Week 9 - MTC- In Field Orientation, Guarani Books of Mormon, Laughed at for their Spanish, Mission President not good at English

I leave on Monday! In field orientation was really long,it was from 8:15 in the morning until 9ish in the evening. it was basically a bunch of workshops with 'fun' activities during the whole thing. It was pretty much a review of everything we had already learned in the MTC. Some people really liked it. 

Did my last laundry in the MTC, so that was ok. I've been packing today, so there went a bunch of my p-day.  I also got a haircut today.  It's raining right now which is really nice.

 President Brown said that in August there will be 2900 missionaries in the MTC. It's crowded enough already, so I'm glad that I'm leaving on Monday. 

Basically I leave the MTC at around 8 am on Monday, and get to Paraguay Asuncion airport at 11:20 am the next day, in Utah time. There are 7 of us all going to Paraguay together, I think all our travel plans are exactly the same. By the way, once we leave there won't be any missionaries training in the MTC to go to our mission. I can't wait to go to Paraguay and go to work.

Elder Willes's mom sent all of us Guarani Books of Mormon, and they look more like Tongan than anything else I've ever seen.  The words are super long, and I guess there wasn't even Guarani Books of Mormon until 2010, so that's kinda cool. The Elders going to Texas in my district don't leave till wednesday. We got new missionaries two weeks in a row in our zone, which doesn't usually happen, so that was exciting. 

On Thursday we were doing a practice knocking doors, and while Elder Thomson and Elder Brasher were doing it a bunch of native spanish speakers were in the hall and started laughing at them. So that was funny, and now I know how I'm gonna feel in Paraguay when I get there.

 I also have heard that President Madriaga's English isn't that great. Hopefully his English is better than my Spanish, but maybe that will be for the better that he speaks mostly Spanish. I guess I'll let you know on my next P-day, whenever that's gonna be, as well as about all of Paraguay, I am super excited.

Love,

Elder Ivan Bowles

Mom- one of my companions has flown several times and the other has flown once, to California and back to Utah. They put one of the other Elders going to Paraguay as the travel leader, whatever that means.  I think he just has to call the Church if something goes wrong. Your plan sounds great as far as the phone calls go.