Week 34 - Salado - Sees old companion, He knows people on the bus, Super Sad Man, Urinating Butterfly

Ivan in the Paraguayan countryside

 Urinating Butterfly

Acid urine contains eggs that will hatch under your skin according to Ivan.  

This specimen was found in their apartment.

Well, I´m still here.  I was in the mission office today, and I found out that I know I´m leaving Salado Wednesday morning, but I don´t know where to yet. I´ll find out tonight.

This last week, Elder Willes (my companion in the missionary training center) got a special transfer into my district.  I got to do a division and spend a day working with him this last Thursday here in Salado. It was super fun, we already knew each other from the MTC, so it was really easy to work together.

There was a baptism this last Saturday of some of the rest of Richard´s family, it was super awesome.

Now almost every single time I get on a collectivo (local bus) that´s leaving Salado I see someone I have met before, it´s kinda fun.

I also found out that I for sure am allergic to mangos, but just the paraguayan mangos, not the brazilian ones. Which is good, because the Brazilian ones were the only ones I liked in the first place, so I can just tell people I´m allergic when they offer my the kind I don´t like.

We also found a guy the other day that when he came out of his house he looked super sad. I have never seen someone that just looks so sad.We later found out that he killed someone 40 years ago, and that he really does want to be baptized to help him deal with that. And I hope he does as well.

This last Sunday two members from Mariano, a town about 30 minutes away showed up at the church here in Salado, and they brought their friend from work with them, who lived in our area. It was really cool.

Elder Bowles

I attached a picture of the urinating butterfly that we killed in our house and me in the outskirts of Salado with a almost broken belt. Glad I brought two.

Julia-is Elder Netane Tongan? I remember Elder Fakava from the MTC had another name that was Netane. He was called to Paraguay but then went to San José.

I also get bored sometimes in our gospel principles class or when we are teaching something for the 100th time. I just try to make it as different as possible each time. Do the laurels teach sometimes, it won´t be boring if you teach it, because then you´ll be the one teaching it. Or you can say random things to make it more exciting. All you really need to do to be happy is follow the teachings of the gospel, and let yourself be happy.

Dad-We did a secret Santa as a district and I gifted a Guarani gospel principios book, a snack, and a screwdriver I found in the house. It was super funny because nobody can read in Guaraní here because it was a language that was written down in the last 20 years or so, and nobody agrees on how to spell things at all.

They do celebrate New Years here. We had lighting and rain last evening/night.

They don´t really have an organized mutual (youth group) yet, they just play soccer on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There´s youth in the ward, I´m still not really sure how to count them since they all come different Sundays than each other.

Kami - I will get a new companion Wednesday morning, as well as a new area.

Mom- I get transferred/changed Wednesday morning to who knows where. President mentioned it to my companion who had an interview with him this morning. I really liked the newsletter. I couldn't tell if it was because it was a great newsletter, or because it was all of you guys, or if it was because it was one of the few things I have read recently that wasn't the scriptures or Preach My Gospel. I also heard that you didn't try the zipline, what´s up with that?

Week 33 - Luque - Christmas Phone call

We were able to Skype Ivan today for our Christmas phone call.  He was at a Cyber and wore headphones to hear us.  He spoke into a hand held microphone, so we could hear him.  He took the web cam and gave a view of the place and there were about 8 missionaries using the computers and just as many locals.

Ivan skyping us in the Cyber

He also said that there is not a W in the Guarni language there so they read his name Bovvles and they say it  Bov-veles.

 Ivan's Guarani name tag

He had a little bit of an accent.  Although he was shocked when we told him he had one.

Ivan told us that there is an area where there are bread missionaries and all they do it bake bread all day.  This mission is in the jungle and speaks a whole different language.  Apparently, there were lots of converts and they were given the supplies to make bread to sustain themselves but they just ate the supplies instead.  Now the missionaries are there helping them make the bread so that they can sell it to support themselves.

He also said that some transfers would occur tonight and that President Madriga told him to bring his suitcase to the district meeting today "just in case."  

Ivan also said that he had diarrhea really bad and had to go to the doctor.  They took a stool sample and then he had to save samples at home for three days.  The tests came back clean.  However, he was feeling better by the end so he knew it was going to come out good.  He also said that oatmeal helps protect your stomach/intestines so he eats that everyday for breakfast.

He said it was 50 degrees celcius there today which is over 120 degrees.


We lucked out in that we thought he would call at 7am and we were ready by about 6:30.  We heard from him at 6:35 and talked until 8am.  At the end we were all teary eyed (including Ivan), but it was a great phone call.

He also said that he had never been happier than he is now.

Week 32 - Salado - Another Baptism, Pooped On, Magic Rootbeer, Can't Say His Own Name

J-n-s got baptized, it was awesome. He is so great, he probably was the person that was the easiest to teach so far. His mom, Genara gave the opening prayer, after having been in the church for just a month. Even though her husband/J-n-s´s dad died fairly recently, they both get along so well, you never would have thought anything was amiss if you saw the two of them just spending time together on their front porch.

I got pooped on by a bird this week, and then I got diarrhea, new experience for me, I had never thought it was contagious.

I went to the hospital this week with my zone and another zone to sing Christmas carols to the patients. We also did a secret santa thing, and I got root beer flavoring, to put in carbonated water and just magically have root beer, so that´s awesome.

I also decided that I´m not going to be able to say my name right when I get back, I corrected someone who said it the right way this last week, because I´m so used to people mispronouncing it.

Elder Bowles

 

Fun fact, I found out that they have general conference in guaraní on lds.org, if you want to hear what it sounds like (we couldn't find it there), but it´s under guaraní (in quaranI) which is something different, and I can´t remember what it is. So good luck.

Mom- I put my shoes in our back yard for an hour during studies and then they are super dry. My favorite picture that you sent was the one of Grandpa Gil.

 

Julia- I feel like I´ve done almost all I can to find people here, right now I´m just contacting all the houses that had lame excuses or weren´t home when I went by the first time on those streets. I know my area like the back of my hand.  I did get the picture of Kami's cat. The main reason I went on a mision was because the prophet said I should, and now I love it.  It´s not nearly as bad as everyone made it sound.

 

Kami-it´s definitely done raining. It´s hot again. As far as the virgin goes, I´ve heard that every single latin american country has their own virgin mary that they worship. Paraguay-virgin of caacupe. I beleive it´s mexico that worships the virgin of Guadalupe. and the others have their own as well. Don´t ask me how it got started because I have no idea.

 

Dad-I pretty much have contacted all the houses in Salado. As missionaries here in Paraguay we don´t set aside time for contacting.  We just contact to and from and inbetween all our visitas. I´ve had to be more and more creative when I pick the routes we take in order to go to the few houses that I haven't gotten yet. Luckily president rarely ever leaves an elder an an area for more than 4 cambio(change/transfer). I should have a fresh area in about 2 weeks, and I´m super excited, because I´ll be able to talk to everyone right when I get there.  It'll be awesome.

Week 31 - Salado - Good Juices, 118F, Special Transfer, 10 investigators

View from their front porch during rainstorm

This week was good. We survived the 8th of Deciembre just fine, surprisingly enough nobody asked us about the virgin of Caacupe. Probably because most of them that were fanatics of the virgin left for Caacupe.  All the collectivos leaving our area to go there were packed full. There´s a rumor that it rains in Caacupe every year on the 8th of december, but I don´t know how true that is.

I was walking through the area yesterday, and I walked for 3 blocks and I had contacted every single house already. That would be one nice thing about getting a new area, but it´s pretty much the only reason I would say I would want to leave Salado.

I feel like every week since I started the mision has gone faster than the one before, it´s super crazy.

Here they make juices that are super good with milk and azucar (sugar).

The temperature measured 48 degrees celsius here, with a whole bunch of humiditly, it´s super hot. All I know is that´s somewhere over 100F (Dave checked and it is 118F), but I´m not sure by how much.

