Gone Fishin'

The Gang

Diego

The bridge to Chaco

Ridiculous pic of me with my bad tan wearing E. Call{s shoes. lol

Bridge

Hola! We had another fabulous week. Not much to say about it though... most of the things me and Elder Call could think to write about were just things that we cooked, or to send the pictures that we took this morning. But igual no más. I{m sure I{ll find something to write about. lol

We got a new rule last monday - no taking your camera with you during the week. The rule was kinda there before, but now its legit. So its harder to get pictures because we can only take them on P-day and our last day in the area, but I{m going to try and get as many as can during legit time.

This monday we made tinfoil dinner in the oven. Me and Elder Call are getting pretty legit. I was thinkin thought that if it was possible, do you think you could send that recipie that Mom would make. Basically tinfoil dinner, but you could just do it in the glass pan in the oven? Tinfoil is expensive. lol The other recipie we were looking for is bread. We have one that E. Call{s mom uses for pizza crust, and we{ve been making all sorts of bread like things from it. Buns, cinnamon buns this morning etc. But if there were other more specific recipies that weren{t too complicated that{d be legit too. We also made Paraguayan Gizo as well this week. Left out the cow stomach though and just did it with chicken.

Had an interesting experience Tuesday. We were contacting houses and got to one house. It was just a 15 year old girl and so we asked if her dad was there. She called him, and he came out, super happy to see us, invited us in and we started talking. And when I say we started talking, I mean HE started talking. The guy seriously talked for an hour straight without stopping to think or barely even breath. We decided afterwards that he had some type of mental ilness or something. SUPER smart and such, but just the way he talked and such was ridiculous. We tried to leave 5 or 6 times and it was almost impossible to get out of there. I almost went crasy afterwards. It was just so hard on the brain. lol

We heard about the whole radiation leak stuff. According to the people here sounds like its going to be quite the problem? People having malformed babies, not being able to eat vegtables for a while, that kinda thing? Any more sound word on that?

We had some crasy weather the last couple of days. The worst lightning I{ve ever seen. Sooooo loud. Woke you up at night and I actually jumped out of my seat in a lesson yesterday. haha. I think it might have something to do with the humidity too? Makes it seem louder.

We had a district conference this week. All the members from around here came in. It was cool to see everyone in the District together at the same time. President Madariaga shared about how the members can open their mouths and share the gospel with others. He mentioned how sometimes it can be really simple. Although its all about following the spirit, there are certain things we can try. The one he suggested was to ask three simple questions. 1)Do you like to read? (Most people should probably say yes because they want to look smart. lol. At least thats what he said) 2) (If they said yes...) If I was to send you a book about Jesus Christ when he came to the Americas, would you read it? (Hopefully the answer is yes...lol) 3)Ask them to write down their name, address and phone number. Then go home, write your testimony in a book of mormon for them, and then give it to the Elders and get them to deliver it to the person. Not sure how that{d work back at home, but its an idea. Sounds terribly simple and could maybe backfire if the people don{t like to read, but you know. At the same time I think he has a point in that we sometimes just over complicate sharing the gospel. The Book of Mormon testifies of the truth and is a witness to all of the truthfullness of our message. If people will just read the book, chances are they are going to understand the gospel better and hopefully even gain a testimony of the gospel.

Anyways, didn{t use my time as good as I should have. Gotta run. We went fishing this morning. The weather wasn{t great, but we had fun, and I think it was really good that we could spend some time with the youth. Hopefully they feel more comfortable with us and want to intruduce us to their friends and such.  Ah! Almost forgot! Happy birthdays to Toby (give him a treat for me! How old is he now?), and to Uncle Ken! Have a good one! Have a great week! Love you lots!

Chau!
Elder Humphreys

Elder Humphreys survives day as Senior Comp...

Hola! Hows it going? Things are doing just fabulous here.

Had another great week. Some good experiences and whatnot. We{ve heard a lot about problems going on around the world with Japan and wars (or maybe just rumors of wars), but the news we get is from unreliable people watching a very unreliable news station. So not really sure what any of the details are. Hopefully everyones doing good. I don{t really care tonnes for the details, but it would be nice to get the info straight. Theres one guy whos got legit satalite and he said there was something like an earthquake in Ottawa. Sounds like a pretty diverse place for an earthquake....lol. At least its helping people to open up to us, seeing some of the signs of the times happen week after week now. Crasy.

