Week 60

So, I’m feeling old and fat this week.

Last weekend, two of my friends from college got engaged.  So congrats to both Madi and Lauren, and I wish you the best.  So then I got to thinking about all my friends, and there is a surprising amount who are married, have kids, have graduated college, or are about to graduate. Then there’s me.  A soon to be 23-year-old college freshman.  Man, I love my life. Ha, ha.  Also, the jokes about my panza (or stomach) have now spread to the whole ward.  So yup, it’s diet and exercise time for Elder Frost. I gotta get ready for hot tub season once I’m back home. (Note:  Anthony will be back in December….not exactly hot tub season).

On Monday, we were in San Lorenzo and it started to dump rain.  So, we went into the big old Catholic cathedral there.  It was really cool.  I think the old Catholic cathedrals are really well built and cool to see. I’ve got some pics, but it’s Paraguay and my computer is being slow so that will have to wait ‘til next week. 

Also on that day my comp had an adventure.  He managed to exchange a busted speaker to a guy on the street, only to leave the bag on a bench and lose it, only to return to the same guy and buy a new one.  Ouch!  It was quite the experience for him. 

Then, as we are now in the rainy season, we had a lot of rain both Tuesday and Wednesday.  I hate the rain. My shoes are old now, so my feet get wet. Life sucks!  But the weather is really nice when it’s not raining now.

Also I had my first encounter with the church cleaning lady.  I wasn’t expecting much, and I was actually not looking forward to her coming, since I was told she steals.  Well, she didn’t steal from me, but maybe that’s cuz I spent the night before hiding all my stuff. Ha ha.  She is actually a pretty cool, funny lady though.  So it was a good time.  Although after 4 hours of cleaning my house, I was glad she was gone.  The house does look a lot better though.

Then on Thursday, we talked with the Hermanas and found out they had a baptism for the weekend.  So like the good missionary I am, I offered to help in any way necessary. I was expecting to give a talk or make brownies or something.  Nope.  It turns out the Hermanas are cold hearted.  They made me do all the font work, which means about 3 or 4 hours of draining, cleaning, and filling the font.  So on Thursday, we drained it.  Then on Saturday, we filled it and cleaned it. 

Also on Saturday, we had the chance to do some service.  So we got a new Young Mens president, and he is getting the young men to do service every Saturday.  So we go and help out.  This last week, it was moving this giant motor/piston thing for Hermano Bardales.  It was interesting to see how Paraguayans move.  Let’s just say I wouldn’t hire them anytime soon.  That being said, it did work.  It just looked incredibly sketchy and was an accident waiting to happen.  They put 2 boards under the thing, then a table under the boards.  But the table wasn’t even, so they stuck 2 boards underneath the table to make it flat. Then the motor got slid out to the table before the boards were pulled out and then stuck under the middle of the table to make like handles. Then the whole thing got hauled to the new location before being picked up and set down.  It worked, but it was quite the endeavor.

Then we ate chipa and drank Sprite and then went back to finishing the font work.  That got done in time for the baptism.  The baptism went really well. 

After the baptism, we hung around and practiced singing a hymn with the Young Men for Sunday.  We can’t sing. Ha ha.  But we try hard.

Then, we had a dinner cita with the Famila Zorrilla.  They are an awesome family that we are working with to reactivate.  We baptized their niece Belen.  The aunt has wanted to give us food forever, but she doesn’t have a lot of money and has a lot of mouths to feed.  We have a lunch cita every day, but she kept asking, so we set up this dinner cita.  She cooked a delicious chicken and rice thing and I made brownies, which they loved.  She even asked for the recipe. Ha ha. They are brownies I’d never serve in the States, but they are cheap mission brownies and I gave her the recipe anyway.  It was a really good night.

Then we sang on Sunday, and it went about as good as you could expect from 7 tone-deaf guys. Ha ha.

Today we were supposed to find out about changes, but the Argentina transportation system is on strike.  So the airport is closed, so changes are on standby.  The wait to know is always the worst part.

But I gotta go. I love you guys and hope you have a great week.

 

Elder Frost