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| View of Potosi |
Well this week had some pretty fun experiences including
good and bad food and ending with listening to our prophet, President Russell M
Nelson speak to Bolivia... en español.
Ok, empecemos (let us begin), martes/Monday was a pretty
awesome day. We had a district meeting in the morning that was pretty good.
Than we went to the pensionista. We were only there for a little over an hour
which was super nice. We only had one cita/appointment that day but I made a
list of tons of past contacts and references we had that are pretty good but
we've just never returned. At first my comp didn't seem too excited, but after
an hour or so we started having lots of fun and joking around. We contacted
most of the rest of the day and near the end we climbed a pretty big hill
almost to the top and over looked Potosí. It was a pretty cool view. Then we
went down and went to the dentist for my comp. After that we got invited to eat
with a member for one of the elders birthday. It was kind of late but we still
went, and then we didn't end up eating until super late and didn't get home until
even later.
Miércoles/Wednesday, I left Potosí with Elder Baros for
intercambios/exchanges in Betanzos. I love Betanzos and love speaking the little
Quechua that I know. Hahaha. Intercambios was super awesome. We didn’t really
have any citas but we found several of their past contacts and had several
really awesome lessons. We also had an English class, but nobody showed up. It
was a super awesome day! We also had chicken kidney in our sopa/soup for lunch.
It was just like some kidneys cut in half and put in a sopa. It was pretty good
actually. Hahaha. That night when we got home (still in Betanzos), Elder Baros
and I made cinnamon rolls, and they were soooo stinking good. It wasn’t really
hard either; it just took forever waiting for it to rise, so we studied Quechua
together, and I learned lots more. (Baros is the elder who is basically fluent
in Quechua and has been in his area for 8ish months and goes home at the end of
this cambio/transfer. He is super cool. I like him lots.)
The next morning we finished eating the cinnamon rolls,
studied for a little, and then went and taught a lesson. Then I returned to
Potosí, we got there around 2p. We spent the rest of the day at 2 miembros
houses and playing basketball with the young men. I think and wish we would've
used our time wiser. My comp also completed a year that day, but he celebrated
it the night before with several other elders here in Potosí who were in the
CCM (training center) with him. They all burned a shirt, hahaha.
Viernes/Thursday ... was interesting. The morning I got some
good studying in. After lunch we looked for a reference, but she wasn´t home.
Then we went way up to a recent convert and her kind of investigador sister’s
house. We made cookies with them.... kind of. Hahaha! So I've made cookies
several times out here, right? Well, this time was lots different. I told the hermana
(she’s probably 16 or 17) all the ingredients we needed and how much of each. I
told them to her in order, the last being flour. She left and then came back
with a bowl like full full of flour. I asked how many cups she put in and she
was like 5. Uhhhh, ok, I told her 3. So I took out 2 cups and it still looked
like a ton, so I took out a little more. Then I put in all the other ingredients
and started mixing it. I had the idea to take out all the flour and follow the
correct order but I didn’t. Well I mixed and mixed and mixed and mixed and
mixed. I mixed that stinking stuff for ever, and it just wouldn’t mix. I
thought maybe there was still way too much flour, so I doubled everything else,
and then mixed and mixed and mixed. I was kind of laughing to myself. I spent
probably over an hour mixing that stuff. I’m not kidding. Hahaha! Anyways, I
finally got it to look kind of like it should, and then we put them in balls
and on the pan and in the oven. Hahaha. They came out like biscuits. Hahaha. I
have no idea how or what I did, but I basically made chocolate chip biscuits.
Anyways during all the mixing time, I had a while to think and made a few
connections between the whole thing and the church.
Ok, so first, I realized the order of ingredients is very,
very important. In the church it’s very similar. Like it says in the Book of
Mormon in Jacob 2:18, we need to first seek the will of God and the things of
spiritual and eternal importance before we seek other things. I also learned
that if you want good cookies, you better make sure you yourself put in the
right ingredients and the right amount. Hahaha. If you want to gain salvation
and eternal life with our Heavenly Father, you better be sure you do your own
steps to get there. Nobody else can read your scriptures every day or say your
prayers for you. Salvation is personal and each ingredient is needed to be done
by your own self. You can’t rely on somebody else to do it all for you. I mixed
that dang stuff for ever, and it was kind of tough and a good forearm workout,
but eventually it came out pretty good. This is similar to the process of
repentance and changing our lives away from sin. At times it can be very very
hard and take a long time, but eventually, only through the help of our Savior
Jesus Christ, we can change and become what we should be.
Another lesson I really really like is that when I make
cookie dough, most of the time the dough tastes about the same and is pretty
good (nothing as good as back home but still kind of good). However after
baking the cookies, they always taste different and not as good as I hope. This
has taught me a very important lesson. I and all people are like cookie dough.
Sometimes we seem the same, sometimes different, but still kind of good, not as
good as we could possibly be but still pretty good. We are then given trials or
hardships. The Lord uses these trials to find out what we are really truly made
up of. If we are missing a few things, we might not come out of these trials
being (or tasting) the same pretty good person that we were before the trial.
The only problem with this analogy is once a cookie has been cooked, it’s
basically impossible to add the right ingredients to make it taste how it
should. However, as people, with the Savior’s help, we can change our lives and
the things we are doing and eventually become the perfect cookie, hahaha, or
person that we are meant to be. I love 1 Nephi 20:10. This analogy works better
with metal or stuff like gold where the furnace is a purifying thing, but I
know that we are given challenges and hardships to become better, to do a self-check
of where we are as a person and what we need to change, and after several
seemingly unending afflictions, we can become what we are made to be, through
the help of Jesus Christ. That’s my cookie analogy. Hahaha.
Saturday we watched a broadcast from President Nelson to the
missionaries in Peru, Bolivia, and several other South America countries. It
was super duper good, and I learned lots.
Domingo/Sunday we watched the broadcast of President Nelson
(in La Paz) speaking to all of Bolivia. It was super cool, and once again I
learned lots. He gave his talk in Spanish, and it was pretty cool. I know he is
the prophet on the earth today and that he follows Jesus Christ, because this
truly is The Church of Jesus Christ on the earth today.
Love ya guys and thanks for all your prayers,
Elder Sorensen
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| Me & Elder Cabrera |
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| View of Potosi |
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| Making cinnamon rolls. |
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| Chocolate chip biscuits, anyone? |