June 6, 2011

Well, thats sad to hear about the fire.. im definitely keeping all of
you in my prayers, and that area also.  well, the next email wouild be
great to get an inform of the wilderness, thats crazy that u had to
shoot a rattler again, and great to hear that those kids had a great
time, i wold like to hear everyones experiences though.  did cubb go?
howd he do? or who all went from the family? well i had a great week.
elder burchill and i had a great first part of the week, and transfers
came, and i am now in trinidad, bolivia.  the hottest most humid part
of the mission. there are only 8 missionaries here, and chances are
ill be here for about six months or so, because the mission has to pay
for us to fly out and back, so we usualyy stay out here for awhile.  i
have some great pics to send, ill get them in the mail in a week or
two hopefully. ill get some sent today.  i still havemnt goten the
package yet, bit probably what happened is it got there right before
transfers and so they held on to it untill after tranfers to know
where i`d be, and ill probably get it next week.  all the stufff has
to come on a bus, its and 8 hour trip on bus from the city to here,
luckily i flew in a little jet.it seated about 20 people.  sitting in
my seat i could touch the with my elbow, and the other side of the
plane if i leaned into the isle a little.    with elder burchill on
tuesday we were walking on a sidewalk, and when i stepped on one part
it crumbled and i fell like two feet into this hole, ill send a pic,
and then on the plane we could only take 20 kilos, or 40 poundsabout.
so right now im with the stuff that i absolutely meed, and sçnothing
else.  nut its great.  we had training with pres and hna calderon
friday all day, it was awesome, i learned a ton how i can get better.
usually these meeting have 80 missionaries or so, and because it was
in trrinidad there was only us 8. so it was great.  saturday from 8 to
1 we had the second part of the training, and pres crayk of the temple
in cochabamba was there, and me and my comp, elder bustamante taught
him and pres calderon( they were our investigators) and it went
awesome i learned soo much, i told pres crayk about the driggs and he
wanted me to tell them hi, i got a pic with him too.  sunday was stake
conference and pres and hna calderon spoke, pres crayk, and elder
Cabrera of the 70.  the best stake conference i have ever been in.
probably because im in missionary mode so i paid attention to
everything, but i really enjoyed it.  pres calderon has the gift of
teaching. he can teach the gospel better then any person i know, and
hes a convert too.  every time we have training with him he teaches us
a ton.  well ill fill u in on the area and my comp now.  ( outside the
city we get an hour to email!!!) ya, my comp is elder bustamante from
cochabamba.  this is his last transfer in the mission, so obvisously
he knows a ton, hes really training me right now all the stuff that i
didn`t know, but need to know. will have a great transfer together.
hes a hard worker, and doesn`t mooch my stuff either, so we`ll have a
great relation in every phase.  we have a baprism scheduled for this
saturday, amd more for the 25 of this month.  Trinidad, Beni Bolivia-
in the jugle of bolivia, my area has no limit, if we wanted we could
walk out of town all day into the jungle looking for families that
live out of town.  dad will understand this, its like a tropical
alaska with all the growth.  all of the plants and shrubs are 7 or 8
feet tall, so when your on the ground u cant see much.  theres little
ponds or swamps throughout our area, ive already seen a little
alligator, probably 3 feet long.  there are sloths here!! they move
like robots, ill get u a pic sent.  there are anacondas, and vipers(
poisonous) so we gotta watch out for that.  there are parrots and
mccaws everywhere, and the only transportation is motorcycle!! haha so
we are always using moto taxis.  i almost got hit the other day cause
my driver ran a red light!! haha it was pretty crazy, but don`t worry,
the lord will protect me, i have plain confidence in that.  thanks for
everything, i love u all so much.  con amor, elder donaldson