Week 64

So one thing I hate about the mission is the inability to be there for your family when they need you, and when they are celebrating. This last week was my mom’s birthday.  Since I was taught at a very young age never to say a women’s age I’m not gonna say how old, but happy late birthday mom.

Monday was an interesting day. I had an interview with the president in the morning which went really well.  But an Asuncion trip always takes up a ton of time. 

Then we went to the cyber to email and such and the power went out in a whole city block so we sat there awhile and just enjoyed not doing anything.  Finally it came back on and we finished up.  Then we bought groceries and went home after waiting forever for a bus.

Then there was a lunar eclipse Monday night, so we naturally tried to stay up and see it.  Well after checking the window like every 15 minutes, I called it a night around 1 am…without even a glimpse of the eclipse.  My comp made it a little longer and saw the beginning, but also fell asleep. In the end, the idea of having to get up at 6:30 am was worse than the desire to see the eclipse.

This week was also all about service; service we actually did, and service that got canceled as well.  We did some service for an investigator, cutting apart a tree that fell down and crushed his fence.  I used an ax for what I think is the first time in my life, and I realized a chain saw is so much better. I also got a laugh out of the Latin's when I explained that nobody uses axes anymore.  Lazy gringos, ha ha. 

We also met an interesting family that as all sorts of issues and varying interest in the church.  We ended up teaching the mom, son and father separately, and it may stay that way due to the aforementioned issues.

Then on Thursday, we had to do a division.  I ended up staying in my area with Elder Greer. We had service planned all morning, so that’s what we did.  But only after he made us take a bus I’d never used before because he didn’t want to wait.  So yes… we got lost and ended up walking an hour to find the actual house.  Once there, we got assigned to help the bishop cut a tree.  But not the whole tree, just the branches that were hanging over the member’s house. Way, way up.  So in Paraguay instead of a bucket truck the bishop climbs up there without anything holding him there and hacks and whacks at the branches with a machete until they are about to fall then ties a rope around it and breaks it off before lowering it down to the ground and us.  We cut the branches into smaller pieces. 

Then we switched to the other house where they were knocking down a wall.  That was pretty fun.  But I’ve realized how unable my body is to do real work anymore.  It’s sad. 

Then we ate lunch grabbed some fruit to take to a member and headed home. We dropped off the fruit, then showered and walked an hour to the swamp. We did visits in the swamp and met some cool people.  We found out that due to Good Friday, the next day there was no more buses and so we walked home just before the huge storm hit.

We had a lightning bolt hit so close to the house it fried a couple bulbs.  We also found out a ton of water enters the house through our balcony door and the windows - turning our house into a lake when there is a lot of rain.  So we tried to fix that for awhile.  Eventually the best thing was taking my towels and using them to block the rain.

Then we woke up the next day and since there were no buses due to Good Friday, we waited 3 hours for a bus before finally getting back to Luque and making the switch.  Then instead of waiting again, we walked the hour and half home. I was tired! 

We also ate a lot of chipa this week due to Paraguay tradition during the holy week.  Due to the rain, most of the parties and things got canceled and it was actually a quiet Easter.

On Saturday we watched Tom and Jerry while we ate with some members.  So that was legit.  It’s a great show!

We finally have an investigator with a baptism date.  Hopefully it holds.  Tomorrow we go to the temple, so that will be cool.

I’ve got nothing else to report. Life goes on.

Take care everybody.

Elder Frost