Contentment --March 21, 2016

A Jack Skellington mask that I bought

Well this week has been better.  We found a really nice family.  Elidorio, Maria, and their daughter Mariel.  They received the missionaries for a while, but never got baptized.  They seem pretty receptive, especially the daughter.  Besides them, almost everything's the same.  My comp's still hilarious, the area's still super poor.  We go to the gym every morning (try to go every morning) then we visit a couple people that live close by in the morning.  After that we eat at a little restaurant called Comidas Gabrielas.  Dad found in on Google.  A member owns it, and always gives us a discount, then we take a bus to Flores, the buses are always FULL.  Like a tiny bus with like 3 benches (just a little bigger than our van) and like 20 people in it.  People sit on each other, or stand, or hang out the always open door.  It's not fun.  In Flores we do most of our work, but that's the really poor area.  Then at about 6:00, we come back to our neighborhood, called La Paz, and visit a little more.  Then we eat at a restaurant which is actually just the house of the owners.  Like we enter, there's some tables, then their tv and couches, then their kitchen, the door to the bedroom is right there, same with the garage.  It's weird.  It's like if we opened a restaurant in the living room and all the people walk past the stairs and the front room and can just see our house!

The attendance at church has been falling a little, so we're visiting a lot of less activities.  I can't even imagine how it is to get people to church in the states!

It's weird how content I am here.  We work our butts off, and we live in a kinda crappy house, but I love it.   For example, we have a big trash can of water in the bathroom because half the time, there's no water.  The problem is, the mosquitos breed like crazy because of the water in the bathroom cuz of the water bucket thing.  And the toilet is broken.  It doesn't flush, but I don't even notice.  It's nothing.  Pretty funny.

I really am learning a ton here, especially about relying on the Spirit.  Life's just a lot easy with the nonstop guide in my life.
--
Elder Ben Gozart

Our laundry room--washing machine and rinse bucket

A bar of soap we made from the little pieces of old bars.  We put it in water for
a week, then put them in a cup, and put it in the sun.  It kinda works.

An indoor clothes line I built while it was raining