Crazy Week!

Wow, what a crrraaaazzzzyyyy week. I hope that everyone else had a more quiet and peaceful week than I had.

So, this week has been the week of intercambios(or exchanges). I started Tuesday with and exchange with my District Leader, Elder Capiona from Santa Cruz, Bolivia. We worked together for 24 hours, and man, did I learn a lot. When we did our companionship study on Wednesday morning, he just tore me to pieces with how I was teaching.....but I feel like I´m a better teacher now. Then we worked all day Wednesday, but we had little success. Then Thursday and Friday I went on exchanges again....this time with and Elder from my group, Elder Hoffman. He´s super cool, and he´s from Texas too! He´s from the Dallas area, if you care at all. We were just together in the morning on Thursday, so we didn´t do much together. My companion and I spent the rest of the day going to citas and knocking on doors( we did a lot of that this week, all of which was unsuccessful....it sucked.  :(  ) But, Friday was a completely different story. This time we went and worked in his area. We just spent the afternoon knocking on doors....but we had much MUCH better results than my companion and I.

In just two hours of knocking on doors, we found 4 new investigadores and took down four more citas for the following week. We also got rained on really, really hard. Like Texas rain hard. I was COMPLETELY soaked, to the bone. But it was totally worth it.

Also, a missionary "died" this week, my good friend Elder Mendoza (Elder North´s comp. They both lived with us.) He left us on Monday evening to head for his last interview and such with the President. He was a good friend and teacher. I´m going to miss him.

Christian with Elder Mendoza

The new set of elders

And now Elder North has a new companion, Elder Ah Sue. Yes, he´s a gringo, and no, he isn´t asian. I know, weird. But he´s a super cool guy. And at home we call him  "¡Elder Ah Sue Madre!". It´s really funny, and he´s fun to have around.

Sorry that the letter is so short this week. I hope everyone has a good week.

Dad- I´m sorry that the Spring skiing is so bad....just do a snow dance, and all will be better. Heck, I´ll do one here in Bolivia for you.

Mom- Thanks for your email! I´m glad all is well. Have a good week!

Aly- Hope you had a good spring break, hope to hear from you soon!

Emi- Hey sis! Hope you had an awesome birthday! Have a good week.

 

Til next time!!

AEA

Elder Craig

Happy Carnaval (and Mardi Gras)

Hello beloved family and friends!!!!!!!

Well, this wasn´t a very exciting week as far as weeks go. The only real exciting thing that happened this week is that I got sick....again. Yup, three weeks in a row this time. It really sucks. I went to the lab after being sick all morning and having stomach pain.

And the results that I got were that it was parasites, again. Soooo, I´m taking really strong meds right now, and I´m still on the infamous  "white diet" which means nothing but chicken, rice, potatoes, bread, no dairy, no beef, nothing fried, etc. etc. So, it´s super fun.

We did not have any baptisms this past week, but we do have one, possibly two for this upcoming Saturday, so keep your fingers crossed and say your prayers that they come through because they´re really special to us. We did find a bunch of new investigadores this week, and so we´re starting to be really busy with them.

We also went to the temple- The first session after it was closed for cleaning! It was so awesome, and I really needed it. It´s such a blessing that we have a temple in our area. Not a lot of missionaries get to go for their two years, so I´m super grateful.

And now the Carnaval news......I´ve been chased down the street twice by kids with water balloons(that was during the week) and today we were headed here to the internet cafe.....and some girl in a van shot me in the face with a Super Soaker. So it´s starting to become really fun here. Because of Carnaval, we as missionaries won´t work today or tomorrow, because who´s going to listen to a bunch of missionaries during Carnaval. Plus we´re huge targets with our white shirts and ties.

Mom- I hope you had an awesome week!!! I love getting your emails.

Dad- Dude, I´m super jealous that you got waist deep powder!  I hope you keep getting teaching opportunities like that.

Aly- I´m glad all of your tests went well. I hope you have a ton of fun in Vegas!

Emi- I agree with dad, you´re out of shape....but that´s how´ll you´ll start the season, it´ll be totally different at the end of the season.

Have a good week.

Abuelita y Grandpa- Felicitaciones en su llamamiento! Quiero saber cuando saldran!

That´s all for now folks!

AEA

Elder Craig

Parasites! Oh my!