Elder Bowles

The picture I attached of the blue fence is from our front porch here, the ditch is overflowing with water and is 4 feet deep. It was crazy, and luckily it was in the morning while we were studying.

Mom- I feel great. I got both the packages, with boots, candy, ketchup, syrup, peanut butter, ties, jam, cereal. I don´t remember which was in which. I needed the boots pretty much right away because of the rainstorm last week which soaked my boots, and there was still some somewhat high water the next day, so I was super glad I had the new boots.

 

I drink from the filter, but the members give us juice they make, and it´s super good, so I drink it. I use the bottle they gave us in t he MTC mostly because I can drink from it faster.

 

There´s going to be a bigger than normal special transfer this week, which is when people get transferred halfway into the change (3 weeks) in vez de the normal 6 weeks. so hopefully I´m not affected by that. I´ve heard that the longer you´re in an area the more likely it is.

 

Dad-J_n_s is getting baptized this saturday. Right now we don´t have any people that look super promising, we found out that one of our investigators really is an inactive member and lied when we asked if he was baptized, so that we would keep coming back. Since he doesn´t want to go to church all that much that was somewhat annoying.

 

Some people put lights up for Christmas, but not all that many. There are some Christmas trees here but not a whole bunch. Our next best prospect after J_n_s is Fr_n__sc_, who stopped us yesterday because he wanted to know when church started.

 

Julia-We have a list of investigadores that we try to teach every week. Sometimes they just can´t be found again, or they don´t progess.  We probably have about 10 that we visited this week, and we usually find about 5 new investigators every week. I just ate guisos and pastas and chicken.

Week 30 - Salado - Eating Crocodile, Flooding, Easygoing People, Paraguayan Culture Corrections

I ate crocodile this week, and it was super good, it tasted like chicken but had a fishy taste too it which made it delicious.

There was also a huge rainstorm on Thursday, it rained super hard from about 6 in the morning until about 12. The main road in Salado was flooded in a lot of places, and  a lot of the other roads had basically turned into rivers. I took a picture of the ditch on the side of the road while it was overflowing, but I forgot my camera today, so next week I should send it. Ingold and I had to walk through water that came almost up to our knees. After a while I noticed that my comp was always walking in the deepest parts of the road/river. The members said it was the 2nd worst rainstorm ever. Take that how you want. We did'´t have electricity or water  while we were studying in the morning, but it was back when we got home that night, luckily. 

There´s a neighborhood in our area that's called San Miguel, and there´s only one investigator on record of ever living there, and not a single member. I had just finished telling Ingold that when some lady stopped us and told us that she was a member and lived in San Miguel, so that was really cool, We´re gonna go by her house this week and see how inactive she is.

I got the package at zone conference this last week, I appreciated every single thing in there, it was really nice getting stuff. 

Elder Bowles

Mom- I think Paraguay is the only mission I could handle because the people here don´t really care about anything.  A lot of them also speak Spanish as a second language, and almost nothing is weird to them They just care about getting enough money for their rent and food. They also love to talk, so that makes it easier most the time. The only thing that is hard is getting them to understand the importance of our message.  He came in the same group as Elder Hamilton, which means he´s been out for about a year and 3 or 4 months.

Kami-I think I will pretty much for sure get transferred just after new years, missionaries here usually stay for a max of 5.5 months in an area, so I´m pretty sure this is my last transfer here in Salado  No I don´t really run anymore, I just have to make up lame things to do in the house/backyard for exercises. We made a pull up bar, so that was fun for a bit.

Dad- Everyone loves talking about faith. The most shared scripture here in Salado is the one in James, fe sin obras es muerte in si mismo, because they always talk about how much faith they have but they barely ever do anything at all to show it, besides take a vacation to Caacupe to have a party where the virgin of Caacupe is, while they break a couple commandments while they´re at it. I have a greater testimony of how the smallest things have the greatest impact, and how people´s prayers are answered through other people who listen to the Spirit, just like Monson says.

Julia- Almost nobody wears pants in public.  They all wear shorts, and flip flops. There are no rules whatsoever about dating, they just do whatever, whenever. There´s tons of trash here, and tons of mangos. and no addresses and only some streets have names.

Week 29 - Salado - New companion likes to eat frogs, Virgin of Caacupe, Eating Mango, Britez's conversion story

I´m still here in Salado! I stayed in my favorite area so far, from what I´ve heard from other missionaries it really is one of the best. My new comp is Elder Ingold, he´s from West Virginia. We get along ok so far, you can´t really tell how it´s gonna be from just a couple of days.  He works hard, so I can´t complain as far as that goes.

Jonas came to church again this week, he´s still on track to get baptized the 8th of December, which is a national holiday here in Paraguay.  It is the day of the Virgin of Caacupe, when all the Catholics collectivo/drive/walk/bike/crawl to Caacupe to worship the virgin statue there. It should be interesting. Hamilton got sent near there, so that´s too bad for him. But Jonas is awesome, he has tons of great questions, and he´s one of the people I know just really understands the message and the importance of it.

This week we ate at the house of the Familia Portillo and I started to eat a bite of a mango that one of the little daughters gave me and the mom told me to stop eating it because it wasn´t ripe and apparently they have a bunch of acid in them when they're not ripe. I got a little blister on my lip. It was kinda annoying.

My new comp mentions how much he likes to eat frogs whenever we talk to a member, so I don´t know how I feel about that. The good thing is the members always say guacala when he mentions it, which just means eeeewww, and its just super funny when they say guacala, I don´t know why. We are trying to get a new house in Salado because the mission doesn´t like there to be 4 elders in one house. I'm kinda hoping the paperwork doesn´t get worked completely out until I leave, becasue then I´d have to pack and move one more time before I leave.

We talked to Hermano Britez the first counselor in the bishopric, and he shared his conversion story as always, but it´s really awesome and I ´ve heard it like 5 times, so I though t I´d pass it along,

He said that he moved to Salado about 12 years ago and saw the missionaries.  He described them as Amercians with white shirts and tags and always wondered what they were doing in Limpio because I guess Americans aren´t usually outsie of the capital.  He went on to say that he´s tried pretty much all the churches here in Paraguay, and that after a while of seeing the missionaries on collectivos and stuff he got a feeling that he needed to talk with one of them.  He prayed that night and asked that he could talk with the Americans. Then the very next day they knocked on his door. There were only missionaries living in the centro of Limpio then too.  Salado wasn´t even it´s own area with it´s own missionaries yet,  and there wasn't a chapel in Salado, which is about 30 minutes away by collectivo. I just really like his testimony.

Elder Bowles

Julia- I haven´t gotten anything on my nametag really ever, besides rain or dirt. Most people in Paraguay just wear zapatillas (flip flops), and only because of pique and glass thats lying around places. One hard thing to get used to is a lot of the times they just expect you to open their gate and come in, which still just feels wierd to me so I don´t do it that often, unless they talk quiet.

Kami-they do celebrate Christmas, its just wierd cuz it´s hot.  Some people have Christmas trees, and threre is Santa here. We eat pasta once or twice a week.

Dad-that´s awesome about the house. Just keep trying to visit the inactive family, just so that they have to reject the gospel instead of being able to forget about it. When we visit someone who just speaks Guarani we say stuff like ¿crees en nandejara? or other basic stuff like that and just try to see if they´re interested, and sometimes we struggle through lesson 1, so they can feel the Spirit. Then we bring a member the next lesson or nothing will happen. They recently paved the one main road in my area, so there´s one paved road now. Most are impedrado or dirt. you avoid dog bites by watching them with your eyes until they back down or you are at a safe distance.

Mom- Sometimes I think  I got sent to this mission because it was the only one I would be able to handle.  I´ll say more about that next week, but you´ll need to remind me. Picking a favorite day would be just too hard. Probably Saturday because that´s when baptisms happen. The picture of the fish I sent wasn´t poisonous.  I can send a picture of a posionous one next week if you´d like.  I´m running short on time I have posion oak pills, and I´ve taken them already.

