Week 68 - Villarica- Too Tall, Harp Capital, Baptisms Solve Everything, Blankets, Paraguayans Have Faith

This week was great! Elder Liddell is learning so much, and it´s super fun being a companion with a new missionary who is new to Paraguay. It´s been cold almost this whole last week, and rainy for the last couple of days (on and off since Friday evening). 

Juan was baptized and confirmed, so that´s super awesome, now his uncle has someone to sit in church with, so that´s even more awesome.  Since it´s winter here, the water was pretty cold. Juan was just super ready to be baptized, it rained super hard Sunday morning, but there was still quite a few people there. 

 I taught my comp how to cook hamburgers and hot dogs this week, as well as how to use a microwave to heat up food, we´re having tons of fun down here. This is his first time living away from home, so he´s learning tons of things.

 Every time we talk to anybody they tell him that he´s demasiado alto (too tall), and they all ask him how old he is, and he says 18, and they always say "se anota" (it shows). so that´s been kinda fun. He´s six foot five, and he sticks out a lot here between all the Paraguayans. He tried mandioca and he didn´t like it, so he´s in for a rough 2 years, at least in that aspect. The Gomez family is still shoving him full of food, whether he wants it or not and whether he´s full or not so that´s been super great, I taught him how to say he´s full, so that´ll help him out a bit.   

I do feel better, now I just am trying not to get a cold, because it is cold here. I do not have diarrhea.  One thing I appreciate in the mission is solid poop, because it just feels so good. 

Here in the fall most of the trees don´t lose their leaves, it´s pretty nice. Here I just want spring to come (I don´t want summer to come, just spring)

Could you send me the sweet and sour sauce recipe?

Littering, carrying guns, carrying knives are all illegal, but it happens very often.  Since everyone does it, the police do not bother enforcing it.  That´s basically the way it is with all the Paraguayan laws. 

Villarrica is the paraguayan capital of the harp, and there are quite a few people who play it here, and it sounds really good.

We taught 20 lessons this week, the rain hurt us a bit, as well as baptismal preparations. We were cleaning mosquitos and spiders out of the baptismal font in Villarrica. Creek baptisms in PasoYoBai are just so much easier. The creek is about 2 'blocks' (there aren't blocks) from the chapel.  We changed our clothes behind towels. My companion was homesick until the day of the baptism because baptisms solve everything.

We haven´t met the chief, he lives super far away, the branch president was planning to go out there in a couple weeks, but now there´s going to be a baptism that day! That´s the best problem I´ve run into in my mission.

I usually give my companion a good chunk of the lesson to try to teach, and then I ´bear testimony¨ for a while explaining the things better that need explaining better.

How many people are in the ward now? It sounds huge. The most people I´ve seen inside a chapel for more than a year is 118, and that was just a fantastic day. Here in Paraguay I have never had a problem with too big of a class, except in Sacrament meeting we had 40-something people ,and I think we only have about 60 chairs in the chapel, so we had to move the chairs into the Sacrament room, and then back out for the classes.

A member washes our clothes. My bed is fine, just a metal bed with a cheap mattress. The blankets in this mission aren´t as soft as they were in the other one, that´s my one complaint. 

Paraguayans are the kind of people that would get embarrassed if their neighbors think they don´t have faith, so they always say they have a lot of faith (see James Chapter 2).

-Elder Bowles

Week 67 - Villarica - Training American, Forced Feeding, La Bomba, Serving a Mission is Like Making Cinnamon Rolls, A Map!

 
Well, I got a new companion, and his name is Elder Liddell, He is also from Utah, and he got here to Paraguay last week. I sent a picture of him, and I made sure to get the door frame in the picture, just to show how tall he is. Even though it is super challenging training a new American missionary, it is super fun, just because everything is so new to him.

We ate lunch with some members his first full day, and they made him eat sooo much food, it was so funny watching his face. Missionaries always have stories about how south Americans always give them way too much food to eat and that it´s rude to not eat it, but I think it´s just the Paraguayan way of being funny, because they were laughing as well.

My companion has two different expressions during lessons--when he is focusing like his life depends on it and what I like to call ´completely lost´.  Being with him makes me remember when I first got here, and how much patience it took, from me and from my trainer.

There are cocroaches in the house here, so that´s fun.

 

The thing that´s interesting is that here in Paraguay, the few people who do have really fancy houses, don´t seem all that happy at all, and everyone else, the people who have houses made out of tarps, garbage bags, or pallets, all with holes in the wall seem like some of the happiest people in the world.

I miss being able to have a full day of just hard, physical work, I haven´t been able to do that for a long time, my hands are soft as a baby´s bottom right now.

