Week 73 - Another baptism, Thank you Parents, Street Lights, Just Keep Working

F*d*l got baptized this week! He says he just feels soo clean and free, and that´s really just how it is, he really understands the gospel and how he needs to use it. And to think that we found him only because we forgot the map of our area and had to turn around. It seems like it´s rained every weekend for a while now, so that makes things hard as a missionary, because nobody does anything when it rains. It´s kinda cold today, this week the winter has been longer than normal, this time last year I was dying of heat, so I guess I can appreciate it.

I just wanted to thank both of you for raising me good, as a trainer, especially training an American, I just realize how much of an influence both of you have had on my life and how hard work and patience it must have been. My comp is learning how to ´talk¨  and cook.  I know that it doesn´t even come close to being a real parent, and even farther from being good ones like you two were. I also have realized that the main thing that both of you did was be awesome examples for me, and that I know I really won´t ever know how big of a sacrifice it was until I do the same thing. Thanks a bunch.

Someone did offer their daughter to be my wife (not new either) there´s just no quality control here, even if I did want a wife here.

My favorite devotional speaker while I was at BYU -President Monson.

Right now we´re working with c*rl*s and his daughter. C*rl*s missed his baptism because his tire popped and he was in the middle of nowhere and we had to catch the bus back to Villarrica, so just pray that he can get to Paso yobai when we are.

My branch president is also the district president, he´s 40. his couselor is also the elders quorum president, and he´s 35. He has another counselor that I think is 27ish.

Villarrica is my first area where almost the whole area has street lights. In my other areas we did walk in the dark, but we try not to wander too much. as a missionary.  There´s almost always someone else within earshot, if it´s next door, inside the house, or accross the street. This is in answer to a question Dave asked after reading this article:  http://www.lds.org/liahona/2013/09/youth/through-thin-walls?lang=eng

If we had missed the late bus we would have been stuck. We just don´t miss it, or else we´d be in a difficult situation.

Give my companion another couple of months, then he´ll be fluent.

 

Here in Villarrica on a good day I think there´s about 6 kids in primary. We had a primary program in my first area, we´ll see if the memo that they are done got all the way out here to Villarrica.

 

Here in Villarrica the people are more Catholic than other places, there was one guy that I said hi to and then he said ¨I don´t do that¨ and then wouldn´t let us talk to him.

 

When we are down, we just keep working, because that´s what us as missionaries do, there´s no time to feel sad or discouraged, or stressed out.

 

The fish soup was super good, it was nice and salty and they put lemons in it, I will try goat milk again, you should get some so that I can try it there! or maybe deer milk! They also have super good empanadas here in Villarrica with cheese, ham, and corn in it, it´s super good.

 

-Elder Bowles

 

 

 

 

Week 72 - Buses, Pink lightening, Seizure at church, Fish Eye Balls

This week was pretty normal. Nothing super fantastic happened. We spent a lot of time in buses this week.  We went to Asunción, Coronel Oviedo and Paso Yobai, so that was quite a bit of just sitting down, which is kinda hard for me now. This week we were almost late for the last bus back to our area because some guy wanted a Book of Mormon, so that was a good problem, I can´t complain about that, hopefully he reads it.

 

 It´s been raining again, so that always makes the work a little harder, but if we work hard enough, there´s always people ready to listen (and hopefully act). We had a really stormy night last night, the wind blew the window open while I was sleeping. Luckily it seems that it only really start raining right after we get under a roof, so that´s super nice.

 

This week a member had a seizure before church started, it surprised me quite a bit. He had been going to church for quite some time, so everyone knew what to do since it had happened before, so that was good. What is the correct thing to do when someone has a seizure?

 

There was a big lightning storm here last night and several times last week. Here the lightning is pink sometimes because of the polution.

 

I took a temple preparation class once for a week, and then the teacher got sick or something so it kind of ended.

 

The ´biggest problem´ with my roomates in college was that no one wanted to buy toilet paper, so I had my own stash in my closet that nobody knew about.

 

I´m sure the goat (who gave the milk he tried) wasn´t eating things that were super healthy because people here don´t really care what their animals eat. Here in Villarrica all the eggs from the store have really thin whites and super big yolks, it´s kinda different

F*d*l is about 60ish I think. He can´t read because his eyes almost don´t work. When we invited him to church the first time, he asked us to wear the same ties so that he could recognize us, so we did, but we told him we would be wearing suits as well. We ordered a big Book of Mormon for F*d*l so that he can start to read soon.His baptism is this Saturday, along with an awesome member reference in Paso Yobai, so it´s going to be a crazy day.

