Hi everyone,

 

Dear friends, please send me letters by DEAR ELDER. I can't write you by email and there is a possibility I can get in trouble if i have emails in my inbox from people who are not family.

Next week is Carnaval, so I won´t be writing. Saturday afternoon, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, we will be in the house, except to go to church and maybe a few appointments close to our house. We don't want to get soaked with dirty water and paint!

I sent a hand written letter to Tracee- it has the letter i wrote when my companion had dengue. Sending letters is a little hard since the only post office is in El Centro and it´s not possible to go there very often. We are so crazy busy all the time also it's kind of far. But we went last Monday and it was nice. We went to the plaza and the post office and also we ate chicken in a restaurant, yummm. It was fun. I'm trying to send pictures but they´re loading very slowly.

We bought boots in the Feria. There is a fair every Thursday in the street that is close to our house. Tons of people set up tents and sell used clothes. I bought a purse there that had goodwill tags on it a while back. I got big black boots that go up to my knees. I feel like I'm wearing combat boots kind of. But they are fun, Hermana Castro bought them too. It rained like crazy this week, but it's fun to walk through puddles and mud. Very few of the roads we walk on are paved.

Evelin still doesnt want to change. Her biggest obstacle is changing her style of dress. She dresses in short shorts and mini skirts. We are frustrated with her we will probably stop teaching her this week. It's sad but it has to be done. She knows it's true but doesn't want to do anything about it. We also brought a member her same age and she made a comment that made Evelin uncomfortable...sad. She thinks that being a member of the church will change her personality and form of being, but that is totally not true! The gospel only makes you happier.

We are praying super hard to have a baptism in the month of March. We trust the Lord but it has been hard going. All the people we find don't progress. Please pray for us! I know prayer can do anything!!

Changes are soon but Hna. Castro and I will probably be together still since we have less than 1 cambio working together. We don't want to leave yet!!

Haha, so I didn't eat the chicken foot. But I did eat the soup. It was good. everyone here has chickens that they raise for eggs and to eat. Some people have ducks too, and most people have dogs. There are 4 dogs that live in our house: Muñeca, Carito, Cabezon, and I ca't remember the other one's name. They are pests. I don't like dogs. sometimes we see dogs fight in the street.

Love you all. Hasta luego. 

Hna. Tibbitts

Hello!

Thanks for the letters. I love reading them. The ward here is having a campout in a few weeks when there is Carnaval. Carnaval is March 6-8 so that week I don't think I will be able to write. We have to hide out in our houses because the streets are crazy. So just a heads up.

 

Dear elder arrives in 2 weeks. Just FYI. That's a good way to write me!

 

I don't have much time to write. But things are good. Carla's mom forbid her to talk to us anymore. It's sad, but she has to obey her mom. She is going to try to talk her dad into letting  her. Evelin is doing great. She didn't come to church though because she is scared that she won't be able to change. Just little things like having good thoughts and dressing modestly. We are going to buy her a skirt for Sunday because she says she doesn't have anything long, haha. She is great. She wrote us letters telling us this and dedicated us a song and tied it with ribbon and colored it all pretty. pretty funny. she is great we are working with her a lot.

 

What is Bolivia like?well its different. There is so much poverty. Most of the lessons we teach outside sitting in lawn chairs. I feel like I'm camping sometimes, with the clotheslines and such. The grocery store that we go to is pretty normal. like Lulu's but maybe a little better. I can get peanut butter and other American stuff. I haven't looked for poptarts but I don't want them. Usually I eat corn flakes for breakfast with milk and yogurt. Sometimes bread with jelly. Lots of people have stores in front of their houses called ventas. They are closed in so you just tell them what you want and they give it to you and you pay. Yesterday we got soaked in the rain. We had to go home and change and shower...the umbrella didnt do anything. Gotta go! Until next week. 

Love, 

Hermana Tibbitts

Letter #12

Hello, thanks for your letters! They are very detailed but I love reading them. 
The mission is great! I am loving it more and more and getting more comfortable with the language and stuff. We had a training meeting this week with Pres. Calderon and Hna. Calderon and it was great. Mostly what we do are practices. For example we did a practice of how to begin teaching the doctrine of Christ (2 Nephi 31), and using analogies. It was great, the Lord helped me out! We lost all 6 people that we had with baptismal dates, but that´s ok, the lord blessed us with more people. We have Carla, who is 19. We had appointments with her but we called her house and her mom told us she had to go to Cochabamba for an emergency and wouldn't get back until Monday. We called on Sunday after church just in case to see if she was there and her mom lied to us!!! She never went to Cochabamba. She was waiting for us when we had the appointment. Anyways, we are excited to get to teacher her now that we know she is not in Cochabamba. 
 

