A New Companion, Swine Flu And Missing Letters

In an email dated July 13, 2009, Justin wrote "Well changes were this week and I have a new companion. Elder Guerrero from Ecuador. He was in the offices for 5 months as the personal secretary to the president before, so walking around all day is taking a bit of getting used to for him again haha. That would be a tough transition. My last companion. Elder Viloria went to Potosi, one of the highest cities in Bolivia and is freezing his tush off. Bummer. I think we are coming out of winter here in Coch, it's not quite as cold in the mornings and night.

What else. Oh I bought a new shower heater head for the bathroom. The bathroom actually stems up when I shower now and it's quite enjoyable. One of the finer things in Bolivia, hot showers. I've been enjoying the Mexican food mom sent. I made the bean dip the other night and breakfasted (his own word?) on tortillas.

I guess grandpa got back well, at least I hope so. It was great to see him, and even though everyone thought it, I am not homesick or anything, but just fine. (Good. That tells us his heart is in the right place.) Last Monday with him was great. After internet and everything we went to go pick him up at the hotel and went to hang out with Jesus (the statue) for a while to take pictures. Then we went down to a Japanese/ Korean restaurant and had lunch with President and Sister Tenorio there. We had kalbi (marinated short ribs) and bulgogi (thinly sliced marinated beef) and some noodle dish and kimchi (hot pickled cabbage). It was pretty good. Grandpa was the judge of that. I think everyone seemed to like it a lot. (Grandpa did not really care for Bolivian food. He said it is all too salty!) After that we took him to go buy a bunch of gifts and tourist stuff. He got a kick out of that. Then we went to go visit some Korean minister here in Coch and hung out there for about an hour. We didn't understand anything. But we got a full tour of their church/ college. It was weird to see Koreans here. They spoke Korean, English and Spanish. Afterwards we went to go eat at Tuesdays. It's a knock off of Fridays in the states. It was great, the first steak I have had all my mission. What more could I ask for?

We found a lot of new people to teach this week, kind of. (Kind of??) Elder Viloria hated going to look for new people, but my new companion is pretty go with the flow so we have tried. No one really wants to listen to us. Knocking on doors isn't too efficient. So we have been visiting the members a lot and asking for references. Hopefully it works. Our area is sooo big, it's impossible to work in all of it. We are mostly just in 2 little areas of it. I guess there used to be 4 missionaries in our ward, but now there is just us two.

This week Tomasa, who just had her baby, accepted a date for the 25th. By then her health should be good. We still haven't talked with Jose the husband but I suppose that he will want to as well since she was the only reason he didn't want to anymore. But I guess the members helped them a lot this week. It's tough to get a hold of him though. He has two jobs. Oh Tomasa and Jose really liked the clothing. Thanks mom.

Elder Parker emailed me this week. He said that right after I left they baptized about 8 of our investigators. Too bad I missed that. Sometimes I kind of miss Peru. But what can you do. My investigators from there always email me which is cool.

This pig flu thing is supposedly getting bigger. Grandpa says it's all just a big crock. The mission wants us to wear those doctor face masks all day and gave us all hand sanitizer gel to carry around. But every thing's good.

Well I haven't really been getting too many letters. Don't know if you are all just being lazy or if mail just sucks here." Write him people, please write!