Week 28 - Salado - Bit by a Parrot, Poison Grass, Teaching "old" people, Sleep talking in Spanish

Genara´s baptism was this Saturday, and it was awesome. Her son Jonas came, and he wants to be baptized too, so that´s super awesome. She has a parrot, and it bit me, but when the district leader was here it pooped on him, so I think I got the better end of the deal because it really didn't hurt at all.
 My comp got bit by a dog this week, but the dog did less damage than the parrot, oh well.  I saw the ugliest dog in the world this week, it only had hair on the top of its back, and it was bleeding a whole bunch, and its eyes made it look like it was blind. The dogs here are ugly when they´re healthy too, just because they are all mixes of all the dogs that ever were. 

They have this poison grass stuff here, which does exactly what poison oak does, so that hasn´t been fun this last week or so, at least now I know to avoid it.

Spanish is a lot of people´s second language here.  I've been noticing that here in Salado,  that my Spanish is a lot better than a lot of people´s Spanish here, it´s kinda interesting.  Guaraní is still a lost cause for me right now.  I learn new phrases every so often, but it´s a weird language.

Guarani is impossible. but if you just repeat what they say to you they think you´re really smart. but that´s harder said than done, because it´s super nasally and hard to pronounce, and every word has like three meanings. A lot of people here ask if I´m Brazilian, and when I say no, they always say oh, well you must be German then, and it´s super funny.

Elder Bowles

Julia-I haven´t even seen the temple here in Paraguay yet, since my flight got delayed on the way here, they just sent us to our areas instead of showing us the temple first. They just changed it so that missionaries here go to the temple once every year instead of once every six months. But when Juan Carlos goes to the temple I should get to go with him. You´re supposed to wear the missionary name tag all the time, we don´t wear them sometimes when we go on runs in the morning though, but it´s not like a name tag would get in the way of bowling.

It´s raining really hard right now. Our youngest investigator was S., who was the one who ran out of the font and was 9 years old.

 I used to think that old people were way harder to teach, but right now we have a great 60 year old investigator, so I guess it really depends on the readiness of the person.

Mom-We don´t get the Liahona with the conference talks until way later after the conference. when I got here (in July) my companion was super excited because he had just gotten the conference talks from April.

I should be able to skype, about half the cybers here have webcams, but I will let you know after I know if I´m staying or not. I´d say it´s about 80 percent chance that I stay.

I feel fluent with the words I know, but I feel like the more fluent I get, the more people we find who speak just Guaraní, so it´s hard to measure. There will always be work to be done with the language(s). Especially if I get sent somewhere where they speak Portugese.
Dad-Since there aren't a whole bunch of members, we have appointments for each day of the week that happen every week, so we see our lunch appointment families more than the families that don´t feed us lunch.

One of the members we visited a week ago said that she had a dream where she was holding two keys and was trying to catch up to her dead cousin, who was all dressed up in white, to give them to him. What we had planned to share was about the temple and the plan of salvation. It was crazy. I have a hard time remembering my dreams when I wake up though, I've been told I've sleep talked in Spanish though.

Ivan's big catch!

Spending another P-day fishing

Week 27 - Salado - More Guarani investigators, Prayer with a knife & gun, Inviting friends to church

Well, we found another Guaraní to teach this last week. It´s Sonia´s uncle, and he knows even less Spanish than she does, so that makes teaching kinda tricky. Elder Ferreira and I went and walked with him to church, and it was left to me to tell him "jaha tupaope" which as far as I know means "lets go church." He came, so things worked out just fine. We had set up a time that we could come visit him, but we couldn't get a member to go with us.  We didn't have his phone number, if he has one, so we went because we said we would,and all we could do was ask if we could say a prayer with him and set up a time to come back with a member so that we could actually teach him something. When we asked if we could make a prayer, he said Sí, and then he pulled a knife out of the back of his pants and set it on the chair next to him, and then he pulled a gun out of the front of his pants and set it right next to the knife. And then we prayed. He is super smiley, and every  time he smiles we see that he has more cavities in his mouth than he has teeth. He´s awesome, and he loved church yesterday, even though he really couldn't understand all that much.  

Genara is gonna be baptized this week too, she basically reactivated her neighbors because they have a moto with a trailer thing and she wanted rides to church, so now they´re bringing her to church and staying the whole time as well.

Elder Bowles

The end of this change is next week, we´ll see what happens. I really have no idea if I´ll stay here in Salado or not, so it´ll be a surprise either way.

Kami- About a quarter of the investigators that I have taught have been members giving us a friend or neighbor or family member to teach. Out of the 4 people so far that I've seen or will see baptized, we only found 1 of them by ourselves.

Mom-My poops are normal, thanks for asking. The handyman is still trying to fix the suitcase, but it sounds like it´s not gonna end up fixed. It's the green one. We find out about transfers a week from today in the evening, so I still won´t know if I´m staying or not when I write next week.

Dad-All of them still go to church every week except for JC, who didn´t come for a month, but came this week. I didn´t have to speak in church yesterday, so that was a relief. We eat lunch with members everyday except for Wednesdays and Mondays.

Julia-surprisingly enough I've seen my fair share of naked kids too, because they always  take baths outside in buckets. We ride collectivos (buses) pretty much everyday, just because our area is as big as it is. 

I've got two or three haircuts, at different places, they have electric razors to trim hair here. We have a neighbor with red hair and freckles, but that is it. 

Alma 34-something the verse that says that this life is the time to prepare to meet God. Paraguayans don´t plan for the future, not even like 5 years in advance, so it makes it hard to make them think as far away as dying and after this life if they don´t even think about 5 or 10 years ahead. Don´t try to ´formally´ do it, just invite her to church or something, and ask her what she thought about it. Or ask her about her church first. Or talk about me or something, and then ask if she´s ever rejected the missionaries, and see what happens. There was an article about it in the Liahona here a month ago I think. 

Week 26-Salado - Survey of Paraguayan Bathrooms,American Music, $4000 for a House, Talkative, Elder Bednars visit

This week was great, we put in a lot of hard work, and it´s still getting hotter.

There was 105 people in church this week, the highest I´ve seen since I got here. One of our investigators went to church and loved it, there´s really no reason not to if you want to be there. Her name is Genara, and lives right next door to a different member´s house, so that makes it even better.

The funniest thing happened yesterday. We heard the "girls just wanna have fun" song being blasted from someone´s stereo, and as we got closer we saw this big Paraguayan man just sittin in front of his house just chillin. If only he knew what the song actually said.

I saw my share of Paraguayan bathrooms this week, just the way things worked out, they are made out of anything from a couple layers of bricks with a hole in the ground, fruit crates, or just regular toilets that may or may not flush. Some of them are made out of tarps with quite a few holes in them, and you can have a pretty nice view of your surroundings while you´re in there and just hope they can´t see you just as well. I really do appreciate nice, flushing toilets.

If someone wants to buy a nice, brick house with two bedrooms here in Salado it would only cost about 4000 dollars, kinda crazy.

The one and probably only thing that I don´t appreciate about Paraguay is how much they love to talk. If you let them, they could talk to you for hours, and when they run out of things to say, they just hit play and start going again, but I really do like pretty much everything else besides that.

Elder Bowles

Mom-could you send me the recipe for potato soup? The good news is that S. got a job taking care of someone´s house and baby. She really was blessed, for keeping her commitments for the month or so that we´ve known her.

Elder Bednar (one of the 12 Apostles) opened up for question and answer for about an hour or so, and told us that a lot of the people ask guess what I´m thinking questions and won´t accept anything besides what they´re thinking for an answer, and how that is just a ridiculous tradition. He also talked alot about treating people as agents instead of objects, and helping them to be able to find their own answers to spiritual things before we leave them.

That´s super crazy that they didn´t even let the MTC´s know (about the age change for missions).

Obra misonal week is every 2nd sunday, but we had general conference for one of them, and then Prete and Fererria showed up for a different one, so I´ve still only speaken once so far, I think it´s my turn again this week.

