I love, love, LOVE Bolivia!

Katie was fortunate enough to run into Sister Lizzy Mitchell the first few hours she was in Bolivia.  Katie spoke about being present as Lizzy opened her call to this mission.  She is a wonderful friend and missionary.
We are so grateful for Lizzy!

Oh my goodness! Like, super wow! I love love LOVE Bolivia! There are such amazing people here, and it is absolutely beautiful! Particulary, I love the SMELL! There are definitely some interesting smells, but it reminds me of the ranch, and it feels very familiar. God has blessed me with great reassurances like that to help me know that this is were I am supposed to be. Another tender mercy has been the trees. Most all of them are full of bright flowers that smell amazing! When I am having a hard time continuing to knock on unfamiliar doors, it is such a blessing to look up and see one of these beautiful trees. God helps me through hard times like these every day:)

The preceding paragraph was from Katie in a message to our family.  It was simply too good not to include:)

Wow!! Bolivia is so great and I love it so much! The best kind of people are here and I feel so blessed to get to serve them. Bolivia is much more developed than I thought! There are lots of little stores all over the place, and everyone lives in gated areas cut off from the street for security (so kind of like little castles everywhere:)). My companion is great and I just absolutely love her! She is extremely patient with my Spanish and absolutely lit with the light of the gospel. She is 30 years old, is from Peru and has two months left, crazy! Something funny is that she calls me her "conejo" or bunny, because I like to eat carrots, haha! Apparently that is not a popular thing in Peru:) I call her "chef" because she cooks like none other, and she is confused as to why I am a horrible cook, haha!

Funny moment: I have made hundreds of mistakes with the language this week, but the funniest mix up was when I thanked a member for her "caca" (which means thanks for the poop, but I really meant to say, "thanks for the cece (cake)" whoops!!

Culture shock: The people here are not incredibly short, but I am about as tall as it gets (besides the other missionaries:)). Thus, the day that I looked in the mirror after getting back from tracting was a very mixed one, because I realized that a bird had pooped on my head. At first I was super embarrassed, BUT, because I soon became very happy because I remembered my height and realized that nobody could have even seen it. Wahoo:)

Spriritual moment: The people here are absolutely the greatest, and very humble. When we went contacting we met a mother who was around my age, had two children, was waiting for her husband to return from Peru (after two years), and had little to nothing in their home. It was difficult to witness, but telling her about the plan of salvation was amazing as her eyes lit up with hope. When we asked her to pray at the end, her eyes were full of tears and so were ours. I am so happy and privileged to be out here to help great people like this find joy.

I love you all! Have a great week!

Hermana Garff