But yeah. We had a couple of eventful happenings this week. It started right after we finished writing emails. Walked across the street to this little restaurant place. The same place where I ate cow stomach a week or two ago. Anyways, I just told Elder Call to order me what he ordered.... so we got two plates of cow tongue. haha. It was... interesting. It would have been a lot better if they had taken the tastebuds and such off before serving it, but oh well. We just cut that part off. Its ridiculous how chill I{ve been with the food though. It doesn{t bother me like it would have before. Still don{t like onions though...lol

Oh, just something that I randomly remembered during the week. Yakisoba (sp?). Mmmm. You guys should eat some for me. I think we were talking about cooked cabbage for st. patricks day or something. Anyways. We were like never eating that when I left. You should start again if you{ve managed to get that freezer emptied out yet.

Probably the most exciting part of my week happened on Thursday. We had another division. This time, I got put with a noobie in my area. He{s been here... like less than 3 weeks. Basically speaks very little spanish. Man I was scared! lol. I don{t think I{ve prayed that hard or for that long any other time than that morning. Not only did I have to work around the area and plan the day, but I{d basically have to say everything. Stressfull. And I didn{t have very much faith in my spanish. Anyways, I can testify that God hears our prayers. We survived. Actually, it was one of our most successfull days I{ve had in a while now. We were able to make our visits, and I was able to keep the conversations rolling even though I didn{t understand everything completely. I{m thinking the people must have been going easy on me. It was really wierd having to teach basically all by myself, and now that I can speak alright-ish, its apparent that there is a lot of room for improvement in the teaching aspect. But I think we helped people to progress and did some good work. It was a good confidence builder for me. Really good experience. Not one that I{d want every day though. lol. It was kinda wierd being with a noob though. They don{t really get how things work, and they kindof have a wierd understanding of how things work. But I learned a lot from the guy so it was alright. Elder Vance was his name by the way. Didn{t know any Vances from Canada though. But yeah. I sure don{t feel ready to be a full out Senior comp just yet. But we survived. Thankfully the Lord hears our prayers and helped us out bigtime.

Other notes. We had some lady that we{ve been teaching for a bit now turn us down and try return the book of mormon we gave her. She said that she didn{t like how different it was from the bible and how it has so much about Joseph Smith and stuff. Remembering a quote from preach my gospel, Elder Call asked her who told her that, and then told her that we knew that she had clearly not read the book, because although the beggining of the book mentions Joseph Smith, he merely translated the book. Hopefully she realized how silly she was and actually tries reading it. It was a little funny because she got caught in her lie, but at the same time kinda sad. Its crasy how little people like to read here. If they{d just read the book and pray like we teach them, they would know that its true. Its just really hard to convince people to do that.

Realized the other day that being March, March Madness was probably in full swing. Not that I care whats going on, but it feels like just yesterday me and my roommates were all sitting around watching the games. Wow. Its crasy how time flies.

The other greatest moment of the week was when some members of the ward came out and visited the non-members with us. Nobody does hometeaching here, and its hard for them to do visits and such. Lots of walking. But its crasy how much it helps! We{re working with the Ward coucil with this new 15 families program. Nothing has really progressed until Saturday. But its unbelievable how much progress is made that way. We{ve been visiting and helping these people for ages and in just one visit by the members they moved so far. Its ridiculous. The people just relate so much better with adults and people from their own country. It just really testified to me how important it is that every member do there part as a missionary. I{m sure its the same at home too. I wouldn{t be suprised if baptisms and reactivation of people that have been inactive for years came from just these simple visits. So basically what I{m getting at is that I{d like to encourage you all to do what you can to help the missionaries! They need your help! Almost all of the baptisms come from references too. One guy that we had in church this week is SUPER legit. And its all thanks to a reference from 2 members. Awesome.

Anyways. That was some of the week. Out of time though. We met our main investigators husband this week too finally, so that would be super cool if they could start investigating as a family. We{re all super stoked for Gen con. lol. We get to go to the temple in a week or two as well and so we{re super stoked for that. Mind you, they planed it for april fools day, so it might just be a big joke... but I think they{re serious. Should be super fun. But yeah. Gotta go! But I love ya all. Hope all is going well! Don{t forget to write!! lol. The mission is the best and I{m loving spending so much time doing the Lords work!

Have a great week!

Elder Humphreys

esta bien

A Pic not sure if I ever sent

All the mangos

Near our house

 

Hola!

 

We had an interesting week this week. Worked hard. Didn{t have too much success. Oh well. Thats the life of a missionary I guess. Some weeks are a little more challenging. The great thing though, was that there were a couple of times where I quite clearly was able to see that even though the people were letting us down, when we continued to work as hard as we could and not give up or lose our faith, the Lord quite clearly blessed us. We spent a lot of time walking and ¨enjoying¨ the heat, but in the end, there were a lot of blessings in our work, so it was all worth it.