 I´ve had diarrhea since my second week here in Villarrica.

 I´m sure that there would be at least something harder than serving a mission, but it´s like making cinnamon rolls, they are sometimes really hard to make, but its fun making them, and it´s fun eating them.

I used a different computer today, the usb port was hanging out of the computer by a couple of wires, but it worked.

I haven´t ran in a while.

We got a whole bunch of references from the open house thing, it was great. about 50 came. I want to say, some were less active members, but that´s ok, seeing how that number is more people than come to church each Sunday.

People here just don´t have manners, it´s great.

What I´ve heard is at the end of the mission they send each missionary home with a pill, and they call it (la bomba) the bomb.  We take it when we get home and have diarrhea really bad, and then we are completely free of parasites. That´s what I´ve heard.

They just have little small rules here, like you can´t roll up your sleeves, no zone activities, and they run things differently, it´s just kinda interesting.

If  I didn´t have a map, and if this town didn´t have street names, I would be lost, but luckily there are street names, and I have a map.  This is my first area with both of those.

For transfers the misión paraguay asuncion norte district leader calls Monday afternoon or evening to let us know about transfers (new companion, new area, or training) if you train they don´t tell you the name of your companion until Wednesday morning when you meet him. Misión paraguay asunción district leader tells the whole district Tuesday after district meeting.

The biggest group of missionaries I´ve been in was in the MTC in Provo every time there was a devotional.

-Elder Ivan Bowles

Week 66 - Villarico - Moto Crash, Worse Manners, Mystery Meat, Dead Body, Today, Chipa

This week was another great one. There are some old missionaries that came and helped us have an open house in our little chapel, and a lot of people came to see, so that was really awesome.

 

It was the first time in a long time that I heard an old person speak English as their first language. During the open house a super loud American song came on, and everyone was surprised by the ringtone, and even more surprised to find that the ringtone came from the oldest little lady in the whole chapel, it was super funny.

 

We had a zone meeting this week, and I saw another car crash, some moto was tailgating a car, and then it stopped and he went in the back window.  It looked like it hurt, but he was kinda asking for it.  Glad the united states doesn´t hand out licenses willy nilly.

 

I realized the other day that my manners have gotten way worse since I´ve been here  just because of the culture. Here it is completely ok to use your hands when you eat, and to wipe your hands on the tablecloth, (in some places the face too, but I haven´t done that one yet).

 

I really can tell that everyone here are descendents of the Indians (or are Indians).  If my facts are right this is the only country in South America that wasn´t conquered by the Spanish when they were colonizing.  Everyone here acts like Lamanites, it´s just that some live in the city with normal clothes and the others live in the country ( I still haven't quite seen them yet).

 

Here in Villarrica everyone is Catholic (as normal in Paraguay) but most of them actually go to church almost every Sunday (super not normal at all).

 

Also, I just realized that since I got here not a single person has said ´´otro dia´´ or wagged their finger at us, which I got every single day at least once in my last area.

 

Elder Reid goes home this week, so that´s weird, hopefully I can get around the area without getting lost too many times with my new companion that´s gonna come.  Elder Reid leaves Villarrica tomorrow evening, and spends a day in the office and doing things, and then he flys out Thursday morning.

 

We cook a lot of rice and pasta, with various things mixed in. This week we tried 'mystery meat' which was some organ that a member gave us when she killed her pig, I haven´t gotten sick yet, but I didn´t really enjoy it either.

 

I don´t know if I told you, but my first day in Villarrica I went to a funeral and saw a dead body for the first time in my life, so that was fun.

 

I still don´t know Guarani well enough to have more than a 3 sentence conversation, let alone a lesson. That´s what members are for, either I´ll learn guaraní , or my lack of speaking Guaraní will motivate me to bring even more members to lessons with us.

 

There are, if I remember right, 4 young women and 3 or four young men in the branch.

 

And one of the people who got baptized chose me to baptize them, so I baptized in the creek. We should have another creek baptism this Saturday if the branch president is on top of things over there in Paso Yobai.

 

The marriage missionaries in our zone are in charge of finding out if the less active members still live in their respective wards or not, so they basically just drive around in Paraguay in the truck the mission gave them. It´s elder arnold and his wife, and he´s the brother of the Elder Arnold who was the area 70 just months ago. I just remembered that you wanted to know about the old missionaries. if you have more questions about that, I imagine I´ll probably be able to talk to them one more time. Hermana Arnold is trying to learn Spanish for the first time in her life.

 

We are teaching Ju*n, whos a really shy 15 year-old. V*******, a mother that is really emotional, so thats interesting. *v*r, who lives in Paso Yobai whose brother was baptized a week and a half ago, and his parents are just waiting for a divorce to go through so they can get married and baptized. We always have more, but those are the poeple that I think for sure will be baptized.

