Week 37

So this was a long week. Mainly because it began so poorly with me staying in Pedro Juan Caballero. I really did want to leave. Scratch that, need to leave. I’m slowly dying here. But I’m trying to look at this in a new light and be positive and it’s working, at least a little bit.

Anyway, after taking that hit, I had a normal Monday last week.

Then Tuesday morning, my life got flipped, turned upside down. We went to Rama 5-B’s house for district meeting.  It’s just the 4 of us now.  It was also time to say goodbye to Elder Alfonso, the local comp of Elder Wall.  So we ate pancakes, had our meeting and had a good time.  Right at the end of it, some other elders called me and freaked out about why we weren’t at the chapel in Rama 1. Because apparently, it was now my job to babysit a kid for 2 days because leaders in the mission are required to not use their brain and a 3-way had to happen. Oh ya, nobody told me it was going to happen so don’t get mad at me for not being someplace at a certain time without telling me. Anyway, we finally went to Rama 1 and picked up Elder Larsen. He is Elder Jenson’s comp, but since Jenson went to Asuncion on Sunday, he’s had to do 3-somes with people.  We were his 3rd companionship in 3 days.  Poor kid was living out of his backpack. And life wasn’t going to get any better with us -  as he was going to be sleeping on the floor, and we had no food.  Anyway, we picked him up and then went and bought some food so he wouldn’t starve.  Then we did some visits that went pretty good.  Then off to Blandinas for Elder Alfonso’s goodbye dinner. Then Area 5B gave us a mattress, so Larsen slept better than we thought he would.

Next morning we woke up and did a normal day with Larsen.  Well, normal as in we had no running water and no lunch, so that was fun.  Finally we got out and did some more good visits before it was time to go to the ward activity night.

Well, that was a bust, since we had to leave early and since last week was conference, it wasn’t announced and nobody came.  And then, we had to run 30 minutes to a bus stop to get Larsen back to his program, before walking back home and carrying a mattress 6 blocks.  Trust me it’s heavier than it looks.  Oh, and you look stupid while you do it, haha.

Anyway, after that trainwreck of 3 days, life returned to normal in PJC.  Well, at least for Thursday.  And by that I mean that just like last week, we were out an hour from our house visiting the same person and it started dumping rain again.  So much fun. Haha.  We did have a cool visit right after that though, teaching some Brazilian guy who only speaks Portuguese.  It was interesting.

Then the dam broke on Friday.  Not an actual dam, but the dam that had prevented the Ismail love triangle from turning into a war.  So Friday night we were visiting Hector, an investigator, and the husband of Griselda - one of my converts.  Nothing shocking there.  But then, Cristina showed up on a moto with her friend to Griselda’s house.  Ismail is Griselda’s son. Cristina never comes here because Digna always is here.  Digna is the next door neighbor of Griselda, but is often at Griselda’s house. Both Christina and Digna are “dating” Ismail.  Uh oh. Well, Christina grabs an iron she is borrowing and Ismail’s clothes and leaves. Crisis adverted.  Nope.  She comes back like 1 minute later and starts screaming in Guarani at Digna.  This leads to more screaming, from both Christina and Digna and then Griselda begins yelling to calm everybody down. Oh ya.  Me, Menchaca and Hector are all sitting like 2 feet away. Next thing I know, an iron is flying.  Cristina threw it at Digna.  Digna naturally responds in kind by throwing the blender. Then more screaming and then the finale as Cristina’s friend steps in by throwing the pan of boiling milk at Digna.  Crazy! Very entertaining, but a sign of why the law of chastity is good.  And mad props to all those Arab dudes with like 100 wives and girlfriends. Crazy.

Anyway, on Saturday we met some guy who wanted to talk.  Well, talk this guy could.  We talked for 2 straight hours.  It was incredible. And… a complete waste of time.  The guy’s just looking to belong to as many religions as possible. Oh well.

Then on Saturday night/Sunday morning, we had a crazy rainstorm.  So of course, that means nobody would come to church. Yup.  Like a third of our normal people showed up. 

Then after church, I realized my plan of having 11 kids so I could have my own soccer team is out the window. I cooked for 12 people on Sunday, and it was a major pain.  So, it started by Lucia being jealous of me since I cooked for Clever.  So, I said I’d cook for them as well. So that is about 6 people.  Then Selva heard about the dinner, and so she came -- 3 more. Then, we had to invite 5B so that makes 2 more.  Then a random kid showed up, so ya, 12 total. Oh and I had 1 burner to do it all with!  It sucked.  I decided to make the same Chinese I did last time, but this time I did a good job with the noodles.  It was a lot of fun, but did take forever and so that sucked. I enjoyed it, though I missed cooking. 

Also for the first time in several months, we had lights in our house. We’ve been complaining to our landlord for forever to fix our lights since we had 1 working light.  He finally came through today, and we have lights.  It is so awesome!

And lastly, even the Asians are out to get me.  So in my dad’s package, he sent some Panda Express fortune cookies.  Score! Who doesn’t love those?  Well, I totally forgot about the fortunes until one fell out of a book this week.  Well, what does it say... “Pleasures await you by the seashore.” For real?!  I’m in a landlocked country!

Well, that’s it for this week.  Take care of yourselves. I love you guys.

 

Elder Frost