Starting The Long Climb To Excellence

It's raining here and we are in our room just waiting for the leaks to start.  The roof of brick tiles leaks and we are anticipating that our little canvas ceiling isn't going to hold it back much longer.  Already a few little wet patches are appearing.  Luckily they are mostly on Kupu's side of the room!

The Latin people are really different and sometimes it is so hard to work with them and love them.  One thing that is really bad is the lying.  They teach the children how to lie.

One of the most discouraging and deflating things that I can think of is when you go out and knock doors all day, make a whole day's worth of appointments and then find out the next day that not one of them is home.  So we go out and do the same thing.

I really fell up in the air as to what to do.  Kupu and I have a hard time motivating ourselves to give 100% and when we don't I feel really guilty.

The dogs here are something else.  They don't bother the other animals here or the people, but missionaries!!  They must be the devil's best friend.  Every time one of them sees us it starts to bark and howl like it had been hit with a rock.  Sometimes we will want to knock on a door and there will be a big mean dog on the step.  It really takes some courage to try and walk up to the door.  However and funny though it may seem, the nicest families have the meanest dogs.

We are going into Paz this weekend for a conference with David B. Haight.  It will really be a good change of pace.  We were supposed to have gone into a conference with one of the seventies but we found out about it on the morning of the conference!

We have a lot of supplies to pick up for the members as well as us.  I hope that we get to do some work in Paz because we really have had kind of a "frito" week so far.

Elder Kupu and I are starting to get pretty close.  I guess that just follows when you are the only "extraneros" in Colquiri.  We have spent some time talking about friends, family and countries.  The other night we had a real neat companion inventory session.  I got to see some sides of him that I haven't seen previously.  It is really an opportunity to have someone from another culture as a companion.

Kupu's culture is really different.  In Tonga they wear skirts instead of pants.  That is pretty funny when he is walking around in his "falta".  Dating patterns are different.  Kupu plans to get married in about a month after he gets back from his mission.  That's just the way they are and he doesn't even have a girlfriend.  Food, family and just about everything else is different in his country.  However the gospel gives us that common bond that we need.  With the gospel it seems as though there is no difference between us at all.  This Church of Jesus Christ is really meant for all the sons of God on earth!

I have read back over the entries in my journal since I got here in Bolivia and I marvel at how inadequate they are.  They just don't cut the mustard as far as expressing feelings or ideas are concerned.  It makes me realize how much I have to repent.

The Lord has blessed me with a great deal of talent and ability which I have pretty effectively frittered away during this life.  I think that I have pretty fairly developed my physical talents and abilities.  However up to the start of my mission, I have sorely neglected the development of my mental and spiritual abilities.

I am beginning to realize how short this earthly life is.  I don't know if I will ever be able to make up the lost ground in the area of my mental and spiritual development (if there is a chance).  I think I know where to start.  I better repent and ask forgiveness of my Heavenly Father, my parents and myself. Then I must get going.  I feel real good about my MTC experience.  It really opened my eyes as far as my mental and spiritual potential are concerned.  I learned how to study and I learned how to pray and use them together.

What I must be able to do is to maintain this knowledge then start the long climb to excellence.  It will be a long road.  It will be longer for me than a lot of people because I have been walking the other way for so long.  But I am learning to enjoy walking up here in Colquiri, so where but here could be a better place to start!!