"It was a happy ending:)"

My companion and I with President

A place that Presidente took us to eat.

I fished this eel out of the sewer in front of my house.

November 9, 2015

Hola! 

This week was awesome!! First we went to Santa Cruz to have our meeting and it was awesome! Presidente said something that I liked… he asked how is our study? Are we reading or studying? He said in the mission we need to be studying for topics. It was great, he taught everyone the more effective way to study. We were in the offices all day and after our interviews president took us and the zone leaders from Guayaramerin out to KFC! I didn’t know Bolivia had all these places!! 

We got back to our area to work and we were going to visit a new investigator with a member reference. During the ride on the motorcycles, my companion got a bug in his eye and it wouldn’t come out!! But, luckily this new investigator was a doctor! So he saved my comp and his eye and we had a great lesson after! It was a happy ending:) haha! In Bolivia right now it is mango season. I come home with bags full of mangos everyday. We pick them as we are walking!  They are everywhere! Oh, and we got to pass over Cochabamba on the flight home. I couldn’t find the temple or the Jesus Christ statue from the air... but it was awesome sight. 

Elder Harding

"I have to get used to new responsibility"

My comp (on my right) the greengos from Guayaramerin,they are so cool and Martino who I lived with in Guayaramerin.

Everyone leaving after immigration.

November 2, 2015

Hola!

So this week was another crazy busy week without working much... I really miss teaching and a normal routine!! Haha, it’s alright, I just have to get used to the new responsibility. I’ve been helping the missionaries from Riberalta and Guayaramerin with immigration! It’s been crazy, but we have been taking care of them. We’ve had them around for a few days but they left and are finally back to their areas. So this week we have been trying get to know our area a little better because we still don’t know everyone. We are now getting help from our branch council and we have lots of referrals from the members which is great because we have lots of work waiting for us! Today we fly to Santa Cruz for the leadership council and will be there until Thursday... we are always so busy!! But it’ll be fun. My new companion is awesome, I love his desires to work and teach. He is super funny too! We are always joking around and joking around with the people here so our relationships with the families we have are super good and strong. We are working a lot with the priesthood menos activos and activando them and working from references with them and expanding our work from that. We are pretty much starting our area over and starting fresh, I love it and I’m super excited to see the progress!!

Elder Harding

"I have a new companion"

Alligator in a park 

My district before changes

October 26, 2015

Hola! 

So, this week was pretty busy with cambios. Yes, we had combios! I have a new companion. His name is Elder Villalobos from Colombia! He is super cool and he is from my group or my zone so I already knew him! But honestly, this week has been very crazy. We spent a good 2 whole days in the airport sending and receiving missionaries the combios! We lost a lot of time to work but we had a meeting with the stake president and we found out what has to be done to change our branch to a ward. So we will be working very hard to help this branch become a ward! We are working with our branch president and things are looking good! Not much else has happened this week because of combios things were crazy and it kept us so busy. We are going to dig in this next week and work on the new goal we have to change the branch to a ward! I’m pretty excited to get to work this week!

Elder Harding

"Crazy good soccer game"

October 19, 2015

Hola!

This week was pretty fun and interesting! It started with a crazy

good soccer game latinos vs greengos, haha! Greengos won like 15-9! Haha!

That was pretty fun to play and funny. 

So we also had a service project to move parts of a motorcycle outside and as we were finishing the family decided they wanted to move the pig pen. We needed someone to get in the pen with the pig and tie it up and hold it so it wouldn't run off. Of course I was the one who jumped in there and lassoed it up and held it as everyone else moved the pig pen. Haha! My ears hurt from the pig squealing so loud!! But I didn’t mind, it was pretty fun! 

So we had intercambios and I got to work with Elder Santos. That day we busted out six lessons one after another! it was awesome! Oh, and the hermanas had a baptism for a girl named Silvia and she chose me to baptize her! So I had her baptism on Friday and it was a really good session. Her parents who aren't members, showed up and her uncle or dad I don’t know which expressed how happy he was for all the support of the branch to help her get baptized.