Dad- R is 15. He knows castellano, but it´s not even as good as mine is, he mostly speaks Guaraní. Elder Prete had to stay in the hospital with Feirerra.  It was back to me and Hamilton for a couple days, but it was already weird without them.

Some of the members are awesome fellowshippers, and some I just hope won´t say anything at all while the investigators are there. Also, one of the members tried to tell me that the Mississippi River dried up and people started walking across it, but I found that hard to believe.

Kami-that´s funny about your room, are they gonna show it in class, or just a couple of them? Did you go trick or treating?

Julia-We ran into two real bad drunk guys this week. They always like talking about the law of chastity more than anything, I´ll just leave it at that. One we had contacted before at his house, and he was way more talkative this time while he was drunk, and kept asking us what our doctrine was after we had explained it like 3 times. The other one got mad because we laughed at him, and kept asking us whiy we were laughing at him, and how today was the only time he drank since he quit drinking.

Week 25 - Salado - Trip to the Hospital, 2 Baptisms, Elder Bednar, Pretending to speak Guarani, Cost of items

This week was crazy.

Elder Feirerra went to the hospital Monday night, and didn´t come back until Thursday night. It turned out that all he had were kidney stones too. It didn´t sound fun at all. And to make things worse, he has two of them.

Then Sonia and Richard both had their baptisms on Friday. It was great. They both mostly speak Guaraní, and after the baptism a whole bunch of members bore their testimonies in Guaraní, so that just made it even better. One lady said HaHa a lot. I guess it´s a word in guarani, but it just sounded really weird mixed in with everything else. Three 8 year-olds got baptized the same night as well.

Elder Bednar (one of the 12 Apostles) came on Saturday, we took a early morning trip, catching a collectivo at about 5 to go down to the south mission to hear from him. He was super blunt, it was awesome. He told us that he only had 3 hours, and so he wasn´t gonna waste any of it being nice. That´s not exactly what he said,but it´s pretty close.

I went over to Asunción today to sign into the country. I don´t know why we didn´t just do it before, but whatever.

Elder Bowles

Mom- It is hard as young missionaries to deal with serious situations, but really we´re just the people who help them go to God for help. And doing that is easy if they have an open heart.

 

Dad- I read Ether this week too. The thing that I thought was interesting was that it still took them hundreds of days to get there. A lot of times we don´t realize how much we really have been helped by trials or by god in general until much later. 

 

A loaf of bread costs about 11 mil (thousand) Guaranís which is equals to about 2ish dollars. 1 liter of juice costs 6 mil Guaranís.

 

People pretend to only speak Guaraní all the time. Sometimes we start contacts by saying hi, how's it going in Guaraní, and sayin it´s hot outside and something about Jesus in Guaraní until they think that we know Guarani, and then they switch to Spanish on accident sometimes. We just try to speak enough that they think we know it, to get rid of one of their excuses.

 

Hermano Britez, the first counselor in the bishopric is real aweome. He is very sincere, and says everything to your face, but he really does hold the ward together and bring the rest of the bishopric back to earth when they have crazy plans.

 

Julia- I would say there´s a big rainstorm about every couple of weeks, because it´s Springtime. I´d say I lost the weight I´ve gained in the MTC no mas. Thats super exciting that you have applied to college.Now all you need to do is listen to mom and get scholarships.

Kami-Rainstorms just feel great, because it cools everything off for a couple of days. Thats awesome about your test.
 

 

 

Sonia's friends and family at her baptism

 

 

Everyone who came for the 5 baptisms.

 

Week 24 - Salado - Rainstorms, Latinos in our Zone, Ivan is a husband, Understanding Now

This week was awesome. We had two more rainstorms, and one of them left Salado without power for a little bit. Right now we don´t have running water in our house, since Sunday morning. We showered in the Limpio elder´s house today, because that needed to be done.

We have a whole bunch more Latinos in our zone now, we have elders from Peru, Chile, Columbia, Bolivia, and Argentina, as well as the U.S.) all in our zone now. I went on one more division with Elder Feirerra this week, during the rainstorm. He´s crazy. He glued our lightswitch off one day this week, but he still won´t admit it.

Prete and Feirerra are teaching a deaf, mute kid. They say they do the whole lesson by writing stuff down for him, it sounds way different.

 

Sonia is going to get baptized this week, she´s awesome, whenever we ask her igatu al tupaope, she always just tells us how it's not a matter of if she will and how she knows she needs to. Old Guarani ladies have a great sense of humor if it gets through the language barrier. We´ve been teaching her through the members, because she pretty much only can understand Guarani, and when we asked her if she would live the law of chastity she just laughed and said she already had two maridos (husband), and then she pointed at me and Elder Hamilton. She was also the one who kicked the frog in the middle of the lesson.

I went on a division with one of the counselors in the stake presidency yesterday. We got a few good rejections and a few awesome lessons. We gave the Book of Mormon to one of our investigators, and while I wrote down the steps for how to pray, he explained it using the guide that the missionaries had given him, in his first book of mormon. Thats when I really realized that I really won´t be able to see the influence that I´ve had on the people here until I´m long gone. He was also one of the very hardest people for me to understand when I first got here, and just a month or so later, I can understand him completely. I really do know that the mission is a special place.  It has already changed my life forever in these few months that I´ve been here.

Elder Bowles

Julia- The power went out towards the end of our email time last week, it must have been deleted, I´m sorry. We do yoga every day in the morning, you guessed it. I learned that you should make sure your roof is stuck to your house or it could hit somebody and seriously injure them.

 

Dad-We are busier than ever with our smaller area, it´s awesome, it really is the better half, and now we get to spend all our time there. Motos are the family car here as well.

 

Kami-No, I didn´t get a sombrero yet. Stop bein so humble about your races, just tell me how you did, I heard you got 6th or 7th in one of them, which is awesome.

Elder Ferriera and Elder Bowles after the rainstorm

Week 23 - Salado - Living with 4 Elders, Air Conditioning, Baptisms Fall Thru, Gone Fishing

I´m still in Salado! We're living with two other elders now, Elder Prete and Elder Ferreira. Elder Ferreira is from Buenos Aires, and served for a couple months in Brazil but had some medical problems and went home for a couple months and now he's here. A lot of the members here make fun of the way Argentinians prounounce their L's, and now he's here and talks normally that way, so that was real funny. Elder Prete is training him. We got put in the better half of the area, but I still don't really like having half of the area that we used to. The way things worked out I did a division with Elder Feirerra his first full day here, so that was fun.

We got our air conditioner fixed, its super old, but it's gonna be great to have something besides floor fans while we're studying and sleeping.

PP didn't end up getting baptized, she and her family had to go somewhere all of the sudden. Neither did Richard. His mom had to work and he said he didn't feel ready or something. It was kinda frustrating, because they were both super excited earlier this week, and we didn't find out until a couple hours before that Patricia wasn't getting baptized, and we had to go to Richard's house to find out what was going on when he didn't show up.

It's been either cloudy or super hot this whole week, and we've been doing a lot of contacts since the other elders got half our investigators, yesterday there were a whole bunch of drunks, I distracted one during a lesson while Hamilton tried to teach yesterday. Not really the best learning environment.

We went fishing last Monday, I caught two and we got 6 or 7 in total.  Right after I caught the first one, the guy we went fishing with yelled at me not to touch it, because it was poisonous, then he came up and clipped off the fins. After the other one I caught, I asked if it was poisonous, but it wasn't, so that was that. Neither of them were longer than about 4 or five inches though. I didn't really expect to catch much of anything with maza, or bread dough as bait, and a bamboo pole with not much more than 6 or 7 feet of line, but it worked surprisingly well.  Hermana Cristina cooked them up and we ate them the next day. There were a lot of bones, but they were really good. And they were super tiny. Everything here in Paraguay is smaller and either is posionous or has thorns.

 

Dad- A lot of times being grateful is the only thing that we need to do. A lot of the inactive members here see us and snap at us "cuando van a visitarme?" and a couple times Hamilton has said that he isn't going to if they never go to church. Everyone here expects visits from us, members, less actives, inactives, even old investigators, but really aren't that nice about it and don't ever complete with commitments we give them. The few that really are greatful are the ones that show it by acting on what we say and hoping for visits, not expecting them.

