Elder Samuel Holdstock

  Hola hola a todos que tal! This week was quite and adventure full of so many slaps in the side of the face. Well not our faces, but the faces of our plans for sure. Each day we'd come up with a plan, or find a companionship to have an intercambio with, and 3 hours later we were calling the companionship de nuevo to cancel that intercambio. It really keeps the days interesting.  One of those plans that didn't get throw at the wall was an open house of the chapel on friday. We share the ward with a companionship of hermanas so they put it all together to make it "nice and cute" and elder nóbrega and i were just out in the street gathering everyone to "ven y ve" the chapel. For the first hour we had so little success and everyone just laughed at us or we got the classic "otro momento." After an hour of maybe one person that entered, a lady was walking a block away with a bag of balloons and the balloons started to fall out of the bag and headed for ...

  Hola hola a todos!!  This week was a quick and super long guy all at once.  I went on an intercambio in Cobija with Elder Summers. He's the most wholesome guy and so humble and just wants to work. So that's exactly what we did. We would walk through the park and he'd see someone and go "Elder, that lady is going to get baptized, let's talk to her." And I'd say "bet, let's go!" It was so fun, and also so fun to tell people I'm from La Paz and then they just believe me until I speak English. I just have to throw all my Bolivian mannerisms at them, nove? I went on another exchange back in my home of Sacaba again, but this time in Arocagua 2. I got to spend the day with the terere king himself, Elder Laura, and we had a crazy day. We were in a hurry to a videocall so we were running to a little plaza and walked past a house. I asked him if he's knocked t before and he said yes, so I knocked it anyway. There are a lot of RING type doorbe...

  Hola hola a todos! This past week was something else, it was so fast and we did a million things. I also just feel like I go on exchange my whole life because that's actually just what I do. I went on 3 this week and esch one was so good. In one we went to Los Ángeles and together we ended finding a family of non-members with only one member in the family. They'll be getting baptized in two weeks! In another intercambio we went to La Floresta and ended up finding a family where the mom is a member, and her son hasn't been baptized yet, he'll be changing that next week. And the last exchange we were in Esmeralda 2 which is right next to my home of Amancayas so that was fun. We found another incomplete family, but the sister who is a member doesn't want that her siblings are members which is weird. We didn't get to put them on date, but we did make bread and cake with them which was fun. Apart from the constant exchanges, my companion and I set a goal this week ...

  Hola hola a todos This one was a quiiiick week. We had zone Conferences this week which is always baller. The focus was to teach doctrine not just "cualquier cosa" and to focus on our own covenants that we have made with our Heavenly Father in our baptisms and in the temple because those will help us with our own conversion and in turn be better equipped with the Spirit to bless the lives of our friends. It was awesome,, so everyone remember your covenants and count your blessings! Also this week after a zone conference I got shipped out to Linde for the day on exchange. We spent the afternoon visiting so many awesome people, but they all have a major difficulty that is stopping them from progressing and being baptized. No one continues to be married here, or if they are, they're married with someone they dont live with and can't get married to the person they do live with now because they dont have money to pay for the divorce or can't find their "spouse...

  Hola hola a todos!! This week has certainly been something! Everyday this week we just had something crazy happen every single day. I also got to travel down to Sucre and Betanzos en Potosí for a couple days this week. Long distance traveling in Bolivia is awful. There are these things called "flotas" and it's just a massive bus, kinda like the classic buses from London with two stories, but with airplane seats. I'm sure it would great if you could sleep in it. I couldn't so I stayed up all night Tuesday night and Thursday night coming home.  Sucre and Potosí are beautiful though! So different than the good old Cochabamba I'm used to and know. Betanzons has probably the coolest chapel that I have seen in Bolivia, and it's also so tiny. And Sucre is a literal city just built on hills, buy its old timey and pretty too. We got home from our excursion down south on Friday morning at like 4:30 in the morning and got to our house at 5:30 which gave us an hour ...