Elder Jack Harding: "I already have a parasite"

February 2, 2015

Hola!

I'm so sorry to hear about Sister Smoot, I will be praying for her.

This morning we had an emergency service to do for a family. The lady with the sick son needed to take him to the hospital so Hermano Sosa picked us up in a moto taxi and we took off to their house. The poor little guy lays in his bed all day long and has not much muscle left. He can’t walk and can barely stand. We put him in the wheel chair put him into the three seater moto taxi and we took him to the hospital and unloaded him then the doctors took it from there.

This week was a solid week. Monday we had luck with a menos activo we found that had served a mission when he was younger! He was so excited to talk to us! Tuesday, we visited the menos activo families who came to church and talked and visited with them. They are super cool families. Haha… So, um… Wednesday, I'm a little hesitant to write..... but don't worry mom, everything is perfectly fine now! Alright, so I've been a little sick the whole time I've been here in Bolivia, pretty much. So we went to the doctor to find out the problem. They did tests on me and I found out I already have a parasite! But, we caught it early so I just have to take pills for seven days. It’s all good! All the elders thought it was hilarious how I got parasites my first month in the field, haha! But, just so you know, I'm doing 100 percent better! So later that day we were in more of the wilderness part of our area and my companion and I heard this noise… We were like, “what the crap is that? rain? wind?” We were still walking and didn’t see anything and then, “bam”, there was this loud noise. Suddenly out of nowhere we see this wall of grey! We both looked at each other and said, “oh pucha!!!” and we just started booking it! The grey was a huge down pour! It started raining so much! We managed to make it to this shed thing and this lady next door saw us trapped and invited us in to get out of the rain. But since her esposo wasn't home we couldn't enter so we just sat in her door way. We were able to get her information and went back to teach them later in the week. Friday us when er went back to teach them and they turned out to be the coolest and nicest people ever! And they were super interested! Her husband makes fishing nets and man, I've been missing fishing so much this week! I saw some kids fishing, and they were catching so many catfish!! Saturday we went with a member to a menos activos house and we asked why she had stopped coming to church and she yells because IM NOT MORMON IM NOT ANY RELIGION! We were just like whoa... alright.. and she starts saying she doesn't like the book of mormon because it says the word si too much haha.. so we just shared our testimony’s and got out of there. Sunday was a good day, we met with a menos activo whose wife was not a member and we taught about families. Afterwards the wife had so many questions about eternal families and the temple and baptism. It was so cool! We were so stoked after!!

Oh, I also saw fire flies for the first time! It was so cool! But it freaked me out because it was dark and one lit up right in my face. My companion thought that was sooo funny..

Love,

Elder Harding