Alright, so I hope everyone had a good week! My week was...well, interesting. And I will get to that.

First things first, I don´t know how much news of Bolivia gets to the States, but if you hadn´t heard, things are a little shaky. First thing that happened was that sugar prices are sky high right now, like it´s impossible to find sugar here in Bolivia. You can find all of the sugar substitues you could ever want, though. That´s the weird thing.

They refuse to use that. Second, the government put a tax(they call it a tarifaso here) on taxis and trufis/buses/public transportation, so there were a lot of demonstrations and marches and protests, etc, etc.

I even took a pic of one passing our building. Third, milk prices went up, and a couple of riots went off in the night for that, but the police took care of it quickly. So yeah, things are fun here.

Now with me.....hahaha, um well, Tuesday was the start of a very interesting week. I got up, and let´s just say I was sick to my stomach all morning, so I called the wife of our mission president, and she sent me to go do tests and what not(which took all day), and that night I found out that I have parasites(yup you read correctly), which meant expensive pills that I´m getting reimbursed for and the infamous white diet. That consists of every white food possible(lots of rice, potatoes, and chicken), which means I´m eating the same thing everyday....it sucks. And then on Thursday, I had conejo for the first time(also known as guinea pig). It was weird. They boiled it, and then I started to eat the head(yup, la cabeza) without noticing until I realized that there was a lot of bone on this chunk of meat I was eating, then seeing a little eye staring at me.....kinda freaked me out. But yeah.

This week ended really well though! We ended the week with a baptism for an investigatore that we´ve been teaching for the past six weeks, and other missionaries for the past five months, so it was really cool. My compi baptized her. It was a special day for all. We also got another longterm investigador to committ to a baptism this Saturday, so we´re totally excited. I just hope it doesn´t fall through.

Dad- Have an awesome week! I hope the pow-pow is treating you well.

Mom- Hey! Hope you have an amazing week!

Aly- Thanks for the email. I´m totally jealous that you got to go sledding....just wait until I get back! :)

Emi- Hope all is well. Good luck on your tests this week!

Sophie- Hey little cuz!!!! Hope you had an amazing birthday. Luv ya!!!!

That´s all for this week!

Elder Craig

Cochabamba Street Demonstration

Happy Valentine's Day!

Well, happy valentines day to all of you! I hope everyone is doing fantastic....I sure am!

This past week went really quick for me....I can´t believe how quick it went.

So, no baptisms this week, but we did confirm the two new members that we baptized last Sunday, and I confirmed one of them(my first

confirmation!!!) and that was really cool and humbling.

So, on Monday nothing really exciting happened. We got permission to go to this massive open market/bazaar thing called "La Cancha" (it means "The Field") because Elder North, who lives with us, wanted to go get the game Risk, which we found, super cheap, and his companion, Elder Mendoza, needed socks. My companion and I tagged along because we had nothing better to do during P-Day. Tuesday we had our English class, which is going ok.....no referencias from it yet (which is our purpose behind it) but, we´re holding out, and the members of the ward are enjoying it. And on Friday, we had our bi-weekly Missionary Night at the chapel, where we played a game and had a spiritual moment. That was more successful in getting us contacts, we got two that night.

So, we have an awesome new investigator who is READY to hear the Gospel...he´s the father of a recent convert, and he´s totally awesome to teach. This doesn´t happen very often because fathers are usually super tough to teach because they don´t want to open up because religion isn´t very manly.... But this guy is amazing, and I hope he progresses well.

So, yesterday we found out about the changes because this transfer is OVER!!!! And I am staying in Petrolero for at least another six weeks, my companion too( but it´ll be his last transfer here for sure because he´s been here now for 4 and a half months, and six months is the max in one area, and after this transfer, it´ll be six.). Elder North and Mendoza are staying too, so we have a happy apartment. The only real change is a new district and zone leader, so things are staying pretty much the same for now.

Mom- I´m glad you had fun in Dallas, sorry that your NASCAR thing got cancelled. I hope you have an amazing week. Happy Valentines Day!

Dad- Hope skiing is treating you well. Have an awesome week, and have tons of fun! P.S. Every one loves the Milly pic.

Aly- I´m sorry that you had a tough week. I hope you have an awesome Valentine´s Day!

Emi- Hey you! Have and awesome week! Happy V-Day!

