Week 34 - Salado - Sees old companion, He knows people on the bus, Super Sad Man, Urinating Butterfly

Ivan in the Paraguayan countryside

 Urinating Butterfly

Acid urine contains eggs that will hatch under your skin according to Ivan.  

This specimen was found in their apartment.

Well, I´m still here.  I was in the mission office today, and I found out that I know I´m leaving Salado Wednesday morning, but I don´t know where to yet. I´ll find out tonight.

This last week, Elder Willes (my companion in the missionary training center) got a special transfer into my district.  I got to do a division and spend a day working with him this last Thursday here in Salado. It was super fun, we already knew each other from the MTC, so it was really easy to work together.

There was a baptism this last Saturday of some of the rest of Richard´s family, it was super awesome.

Now almost every single time I get on a collectivo (local bus) that´s leaving Salado I see someone I have met before, it´s kinda fun.

I also found out that I for sure am allergic to mangos, but just the paraguayan mangos, not the brazilian ones. Which is good, because the Brazilian ones were the only ones I liked in the first place, so I can just tell people I´m allergic when they offer my the kind I don´t like.

We also found a guy the other day that when he came out of his house he looked super sad. I have never seen someone that just looks so sad.We later found out that he killed someone 40 years ago, and that he really does want to be baptized to help him deal with that. And I hope he does as well.

This last Sunday two members from Mariano, a town about 30 minutes away showed up at the church here in Salado, and they brought their friend from work with them, who lived in our area. It was really cool.

Elder Bowles

I attached a picture of the urinating butterfly that we killed in our house and me in the outskirts of Salado with a almost broken belt. Glad I brought two.

Julia-is Elder Netane Tongan? I remember Elder Fakava from the MTC had another name that was Netane. He was called to Paraguay but then went to San José.

I also get bored sometimes in our gospel principles class or when we are teaching something for the 100th time. I just try to make it as different as possible each time. Do the laurels teach sometimes, it won´t be boring if you teach it, because then you´ll be the one teaching it. Or you can say random things to make it more exciting. All you really need to do to be happy is follow the teachings of the gospel, and let yourself be happy.

Dad-We did a secret Santa as a district and I gifted a Guarani gospel principios book, a snack, and a screwdriver I found in the house. It was super funny because nobody can read in Guaraní here because it was a language that was written down in the last 20 years or so, and nobody agrees on how to spell things at all.

They do celebrate New Years here. We had lighting and rain last evening/night.

They don´t really have an organized mutual (youth group) yet, they just play soccer on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There´s youth in the ward, I´m still not really sure how to count them since they all come different Sundays than each other.

Kami - I will get a new companion Wednesday morning, as well as a new area.

Mom- I get transferred/changed Wednesday morning to who knows where. President mentioned it to my companion who had an interview with him this morning. I really liked the newsletter. I couldn't tell if it was because it was a great newsletter, or because it was all of you guys, or if it was because it was one of the few things I have read recently that wasn't the scriptures or Preach My Gospel. I also heard that you didn't try the zipline, what´s up with that?

Week 33 - Luque - Christmas Phone call

We were able to Skype Ivan today for our Christmas phone call.  He was at a Cyber and wore headphones to hear us.  He spoke into a hand held microphone, so we could hear him.  He took the web cam and gave a view of the place and there were about 8 missionaries using the computers and just as many locals.

Ivan skyping us in the Cyber

He also said that there is not a W in the Guarni language there so they read his name Bovvles and they say it  Bov-veles.

 Ivan's Guarani name tag

He had a little bit of an accent.  Although he was shocked when we told him he had one.

Ivan told us that there is an area where there are bread missionaries and all they do it bake bread all day.  This mission is in the jungle and speaks a whole different language.  Apparently, there were lots of converts and they were given the supplies to make bread to sustain themselves but they just ate the supplies instead.  Now the missionaries are there helping them make the bread so that they can sell it to support themselves.

He also said that some transfers would occur tonight and that President Madriga told him to bring his suitcase to the district meeting today "just in case."  

