Monday, April 14, 2014

Week 63

So, we played soccer last Monday, and I’ve gotten fat and lazy with bad soccer skills once again. I still have it in bursts though.  Enough so that Elder Dias from Brazil was nice enough to tell me I’m only the 3rd white kid he knows who can play. Not too shabby!

One other thing from this week is I learned how much of a pain it is to wait on buses. Anytime we come to Luque or the city closest to us we end up waiting at least 30 minutes for a bus and then it’s on a terrible dirt road and packed.  Soooo much fun.  

Also I got sick this week.  So it’s officially fall, almost winter.  Almost one year ago, I got sick for the first time -- Easter Sunday. Not fun.  I’m hoping this year goes by a lot better.  Ideally less than 2 trips to the hospital ha ha.  So far it's just a head cold, but so it begins.  Also I found out that, yup, I am allergic to something. Some plant in Paraguay does in fact cause me to have hives.  So that sucked, but I got medicine from the nurse and all seems to be better now.  Hopefully, it stays that way.

 


Also, I got the chance to do karaoke again this week. I’ve missed it. We did it as part of a ward activity. Elder Jimenez has a program that acts like an actual karaoke machine. It was pretty cool to sing with words and the bouncing ball, and it judged you and gave you points.  I was the worst of the night.  But I was sick, and I was far away from the computer so it couldn’t hear me well. Ha ha.  It was really fun.  This program even had songs in English, so naturally everyone wanted me to sing.  But they wanted me to sing songs that I have never even heard of before and tried to justify it as, oh well, it’s karaoke.  Nope, not gonna happen.  They did get me to sing a Backstreet Boys song though.  And then we all sang some Spanish stuff.  Luckily one of the songs was by Camila, a favorite of Elder Anderson’s, so I knew it a little bit.

There was also a ton of cake, so that was a plus. I ate a lot.  But not as much as I wanted to ha ha.  I am trying to lose some weight. Luckily, the insane amount of walking we do here is doing work, and I feel better even if I don’t look it yet. 

For example, on Thursday we went to Nueva Asuncion, the little colony like thing we’ve got.  Well, we missed the bus going out there, so we decided to walk it. Over an hour later we arrived. And that’s not even far in this area. Everything is at least 40 minutes from our house.  It’s crazy!  Being in the jungle is definitely different.  We had a good day out there though.  Basically, I showed Elder Alvizures all the things that I was shown the week before, but we got to know it a lot better and visited some good people.  It was also less of a swamp this week, but I’m sure it will be back. We did catch the last bus out of there though, as the gang of thieves is running around.  A member told us a story about some elders years ago who got robbed all the way down to the skin.  And they had to walk the hourish home in the nude. Yup, not for me.  Ha ha. 

We also had an interesting experience this week as we got our electric bill.  It is not included in our rent, like it has been in my other areas.  Well, our landlord gives us the bill and says, “I gave this to the other elders but I guess they didn’t pay cuz they are going to shut off your power Friday.”  Well, it hadn’t been paid in 3 months, so that was fun.  Luckily, the office took care of it.

Also, we had rain this week. Another sign that it is fall almost winter.  I still hate the rain. I also found out that our house leaks through the windows, so that was interesting waking up to rain on the floor.  Luckily, no holes in the roof like in the other houses.  So all’s good still with the house. Also lucky for us, this area is really great in giving us references so that’s been good, since without them we’d be seriously lost. So we spent most of the week contacting references. So give your elders people to visit ha ha.

Also I got to meet 2 of the first people baptized in the area, and they’ve been members basically since the beginning of the church in Paraguay.  They even built the church building.  It was way cool to hear their stories.

Also, we finally began to get the hang of all the little paths in our area, and it makes it a lot shorter but I’m allergic to some weeds ha ha.  So it’s a good and bad thing. But our area is really pretty.  If you like the jungle, ha ha.

One of the references we had this week was a guy named Jose that the elders used to teach before a guy threatened to kill them and they got changed into another area, ha ha.  He is super legit and easily jumped to the top of the prospective baptisms list. I’m really excited to be working with him, and it should be a good thing.

Also, I met a man without a leg who still plays soccer.  He has 2 fake legs -- 1 for normal use, and 1 for playing soccer.  Now that’s dedication.  I’m gonna miss the soccer madness of South America, ha ha. 

Also I saw part of the masters golf tournament at a guy’s house.  Who knew golf was popular in South America? Also, I wanna play again. Boakes temp -- let’s get er done.  Also, I played credit card Monopoly in Portugeuse while waiting for lunch. It’s so different.   Latins don’t know how to play either. Ha ha.

But all-in-all, it was a good week.  Hope yours was just as good.

Love you guys.  Take care.

 

Elder Frost

 

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