 

I think we will watch General Conference here in Villarrica, but I´m not sure. It´s springtime here, so it´s super rainy. Some members still do their prayers very similarly to the Padre Nuestro (Our father? the one in Matthew 6) but that´s ok. We use rolls for the sacrament bread.

 

The scripture that I have used the most this week is Matthew 6:7, but my favorite scripture right now is probably Éter 12:23.

 

You had more youth in the temple in one day than we had people in church on Sunday. That is awesome.this week we set a landmark because there were more non missionaries than missionaries in Elders Quorum.

 

The fish soup we ate was really good. It did have bones and fins and everything, but this time at least I didn´t get any eyes.

 

-Elder Bowles

Week 71 - Awesome Investigator, Close Talkers, Interesting Meals, Stressful Sundays

F*d*l is just awesome, every time we review a commandment or a principle, he sometimes is surprised by it, but then we ask him if he´ll do it, and he never has any problem, and he´s super excited for his baptism.  When he get´s baptized he will be the 2nd active priesthood holding man in my area!

In Paso Yobai we talked with a neigbor from the branch president, he said that his friend wasn´t doing too good, and we went to see how he´s doing, and now he wants to find out more about the church, he just can´t get baptized yet because he has to wait for his hernia wound to heal, so that the creek water doesn´t mess it up.

 

Also, I tried goat milk on Saturday, and to be honest it just tasted like sour cow milk. They that it´s supposedly really healthy, but only if you only drink a little bit.

Here in Villarrica the longer we talk to people the closer they get (sometimes too close), and the guys have good handshakes, the girls always do the dead fish handshake. Here everyone says olah, or mbaelaporte, or mbaetekopiko, or mbaechapandekaaru, but most often olah, qué tal, all that. I don´t remember how close together people stand in the states.

 

I still stick firm that if they open the Book of Mormon twice while we´re not there, they are basically always baptized. but it usually takes us 3ish visits to really know if they are going to take in the gospel.  Sometimes the 1st visit, and sometimes when they reject us in the beginning.

 

We do plan meals (lunches, the biggest meal of the day) and then we throw all our stuff in a cart, and try to guess and put about half the lunch with my companion´s stuff, and half of it in mine, and make two purchases. Usually I get it split with a 4-5 mil guaraní difference (about a dollar). Last week we ate sphagetti (with a sauce that I guessed how to make and it turned out pretty good), sweet and sour chicken, pizza paraguaya, tallarhin (at a members house) and fish soup with bones and everything (at a members house) and hamburgers one day.  So yeah, Elder Liddell is learning alot about cooking. 

 

Here in Paraguay I really like how pretty the country is, and how nice everyone is.

 

Sundays are stressful, because if people don´t go to church on Sundays, they can´t be baptized and get to their salvation. Also, sometimes I´m worried that there won´t be enough members to hold all of the classes. In elders quorum it is the Elders Quorum President, us 4 missionaries, and one other member.  That´s also stressful when an investigator comes, because you don´t know what they´ll think. Here in villarrica people give great testimonies and talks, so at least during Sacrament Meeting I´m not worried.

 

I did meet some interesting people. I met someone who said the world would end in 2018, and that he learned it by faith, and when I told him about the Restoration, he asked me how I knew it, and that it wasn´t in the Bible, so I told him I learned it by faith. He got kinda mad but didn´t say anything, because he knew he was wrong. A man with some large sins said his issues made him a better person, so...I told him no and why. The paraguayans trust us more than the Latins, they just like talking about america.

 

We´re not allowed to visit women alone, and it just happens that in order for them not to be alone, they invite a bunch of friends, so that´s my favorite rule, because it´s just awesome.

 

Ivan's college advice....Just try to stay as ahead as possible in the homework and studying and everything because once you get behind it gets harder and harder to get caught up again (and you can do more things with your friends on weekends without school on your mind). 

 

One thing that almost everyone has no matter how poor they are is a TV, then a cellphone, then a satellite dish. Then, after that they try to get fridges,ovens, stuff like that, it´s really amazing how much time people use on the TV when they could focus on other things, like having a door that locks.

 

I could have bought a fan in town, but they are very, very expensive here, because I don´t think that they make them here, and they come from other countries.

 

The barbed wire used as clotheslines doesn´t usually put holes in the clothes, but it does sometimes leave rust stains.

 

ELDER BOWLES

 

 

 

 

 

Week 70 - Villaricca - BIG bats,Old People,Technology, Sugar Cane and Thread

This week was great!