 

As far as I've noticed they don't have mutual, just Tuesday and Thursdays are partido nights. There are usually more nonmembers than members. Besides having half of the previous area and the other two elders in our house I was not affected.

 

Mom- The Hermana (mission president's wife) did call us. I've heard from the Zone leaders that this zone is one of the worse ones as far as peke goes, and I really don't know what more I could do to try to not get it. basically. I am one contact short of having two boxes of contacts for each eye. Butterfingers would be super awesome, as well as syrup, and some taco seasoning. What is Hailey's email, I forgot it.

 

Kami-It rained this week. I really like the rain here because it cools everything off, it's great, and then it starts to heat up until it rains again. It is getting even hotter than before, since we're coming into spring time, so we're about to get sombreros for the sun, which is gonna be really nice

Week 22 - Salado - General Conference, Lowering Mission Age, Frogs, Demon Tree, Teaching Outside

This week was awesome, we went to General Conference, went to the baptism of Michael, one of the boys in the Gonzalez family. We called PP's mom on Thursday, and she said that she had forgotten about the baptism and would let us know when would actually work.  It was kinda frustrating. She said that everything is good for this week, so we'll see what happens.

 

It's super exciting that the age for missionaries got lowered, there is always a need for more missionaries. There were so many talks that mentioned missionaries at General Conference.  I know that each and every person that decides to serve a mission will make a difference, and I am super excited.

 

The one talk that really got me was the talk from Elder Holland (one of the 12 Apostles), and how we cannot look back, because life will never be the same, and that we need to feed his sheep. I know that my life has already been permanently changed for the better these last couple of months, that's just how it is, and I want everyone else to be able to make that change as well.

 

I got pike (foot parasite) again, but Carlos took it out no problem.

 

One food tht we eat a lot here is mandioca. the best way to describe it is a cross between a potato and celery. But it actually is pretty good, that's just the only way I have to describe it.

 

This week when we were teaching an investigator, a frog tried to go into her house while she was telling us something. She gave it a kick and it flew a goot 30 feet and made one of the funniest noises I've ever heard, and she continued talking the whole time like nothing happened. It made it even harder for me to pay attention to the lesson that was in half Guarani and half Castellano.

 

I'll find out tonight if I stay in Salado, President Madriga told at our zone meeting last week that he was going to send more missionaries to the Salado ward, so that's super exciting.

 

I am officially done with training, so that means we have an hour or so less of studies now, and we can work for more of the day, which is awesome.

Elder Bowles

I attached a picture of a tree that people say demons are trapped inside of that's in our area. I want to chop it down, but I don't think the neighbors would appreciate that all that much.

Julia- It is great that they are lowering the age. I think that for a while it will make people really consider their decision to come. There are too many who just came because it's what was expected of them by their family, and now aren't really fulfilling their callings as missionaries, but like you said, it really is a decision between you and God.

 

Kami- I can never tell for sure if they are going to go to church, but a lot of times I can tell when they won't. You've only had a couple of meets, you shouldn't be the fastest, you should just be trying. Also, make sure you do whatever the doctor/trainer tell you to do for your leg, so that at least you know you did your part.

 

Dad-none of our investigators came to conference, and about 6 said they would, but I enjoyed conference just the same. We almost never teach inside, and it just feels weird when we do. I get tired of studying sometimes just because we have to be inside. I saw all the sessions, but we were late to a few of them because we were super busy when there wasn't conference.The songs aren't translated to Spanish, they just stand there and watch the people on the screen sing in English. I would rate my fluency in spanish at a 6 (1 for toddler to 10 as a professional orator was the scale Dave provided) for someone who is super good at making up words that actually end up being understood somehow. In Guarani its definitely a 1, because I know very few words, but I have been exposed to it.

 

Mom-that sounds like a huge remodel, do you think I will be able to recognize the house at all from the inside when I get home? The tips of one of my fingers were numb for a bit too from holding groceries in plastic bags for too long on a collectivo. They have contact solution here, so i don't think I need that. I will check on the contacts though and let you know of anything else that I think of for next week's letter.

 

Demon Tree

 (rumor has it demons are trapped inside)

 

Week 21 - Salado - 5 Investigators, Making Tacos, Old guy Talking to a Parrot, The Atonement to Me

This week was awesome. There were 5 investigators at church yesterday, which is the most by far that we´ve ever had. One day this week we weren't quite sure who we going to visit, and so we looked at our area map and found a less active family. We never did find the family, but super close to where the family was supposed to be we found an awesome lady who said she had wanted to go to church for years, but just needed someone to motivate her to go. And she was there yesterday.

 

We made tacos with the Gonzalez family this week, because they wanted to try them, it was super fun.

 

I also went on a division with a Mexican missionary this week, it went surprisingly well as far as being able to communicate with each other. It was different going to a different area too, I learned a lot from it. But we talked to this lady from Chile, and she talked way different than Paraguayans and was super hard to understand.

 

All the old guys here are funny, we´ll say hello to them and they´ll stop us in the street and agree to go to church, and be baptized, and then we won´t see them at church or ever again. A lot of people we talk to agree with whatever we say, and will let us in to talk, but don´t ever do anything they say they´ll do. It makes it harder to find the people that really do want to learn, and are open to change.

 

I´ve been hearing a lot of american music from the 80´s lately, I guess it´s just what a lot of Paraguayans like to listen to. At least I can understand it I guess.

Elder Ivan Bowles

I´ll find out for sure a week from today in the evening if I stay here in Salado. I´m pretty sure I´ll stay, which I would be just fine with me.

 

Julia-whenever we visit a less active family, we get to know them, usually they end up telling us why they don´t go anymore, and we make sure they understand the importance of going to church. Then it is up to them. That´s kinda nerve racking about the guy that tried to get in to the apartment.

 

Dad-yes, PP is getting baptized this Saturday, in between general conference sessions. Conference starts later here, it´ll be kinda weird. The word I probably use the most in Guaraní is mishimi, which means muy poco and I use it whenever someone asks me if I can speak Guaraní. I like teaching about the Book of Mormon the most, but I really enjoy seeing people pray for the first time after we teach them as well. Everyday is an adventure at church here in Salado, it doesn´t have to be testimony meeting. It´s like having every single person who talks in church being that old guy who talks for forever about the same thing over and over again. And then there is that one old guy here too, who could probably talk to a parrot for months and not notice it wasn´t a person. It´s good though, because it´s good listening practice for me.

 

Kami-that´s awesome that you got 11th, keep up the good work, Mrs Lauten is crazy, but at least she´s funny.

 

Mom- No, i didn´t see the broadcast, all the broadcasts from church headquarters are at the stakecenter in Luque, which is about 40ish minutes away from our ward, and almost nobody here has a car. For me, being able to look forward instead of backward is what the Atonement means to me. Just being able to know that all I have to do with past mistakes in my life is really, sincerely repent and learn from them and strive to be better makes everything ok in life.

Week 20 - Salado - Softball Sized Hail, PP's Mom Says Yes, Nose Whistle, Cutting the Cheese

But for good news, we found PP´s mom, who said she had no problem with her daughter getting baptized, but that she would have more time in October, because that´s when she´s gonna be quitting her job as a nurse. They work super long hours here in Paraguay as nurses, and really are often gone for almost a week or so because they sleep at the hospital.

 

Yesterday in church there was this kid in front of us who had a whistle up his nose and was whistling it in just one of his nostrils and holding the other one shut. It was super funny and made it even harder to pay attention to the talks that were in Spanish. There are so many distractions no matter where we are. We always talk to people outside, and the houses are usually pretty close together, and theres always music, kids, motos going by, and a lot of other things too.

 

Yesterday I ate this weird purple sausage thing. It was weird, I didn´t ask what it was until I was done eating it, and then Carlos said what it was. I´m still not really sure what it was, and I´m still not really sure if I liked it.