It was a pretty good week, I was happy with all the lessons and teaching we had!

Elder Harding

"Sister missionaries baked me a cake"

October 12, 2015

Hola!!!

This week was pretty crazy and fun! So to start, we were supposed to fly to Santa Cruz to have a conference with President and the other zone leaders but the airport was closed so we joined in with skype, like a conference call, haha, but it was a terrible connection. We did the best we could and I think we understood most of it. So the point of the conference is we have to go back and teach what we learned to our zone. At the end of the conference call, the President told us, “Oh by the way, I'm going to be in Trinidad tomorrow!” And so he sat in during our reunion de zona as we taught what he talked about in the conference that we had on a bad Skype connection! Haha! To out surprise, it went really well! Monday the sister missionaries baked me a cake for my birthday and that made me pretty happy! I have a lot of pictures to send but I'm at an internet shop that has viruses so I am not going to connect my camera. So next week! It’s been super cold here and everyone is shocked. They say this never happens. Haha, I’m dying because my warm clothes are in Santa Cruz! I had to barrow a jacket from our branch mission leader! Oh, we have a branch mission leader now! He is awesome! He is recently married and his wife is a convert. We are super close with their family.

Elder Harding

"Conference was powerful"

October 5, 2015

Hola! 

So my birthday was pretty cool with conference this weekend! We watched it in the stake center and we got it in English!! We had a fat greengo party and everyone brought something to eat to share, it was awesome! I have pics but I forgot my camera today.... Conference was powerful. I liked the talk about mothers a lot, haha! It made me think of you mom, and how grateful I am for how you raised me and took care of me. After that talk, Elder Knotts and I looked at each other and said, “Crap, I miss my mom!” at the same time! Haha, I miss you mom. 

We had a lot of investigators come to almost all the sessions!! Which is almost impossible,butit was great! Haha! We have some really good investigators. And to answer the question for dad and Kevin, we had about 50 in the priesthood session. It was a good turn out. It’s amazing, this week passed by so fast! I don’t have my notes from this last week so I can’t remember what I wanted to write haha, sorry. I’ll do better next week!!

Elder Harding

"He was Mr Bolivia!"

These are old planes that crashed in Trinidad. They just pull them out of the way and leave them here in this airplane graveyard. They are on air force property and we got permission to explore them from the mechanics who let us through. 

September 28, 2015

Hola!!! 

This week had its ups and downs but mostly ups. It was a good week. The downs were I got sick because someone gave us bad water. I went to the clinic and my tests came out clean but I took the medicine they gave me anyway and I'm all good now! I have to go back and take more tests to make sure I am still in the clear. Then, after I started feeling better, my companion fell ill, he had the same thing! Hahaha! It was a rough week but we are good now! 

I'm pretty stoked about a new investigator I have. We contacted him in this rich neighborhood and we got talking and this dude is freaking jacked!! He's huge!! Then, I found out he was Mr. Bolivia!!! Haha! So he and I got to talking about the gym and all that good stuff. Haha, it was awesome! I was so happy to talk about working out and all that with him. We passed by his house again and he was leaving with his family to go to the park. He is also always working and then spends time at the gym. But he was super happy to see us and talk with us more so we will be passing by every Sunday because it is his only day free. We also have another really good family and they are all ready for baptism! But..... we are waiting for the fetchin lawyers.... one dropped the family and the other one wants more money and the family doesn't have the money... The lady investigator needs to get a divorce from her old husband who she doesn’t have any connection with anymore and doesn’t have kids with him so it should be a quick divorce but we need to find a better lawyer for her. 

So this was my week. it was pretty solid. And outside of the teaching, we are always running around because we are doing stuff for the zone! Haha! It’s crazy to be zone leader!

Elder Harding

The difference between a city and a country missionary's badge.