Elder Edholm -- week 31

Andrew called today instead of Monday because Monday and Tuesday is Carnival in Bolivia and the missionaries stay in their apartments because most people are very drunk for those two days. He did send me some pictures from the last two weeks.

Andy talked about Compadres (a holiday) and the canasta baskets they received.

Here is a picture of his apartment. He said he has the best kitchen in the mission!

Pictures of his area, Tarija:

Last week the missionaries in his area went to a place called San Jacinto. Andrew said the little crabs and fishes they ate were actually good!

Today they went to a waterfall called Coimata.

He is having some success preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The two sisters they are teaching are progressing towards baptism. Here are a few pictures of his daily missionary work and other pictures of him.

Elder Edholm -- week 30

This week was good, we put a goal for March 7th for Norma and Maria (60 year old sisters, Norma lived in the U.S. for 22 years) and they thought that it was a good goal. It was also Compadres on Thursday, so we gave a canasta (basket with grapes, peaches, flowers, basil, cake, balloons, streamers, and little flags) to two people so they could be our compadres, and on one of our investigators gave us a canasta. I did an intercambio with the zone leaders, so I went into the zone leaders area with Elder Murphey. We had a pretty successful day, but I could tell that he was frustrated that I still can't speak Spanish super well. On Sunday I gave a talk about agency, the ability to choose, and the two speakers before me gave me 25 minutes to speak. so that was really stressful, my legs were shaking the whole time. And the bishop asked me to give another talk next week, so that will be two in a row! Also on Sunday, the brother of both of our pension passed away, so we went to the showing and also to the cemetery to help with the family because they were hurting really bad. Today we went to the lake here in Tarija, San Jacinto, it was cool, we ate mini crab things and fish there.

Going Going Gone With the Breeze

Lucy was in the Worland Middle School musical and she had a ton of fun!

The Girl With the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke

Teen Science Fiction/Historical Fiction. Ellie, our heroine, time travels back to East Berlin a year before the Wall comes down. She travels there via a red magic balloon and finds out her grandfather was saved by a similar balloon from the concentration camps during World War II. I enjoyed the connections that happened as the story progressed and overall it had a good plot. The biggest problem I had was not a major part of the story line. The three teenagers, although somewhat abandoned in their worlds, seem to have no problem drinking and sleeping around. This is only vaguely touched on, but it still bothered me that passing around a vodka bottle was treated as normal and expected considering the situations they were experiencing. None of the adults in the story seemed to see this as a problem. The historical fiction accounts of the Jews in the Polish ghettos and the mystery surrounding how some escaped were thought provoking, but the under-aged drinking and promiscuity tainted the story for me.

Recommend: No

Elder Edholm -- week 29

This week was rough for my companion, his wallet got stolen, so that wasn't fun. The two older ladies that we are teaching, Norma and Mouje are progressing a lot! There are very nice and invited us to lunch on Saturday and we ate plato pazeño. It was this type of corn on the cob, lima beans, potatoes, and fried cheese. I thought it was pretty good. We had less people at church this week, but we still had 5! We had ward council on Sunday! First time in my whole mission! We were able to talk about the people we are teaching and how we could help them, It was really good. I bought a sweater today that is a mix of llama and alpaca. I think it is pretty cool. 

There is a talk by Elder Holland called After the Manner of Happiness. He gave it at a BYU Idaho devotional and I recommend it to everyone, it is really really good.

That is all for this week

Elder Edholm -- week 28

First week in my new area in Tarija was great! We have a lot of great people that we are teaching that want to continue learning! One person that we are teaching is a 59 year old lady who lived in Minnesota for 22 years! She is super cool. Our pension is building the second floor of their house so we are eating with another member, and her mom is 96 years old, she is the oldest looking person I have ever seen. The entire time we were eating, she was saying, To the bed, To the bed, it was really sad but a little funny. On Sunday we had 12 people at church, which was crazy awesome! Our fast worked way better than we thought it would! I'm really liking the area and my comp! I'm pretty sure that I am going to be in this area for awhile.