 

We took a juja trail and saw this guy picking fruit, and we talked to him and then he told us to make juice out of it. I tried it, and was ok, but it had a really bad aftertaste that either tasted like garlic or wood, I couldn´t decide which. He told us to go by his house, which was right next to a grasería, which is where they make fat. I hadn´t heard of one of those before.

 

Juan Carlos got the priesthood (the authority to perform ordinances at church and the power to act in the name of God) yesterday and is doing his papers to go on a mission, he´s super awesome in the church.

 

A whole lot of everything happened this week, we helped some people move juja out of their yards that had been blown there by the storm, and found a lot of people,

Elder Ivan Bowles

 

Kami- a week ago on preparation day we were at LT, the super in Limpio, and we were buying some meat, and we saw this lady cutting the cheese as her job. I don´t know what I´d do if I had to cut the cheese all day as my job, I just don´t think I could do it. My advice for the cross country meet is don´t be nervous for reals

Dad-usually about 65-70 people come to church each week, but this week there was 86. We had like 6 investigators pretty strongly commited to come, but none of them came. That´s one thing that´s hard in Paraguay is that people probably lie more than they actually tell the truth, but a lot of the members that we´ve visited but hadn´t gone to church for a while came, so that was awesome. One thing that I´ve really been thinking about is how in 1 Nephi somewhere it says that by small means great things are brought about, and I´ve really been noticing that lately. Like it says in the book Preach My Gospel, no effort is wasted. We found someone the other day who had already read the whole Book of Mormon that he got years ago, and just now got work off, and is planning on going to church, and the misionary that gave him the book of mormon won´t ever know.

Mom- it is super hard to find time to practice the piano, because we´re super busy, but I do when I can. That is too bad to hear about Lancelot.

Julia- there are probably about 20 two story buildings in all of my area, but definitely are more in Limpio and Asuncion.  We end up teaching more women, just because they are home more often, but it really is better to find the men because sometimes the women won´t even really talk to us because their maridos aren't home or don´t like the missionaries. Really it´s just easier to teach people who want to be taught. If they want to understand they will, if they´re old and super Catholic they will deny anything and everything until they die. But that doesn´t stop us from trying.

Week 19 - Salado - Baptism this Week, Mishimi Guarani, Getting Married

Well, S. didn´t end up getting baptized, Elder Hamilton was in the font with her and then she started crying (she has a fear of the water) and left the font and didn´t come back after that. Her 8 year old sister did, no problem at all, she just went in there and did it. So we´ll see what happens this week with S. I tried to attach a picture of the baptism, the taller one is S, and the shorter one is M., the 8 year old, that I baptized. and the rest of their family. We found Hector, a guy who went to the church for about a year somewhere else, but never was baptized, and he´s super awesome.

There was stake conference yesterday, we heard from the prophet and Elder Anderson on the screen. It was really nice,  Elder Anderson spoke in Spanish, I didn´t know he spoke Spanish, he mentioned in his talk that he also speaks French.  The bishop rented a collectivo to take the ward 40 minutes to Luque for it, everyone really loved it. There were soo many people there. They said there was about 5000.

It´s started to get real hot, which is making me a little nervous, because it´s not even summer yet.
My share of the teaching is still slowly getting larger, I still wish it was growing faster. Whenever I really feel like I´m starting to understand, they start talking in Guarani to a member that we brought to the lesson, and I feel like I´m back to day 1 of the mission, except I never had any training in Guarani before I came. For some reason after I can´t understand in Spanish they ask me if I know guarani, and I say mishimi, which is Guarani for barely any at all, and they always think that´s real funny. I really do like Salado though, it´s super pretty, the people are nice, and for the most part they´re pretty honest. I wouldn´t rather be anywhere else besides here in Salado, Paraguay.


Elder Bowles
I´m not sure if I´ll remember how to say my name right after 2 years, because (here in Paraguay) if I say it the right way they just don´t have a clue at how to say it.

I guess the airline that broke my suitcase is bankrupt now, so they´re gonna try to have someone else fix  the suitcase, so that´s a real bummer.

Mom-my next transfer is in 3 weeks and a couple days. I´m pretty sure I´m stayin in Salado, so that´s gonna be great. We went to Luque, which is probably about like the Paraguayan version of downtown Chico, except Latino and cramped up, and I didn´t like it at all in the city, but it wasn´t even really a city. I don´t know what I´d do if I get sent somewhere in the centro of Asunción at some point.

Dad-PP still hasn´t gotten permiso from her mom, she says her mom  hasn´t come back from work for a couple weeks now. I don´t know if that´s really all that true, but we´ll see what happens. I got the Dear Elder you sent and wanted I know you wanted me to tell you when I got it.

Dad-no, he wasn´t the last speaker (after part of the chapel roof almost fell on Alfredo). After Alfredo was done, Hermano Conti, who used to be in the Paraguayan army, got up and told everyone they should be reverent.

The 2nd Counselor in the Stake Presidency let slip that Elder Bednar (one of the 12 Apostles) is coming in October to Paraguay to do some training for the stake leaders, so we´ll see if we get to hear from him.

We cleaned before the cleaning lady came, but she wanted to clean everything again. It was kinda annoying, because it was super clean before she came.

Singing in Spanish is interesting, because they haven´t had a piano for a while, so everyone´s off-key during the hymns.  I haven´t played in Sacrament yet.

The bishop just told us to put the (volleyball) court straight on the lawn behind the church.

Right now we have 5 investigadores that have more than 1 lesson that we´re focusing on, but  that really doesn´t mean that much at all until they go to church. A lot of people like hearing the palabra de dios (word of God) , but don´t want to make any commitments at all. 3rd Nephi is really awesome. Chapter 18 is great for teaching dia de reposo (Sabbath Day), because it has blessings, Christ, what to do and punishment all wrapped up into 1.

Julia- I have seen quite a few people on drugs here. I haven´t gotten a real good feel for it yet, but I can tell you that as far as drugs go that it´s not all that much better here.

Hailey- Thank you so much for the letter. I am glad you are doing fine. I don´t have a chance at understanding Guarani a this point, unless its the the hau´pe for whats up or the haku for its real hot out. I also know how to say firefly, its mwa-mwa. which really doesn´t help me that much, it's just fun to say. The people here barely ever get married, and when they do, it turns out bad because the guy isn´t that great and the woman can´t get a divorce. I really am glad that you found a good guy as Jeff  and are happily married forever.

. Elder Hamilton, Elder Bowles, S. and M. and their family

Week 18 - Salado - Cleaning our Apartment, More Peke, Clean Clothes!, Unforgetable Talk

Today we had to clean our apartment. It took 4 and a half hours for us to finish, so that was annoying. I guess they send the lady around to all the houses, and she just happened to come on a Monday.  

I went on a division with a member this week, and it was for 4ish hours. It didn´t go all that great but it could have been worse. Nobody we wanted to see during that time was there, except for an inactive member that didn´t really seem to want to talk to us but did anyway.

The bad news is that PP´s mom wasn´t around to give her permision to be baptized, she´s a nurse and apparently doesn´t come home that often at all. We´re gonna try again for this coming Saturday, along with another girl who didn´t get baptized either because she´d afraid of water or because her parents forgot.

My companion had a bigger peke on his other foot, Carlos took it our for him. There were a whole bunch of eggs too. Carlos pulled out a clump a little smaller that a Q-tip tip. He thinks it´s from his socks cuz we´ve been a little short on clean clothes this week. That´s one thing that I´m surprised by how great it is to get clean clothes when you haven´t had them for a bit.

There was a random lady we contacted today who let us in before we said basically anything and gave us the best orange juice I´d ever had. She had made it and it didn´t have a huge amount of pulp. She was super nice and said she had talked to the missionaries before, but whenever we tried to talk to her about anything besides her dog or her kids, she would just talk about how she was Catholic.

