"Who Wouldn't Want To Meet A Korean Celebrity?"

Justin's grandpa Hong comes at the end of this week to visit Bolivia and Justin. They are both way excited! As Justin said in his email today, "I am wayyyy excited to see grandpa! And all the stuff he is going to bring haha. It should be a really good weekend with him. I think everyone is excited to meet him too. Probably because we have that royal blood flowing through our veins. Who wouldn't want to meet a Korean celebrity?"

He also wrote to us that 10 other "gringos" arrived this week and now that makes 20 of them that have returned to Boliva. His mission president told them there are still 18 in Peru that will be returning sometime. "Elder Brinton (His first companion) is done in 8 weeks! Crazy huh?"

Justin has been sending us a list of things he would like us to send with his grandpa. Including a larger suitcase to trade for his smaller one. What missionary do you know that upgrades to a larger suitcase while in the field? Only our Justin. He even asked for some pants he found on line. Still shopping? He is a funny one. Of course his Crest whitestrips to keep his perfect smile perfect! The weirdest thing one the list was a George Bush bobblehead. I guess someone in the ward wants one. I don't think we will find that one in time. It will be nice and fun to be able to send a lot of stuff to him. I think he will enjoy the suitcase full of stuff.

They had a baptism last Saturday. Susana Jurado. She is the sister of the young and pregnant married couple. He said it went well. He mentioned how hard it is to fill the baptismal font in their chapel there. They have to fill tanks on the roof to get water in the baptismal font. He said the fonts in Bolivia have water heaters, unlike Peru, but he has no idea how they work. Bummer for Susana! "Only one person got baptized Saturday. Her brother and sister in law were going to as well, but her sister in law, Tomasa, said that she still didn't feel ready and wanted to wait longer. She said it just didn't enter into her heart yet. Jose, her husband and Susana's brother, wants to get baptized and is really excited, but wants to do it together with his wife. So we put a new date with those two for the 4th of July and Jose said that if Tomasa still isn't ready by then then he is going to go ahead and do it to show her the example. So hopefully that works out. But anyways not many people came to the baptism. Some 8 year old in the ward was having her birthday party and I think everyone went there instead. Susana got there and no one else came for another half hour. There ended up being around 8 people by the time we started an hour late. Jose and Tomasa still weren't there and when she called to see why, it was because Tomasa was in labor to give birth. So we did it all pretty fast so that she could get out of there to go to the hospital."

He is still working with his other investigator (a term we use for some one learning about the church with the missionaries) Jose Pedro Rojas. They are working on getting papers ready so he and his girlfriend can get married, so he can get baptized. He actually wanted Justin's grandpa to baptize him, but it's not going to work out now. But hopefully he will get baptized this Saturday when Grandpa Hong is there. Justin also mentioned that Jose and Tomasa want to name their baby after him and his companion. I wonder what names they will come up with and hopefully
the baby was a boy??

Saving the disgusting grossness for last.... "I may die of some Bolivian disease. (Kidding of course) Yesterday after eating lunch we were in a taxi going to the church for a meeting. I was sitting by the window and it was down, just not paying attention and we drive over this bridge and I guess the road was flooded with sewage water and at the same time a big semi drove by and soaked me. (He actually got more descriptive with the grossness of what may have been in that water...... gives you the heebie jeebies!! Justin could write a horror flick with his descriptive writing skills)I really didn't know how to react. And after I got to walk around in my poop covered suit, hair and face, go to a 2 hour meeting, go eat dinner and finally at night I got to shower. (Besides Justin I was feeling bad for the poor people that had to be around him all this time!) I almost puked 10 times, gagging from the smell of myself. I hope it didn't get into my mouth." Only in Bolivia.