Week 98 - Rain, Mashed Potatos, Change whole way of Life

 

Ivan's house in Paraguay



This week it rained way too much, if I had to guess I would say it rained about 10 inches on Tuesday if not more.  We kinda had to cross a river that appeared out of nowhere to get back to our house. They stopped the buses, and peoples houses flooded and everything, here there is absolutely no need for sprinklers. It is a cool day today.

We went to visit one of our investigators who´s about 16ish.  He basically told us that he wasn´t super interested but that his friend that we had talked to last week really wanted to talk to us becasue he wanted to get baptized, and we went and talked to him and his mom said that he should just go and get some godparents so that he could get baptized already, it was pretty funny.  He´s a super awesome person, it is really nice when people just understand exactly what they need to do to acheive happiness.

Someone made me mashed potatoes for the first time here in Paraguay and they were good, but just not nearly as good as the Thanksgiving potoatoes we would have back home, 

Everyone loves the word of wisdom lesson (no smoking, doing drugs, or drinking of alcohol) but a lot of times they just don´t have enough faith in themselves and in Jesus.

 

A lot of people here have mandioca, mammon, naranja, muchos limones, and that´s about it.

 

Our sacrament meeting is last, so either they get here at 8, and stay, or they get there anytime in between for what they can and then stay for the sacrament.

 

Right now we are teaching AA and JN, a family, RN, a 16 year old, CS, who breaks all 5 points of the word of wisdom, and a bunch of other people in the grab bag. AA just needs her mother in laws 7 day funeral to end and then she´ll be at church.  RN just needs to complete with going to church 3 times, and CS just needs to change all his whole way of life.

 

-Elder Bowles

 

Week 97 - Addictions, Ask for blessings, Likes Yardwork, Rodent rides on Shoulder

This week was super hot, and supposedly summer is ending. We´ll see.

I´m here in Tayuasapé with Elder P still, so that´s fine.

This week we had stake conference here in San Lorenzo, and there was a lot of people. there, it seemed like way more than last time.

This last week or so we´ve been talking to lots of people with addictions, and I don´t know why, just how it´s been happening recently, so we´ll see how much they let us help them.

Yesterday we taught a family how to pray and we explained how we can ask for blessings and the mom got super excited and said she was going to pray that more people come into her store to buy stuff.  It was really funny, just because of how excited she was.

Funny thing that happened this week President Agazzani came up to me and my companion before stake conference and asked if he could share a joke with my companion, and he just called him Elder Panzón, which basically means elder bigbelly. It was funny, here in South America it is not rude at all to comment on someone´s weight, while in the states people avoid the subject alot.

I am not wearing green, I forgot all about Saint Patricks Day, and here they don´t make a big deal about el día de San Patricio.

 

My long sleeve shirts are way whiter than my short sleeve shirts, and our laundry lady right now actually knows how to make things whiter instead of yellower, so that´s been nice. I haven´t bought any more white shirts, but I´ve found a couple from missionaries who have gone home.

 

This week we pruned trees for a family because according to them they´re ¨too short and can´t reach¨ so that was fun. I´ve started to like yardwork more since I´ve been in Paraguay, and I really don´t know why.

 

We get some refferrals from members, we are spending a lot of time finding still.

 

On sunday at church this lady came in and she had a huge rodent on her shoulder.  It looked like monkey but it had the head of a rodent, I hadn´t ever seen anything like it before, and it was just tied to a rope she was holding. I kinda want one now.

 

-Elder Bowles

 

Week 96 - Stellar Investigator, Burger King is fancy, Sisters Going Home

Here´s a picture of me with President Aggazani and his wife from last Friday.

 

This week was great, one of the people that we had visited once when we got there to visit her again she said right away that she was going to be at church the next day, and she was there. During gospel principles she shared about how the Book of Mormon came to be, and everything, and a bunch of stuff we hadn´t even mentioned yet.  Then we found out she had read the first 15ish pages already, so that was awesome.

We´ve got transfers this Wednesday, we find out tomorrow what happens, I think I´m going to get switched to a new area, but I´d be fine either way.

This week someone had something that seemed really important to tell me in Guaraní and I could only understand bits and pieces of what they were trying to tell me, so that was a really interesting conversation since they only knew a couple of words in Spanish. We´re going to go back with a paraguayan that knows both Spanish and Guaraní.

 

If they don´t speak fancy spanish they speak Guaraní, and one of the fancy people came to church.

 

It is hot and wet here. Its warm but not too demasiado hot.  They don´t have frozen yogurt here, I went to Burger King for the first time here, it´s basically the same as in the states, just more expensive.  It´s a ´fancy´ place here in Paraguay because its from the United States

 

The only time I ever wished I served in the mission office is when it´s really hot, because they get to be inside until 4:30 pm each day, besides that, no.  They have missionaries that take care of supplies, money, President Agazzani´s secretary, and new member registration.

 

Everything is good in the district. Two sisters who are both together in a threesome go home this week.

We went to the temple last April, I think we´re going to go again pretty soon again. 

-Elder Bowles

Week 95 - Give us Juice, Blessing Food, Mattresses, Finding and Flossing

This week was an interesting week, and we met a lot of interesting people. We´ve talked to various people this week who speak really fancy Spanish, and its really nice, because they understand everything before we´re even done teaching it (and they give us juice).  They're really awesome.  We´ll see if they coordinate their time to make room for God. We¨ve also found several people that barely speak Spanish, so that´s been nice too, because they´re humble and very nice.

 

We eat with nonmembers on occasion.  If they are Catholic, they always bless the food.  If they aren't Catholic, sometimes they ask if we want to bless the food, and of course we say yes.

 

All houses have beds, but the mattress are often just foam mattresses.

 

We should get one more chance to go to the temple.

 

This week we spent a lot more time finding than teaching, that´s just how it´s kinda been in this area.

 

The despensas often have ice cream, but the place in our area that sells the best ice cream is where their freezer is half broken, so the ice cream is always kinda melty.

 

I brush my teeth every day, I floss them often, and use mouth wash sometimes.

 

I made a half batch of fudge, because chocolate and marshmallows are more expensive here.

 

-Elder Bowles