We made a paraguayan pizza. It was good, the only real difference is that they don´t really have pepperoni here at all, and the crust was thick and hard. The pineapples are tiny in the stores here, I tried guayava fruit, I think its called guava in the states, it was really good. Then I found out that you're not supposed to eat the seeds, or it messees you up in the bathroom later. It did.

They have fireflies here, it´s pretty awesome at night. 

The other day when Argentina and Paraguay were playing it was basically impossible to find people to talk too.

Yesterday Alfredo gave a really unforgettable talk. during his talk, Elder Hamilton got up and turned off the air conditioning, and after that there was this loud dripping noise in the ceiling. Right after alfredo finished giving his testimony, the tile above him broke in half and water poured down right where he just was a half second before and there was a good 2 or 3 gallons of water, if not more that poured down then the Bishopric (local church leaders) moved back to a different bench, someone got a bucket for the leak, and the meeting went on it was pretty crazy.

Elder Bowles

Julia-we do have a cellphone, I was kinda dissapointed when I found that out. Everyone here has cellphones. There are some sister missionaries in our mission, I don't know about seniors (retired missionary couples)
Kami- I probably should have, but I did leave a word of wisdom (no drinking or smoking) pamphlet on some guys shoes while he was passed out on a path we were walking on yesterday.
Dad-  The most unusual thing I´ve eaten is still pig head. We go to ward council when they have it. They aren´t super consistent with that. I sure do definitely feel the Spirit more here, and I´m happy when I´m working hard and am not wet from a combination of rain and/or sweat.
Mom- we have hermana lescano, a member of our branch do our laundry. it usually takes 2 or 3 days, and it costs 120 mil a month for both of us together - which equals out to about 30 dollars for her to do all our laundry by hand for one month, but with the money transfer from dollars to Guarani it works out better than it sounds. She lives farther away than most things in our area though, so it´s hard to get over there to get our laundry and deliver clothes to her sometimes. I did withdraw some money for recuerdos, that will be enough for many months, how much do i have left?

Week 17 - Salado - Delay from my brain to my mouth, Getting Yelled at, Removing Peke, Happy People, $2 Haircut

I went on a division with a member this week for a couple hours, and it actually wasn´t a disaster. It definitely could have gone smoother, but we got the stuff done that we needed too, so I was just fine with that. I didn´t really understand what was going on, but everything seemed to work out. I´ve begun to understand a lot more this past week, but the stuff I want to say just takes a while to get from my brain and out my mouth. I´ve tried chipa a couple times, and everyone else seems to like it, including the missionaries, but to me it just seems like really dry dense cornbread. Hamilton said it should grow on me, and I sure hope it does, because there´s tons of it here.

The other day we were contacting someone, and all the sudden this drunk guy popped out of nowhere and started yelling at me in Jopara, but mostly Guarani. I was more than a little surprised, the only thing I got from it was that he really, really liked his yogurt and that he thought i should try some. 

Church was good yesterday, the Elders quorum pres talked a whole bunch about home teaching, which is what this ward really needs.

My comp got peke (foot parasite), and he had me take it out for him. He knew I hadn´t ever taken peke out before, so we´ll see what happens.

We found someone this last week who we left with a restoration pamphlet, and when she came back she had actually read the whole thing, and when we asked if she had any questions she immediately asked how she could get a Book of Mormon. It was pretty awesome. There are a lot of people here in Paraguay who don´t understand that easily.  It is either because of my Spanish, or since Spanish is their second language too, or because they are really stuck in their way of thinking, so it´s really nice when somebody just compeletely understands me the first time.


Elder Ivan Bowles

Dad-lejos means far, most of the missionaries in the Paraguay North Misión are either in or within 2ish hours of Asunción or are 8-10 hours away from the office. I don´t know that much Guarani at all. Almost everyone here knows Spanish and Guarani.  Elder Hamilton says he can understand it after about a year in the mission, but he can´t really speak pure Guarani. Before I just wanted to be able to understand people, and now I just want to be able to speak without a huge delay from my brain to my mouth. It´s true that the simple answers to all the questions at church really are what help us the most. We usually have about 15 good lessons each week., total with new people that we taught when we first met them, and our investigadors that are progressing. I have a hard time in lessons, but if they speak Spanish, and the lesson isn´t too crazy, I always have my things that I have practiced and know how to say, and I can say those. If things don´t go as planned, I have a hard time. Things barely ever go as planned.

Mom- my area is the Salado Ward in I think its the Luque North Stake. I´ve heard rumors that if the church here grows a little more they might form a new stake, which would be awesome. The people here really are happy with what they have. Almost everyone I´ve talked to has built their own house. They do live way simpler lives with a lot less money, but they really don´t know that much different. They know that there are people that have way more than them, but they haven´t really experienced it, and as long as they have food, health, and tererre or mate, they seem just fine with their lives. Some poeple have made houses out of brick, some out of plywood, and some out of tarps. They all help each other out a lot, but they´re always adding on to their houses too.

Julia-right now we have about 3 people who we teach real frequently and will most likely get baptized, and the rest are people that we find and teach the first lesson or something else that they need first. P.P. is 11 and is good to go to get baptized this Saturday if its ok with her mom. People here have a different school system, most schools are Catholic schools, and the closest thing to high school is called collegio, which messes me up sometimes because it sounds like college. We just find a peliqueria to cut our hair, I got one last week, it was 10 mil, which is a little more than 2 dollars in the states.

Kami- that´s awesome that Mrs. Lauten is your teacher. How far do you usually run each day?

Week 16- Salado - It's Winter Here, Led to Study, Good Yogurt!, Being Tolerant

It´s been real cold these last couple of days. It's 10 degrees Centigrade (50 Farenheit) right now, I don´t know what that is in Farenheit, but it´s really cold here with the wind and humididty.

We had zone conference on Thursday, from 8 in the morning to 2 or 3 in the afternoon. It was hard to pay attention, but I understood more than I thought I would.

We had one person come to church with us, Patricia, a girl from a less active family who´s about 11. We went on a division on saturday, I went with carlos the ward mission leader. It was only for about an hour, so I survived. Church on sunday was good, I understood some of it, it's just harder to stay focused when people are speaking Spanish.

During studies I am almost always led to study something in the scriptures or Preach My Gospel that helps me with something I needed help with, or helps me realize something that I needed, but I didn´t know I needed.

There should be some changes in our district this week, 2 of the 6 of us in juan de salazar and salado are headed home this week, we´ll see how that goes.

The yogurt here is really good, I don´t know why. It comes in bags, like just about everything else in the stores here. I also tried pink pomelo soda, it just tastes like normal grapefruit soda, the fact that it's pink doesn´t really make a difference.


Elder Bowles

Mom- I haven´t been reimbursed for baggage fees yet, and I haven't gotten my suitcase back quite yet either. I´ve still got a change left for sure in Salado, so I´ll ask the mission president in my next letter to him. I got the letters through Dear Elder a few weeks back from Mark and Daniel,  I get mail either when we go to the office for zone conference or for changes or when the carpeta comes to district meeting or when someone else goes to the ofice in our district and brings us our mail at district meeting. That´s exciting that you are redoing the house.

Dad- we play soccer with whichever missionaries in our zone go to the capilla en limpio each week. when its hot it does not cool off at night. No, Miriam didn´t make it to church, she said it was too cold and she couldn´t put pants on becasue her leg was burned by a moto, and so she didn´t go. That´s super exciting that Braxton leaves in a week, hopefully he enjoys the MTC for as long as possible. Missionaries play a larger role just because the church is younger here. The leaders sometimes ask us about how to do certain things they are unsure of, which I was real surprised by, and the missionaries who are lejos basically run church every week from what I´ve heard. I dont know if they have a fifteen names program in the states, but this ward has had the same names on that list for 2 years, so we´ve been trying to get them to change that. I haven´t met an Elder Shaw or Elder Thompson yet.

Julia- One came to church. It's either super really hot or freezing cold. Something you could do to be more tolerant of annoying people is remember that you really do have it good being born in the states and with awesome parents, and that those kids are doing the best they know how to get by without that, and that some people are just weird. As long as you´re trying don´t worry about statistics until after the test. Then you know how the class will go. That story is super funny about Luke as reverence child.

