Los ñaños 🇪🇨

 This week was great. We absolutely grinded and it was fun. I love my companion so much. He is hillarious. The weather continues to be absolutely perfect. I can wear pants to bed 

We met a super cool family whose son is a member and just returned from his mission in Santa Cruz Bolivia. He came back for a bit and then moved back there to marry someone from there. Anyways, the rest of the family is not members. They are super cool and are from the mountains so they are super nice. The people from the mountains are usually really humble and nice. They are really catholic, but a super awesome family.

I got another chess set (not sure why). This one is full size and the pieces are huge. It is Spanish (catholics) vs. Incans (lamanites). 

I don't usually share the big long stories but I figure I will start to. Here you go. Long one. 

I was buying some fruit at a fruit cart on Saturday. I bought 2 pears. I was pretty hungry and was heavily looking forward to my pears. I ate one, and then we started to share a message with the fruit cart guy. While we were sharing a guy came up and grabbed my arm. He looked at me and told me he was a member of our church. This is a pretty common occurrence because of how many inactive members there are here. We invited him to stake conference the next day or whatever and then as he was about to leave he grabbed my other pear from me. He kinda just stole it and dipped. I'll be honest I was kinda like come on man for real? Not mad but kinda just caught back. I was gonna devour that pear man. Afterwards me and Elder urias were kinda joking about it and laughing about it. The next day (sunday) he came to stake conference. Super cool! We decided we were going to find his house and stop buy in the evening. We are in the city here i dont see many of the little dirt huts that people lived in when I was serving out in the jungle. But when we found his house my heart broke. In the middle of a big city there was his little dirt hut. He has lived there for 50 years. It was the size of my bathroom at home. Dirt floors, adobe walls, tin roof. The poorest I have seen since I got to the city. It was dark and there was no lights. He said how he hasn't had lights for years because the city took his power box because he can't afford the bills. He hasn't had water for years either. My heart completely changed. Instead of seeing this guy as a pear theif and something to joke about I saw him for who he is. What he is going through. He is the happiest guy you could imagine. So incredibly happy. It touched my heart. He told me thanks. He said he hadn't eaten all day the day before but that he shared my pear with his wife for dinner. This experience changed my perspective. As we were leaving the house a motorcycle with two people came by on the street. It's a dirt street and they started to slide out and eventually crash. We decided to go to talk to them and help them. We went and checked on them or whatever. We didn't preach or anything, just checked on them. They seemed shocked to see us. We gave them a card with our number on it and started to walk away. As we left the lady said, hey are you mormons? We turned around and she said she's a "mormona" as well. With tears in her eyes she asked us if I could say a prayer for her. I said a short prayer, asking for their health and that they can feel of Christ's love. Looking up, both were crying. The husband (not a member) and the wife (inactive member) asked when we could come by and share something.  What a cool little 30 minutes of experience. I truly felt like an instrument in God's hands that day. 

Tomorow marks 1 year as a missionary. What an absolute ride. I wouldn't change it for the world. I am so grateful for my mission and everything it has done for me.  

Love you all! 

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