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