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so this week was awesome. we worked so hard this week, but i realized that we have been working in the wrong way. we didnt have any success last week. or this week. and so we have now decided (after three weeks of nothing happening) that we need to work with the members more. i am glad heavenly father is very patient because our plan of how to get success after two weeks of no success was to work harder. wich made us feel better about our work, but we still didnt have any success. and yester day after church we litterally passed out for 2 hours because we were so tired.

so we decided to try and work smarter. and it really makes sense if you think about it. there can be 4 missionarys in our ward, or there can be a ward full of them. so hopefully this week we work smarter instead of harder. because we worked as hard as we could last week.

one thing i have noticed this week is that in the inbetween moments of our lifes, when things are good. but not great. and not the pits either. just those inbetween moments not the highs not the lows. it is easy to question, if your testimony is still there. if you have one at all. then the hard times hit and you only have your testimony to keep you going. or the high times when you walk around all day doing exactly what the spirit tells you to do.

in the highs and the lows you feel your testimony. but then you hit the ruts and you can start to question. 

i have found that those moments suck. sorry if you thought i had some advice for you. but i am only 19, and not that smart. so sorry i cant tell you exactly what you need to do in those moments.

 some thing that helpes me is to just keep pushing on and that you will hit a high or a low and then you can go from there.

i love you all. hope you have a really great week.

elder arkoudas

Quartel

so this week was awesome. we have been working super hard and we have been trying our best to reach our gols and hve numbers that show we are working hard. but we are just really struggling to get these numbes get that proof that we re working hard.

i dont eel super bd about it. i kno we are working hard nd tht with time we will find those people who we are meant to find and help the people we ar e supposed to help.

sorry this iemil isnt super long. i will tell a quick story.

so we went nd touched this door to talk with this lady daisy. she wasnt there so we headed to our plan b. as we were about to touch  this door i just felt super bad about it. so we didnt touch that door and i just felt like we should go look for this lady marisol. s we did and found out tht it is better to look for her in the night  from her sister. then i felty like we sheould go to this amilia añasgo. so we did and on the way we ran into this guy form our ward and bought some bread from him.

then we went to this family. on the way we passed this guy sitting on the side of the rod. we got to the door and as we were about ton touchit. i felt like we should go tlk to this guy. so we did nd made a pklan to go visit him in his house next week. then we went back to the familia añasgo.

we touched the door and then a little while after the son and daughter came out on their wy to school. we didnt get t talk for long, just enough to say that i hve met them now. then we felt like we shouldngo to the park to contact. we did and tlked with two young kids gave them a pamphletn and then went and played soccer with these two ive yer olds. (one was fat, couldnt run, and a cheater. and the other was a ball hog.)

and then ater playing eith them we talked to the oldersister of the one and took down her address to go find her later. s we were playing soccer this halway drunk guy came up tos and started talking to me.

he has a  pretty cool story. so he was in the quartel. wich sounds like cartel  right?  and he escaped twice, but they came and found him both times.  and then he escaped again and they just rcently caught up with him ater five years. so he cant go to his house with his kids because he doesnt want to cause trouble there. so he is living in the streets. and he really doesnt want to go back to the quartel. sounds lke cartel right? then he told us how he doesnt like the life of killing people and guns and totl. 

he showed us a scar on his chest that looks like a gunshot wound.

then he asked me where he could go to escape and where he could be free from the quartel. sounds like cartel right?

so we gve him that bread we bought and he cried and was sper gratefull. then we left and i translated the whole thing to my companion, and we were kinda reaking out.

then we went to our lunch and we asked the bishop if quartel meant cartell. and he said that it ddnt. so we didnt find a man from the cartel. quartel is the military service here. and if you volunteer you hve to stay nd finish the year. like there isnt nother option. but still a cool story.

that day ws literally lead by the spirit for the night. we never could have planned to do everything we did. and there are more things that happened that i dont have time to share.

but i was thinking about why every day isnt like that. and i relized that is where the whole "man should be engaged in a good cause and do many things of their own free will". it is our job to work nd grow closer to the spirit so when it comes with a job for us we re ready to listen and we are redy to obey.