 

I´m not about to pinch myself because I don´t want to wake up from this super awesome dream.

 

My house has all of its windows, a balcony, a couple wooden chairs, an air conditoning/heater that´s stuck on 24 degrees celsius (75 degrees Farenheit) because someone lost the remote, and the water goes out everyday at about 12ish or 1ish when we need to either make or clean up after lunch.

 

If you were to ask me what I did today I would say that I woke up at three in the morning and took a collective to Coronel Oviedo and slept in the zone leaders house so my companion could go with another dying elder (one who is going home soon) to have their last interview with Presidente Aggazzani.

 

It may sound ridiculous, but there´s a rule that we shouldn't call missionaries by nicknames. I suppose I could make one for my companion, but I couldn´t ever use it.

 

I have seen snakes, skunks now, but bats sí.

 

My favorite food in this area is chipa cabure, which is chipa, but instead of cooking it in a tatakua, they roast it on a stick over the fire, and it has melted cheese inside. super rico!

 

-Elder Bowles

Week 65 - Villarica - Creek Baptism, Strong Branch, More Guarani, Tallest Hill Ybytyruzu

This week was awesome, everyone here in Villarrica is super nice, and they are smarter, and the people who speak Spanish talk fancier Spanish, so that makes them easier to understand.  My new area is bigger, prettier, the people are nicer, and there are more people who have never met the missionaries.

 

We had a baptism in Paso Yobai in a creek, it was super awesome. The branch president out there says that the missionaries shared with the Indians there before, and a whole bunch were almost baptized, but right before the day of the baptism the Indian chief changed his mind, and nothing happened. They just got a new chief this week, and we´re about to talk to him, so that´s gonna be great.

 

The Branch president, Presidente Galeano, is basically an Indian himself, he´s probably one of my favorite people ever.  He doesn´t have very much, but he´s the happiest person I have ever met in my life. And his happiness is real, its not like those people who just smile, and just say that they´re happy. 

 

I was going to send a picture of the chapel in PasoYobai, but the computer I´m using is half-broken, so that´s not going to work.  I really want to go to church in Paso Yobai, but I don´t think we´ll ever have the chance, since we usually try to get investigators here in Villarrica, and we only go to Paso Yobai when they have references for us.  Recently that´s been happening quite a bit, but it´s a super strong branch, there are only 50 members on the list and 35-40 go every week, but hardly anyone lives there in Pasoyobai, so that´s why we only go there for references. They do speak a lot more Guarani in Paso Yobai. We go there, visit the references with the members, and leave, since the bus leaves early.  In my opinion it is the best branch in all of Paraguay, since it´s stronger, without as much help from the missionaries. The people didn't meet the missionaries for so long, because the branch president was teaching them.  He called us after 5 months, who knows why, but now he knows us and it seems like he trusts us and is giving us a lot more references. No, we don´t spend the night there, it would be hard to find a place to sleep. there were missionaries there once before, but they took them out, because the missionaries always got discouraged because there´s hardly anyone to talk to there, since it´s so tiny.

 

People here speak Guaraní, but it´s real Guaraní, so that makes it easier to learn, because they actually follow all the rules of the language.

 

Also, the chipa (flat bread) here is sooo good. They just don´t know how to make it in Asunción.(they sold it on the double decker colectivo, and sell it in the street here as well).

Elder Reid is finishing his fourth change/transfer in the area (he´s been here since March). fast and testimony meeting in Villarrica was great, almost everyone gave their testimonies since there weren't that many people.

 

I live about 1 block east and 2 or three blocks south of the chapel on the second story. There´s a stadium close to the chapel, and a park/pond. 

 

On the bus ride to Villarica, they paired us up, two by two, and I sat next to Elder Vasquez, who came from my last district.  We talked in Spanish, since he speaks Spanish.

 

For me the key to a good companionship is if the two companions are both obedient. If that isn't the case, then it just takes patience and what I call 'creativity.' The sister missionaries are way better, so you shouldn´t have to worry about that.

 

In the mission procrastination means disobedience, so there´s really not any way to do it.

 

My area has the tallest hill in Paraguay it´s called ¨Ybytyruzu¨ which in Guaraní means something like viento fuerte (strong wind), or something. 

We have been cooking more than ever before in the mission, we usually have about one or two lunch appointments each week.  My companion often wants to cook a certain way, and I tell him not to, and then the food turns out bad because he didn't follow chef Bowles´s advice, so that´s been fun. 

 

Kami,  that´ll be super fun with Mr. Vought as the cross country coach.

 

-Elder Bowles