October 23, 2017 – Week 56!

November 10, 2017

CERRO CERRO CERRO! I love the cerro!

I was transfered this week, and I was moved from Magdalena to Valdivieso, Condevilla. It's a great place, but our sector is literally half of a mountain. We climb up and go down over 1000 stairs a day easy. I'll have some nice muscular legs after this sector haha. I've always wanted a sector like this though, so it'll be awesome!

My new companion is Elder Barrios. He's from Santa Cruz, Bolivia! He's awesome! We get along really well! He knows the cerro from front to back, so I'll be learning lots from him in the next few weeks so I can memorize the sector! We don't have a map here, because Google Maps doesn't map the staircases, only the streets down below the cerro. There's a little drawn map that Elder Barrios made, so I'll be using that to learn the names of the different parts of our sector.

On Tuesday we had a great family home evening! There were a couple of our investigators who attended, and some recent converts as well! In total, over 20 people were there! We made a bigger version of a Plan of Salvation puzzle to show visually what we were teaching, and we used the fire trick to erase pen marks on a paper like when our sins are being removed. I'll have to explain that in more detail later if you don't know what I'm talking about. It was a great lesson!

District meeting was great this week too! There are 4 sisters and 4 Elders in my district in total, and one of the zone leaders joins us as well in the lesson. After district meeting, we had 6 lessons in total. I've gotta say, here in the cerro, so many people are receptive. I've had double the lessons here compared to in Magdalena. Every sector is different, and there are always people to teach! Even if one sector is more in the city, there is always someone to teach! It's all about adapting to where you are and being guided by the spirit!

We are teaching lots with a member named Jonathan. He's 18 and is preparing to leave on a mission, so he's coming with us to do visits almost every day! It's awesome to have people with us. I never realized how helpful it was until I arrived in the mission. Like many Elders and Sisters surely say, I'll be going with the missionaries lots when I get back haha. I invite all of you to go and serve with the missionaries when you have time! It's a great experience!

On Sunday we were in our house until 5 pm because of the census, and in the end, they never came to our apartment room to ask us questions. I heard that some missionaries were having funny experiences because on the paper, there was no room to write the full name of the church ebcause many people are Catholic or Adventists, so The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints didn't fit at all on the paper, and people were just writing Mormons haha. We spent the day studying and practicing, and we played a game we made up which was Mormon Jenga. We wrote topics on every block, and when we took a block out, we looked up scriptures to teach on the topic. It was cool! We also found a family later in the night, and all 4 accepted a baptismal date! One of the daughters who was 18 had had mssionary lessons before, and really wanted to return and have more! She'll get baptized, I'm sure of it!

Today we played soccer and I'm pretty sure that my sunscreen didn't help at all haha. I need to apply more. today will be a day of shopping and knowing where to go in the zone!

Hope you all have a great week! Thanks for all your emails!

Elder Bruner