows.... Pigs just walk around up there like they own the place, and I didn't even know it was part of our area. Hermana Kofoed and I took a picture out there in the boonies (both times...) but it's been a pretty adventurous week.

We contacted this lady and she had a pig and I asked her what his name is and she said Pancho. Pig in Spanish is "chancho," so her pig is literally named "Pancho el Chancho."

That's pretty much what I've got to report this week.