 

I sent a couple of random photos because since we did all this walking, theres suprisingly little to talk about. But esta bien. I try and remember the highlights.

 

Tuesday and Wednesday morning we got to travel into the office for a ¨Capacitacion¨ or basically a training meeting. We talked about the new program that we{re using as missionaries, and how to better apply what we{ve learned. I really enjoyed it. And not just because the office has AC. lol. I learned a lot. It was also really cool because we got to do a lot of practices. It was there that I{ve really started to feel like I{m doing better at stepping up as Junior Comp. Often its Senior Comp leads the lesson, and JC gives his two cents whenever its required. But I got to practice and play an equal part so that was great. We{re doing that a lot better in lessons too and so thats exciting.

 

Tuesday night we had a really cool experience. After what appeared as a less than successful day, we were on our way home when a lady at a bus stop called us over. We had hardly seen her, but when we came over we noticed she was crying. Shes a lady of about 65 years. She told us about how she has raised her grandkids since they were babies, and now after a long fight with her daughter, they were moving out to live somewhere else. She was distraught and told us that all these problems made her want to just throw herself out into the trafic right then and there to end all the pain. It was sad. Especially because she was totally with it and not drunk or anything. Just really sad. Told us that she needed spiritual help. It was a great moment to be a servent of the Lord. We were able to help her calm down, and let her know of the plan that God has for her, and even though there are problems in our lives, we can overcome them. We stood by as she watched her grandkids get on the bus that took them away, and then we walked her to her house and after sharing a little (it was getting pretty late), we said a prayer with her. She had calmed right down and has been feeling lots better. We{ve only been able to visit her once since then, but she{s doing a lot better, and is interested in our message. I don{t know if she{ll ever get baptized. I hope so. Her family (whats left of it), seems really cool and I hope we can help them too, and we{re going to do whatever we can. Nevertheless, it was just a great oportunity for us to directly help someone in such a moment. Now the goal is to help them find that relief and happiness for eternity.

 

We also had a cool experience with Diego. This week we{ve been sharing a lot from the Liahonna. The picture on the fronts not my favorite... but the messages are excelent. We{ve been talking a lot with the youth about setting goals to go on missions, go to the temple etc (probably in the new era), and sharing the testimony of Elder Kikuchi which has helped a lot of people really open up about their conversions and doubts. With Diego, we had got on the topic of missions, and the sacrifices we make to go on them. We told him about the blessings that we recieve from serving the Lord and how greatful we are for that. We hadn{t even gotten into the real message yet, and I was thinking about how I{d love to be able to add on to that discussion, but didn{t think that what we had applied so well. So as we talked I started flipping through the magazine and found exactly what we needed. It was a story I hadn{t read before, but was a testimony of a young man who gave up his career for his mission, and was so thankful and blessed for that decision. It applied perfectly. It was a great testimony to me of the power of the spirit and how it speaks through your thoughts. I didn{t know what I was looking for as I flipped through the Liahonna, but I found exactly what I think we needed at just the right time. And although we hadn{t read it all the way through properly, we were still able to teach a great lesson with the help of the spirit. It was really cool.

 

Random less spiritual notes of the week. We Played ¨Tootie Fruity¨ with the Serafini{s. My team won. Its basically just Scatergories. Thanks for all the practice that you guys gave me so I could look super smart in front of our converts. lol. I also burnt my tongue on cheese grease out of an empenada. Almost cried. Be careful when you eat melted cheese. Its dangerous. Elder Call is a born janitor. He cleaned the toilet out by hand today. I{ll have to send the pic next week. lol. I mopped the floor.

 

We{ve heard a lot about Japan from the people here. They know nothing about the facts, but they{re all scared and ready for 2012 to roll around. lol. We{ve got to spend a lot of time talking about the signs of the times and how we need to be prepared both physically and spiritually. Hopefully we can use that to help people here be more prepared. And hopefully they get everything sorted out so that there aren{t any more problems.

