Nuevo Compañero

I´ve got a new companion now, his name is Elder Jaime (hi-may) and is from Colombia.  He was in the Cochabamba, Bolivia mission, but with the mission split, the Santa Cruz mission also aquired the city of Tarija and all of the missionaries that were there.

All is going quite well here other that it rains a ton and it got cold again.  I am happy that I get to keep working in my same area, but with a different companion, and I hope that the 2 of us can really help the people here to know the gospel, and change their lives for the better as the result.

Elder Casdorph

Nuevo Presidente y Bowling

We´ve had a new president for about 2 weeks now, but I didn´t have any time last week to write about him.  His name is President Willard and is from Arizona.  He´s fairly young about 40-44 ish.  He and his wife learned to speak Spanish in their missions, but have forgotten a lot and are re-learning to speak fluently.  He has worked in church education as a seminary and institute teacher and comes with all of the awesome dorkiness associated with being a seminary teacher.  We had a zone meeting with him to get to know him a bit and ask some questions.  One elder asked him what were his favorite sports.  He said that he really liked basketball and soccer and that he also had a bit of a passion for ultimate frisbee.  When he said that, I couldn't help but raise a fist of pride in the air in the name of frisbee.  I´m pretty sure that he remembers me now as that one goofy missionary that likes frisbee way too much, but that´s alright because his last words to me as I shook his hand goodbye were, "¿frisbee algún día, no?" (frisbee someday, right?).

Another plus of the new president was that he gave us permission to go bowling as a zone (for some reason that I don´t understand, President Calderón told us that we couldn´t go bowling because it was too dangerous).  I was wondering what a Bolivian bowling center would be like, but as we entered the doors, to my surprise, I found myself in a "Cosmic Bowling" exactly the same as all of the Cosmic Bowlings in America.  The music was American, the bowling machines were in English, the bowling shoes were in American sizes, and the bathroom sign said "men".  I felt like I had somehow entered a portal back to the States.  I was able to enjoy a nice game of bowling, and even though I was bowling through my legs, behind the back, and left handed, I was able to finish in 2nd place with a grand score of 70 (Latinos don´t know how to bowl, especially because it was the first time for most of them).  To add to the American-ness, after bowling we went to Burger King (the only American fast food restaurant in the mission other than Subway).

Here are the pictures of our baptisms 2 weeks ago.  Their names are Victoria and Florencia Guzman and Eliana Machuca.

 [Note from the editor: Jack did not include any explanation for this picture.  Please enjoy a frog in a bowl...?]

Elder Casdorph

Se Habla "Registro" en Ingles

Last week I couldn´t write because we had to go back to the house to get a couple of registro bautismales (sorry... I don´t remember how to say registro in English, but some baptismal forms)  that we forgot, and we forfeited our internet time.  Catching up on the writing that I had to do last week, I'm out of time today as well, but [Andrea] can put some of that stuff that I wrote to [her], especially about the 4th of July, in the blog.

[Excerpt from Jack's letter to me]

Concerning the Fourth of July, I tried my best to celebrate it.  I decided to be as American as I could, eating a double-cheeseburger for breakfast, singing the National Anthem in the shower, etc.  I even suggested that in our zone meeting we could sing a Hymn in the English Hymnbook (number 340) but I got rejected.  There´s a strong possibility that I will be at home for the next 4th of July because the cycle of transfers got messed up with the mission split and everyone is going home 3 weeks earlier than the original plan.

-- Elder Casdorph