That´s all for this week!

Elder Christian Craig

February 7, 2011

Hello everyone!

Yes, it is P-Day again. And I am writing from the land of Bolivia!

So, we started this past week by playing a game of soccer(futbol) and we had a ton of fun. We rented this cancha(turf field) and played for two hours against another zone. I played hard, and that was a HUGE mistake....I was really really sore for the rest of the week! Hahaha.Then I went to the grocery store to buy my breakfasts for the month. This month´s choice of cereal- Chocopics, a Hispanic chocolate cereal.I think it´s pretty good.

Tuesday wasn´t that exciting, but we did have our weekly district meeting.

Wednesday was a long day. It was my first zone conference( I only have about 7more) and it lasted ALL day pretty much.. We got out at about 4 and that didn´t leave a ton of time to do any work, but we did some anyways. Our zone conference was about several things. We talked about finding new investigators, asking good questions during lessons, and some other things that I can´t remember. It was really good, though, and everything went really well.

Thursday was a just a normal day. About half of our citas (appointments) fell through, so we spent a good time knocking on doors, without a ton of success. Friday, was a crazy day. We were freaking out the entire day(my companion and I) about a baptismal interview that we were supposed to have that evening....and it didn´t fall through!!! It was the hermana whose interview fell through three times last week. She was early to her interview too! And that´s wierd for Bolivianos. But after the interview, there was only one problem...the Mission President wanted to talk with her on Sunday during church. That means that there could be no way that she could be baptized on Saturday. So, my companion and I were a bit disappointed.

But, on Saturday, after our appointments, we went and cleaned the pila(baptismal font) because we knew that if the President ok´d it, we could baptize her on Sunday after church. And....WE DID! I included some pics of the baptism.

So, the week ended really well. Also, for the past three days, we´ve had rain in the morning, and on Friday, we had a huge front come in( I included a pic of it....Dad, I thought you might like to see it.)

Mom- Thanks for the letter. I´m glad to hear you´re doing well. Glad business is good.

Dad- Hope you had a good week. Good luck with the Cert III stuff.

Aly- Thanks for the letter and the pics. Glad you´re doing well.

Emi- Have an awesome week!!!!

That´s all for now(folks!)

Elder Christian Craig

End of January, 2011

Hello again!!!

Wow, this past week went super fast!

Ok, so this week we were supposed to have 3 baptisms.... and it was too good to be true. On Thursday, when they were all supposed to be baptized, two of them didn´t show up for their interviews. The weird thing is, the one who did show up for his interview was the one we least expected. And his mom was supposed to be interviewed too, but she never showed. Next, on Friday, we had a ward Missionary night, and that mom was supposed to come for her interview then, but....she showed up 20 minutes after our district leader( who´s supposed to interview her) left. So we wanted to try again on Saturday, but when we went to go pick her up from her house, no body was home(we could tell because their front door was padlocked shut). So we had a disappointing weekend. And with the lady´s son, he decided to go to a

pueblo(village) to go visit his aunt, so he wasn´t there all weekend.

He´s actually supposed to come home today because school is supposed to start tomorrow. And with the third person we were supposed to baptize, her dad had to leave for the weekend for work, so we had to move everything for this upcoming weekend.

Otherwise, we are working really hard. We definitely need to find more investigators. We have some very good one though that are progressing, with the exception that they don´t really have asistencias(church attendance). Also, the English classes are going well(I´m teaching English if you didn´t know...at least Elder North and I are), and we´re hoping that this week the attendance goes higher.

I´m sorry that this letter is so short, but our baptisms(that never

happened) are all that really happened this week.

Oh yeah, and we´ve had our first water balloon thrown at us. It barely missed my companion. He says that these are the signs of Carnaval. So, it should be an exciting time.

Also, we had a real breakfast this morning. I attached pics of it, along with the pics from my baptism last week.

Mom- I hope you had an awesome birthday, and hope all is well with Commgap.

Dad- That sucks about the audition, but you should totally keep trying. You´ll get there sometime!

Aly- I´m super sad that you were sick on your birthday, but I´m glad you got better. Have an awesome week!

Emi(¡Meemerz!)- That´s funny about your gym class. Hope hula is fun, and have a great week!

That´s all for now! I love you all!

Christian(Elder Craig)