"I think it was the cow intestines"

January 12, 2015

Hola! 

Oh man, this week has been interesting, haha. So, last Monday was my first p day so me and the district played soccer it was a lot of fun! Oh, and my area is called Guayaramerin. So here we either teach Catholics or less active members here. There are so many less active members its crazy so we are always stopping by to teach them and trying to reactivate them. Right now we only have one family who we have routine visits with. The Duran Soto family and they say they will come to church every time we visit but they didn't show up on Sunday. That was disappointing but we have an appointment with them tonight and we will see how that goes. On Tuesday we did a service project! We got to cut a family’s grass. The only thinning here, they don't have lawn mowers. So we all had our machetes and we started hacking at the grass it was pretty fun, haha. Wednesday my companion decided to start forcing me to talk so he knocks on a door and says this is yours... so I was like crap, dude, I'm not ready! So, as it turned out, I got my first contact! We met with them a couple of days later. Thursday was kind of a slow day, we mostly were knocking on doors. Then later when we were flagging down taxis this guy starts yelling at me while he was riding by on his bike and he through up an elbow and elbowed me in the back! I was so mad at first but I figured I had to just laugh it off and go on with my day. Friday we had a great day we taught a lot of contacts and we had some great lessons! One family has a really sick son and we were able to give him a priesthood blessing. After that the mom showed up to church on Sunday. It was great! That afternoon there was a huge storm! The streets were all literally rivers and water was everywhere! Saturday, we were talking to this lady and I kept wondering why I couldn’t understand a single word she was saying!! So after my comp asked me if I understood and I told him, “no”... I found out she was speaking Portuguese! I guess we will run into a lot of that since we are so close to Brazil. Sunday I gave my first talk! haha! The funny thing was, I didn't know I had said yes to giving one! The branch president asked me something and I smiled and said si! Really I had no idea what he was saying. haha! But it went really well I think... My stomach was hurting all day that day and later I was in the bathroom all night! But today, its back to work! I'm doing better now! I am the third elder this week to get sick. we don't know if it’s because of our cook or not. But i think it was the cow intestines... We have a lady to cook for us and we have another lady who cleans for us. Our house is two stories and way bigger than any of the peoples houses here. And since my companion is the district leader, We got the one room with air conditioning. It’s so nice!

I have a challenge for everyone… It’s the “one by one” challenge. The Book of Mormon has the phrase in it “one by one” six times. You have to read it to see if you can find all six. It was the challenge in the ccm and I completed it, it was fun!

Love,

Elder Harding