Week 47 - Kennedy - Stressful Baptism, Bus Crash, Easter in S.A., Chipa, Birthday Secret

This week was pretty awesome. D*m*ng* got baptized, I worked it so that Elder Aguilar could baptize her, so that was awesome, even though she is way bigger than him. It was a little stressful, because a lot of unplanned things happened that made the day really unorganized. About halfway through the day I realized I was stressed and then I think the same thing that happens everytime I get stressed and just decided not to be, and then it was a great day. Her daughter Y*m*l* is getting baptized this week as well, and they´re both super excited. And I am too.

I was in a collectivo today when it smashed a car. Super exciting. I will hopefully send a picture I took next week.

 

Here in South America, they do things different for Easter. They set all three days from the death of Christ until his resurrection, and celebrate everyone with their families. I always knew that Catholics celebrated the day of Christ's death in addition to the Sunday, but I didn´t know that they celebrated in between as well.

 

Here everyone made chipa (dense bread) and sopa and killed pigs, and tons of stuff,.  I don´t think I ever want to see chipa again because I already wasn´t a huge fan of chipa, and everyone offered me chipa, and I had to eat it to not be rude. Now I´m free from chipa for hopefully another year, and that gives me just one more reason to be happy here in Paraguay.

 

And everyone who left to go to the woods with their families is back, so that's cool as well. The most important part is remembering that Christ did come here and suffered and died for our sins, so that we could enjoy this life here, and be able to return to Him after we die. I hope that everyone could at least set aside a little moment in their week to thank Him for what he did for us.

Elder Ivan Bowles

Mom- I was able to keep my birthday (which was today - April 1st) a secret from most the members, but there was one that asked right when I got here when it was and remembered, so they´re gonna make me a cake. I didn´t want everyone to know because it would have made it difficult not to lose a bunch of time, but one cake is nice.

 

I got the letter from grandpa´s birthday party (our extended family each wrote a line or two), it was fun.

 

I haven´t noticed a difference in my Spanish, but it is taking me longer to read your emails now.

 

No one got hurt in the collectivo crash, figured you´d like to know.

 

Julia- Since when was Kashmir going on mission? Tell her that I´m super excited for her.

 

My favorite chapter in PMG is chapter 10 - teaching skills. Reading depends on investigators, and what I feel I suck at. I haven´t gotten the letters from the ward yet. How did they send them? My birthday was almost a secret.

 

Dad-I only have a difficult time talking with my companion when we´re talking about obscure things, or when I get excited and accidentally talk to him in English. Or when I´m trying to explain something about English to him in Spanish and have to keep track of which language I should talk to explain both languages to him.

 

Repentance-lesson three in predicad mi evangelio, dice todo del proceso de arrepentimiento. anyone who focuses only on that and the things that will help them better with that process (commandments)will be just fine with God. We´ll probably watch all sessions of conference. It´s in our chapel too, so that´s awesome. Our investigators usually get to church late and then stay for the rest of church until the end. I´m looking forward to when I´m old and can be super rude.

 

Kami- Recibí demasiado chipa. Ni quiero ver chipa más. También estoy un poco celoso del predicad mi evangelio que es chiquitito. Mi compañero tiene uno. You know Spanish