Ivan also said that he had diarrhea really bad and had to go to the doctor.  They took a stool sample and then he had to save samples at home for three days.  The tests came back clean.  However, he was feeling better by the end so he knew it was going to come out good.  He also said that oatmeal helps protect your stomach/intestines so he eats that everyday for breakfast.

He said it was 50 degrees celcius there today which is over 120 degrees.


We lucked out in that we thought he would call at 7am and we were ready by about 6:30.  We heard from him at 6:35 and talked until 8am.  At the end we were all teary eyed (including Ivan), but it was a great phone call.

He also said that he had never been happier than he is now.

Week 32 - Salado - Another Baptism, Pooped On, Magic Rootbeer, Can't Say His Own Name

J-n-s got baptized, it was awesome. He is so great, he probably was the person that was the easiest to teach so far. His mom, Genara gave the opening prayer, after having been in the church for just a month. Even though her husband/J-n-s´s dad died fairly recently, they both get along so well, you never would have thought anything was amiss if you saw the two of them just spending time together on their front porch.

I got pooped on by a bird this week, and then I got diarrhea, new experience for me, I had never thought it was contagious.

I went to the hospital this week with my zone and another zone to sing Christmas carols to the patients. We also did a secret santa thing, and I got root beer flavoring, to put in carbonated water and just magically have root beer, so that´s awesome.

I also decided that I´m not going to be able to say my name right when I get back, I corrected someone who said it the right way this last week, because I´m so used to people mispronouncing it.

Elder Bowles

 

Fun fact, I found out that they have general conference in guaraní on lds.org, if you want to hear what it sounds like (we couldn't find it there), but it´s under guaraní (in quaranI) which is something different, and I can´t remember what it is. So good luck.

Mom- I put my shoes in our back yard for an hour during studies and then they are super dry. My favorite picture that you sent was the one of Grandpa Gil.

 

Julia- I feel like I´ve done almost all I can to find people here, right now I´m just contacting all the houses that had lame excuses or weren´t home when I went by the first time on those streets. I know my area like the back of my hand.  I did get the picture of Kami's cat. The main reason I went on a mision was because the prophet said I should, and now I love it.  It´s not nearly as bad as everyone made it sound.

 

Kami-it´s definitely done raining. It´s hot again. As far as the virgin goes, I´ve heard that every single latin american country has their own virgin mary that they worship. Paraguay-virgin of caacupe. I beleive it´s mexico that worships the virgin of Guadalupe. and the others have their own as well. Don´t ask me how it got started because I have no idea.

 

Dad-I pretty much have contacted all the houses in Salado. As missionaries here in Paraguay we don´t set aside time for contacting.  We just contact to and from and inbetween all our visitas. I´ve had to be more and more creative when I pick the routes we take in order to go to the few houses that I haven't gotten yet. Luckily president rarely ever leaves an elder an an area for more than 4 cambio(change/transfer). I should have a fresh area in about 2 weeks, and I´m super excited, because I´ll be able to talk to everyone right when I get there.  It'll be awesome.

Week 31 - Salado - Good Juices, 118F, Special Transfer, 10 investigators

View from their front porch during rainstorm

This week was good. We survived the 8th of Deciembre just fine, surprisingly enough nobody asked us about the virgin of Caacupe. Probably because most of them that were fanatics of the virgin left for Caacupe.  All the collectivos leaving our area to go there were packed full. There´s a rumor that it rains in Caacupe every year on the 8th of december, but I don´t know how true that is.

I was walking through the area yesterday, and I walked for 3 blocks and I had contacted every single house already. That would be one nice thing about getting a new area, but it´s pretty much the only reason I would say I would want to leave Salado.

I feel like every week since I started the mision has gone faster than the one before, it´s super crazy.

Here they make juices that are super good with milk and azucar (sugar).

The temperature measured 48 degrees celsius here, with a whole bunch of humiditly, it´s super hot. All I know is that´s somewhere over 100F (Dave checked and it is 118F), but I´m not sure by how much.

Elder Bowles

The picture I attached of the blue fence is from our front porch here, the ditch is overflowing with water and is 4 feet deep. It was crazy, and luckily it was in the morning while we were studying.

