Elder Mark Yates, Jr.: Nuevo Cambio!

Well, this past week was the start of the new cambios. And, during the course of this letter, we'll see the results of what happened. It was quite a big surprise for all of us. In side news, this is also the last cambio for Pdte Zambrano, and will quickly end his mission. So, the next cambio we'll have a new mission presidente. Crazy to think about.

Anyway, we didn't get to do anything for an activity last Monday because they wanted us to clean the house up nice and pretty for the next cambio. So, all we really did was celebrate a birthday and clean and wash clothes. Super exciting. Then, in the evening, we went to have what might have been the farewell FHE with the 4 of us missionaries in Mangalitos with a family. Tuesday was also pretty calm for the most part. We had an interesting conversation with one investigator we found the other day. He told us that he had talked with missionaries for the last 15 years. He agreed to talk all we want, but never would be baptized. Made me feel a little sad for him, but the mission moves on.

And so, Tuesday night we got a call telling us of the changes that happened in Trinidad. As it turns out, almost no one in all of Trinidad changed at all. There was one Hermana that left and one that came, but that's it. A very uneventful cambio. And so, the big excitement gone, we decided to go and play futbol Wednesday morning out in Paititi. It was fun I guess. The rest of the day passed by without incident, until we met with another interesting investigator. To better understand what I'm about to write, remember that the people here in Bolivia are much more believing than in the States, and usually believe just about anything anyone that looks like a pastor tells them. As such, it's widely known that Jesus resurected and lives today. However, when we visited with this investigator (who does believe that He resurected), he asked us how we knew that Jesus was still alive today, as 2000 years have past.

Sometimes the beliefs here get pretty mixed up and tossed around. It's always an adventure trying to figure out what the people here actually think. So, we tried explaining and testifying the best we could, but I'm not entire sure he was convinced in the end. And so the mission moves on. Not sure what to write about for Thursday, as after the District Meeting we headed out to preach the gospel normally. We didn't even have an interesting experience with an investigator either. How boring the mission life, ¿no?

Not that Friday was much better honestly. We did our weekly planning season and then headed out to visit. This day, however, we did find someone interesting. After starting to talk for awhile, the person asked if someone could just return to Church, kind of just like out of the blue. A little surprised, we asked him if he was a member, and when he was baptized. He told us that he was baptized when he was 5 in the Stake Center. We didn't know what to think, but, thinking about other stories I've heard from Trinidad, we just might believe him. Sometimes some pretty crazy stuff happenes around here. We told him that yes, one could just return to church, and we latter left pretty confused.

To work out our confusion, we went to play futbol Saturday morning in the big field. For whatever reason, the missionary attendence has been dwindling and not very many people showed up. (To be fair, if E' Quiroga wasn't so maddly in love with futbol, I don't think I would go either) Then, after changing and studying, we went out to visit a bit. In the evening we were asked to help gather Church chairs that someone had taken to use in a memorial service (as a side note, 2 people here passed on) and return them to the Church Building. Even though the chairs here arn't folding chairs, it seems like I can never escape from getting asked to put up church chairs...

And that's just about it for this letter. The weather here was pretty nice, as the full-on Sur never arrived, and it didn't rain too much, but the temperature was lower and we had cloud cover. I didn't even have to used the borrowed jacket! Let's see if this next week will bring the same luck.

Con Amor,

Elder Yates

A fruit here called guayaba. I heard that it exists up in California.

It's pretty sweet and the middle is filled with seeds.

Don't remember what this fruit is called, but it's basically 100% natural chocolate (not cocoa). One sucks on the seeds and they're sweet, then lays the seeds to dry to grind into a hot chocolate powder.