Elder Jayson Bingham : Carnavaleando

Wow it's been a while since i've emailed. But it was a pretty eventfull week and two days, strap yourselves in.

First off this last weekend, as I explained, we were on house arrest while the rest of Bolivia was partying. Apparently we can't leave for multiple reasons, more than anything drunk people and because people throw paint on each other in the street. Like if you're just walking by yourself, someone will come and attack you with a bottle of paint, or I've even heard they paint you in car oil or throw you in a puddle or stuff like that. Nice people, Bolivians. So just imagine the color festival back home, but with paint instead of chalk, and more violence and drunk people. And lots of Reggaetón. So instead of that fun stuff, we just stayed in the house reading the Book of Mormon. in the four days, I only managed to get to like Alma 5. Because I am very easily distracted and it's hard to read for that long. But we also ended up ordering Papa John's, watching the Testaments and the Joseph Smith movie, and playing soccer tennis. It was a good time, we enjoyed the little break.

And then we just got back to proselyting like normal. We've had some pretty cool experiences. This week we had 4 investigators in church, which I think is more than I ever had in one week in Riberalta! Oh Riberalta. Cuan difícil eras. We are also teaching two jovenes named Miguel and Junior, who are both 15, but Miguel is Junior's uncle. Kind of weird. But they're both really excited to learn, and they also like playing soccer, which is something they do in the church every Wednesday night, luckily. They've come to that twice and even brought friends, so we ended up finding even more people to teach! Soccer is awesome. It brings Bolivans together. Also brings the Bolivians and the missionaries together so we can teach them.

Also the members in this ward are awesome! Especially our young men's president, named Luigi. In church on Sunday, he got his young men really excited because we have investigators their age that could potentially get baptized. So this army of like 12 young men and their president decided to go to Miguel and Junior's house Sunday afternoon to talk to them and invite them to the activities this week. We passed by in the bus and just saw this horde of white shirts and ties outside of this house, it was awesome. The members are the key to missionary work!!!

Love you guys! And I actually have some pics to send this week, don't worry. And lots of them!

Elder Bingham