Machetazos

I honestly don´t know what to write about any more.  The missionary work is going fantastically in my new area. We don´t have many investigators, but I feel like we are really helping a lot of less.active members and other members.  The whole missionary thing is pretty much the same as it has been for these last 22 months, so I thought I´d talk about something a bit different today, el carpir.

"Carpir" is a word used in the eastern part of Bolivia which basically means "to mow the lawn by hand".  There hardly aren´t such things as lawnmowers and weedeaters here, so the work is done with machetes and a tool similar to a hoe which is called "azadón".  In my time in Bolivia, I have become an expert carpidor.  We had a service project Saturday where 3 other Elders and I went to carpir a lawn.  The other 3 Elders are really new misionaries and never have carpido before.  I felt pretty awesome as they all asked me to show them how to cut the lawn with a machete. As I started to show them with my "hard-aquired machete skills" I stated to cut away at a bunch of tall weeds.  About 1'0 seconds later, my machete struck something hard and I heard "Pssssssssst" and found that I had taken a big chunk out of their water-line which was now spraying water everywhere.  We had to shut of the water in all their house, and then in addition to mowing ther lawn with machetes (which is no easy task) we had to fix their water line.  The family felt very thankful, even though I broke their water line and they went to church yesterday.