 

Another cool experience. Last night we were working at night. Our visits all fell through, leaving us an hour and a half to work in the pitch black with nobody to visit anywhere close. Not going to lie, it was tempting to call it a day. We were right by our house. Its really hard to find people to teach at that time of night etc. But we decided that we{d be diligent and keep doing what we could. We went around and tried contacting the houses nearby that didn{t look like everyone there was already sleeping. After clapping at all the ones nearby we had nothing. We didn{t know what else to do. I saw a house right near ours that had a light on but we had already passed it. Looking back, it was basically try it, or take the two steps to the house and call it quits. We just wanted to stop, and it seemed like it{d be a waste. But we try to always do whatever we can. So we backtracked. Low and behold, we were able to talk with somebody and get in and visit with him shortly. It was another testament to me about how if we do all we can and work diligently, the Lord is going to bless us. Once again, I don{t know if this guy is going to get baptized. But I do know that the Lord put him in our path and we were blessed for working hard. Its awesome how the Lord loves us enough to do that for us.

 

Anyways, I´m right out of time. Love you all so much. The church is true, the Lord knows us, and he is always looking to bless us, as long as we are willing to do our part. Keep being great people. I}m praying for you all daily!

 

Love you lots,

 

Elder Humphreys

Mundongo

Hola everybody!

To start off, I{ll let you know that I didn{t get change. Even wierder though, neither did Elder Call. So that means that we{re going to be together for 4 and a half months at the very least. Thank goodness we get along. lol. It probably also means that I{ll be spending a total of at least 6 months here before I get changed out, but we{ll see what happens... But yeah. We{re doing good and just keep doing what we can here.

Secondly, I opened up my packages. They were great! We{ve been munching on the candy all week, drinkin koolaid (awesome. We drink powdered drink all the time but theres nothing as good as that here.), I{ve spent the mornings and evenings lounging in my p-jays, we used a bunch of the stickers this week, ate some legit poridge,  and had a blast unwrapping it all. Felt just like Christmas....away from home. :)

Thirdly. Totally forgot to mention all the birthday wishes that I meant to last week. Namely, Happy Birthday Carmen, MacKenzie, and especially Emma! Sorry I forgot to mention them. I remembered them all before the day, but it was too late to get them into an email in time. You{ll have to forgive me on that. On that note. Welcome home Tyler as well! Wierd because it felt like he{s been gone forever and yet not that long too. I guess it{ll be the same kinda thing for me.
This week has been pretty different. We{ve been doing things differently after the meeting they had with President Arnold. It wasn{t that we were misbehaving or goofing around or anything, but there were just some things that people were forgeting to do I guess, and so now we{ve been applying those things into the way we work. I{ve enjoyed it. For instance we{re making a greater effort to ask the members for references and working with them. We haven{t gotten too far with that yet, but its really easy to see how big of a deal that that makes. One of our investigators in church this week came with a member, and its crasy to see how much that helps. Remember to be good member missionaries everybody! Its SUPER important for the work. Another thing we{ve been doing is keeping track of how much time we actually spend talking to people. Its kinda depressing. All the missionaries are just depressed when you talk about the amount of time youve accumulated during the week. But its good because we{re trying hard to work with more efficiency and spend less time walking around. So thats good. I think we{re going to be able to help a lot more people as a mission. Its great to have good leaders that aren{t afraid of making changes, even when they aren{t the most popular things to do. For instance, its way harder than you{d think to invite people to say a kneeling prayer with you in their front yard at the end of the lesson. But I think it helps a lot. Those kinds of things.

Oh. Saw an ad the other day for roquealonsodigital.com Dont know what it is, but I think its just pictures of my area more or less. Might be fun to check out and see what I see every day.

As for the Subject of the email - had a fun experience this week. We went out to buy some food in this little restaurant in our area. We decided to buy some gizo and a sandwich. I don{t know how to discribe guizo really, but its usually a dish made with either noodles or rice. Pretty plain and Paraguayan. Anyways, when we ordered I didn{t hear the part where she told Elder Call that the rice gizo is guizo de Mondongo. So I ordered it because I like rice better. Well if you guys weren{t sure, mundongo means cow stomach. I learned that about the first day I got here when Elders talked about all the worst meals. Well guess who got it. Ugh. Well, I didn{t want to look rude, so guess who ate the whole plate too? haha. Yah, it was pretty gross. Its pretty chewy. Not the best tasting. I made Elder Call try a piece and he almost blew chuncks. But I did it! And now I can ¨brag¨ to everyone that I{ve eaten mundongo. Fun times. haha.

Made a sick map of our area this week. I{ll have to send a pic.

Found a pretty cool new investigator this week named Mercedez. I{ll have to mention more when I got more time.

We accidently invited and had a crazy lady come to church this week. Oops.

Anyways, no more time. Sounds like a sick summer you got planned.  Anyways, thats all I got. Love you lots! Invite your friends to Church! Choose the Right!!

Love,
Elder Humphreys