Mom- I feel great. I got both the packages, with boots, candy, ketchup, syrup, peanut butter, ties, jam, cereal. I don´t remember which was in which. I needed the boots pretty much right away because of the rainstorm last week which soaked my boots, and there was still some somewhat high water the next day, so I was super glad I had the new boots.

 

I drink from the filter, but the members give us juice they make, and it´s super good, so I drink it. I use the bottle they gave us in t he MTC mostly because I can drink from it faster.

 

There´s going to be a bigger than normal special transfer this week, which is when people get transferred halfway into the change (3 weeks) in vez de the normal 6 weeks. so hopefully I´m not affected by that. I´ve heard that the longer you´re in an area the more likely it is.

 

Dad-J_n_s is getting baptized this saturday. Right now we don´t have any people that look super promising, we found out that one of our investigators really is an inactive member and lied when we asked if he was baptized, so that we would keep coming back. Since he doesn´t want to go to church all that much that was somewhat annoying.

 

Some people put lights up for Christmas, but not all that many. There are some Christmas trees here but not a whole bunch. Our next best prospect after J_n_s is Fr_n__sc_, who stopped us yesterday because he wanted to know when church started.

 

Julia-We have a list of investigadores that we try to teach every week. Sometimes they just can´t be found again, or they don´t progess.  We probably have about 10 that we visited this week, and we usually find about 5 new investigators every week. I just ate guisos and pastas and chicken.

Week 30 - Salado - Eating Crocodile, Flooding, Easygoing People, Paraguayan Culture Corrections

I ate crocodile this week, and it was super good, it tasted like chicken but had a fishy taste too it which made it delicious.

There was also a huge rainstorm on Thursday, it rained super hard from about 6 in the morning until about 12. The main road in Salado was flooded in a lot of places, and  a lot of the other roads had basically turned into rivers. I took a picture of the ditch on the side of the road while it was overflowing, but I forgot my camera today, so next week I should send it. Ingold and I had to walk through water that came almost up to our knees. After a while I noticed that my comp was always walking in the deepest parts of the road/river. The members said it was the 2nd worst rainstorm ever. Take that how you want. We did'´t have electricity or water  while we were studying in the morning, but it was back when we got home that night, luckily. 

There´s a neighborhood in our area that's called San Miguel, and there´s only one investigator on record of ever living there, and not a single member. I had just finished telling Ingold that when some lady stopped us and told us that she was a member and lived in San Miguel, so that was really cool, We´re gonna go by her house this week and see how inactive she is.

I got the package at zone conference this last week, I appreciated every single thing in there, it was really nice getting stuff. 

Elder Bowles

Mom- I think Paraguay is the only mission I could handle because the people here don´t really care about anything.  A lot of them also speak Spanish as a second language, and almost nothing is weird to them They just care about getting enough money for their rent and food. They also love to talk, so that makes it easier most the time. The only thing that is hard is getting them to understand the importance of our message.  He came in the same group as Elder Hamilton, which means he´s been out for about a year and 3 or 4 months.

Kami-I think I will pretty much for sure get transferred just after new years, missionaries here usually stay for a max of 5.5 months in an area, so I´m pretty sure this is my last transfer here in Salado  No I don´t really run anymore, I just have to make up lame things to do in the house/backyard for exercises. We made a pull up bar, so that was fun for a bit.

Dad- Everyone loves talking about faith. The most shared scripture here in Salado is the one in James, fe sin obras es muerte in si mismo, because they always talk about how much faith they have but they barely ever do anything at all to show it, besides take a vacation to Caacupe to have a party where the virgin of Caacupe is, while they break a couple commandments while they´re at it. I have a greater testimony of how the smallest things have the greatest impact, and how people´s prayers are answered through other people who listen to the Spirit, just like Monson says.

Julia- Almost nobody wears pants in public.  They all wear shorts, and flip flops. There are no rules whatsoever about dating, they just do whatever, whenever. There´s tons of trash here, and tons of mangos. and no addresses and only some streets have names.