When we went to F*d*l the first thing he asked us is if there´s church every Sunday!

The office elders called me last week and asked if I wanted to end my mission the 24th of April or the 4th of June, and I told them the 4th. That´s just one of those lucky things about changing missions, is I get to serve for a couple extra weeks.

The branch is growing, but the last complete family on our side of the branch moved back to Bolivia this week, so that´ll make things a little trickier.

Also, this week I saw sooo many bats, and some were as long as our beagles back home! I didn´t believe it until one of the bats in the swarm went under the streetlight, I had never seen anything like it ever before.

 

We have been finding some cool people to teach, it always seems like if we find some people who are really awesome one week, that same week we always find a lot of really stubborn and ignorant people in the same week, but whatever, it´s the good that I care about.   

 

Even though I lived away from home for a year before I came on my mission, I don´t feel better prepared, I just feel like the people who didn´t are underprepared. jk

 

There only are multi story buildings in Asunción, here in Villarrica, the tallest building is 5 stories, from what I´ve seen.

 

There was a huge rainstorm with lightning yesterday afternoon, so that was kinda fun, luckily we were inside eating lunch.

Old people are just the best. One told me 2 days ago that he discovered from the Bible that the end of the world is in 2018.

 

No, nobody eats the carpinchos, they are just there in the city park. There are 3 carpinchos that are all in the park, I just couldn´t get a picture of me with all 3 of them.

 

The fan is fixed, and I fixed it just in time for a really hot evening (since we´re only usually in the house in the evening). 

 

They don´t use clothespins, because the barbed wire does a good job of keeping the clothes on the line.

The chapel is smaller than a portable classroom.

 

Here in Villarrica less people have cell phones, I´d say about 2/3 of the people have them, and almost nobody has their own computer. We have a tv and dvd in the chapel, but the remote is broken, so it´s hard to use it.

 

The main industry is sugar cane and thread, there´s two huge factories here, one for each of them. some members have been members for a long time. We don´t have stake meetings, since we are not part of a stake, we are part of a district, and we go to a city about 1 hour away for district meetings(coronel oviedo).

 

Our branch president got baptized because his wife told him that if he didn´t that meant that he didn´t want to be with her for the eternities.

 

My companion is improving his Spanish quite a bit, he doesn´t know as much as I did when I came out, it takes patience because I had almost forgotten how hard it is to learn a language. I really like having Latin companions better because then Paraguayans don´t just want to talk to the Americans, and we can more easily focus on the message.

 

 

Elder Bowles

Week 69 - Villarica - World's largest rodent, Barbed wire clothesline, More cooking lessons, Sample Schedule

 

Ivan's new neighbor, world's largest rodent, carpinchos (huge guinea pig)

LDS Chapel in Paso Yobai

This week was a rough one, just about everyone who we put appointments with wasn´t there when we went back, but 3 men of the few people who were there all went to church, so that made it all worth it, and they all seemed to have felt something special there, and that is just what they need. That is really how it is. Out of all the thousands of people I have talked to and will talk to, some people are just ready for the truth and the blessings. 

On our way out of one of our visits I got a scrape from someone´s barbed wired clothesline, that just shows how lucky I am, since almost every house in Paraguay has a barbed wire clothesline, and just now after a year or so one got me. One of my companions would hit almost every one of them.

 It´s rainy today, last week it warmed up for a couple of days, it was really nice, I actually  wore a short sleeved shirt for a couple days.

From 8 to 9am we have personal study, 9 to 11 companion study, 11 to 12 language study. During the first 12 weeks of someones time in the mission this is the schedule, normally there´s a little less companion study and sometimes less language study. 

My companion is the second youngest in his family. if I remember right his parents used to be inactive, but now they´re active. He just hadn't heated up leftovers before, this week I taught him how to cook noodles, and how to fry sausage, he´s becoming a real cook.

Luckily, Elder Reyes, one of the other missionaries in the ward knows how to play the piano. 

The first thing I would do if I was in Paraguay and someone told me to make money off of 20 bucks, I would buy some bananas and jump on the colectivo and sell them.

 My project of the day is fixing the fan that we have, because we´re really going to need it in a week or so.

 I actually weighed myself in a Pharmacy, just before writing, and the scale says I weigh 73.3 kilograms (160 pounds). You can figure out if I gained weight, and if you think the scale was reliable (its very possible it wasn't).  Paraguayans are skinnier than Americans. I've only seen one super fat person in all my time here, (instead of every time I go into town in the states).

The harp music here sounds very good.

-Elder Bowles