Week 15 - Salado - Speaking in Church, Playing Futbol, Racing Collectivos, Non Spicy Pizza, Eating a Turkey

Well, I spoke in church on Sunday. Both Hamilton and I were supposed to talk for 5 minutes, and I talked for 7 minutes. I never thought I was going to have gone over my assigned time. Everyone said it was good. I hope it really was and they weren´t just being polite, and it didn´t seem that long at all. I still can´t really understand the other stuff in sacrament meeting that well, but I think I'm understanding a little better.

We had an investigator who we had given up on on Friday, and then we walked into the chapel, and there he was, it was awesome. He had always said he would come to church, and seemed super excited for it, but that´s how everyone basically is here. We´ve been working with Miriam, who is really awesome. Elder Hamilton told her that he knew she was ready, and then she agreed to be baptized, and we set a date for that, and it was super awesome. Then she didn´t go to church on Sunday, so we´re gonna have to come up with a new date because everyone needs to go to church 3 times and have been taught everything before they´re baptized. Juan Carlos, the newest member of our ward has been in and out of the hospital for a week or so, we went by yesterday though, and he was fine. 

For preparation day today, we went to lucque. I think thats how its spelled I really don´t know, and we played some futbol. That was real fun.

I haven´t had any problems with my feet, they are just super gross and sweaty at the end of every day. It is super hot here. It may be the hottest place in the world.

A collectivo we were on almost hit another one this week. Then it raced to pick up more people than the other one.  They should have collectivos en the U.S.

We went to a Italian pizza place today, and they asked how picante we wanted the pizza, and Hamilton said picante y té, and it still wasn´t that spicy. The people here dont´t know what spicy means.

We contacted an old lady this week, and before we could say anything she just started yelling at us to leave really loud over and over again.

Carlos´s turkey has been super annoying. None of his family really likes his turkey either, so we ate it yesterday. It was super good. They cooked with a whole bunch of garlic all over it. Best turkey I´ve ever had.

I saw a trash can today. First time that´s happened in my month of being here, pretty crazy.

Elder Bowles


dad-I think that the church labeled as Evangelical is our church.  I think its just wrong on google maps. You could try the find a chapel thing on lds.org. That´s how it is on our map of the area. We live almost right next to a school with ´concepcion´ somewhere in the title. A lot of people here work as security guards. There are so many of those here, even in like grocery stores and stuff. My poop is normal.
julia- tranquilo, escrituras son buenas en español. hay algunos partes en las escrituras donde teniendo dos idiomas me ayuda mucho porque los oraciones son escritos differentes, y si no estoy seguro que significa, a veces el otro idioma resolva la problema. la ultima vez que yo andé en auto fue cuando llegué en el aueropuerto acá en paraguay. espero que vas a tener un buena año en la escuela. tenemos que usar nuestro ropa de proseletismo, pero cuando estamos jugando fútbol, no tenemos que hacerlo. We don´t need bug zappers, we´re just awesome at killing mosquitos. They might become an endangered species by the time I have to leave here.
mom-  probably practice about an 45 min a week. depending on the week, and depending on how often we are at the church and what we do on p-day it really depends on the week wether i practice or not. i can play 2ish songs in the simplified book. That´s super awesome that elder holland replied back. He´s pretty awesome. He may be my favorite apostle just cuz he says stuff just how it is. California doesn´t even compare to here, but yeah if someone from somewhere cold came here, they would just get of the plane and die or something. It had just started to rain on our way here, which felt super good. that´s super funny about Matthew Medrano. I bet you´re happy that the wedding went good and that its over now.
kami- hope you had a good time at cross country campaaaaaaaaaaaaa
hailey- after everything you should write me something. or else.

Week 14 - Salado - 10 Investigators, Gone Fishing, Talking in Circles, Yummy Soda

I said in my last letter we had 10 new investigators. That´s just people who let us in, we teach a lesson to, and they tell us we can come back, and say they´re gonna go to church. Last week 3 of them went to church, which is pretty rare.

Hailey and jeff´s wedding sounds nice.

It´s getting super hot here. and its still ´winter´ so that´s not good at all. I can carry on conversations sometimes. It just depends on the person. and if they want me to understand them. I can understand pretty much everyone who isn´t a native paraguayan. which isn´t very many people. There are more people that aren´t from around here than you´d think. There are a lot of people with German ancestry and Japanese ancestry as well, and there´s quite a few Brazilians too, because they move here to be rich.

I ordered a Guarani nametag today, they say it´ll come in about 2-3 months, so that´s gonna be awesome. There´s not too many people that get Guarani nametags on their mission.

A couple days ago we saw a lady washing her porch and I asked if we oculd help, but she said we couldn´t because she was Catolica, then we said that didn´t matter we would help anyone, but she just kept saying she was Catholic. Oh, well and every so often we ask someone if we can help them wash their clothes or help them build their house, but they´ll say theyre almost done. Then we say, bueno, then can we share a message with you, and they´ll say, no, soy occupado, and then we´ll say that that's why we wanted to help you, but then they´ll say that they´re almost done, and we´ll just go in circles, saying those same things over again its pretty fun. We talk to people on our way to appointments, they´re usually just chillin in their yard infront of their house. We walk, so we see a lot of people in between appointments.

idk if i´ve lost weight, we don´t have a scale. I got the letters from the pouch thing thanks a bunch. We have zone meeting tomorrow, so i´ll get to see what that´s like.

Fishing wasn´t that great, we went with the Gonzalez family, and used bamboo poles with pan and meat as bait. We didn´t catch anything, but it was nice just sitting next to the river Salado.

Piano takes a while to learn, I haven´t played for church yet.

There´s this super good soda here called guarana. I don´t know how they make it but it´s really good. I remember hearing that the meat was bland here, but i really like it. What they make with the stuff they have here is amazing. They have pringles here.

Elder Bowles


Mom- peke is the foot worm parasite. Carlos had had it like fifty times is what he said, so he´s had plenty of practice getting it out. I saw him sanitize the stuff he used, don´t worry. It was right next to my toenail, so he told me what to do so I wouldn´t get an ingrown toenail. I got diarhea a day or so ago, we´ll see how that goes. The boots are awesome, I am super glad I have them, especially when it rains and the roads turn into streams. I dont like the shoes so much but that might be because the boots are so comfy. No, I haven´t been robbed yet. Elder Hamilton says he doesn´t beleive that Elder Willes was robbed, because his last area he was in is where Elder Willes is now. We didn´t go to the temple because our arrival was delayed and things got messed up. idk which, pouch or email, because email is faster, but it is nice getting things in the pouch too. I got the one from dad on july 15th later than i got some other ones from him as well. idk if it takes time to view the fotos you send, I have them load while I read the letter and they´re done by then. It takes a little to upload fotos to send, but I type more while they upload.

Julia-thats too bad that you have to start school again, have fun, that´s cool about the elementary music thing, most missionaries here are American.  I think theres about 200 missionaries here and about 30ish are native Spanish speakers here, but they don´t speak spanish here, they speak joparra. which isnt a mix of spanish and guarani, its a mix of castellano and guarani. but castellano is basically spanish, theres only like one or two differences, so that's cool, I'll just sound fancy when I say I know like 5 languages when I get back. Good luck on the ACT.

Kami-it sounds like you had a great time at girls camp, so that´s awesome. Have fun at cross country camp if your not already there. Drink lots a water and push yourself hard, and eat even when you're tired and it sounds gross. That´s my words of running wisdom.

Dad-everyone is usually super nice to us. Missionaries play a way bigger role in church here than back home, because the church is so young hrere. Every once in a while people try to insult us in English. it´s super funny because they don´t ever get them right. We usually have cereal or eggs for breakfast, sometimes french toast, with the fake sugar stuff for syrup.

Elder Bowles and Elder Hamilton fishing with bamboo fishing poles

Palm trees growing naturally on the road side.