Jardín del Sur

Everything is going fine here.  The baptism that we were supposed to have Saturday with the Maribel and Sabina Ziñany ended up not happening because they want to be more sure that this really is the true church before getting baptized.  They almost have testimonies, but it will be a few more days before they are completely ready for baptism.  We are going to do all that we can to help them to be ready to get baptized this Saturday.  My relationship with my companion is good and the members of my ward are finally learning to pronounce "Casdorph" (which probably means that I will soon be transferred to another area).  There is honestly very little to report now.  I keep teaching and helping people every day and the days are starting to pass by faster and faster.  The winter has now passed and I will be experiencing nothing but heat and humidity until June 2014.  I´ve gotten so used to being a missionary that the thought of going back to the States and being a normal person who can sleep in, watch movies, and use facebook seems extremely foreign.  It will be interesting to see how the world has changed when I get back and especially how much I have changed.

Now it´s time to focus in the time that I have here so that I can keeping changing myself and keep changing the world (or at least Bolivia).

I´ll let you all know a bit more next week about how it´s going here, and probably send some pics, but until then...

Cuídense,
Elder Casdorph

Comidas, misioneras, y Flia. Ziñany

Tuesday was Bolivian Independence Day an my ward decided to do a couple of activities to celebrate it.  The Relief Society (the women) had an activity where the all brought a bunch of typical Bolivian foods and then assigned 3 people to judge which was the tastiest.  I, as an American have a different taste in foods, so the one that I liked the most, didn´t even get 3rd place.  The one that I liked the most is Chorizo  Chuquisaqueño (Sausage from Chuquisaca) and is what you see in the photo.

Also in this week, a sister from my ward left on her mission.  She is now in the MTC in Sao Paulo, Brazil and her family is super happy and proud because she is the first missionary in her family.

We should be having 2 baptisms this Saturday (Sabina and Maribel Ziñany).  They came to the activity this week as well as church on Sunday.

We asked Maribel (18 yrs) how she felt about baptism yesterday, because before, she wasn´t sure if she wanted to get baptized.  She said that she definitely wanted to get baptized, but she wasn´t sure when.  I felt like I should just be bold and direct with her and said, "Good, if you don´t have any objections then, you are gonna get baptized this Saturday because we can tell that you´re ready."  She smiled, accepted and is now super-exited to get baptized Saturday.

I hope that all is going well back in the states and that I can hear from all of you soon, but I hope that all of you know that everything is going great here, the days are flying by super-fast and that I am enjoying every moment that I have with the people of Santa Cruz.

Elder Casdorph

Jardín del Sur (South Garden)

Por varias meses ye, yo he querido escribirles en español, pero por algún razón, nunca lo hice.  Andrea, por favor cuando pone eso en Google Traducir, ponga el original en español, junto con la traducción en ingles.  Espero que éste tendrá sentido cuando se lo traduce, especialmente porgue todavía no escribo muy bien, y si algo esta mal-escrito, Google Traducir no lo reconocerá, pero por eso hay spellcheck.  

Todo va bien aquí tenemos una mamá y su hija de 18 años que se van a bautizar el 17 de Agosto.  Tenemos también dos parejas que se van a casar y bautizarse.  Los miembros están apoyándonos mucho mejor ya en la obra.  Martes van a hacer una actividad en la iglesia.  Van a comer comidas típicas de todos los departamentos de Bolivia y hacer una noche de talentos porque martes es la día de independencia boliviana.  Mí compañero estamos trabajando y enseñando bien juntos, me gusta estar con un Colombiano; la gente de Centroamérica es muy alegre.

Enseñamos a en joven que casi no cree en Dios.  Le leí Alma 22:18 y le ayudamos a que pudo orar par saber si Dios realmente existe.  Nos arrodillamos, y el no quería orar pero por fin lo hizo.

"D-..Dios............ Dios por favor bendice a estés hermanos por haber e-.........no sé a quien estoy hablando....
"No sé a quien estoy hablando, no sé a quien estoy hablando, si estoy hablando a ti o solamente a mi mismo o a la pared o no sé que.....
"Quisiera saber si tu existes.....quisiera que..te des..a conocer..a mí.
(ya hablando mucho mas rápido)"No sé que estoy haciendo no sé si estoy orando o hablando no mas.  Cuando era chico, creía en ti; creía que existes, pero ya... ya no sé.  Por favor, a-amen."

El estaba preocupado de que hizo mal la oración.  Le dije yo, "No se preocupe. Es unas de las mejores oraciones que he escuchado en mi vida."

Le dimos un Libro de Mormón y le preguntamos si podría lee un poquito. Nos dijo, "No, no voy a leer un poquito.  Si lo leo, lo loe todo."

En el próximo, estaré dándoles noticias de él, pero hasta el próximo...

Élder Casdorph 

For several months now, I've wanted to write in Spanish, but for some reason, I never did. Andrea, please when you put that into Google Translate, put the original in Spanish, along with English translation. I hope this will make sense when you translate it, especially because I do not write very well, and if something is wrong-writing, Google Translate does not recognize it, but that's spellcheck.

All is well here we have a mother and her 18 year old daughter to be baptized on August 17th. We also have two couples who are getting married and baptized. Members are relying much better already in the works. Tuesday we'll do an activity in the church. They will eat traditional foods from all departments of Bolivia and make a night of talent because Tuesday is the day of Bolivian independence. Me teaching partner and I are working well together and I like to be with a Colombian, Central American person who is very cheerful.

We taught a young man who almost did not believe in God. I read Alma 22:18 to help him know you could pray even to know if God really exists. We knelt, and he did not want to pray but he finally did.

"D-.. God please ............ God bless you brothers for having e-......... do not know who I'm talking about ....

"I know who I'm talking about, do not know who I'm talking about, if I'm talking to you or just myself or wall or do not know .....

"I wonder if you exist ..... want .. you know .. you know .. to me.

(Speaking and much faster) "I know I'm doing I do not know if I'm praying or talking no more. As a kid, I believed in you, believing that you exist, but ... I do not know. Please to-love. "

He was concerned that the sentence was wrong. I said, "Do not worry.  It's one of the best sentences I've heard in my life."

We gave him a Book of Mormon and asked if he could read a little. He said, "No, I will read a little. If I read it, I love all."

In the next email, I will send more news about him, but until next ...

Elder Casdorph

Mas sillas de ruedas

In this last week, we started teaching Miguel Angel.  He is a 27 year old man in a wheelchair who works making both acoustic and electric guitars.  He has has meningitus, and tuberculosis (or at least I think that´s what he told me, but I´m not sure because the names of the diseases were in Spanish), and is now in a wheelchair and suffering from a bit of memory loss.  When we found him, he told us than every night he prays so that he can pass on from this life and wonders why God wants him to keep on living.  We taught him the plan of Salvation, and the purpose that God has for him in his life.  At the end of the lesson we asked him to pray. In his prayer, rather that asking to pass away like he usually always did, he asked for more time in his life to fix the mistakes that he has made and put his life in order.  He came to church yesterday, and gave us the news that he will be going to La Paz for 2 months for physical therapy and other medical stuff.  It's awesome that he will get the medical help that he needs, but my companion and I are pretty bummed that we won´t get to keep teaching him.  We are going to give his info to the missionaries in La Paz and they are going to keep teaching him and hopefully baptize him.

We´ve got some other great people that we are teaching, but I´ll let you know about them next week.

Until Next Time,
Elder Casdorph

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