Street Contacting, Laundry, The Birds and a Spanish-Speaking Parrot

Mountain Hike

Things sound like they're going super awesome! I'm glad. Your costumes looked super rad! This week was better! I have been relying Christ a lot more. 

We went on exchanges again on Thursday and that was fun! I was with Elder Chanca, one of the zone leaders and when we were making goals, I said we should get 10 street contacts. Normally, it's a good day if you get 3, but it's mostly because no one ever tries to do it. So we set that goal and MADE IT!!! My companion found out that and the next day we got 11, and now the whole zone is flipping out over street contacting! Yesterday, we went to an area that had very few investigators and all of the missionaries split up and just talked to people on the streets for and hour and a half. We ended up with around 40 or 50 total!! So now we just need to use them ;)
We had two birds get into our kitchen on thursday and I about peed my pants when I went to put away some bread and they flipped out. So we practically tore apart our kitchen trying to catch them and get them out of the house hahaha. It was super funny expect for the part where they pooped everywhere... Didn't get on any of the food though so that's what counts ;)
I'm starting to notice what every one says about South American missions is true. The people will commit to just about anything, like baptism, prayer, reading the BOM, and coming to church. But they don't ever follow through. We had 15 investigators say they were coming to church but only 5 showed up (and they were a family). Because of that, we had to cancel a baptism date for a  family because you need to attend church 3 times before baptism :(
But i'm not complaining! I'm super happy the ones that came did! I can tell they had a good experience and seeing them progress makes me want "SHOUT! throw my hands up! SHOUT!"  Seeing results when investigators act on the gospel is really what makes the work so wonderful and your testimony stronger. There is a talk I read in the Liahona called, "Becoming Perfect in Christ" and I think all of you should read it. It's helped me want to try
harder to be better and throw away my unrealistic expectations for myself
and others. It´s a great article!
We have an American investigator!!!! His wife is Colombian and they moved here 1990. He suffers from a spine disease I forget the name of and he is restricted to his bed. So during exchanges I went there and taught the first lesson in English which was actually harder than I thought.. But hey, it went well and they really like us!
I´m havinga  great time and I´m glad to hear you guys are too! Love you all!
Love Elder Skinner

 One of the birds we caught in our kitchen.

Me doing my first load of laundry on a handwashing thing. Which was kind of fun (in the way that doing the dishes for the first time as a kid is fun, before you realize that it´s a lame chore haha.) 

We hung out with a member family today and went to a restaurant where they caught and killed your fish as you ordered it, which I personally found horrific. So I ordered chicken. And then we hiked around the mountain that we were on for an hour. 

We saw this parrot who actually copied what you said!! Unless it was in English... so if you were ever wondering if birds could understand different languages, I guess they can!