March 10, 2014

Mom,

Thanks for your letter! The last two weeks were good. We went to Church on Sunday, but when we came back from the meetings, we didn't leave the house until Wednesday at noon. It was pretty terrible haha. Its an awesome house that we moved to, but dang three days? Nope. Carnaval, the holiday, I'm pretty sure is a celebration of the devil. They all get drunk and stupid, and throw water balloons at everyone they see, and sometimes it's not water in the balloon. They throw pee balloons. That's why we have to stay in the house. Even the few days before, people were throwing water balloons at us, but somehow, they missed every time haha. But it was cool, because I bought water balloons before being imprisoned in the house, and we had our own water balloon fight the four of us in the house haha. It was fun. The other days were normal. The city we are in is Villamontes. There is a city called Yacuiba an hour and a half south by the border of Argentina, and that's where the rest of the zone is. We came down to Yacuiba like five times in the last two weeks, and the car ride is teeeeerrible, they shove 10 people into a tiny van where you cant move for the whole ride. We´re here in Yacuiba now for a zone activity today. I´m glad everything is well mom. 

Some things I´ve thought about telling you:

- Last week, we were blowing up balloons for a birthday party of the daughter of our Pensionista, and my companion put a palm sized balloon by my ear and popped it with his hand. In that moment, my hearing went away completely in my left ear. I was so man, I´m not even gonna go into depth about it. I didn't flip out on him, but wow. wow. I was really bummed, because I thought it would be permanent, and that would suck because of my love for music. I was super sad. But like two days later, I had accepted it, and I figured that was God´s way of choosing my career for me, and I was alright. But that day we had interviews with the president, and in my interview, he gave me a blessing and said that my hearing would not only return, but it would improve. And so its still a little messed up, but I´m not worried in the slightest bit. i have a great relationship with the president. you don't have to put that story in the blog. 

- We were taking the bus this week, and to our surprise and a little bit of horror, the bus driver let his six year old son drive for a little while. Bolivia .

I love you mom and everyone else!

Elder Wilkinson