Hello. How´s everyone? This feels funny writing this week since I didn´t get any emails from anyone... But I hope your all having fun on your trip! Don´t ski into any trees (I did that on like my last run ever. Its not fun.)! lol. Fortunately I got a bunch of DearElders though, so nothing to worry about.
This week was pretty good. It flew by without too much crazy happening. It feels like just yesterday that I was writting my last letter. But I guess I´ll share what I remember as being interesting...
Monday we played b-ball at the church with the other Elders that live nearby (thus the late letter). It was suprisingly fun and we had a blast. However, we came to realize that 30 minutes of situps, stretching and skipping rope in the mornings along with walking all day isn´t really enough to keep you in fabulous shape. We were SORE. haha. It was pathetic. After that, we got up wednesday morning and TRIED chopping wood for service for this 75 year old lady that lives near our house. The axe was pretty dull and it was the hardest wood me or Elder Call have ever tried chopping though, and so I think we spent about an hour there, and only chopped through maybe 3 logs. Sad. And it made us more sore, as well as gave us some pretty nice blisters. haha. Oh well. It was nice to get out and do some service, and I think the lady just appreciated the thought. Oh, and the showers didn´t work when we got home. Lame.
Friday was a good day for me. Felt really upbeat. Brought some packets full of church books to some families. The Serafini´s seemed to actually really appreciate it and so that felt good. The girls were excited to read ¨For the Strength of Youth¨, and the parents were happy to read the family home evening manual. After that we made two visits where we gave the investigators a Book of Mormon. Most people are pretty chill about getting them, but these people seemed sincerly happy to get their very own copy for free. Then it rained. Good day. I love days that just go well and you really just feel like you´ve helped a bunch of people. Sometimes you get walking around and people aren´t home and that kinda thing, and it just gets frustrating, so this was great.
By the way, I found a few more letters that I got that I forgot to mention. Letters from the Blaxalls, Parkers, Sister Graham, Elder Persson. So you can say thanks to them too if thats cool.
A kinda funny thing that happened this week - Our Zone Leader was on the bus and after talking, put the phone down on the seat. You tell anyone in Paraguay that that happened and they are just mindblown. haha. Anyways, he forgot the phone there on the bus. Gone. Well he needs his phone more than we do, and so we had to give our phone over to him while we wait for the church to order in a new one. Ridiculous. So we´ve been phoneless for a couple days now. You don´t even realize how big that is until it happens. We are constantly using our phone to set up appointments, remind people about church, stay in contact with the zone and leaders, use it as a watch and alarm clock, and its just nice to have in case you need to call in backup or something. lol. So thats been interesting. Even worse than that though was that the Elder that was borrowing our phone dropped it yesterday and now it doesn´t work. Wow. So thats been tricky. But all you can do is just laugh it off. Hopefully a new one comes soon.....
Also kinda funny. On the news recently (so I´ve been informed by the members), there has been this story about this house that has had some problem with ghosts, evil spirits and the like. Well from what I´ve gathered, it seems like a big set up by the news to get more viewers. Because tonnes of people know about it and have been asking about it. ¨What´s the churches view on ghosts/spirits/witches etc.¨. Kinda ridiculous. Everyone here seems really gullible. Maybe we´re just skeptics. But we´ve just had to work with it and twist the conversation around to the spirit world and the like. Funny stuff.
Book review section: The new gospel principles book is pretty legit. You´d think you´d know it all, but I´m suprised at how much I learn just from reading that book. Its got my reccomendation.
Questions: How did the family pictures ever turn out? I never got to see the new ones that we got before I left. Maybe email a few of those over? Also, I thought it might be cool to have a copy of my mission call or something like that. Just for fun.
More random Paraguay facts cuz I´m running out of ideas. People here don´t just play music to enjoy. They think they have to play the music loud enough for the whole block to hear. So thats pretty ridiculous. Some people even set up the speakers in their car so that it plays pointing out into the street. The worst is when there are a couple people that have different tastes in music and they try to drown each other out. It gets ridiculous. People here listen to polka (mostly old people. It comes in Guarani), Argentinan rock, or popular music from back home (so I´ll still be up on the latest hits when I get back! lol).
What else. Oh. Last week I mentioned mangos. But I forgot to say that there are lots of other fruits here too. Every kind of tree has fruit mostly. And you can eat most of them. Its fun to just be able to pick stuff off the tree and eat it. Guavas are everywhere right now. Apparently we´re getting into grapefruit season right now, but after that will also be mandrain oranges. I´ve also seen avacados, limes and lemons. All sorts of fun stuff.
We got to watch the movie of the life of President Monson with some recent converts yesterday. That was really cool. I enjoyed it a lot and learned a lot too. Another recommendation for sure.
Woah. Crazy news. Elder Humphreys is going to hit his 6 month mark this week. Crazy. I´m not really keeping track, but people are always talking about where they´re at, and so i noticed that the other day. On one hand it feels like its been a long time that I´ve been out. But at the same time, it seems like just yesterday that I was dropped off at the MTC. I think I´ve come to the conclusion that although the day to day feels slowish at times, the months just fly by. Its scary. I´m sure I´m going to get to the end and look back and be like ¨wow. It was just yesterday that I hit 6 months.¨ So I´m working hard to appreciate every day. This has also been the shortest change of my life. Each one keeps going faster. Scary. I love being a missionary. Its great. I love sharing the gospel. Having time to just learn and help people. And its getting better with each coming day as I get better at the language, and less worried about just talking with people. I miss people and the comforts of home and having time just for myself, but I really know that this is the best thing I could do with my life. Its awesome. I´m growing on a spiritual level, and also just becoming a better person. Its great to see the gospel change peoples lives and make people happy.
Anyways, outa time again. Until next week! Hopefully I´ll have some betters stuff to share about the people and more personal things like that. But its been swell! Have a great week. Things are going well here. Thanks everyone for all the letters. I appreciate them a tonne! The Church is true!
Love,
Elder Humphreys
PS. Happy Birthday Carmen!
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