noh arkoudas

Woah

so this week was super bien. i met my new comp. he is a great guy. Elder Baker. if you want a good picture of what he looks like, take captain america, and make him a little taller, and a little more muscly. he is super nice, and we are going to do a lot of good together.

so carnival... we were just chilling all day monday. and then turçesday same thing. but at about 1:15 i heard this crash from the kitchen. so i get up from playing the guitar. (there is a guitar in my new house... so that is chill) and as i am getting up elder baker walks out of the kitchen with a cut on his hand about the size of... let me just say it this way. your average garden pea could fit inside.  well noah called the doctor and the doctor said, no more monkeys jumping on the bed. no just kidding. he just sent us to the hospital.

Bolivian hospitals... not as clean as you want them to be, but i guess they at least know how to put stitches in your hand. so yeah my second day as senior companion and we go to the hospital. so that was fun. i hope i never have to go agiain.

but then wednesday we went to work. and BOY! did we work. we were on our feet from wednesday until sunday night. then elder baker had to go do some paper work in santa cruz. so this morning art 4 we woke up and he got on an airplabne to santa cruz. so i am alone (well in a trio with my zone leaders) and honestly i miss the guy.

i was thinking this wekk about how intelligent our heavenly father is. he made this plan for us, specifically for me, to come to the earth, live in utah, but for two years go to bolivia to help others find out about him and his son, and also to help shape me into the kind of person that can live with him again.

he has planned for me to meet people i would never otherwise have the chance of meeting. and spend these two years living the gospel. not a day goes by that i dont read, talk about, or think about his plan for all of us. it is honestly wonderful.

i hope you all have a good week and know that i love you.

elder arkoudas

"carnival" say it like this, car-knee-vall

so this monday we arent allowed to leave our house. down here in south america they have this crazy holiday... well holidays... it is like 4 days of mayhem where everyone gets drunk and has a water/shaving cream fight. so we voted as a mission and decided that we didnt want to go outside those days. no thats a joke the president told us not to go out. pretty normal occurance down here in souh america.

so if anyone has a cross word puzzle they want to send me for these next 4 days it is probably too late. and if you do send something it might make it in time for my birthday. 

this week was a good week. had some good talks with people, ate some good food. (i know i know, i always talk about food. but it is a big part of life. i´m not sure if you all know this but if you dont eat food you will die. not like right away. but after a few weeks of not eating! you will die! i was pretty scared when i found that out.)

so this week, well today actually i found out that i am leaving my area 4 de julio. i am going to stay in the city of tarija, but i will be moving to the other side.an area named rosedal. so i am pretty excited tohave a new are, but also really excited to stay in tarija. i love the people of tarija and i am am super excited to see more of the city.

but  enough about me. how are all you doing? i hope you all are benefiting somewhat from my emails, but i havent heard from a lot of you in a long time. i dont even know if a lot of you read my emails. 

please if you have time, send me an email, let me know how you are doing, tell me a story about something fun from this last week, or from the week before, or even the week before that.

please!! i am bored! i have two hours to talk to my family and friends and like half of that time i spend looking up church/ disney songs to upload to a flashdrive.(totally not illegally)

so please for the sake of my sanity, and the sake of the musical economy send me an email if you have time. it doesnt have to be a thirteen page thesis on the evolution of the formicidae. just a "hi, how are you? last week i washed my clothes by hand because i live in bolivia and i dont have a washing machine. i really enjoy hearing from you and your awesome stories about utah/idaho. it sounds like a really cool place. have a good week, elder arkoudas."

look at that not even hard. took me like 6 minutes! and i am really bad at typing, so it will probably take even less time for you.

i love you all, sorry i havent eaten anything crazier than cow stomach, i will try harder to eat... crazier... food...

wait why would i promise that?

i take it back i am going to keep eatig the food they give me and if it so happens that i find out something weird about my food i will keep you all updated.

this is now a really long email so i will send it and stop writing.

elder arkoudas