Also we taught Fabiola this week. She accepted a baptism date but she is nervous because her family is judging her for it. So hopefully she will go through with it.

 

We also have Evelin that we are taching. She is 18. We taught her the restoration in the first lesson and she was smiling so big! She was so excited to hear about it! She was like, yeah, i'm gonnna pray about this for sure! She is really excited about the gospel.

 

We had a couple of cool experiences this week. One was when we were talking to an old man named Wilfredo. He was wanting to Bible bash, we were just like, ok, whatever, but then he mentioned the Book of Mormon. We asked him if he had read it, he said no, then we gave him one and he totally changed! He got really excited. He was flipping through it and looking at it and was like "Wow, i have never held Book of Mormon, I'll read it and get back to you." That was pretty cool.

 

Also we had a cool experience with a man named Julio. He drives a micro all day long so he doesn't have much human interaction or many friends, and he has family problems. He wasn't very attentive in the lesson and we asked him to give the closing prayer and he didn't want to. But we got him to repeat the words that Hna. Castro said, like a little kid, and he cried! It was very special, the spirit was strong. 

 

So things are good!  

 

Love, Hermana Tibbitts

Letter #11

Hello,

Don't have much time to write since I just spent a bunch of time re-establishing my pasword for this and such. But things are good! We basically started over this week with investigators since Hna. Castro's health was only so so. But we have been really blessed! We found the Castro family, Marcelino and Lourdes, and their 3 little sons, they live very humbly. Marcelino has a drinking problem but he knows he needs to stop to keep his family together. Also the other day we found Carla, she is 19 and she committed to baptism for March 5th and we are very hopeful for her progress. She really wants to change her life. Also we were able to talk to our pensionista this week, Hna Julia and Edgar, her husband. They have not been able to be sealed in the temple because they have problems with their records in the church and with the government. It's really sad but common here, so please pray for them because it's been really hard for them. They are such a wonderful family and take good care of us. She cooks really good!

I got a letter from Hna Fernandez today!  (My MTC companion)

Sorry I can't write more. We got lost on the way getting here so we dídn't have much time to beign with. I love you family. Hope everything is good with the house and school and everything. I got to read what you wrote finally (after 3 wks) so I will respond as soon as I can.

Here is the info for the mission:

(country code for Bolivia is 591)

Phone to the office 591-333-7072, fax 591-333-7074

Mision Bolivia Santa Cruz

Calle Savedra esq. Cochabamba

Torres Cainco piso 7 of. 1 y 2

Casilla de correo 2042

Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

P.S. Anyone can email me at this email address (dannielle.tibbitts@myldsmail.net) just please send your physical address so I can write you back!

Longer letter next week! Please pray for me and my investigators and my companion. I love you Mom and Dad and Tracee, Tanner, Wyatt, Boone!

Love,

Hermana Tibbitts

Letter #10

Hello,
 I hope you are not too worried aobut me. I am fine. Last week my companion got sick so we did not get to come use the internet, and today I am having problems with my email account and I can't get into it. I don´t know what's going on. Anyways, Hna. Castro had dengue, so we were in the house all week. It was so boring, but she was really sick and I tried to help her as much as I could. It was a good opportunity to read the scriptures atleast. The week before was good, we have been working hard and there was a baptismal service that we went to. One person in our ward was baptized, Lucy, whose husband is a member and RM but was inactive. I taught her a little bit with Hna. Huaynate and Hna. Randall so it was really nice. All together 15 people were baptized in the zone. It was great. We have so many great investigators but no updates really to give since we hardly left the house this week. But we are going to work really hard this week! So please pray for me and my companion and the people we are teaching!! I love you all, hope everything is good, I haven´t been able to read your emails, but FYI you can send me dear elders and I will get them, but I don´t know how fast. I love you all, keep praying and doing the things that you know are right. I am having a great experience here even though a lot of things about being a missionary are hard. I love you! Longer letter later! I don't have much time.
Love,
Hermana Tibbitts