Hello everybody. Glad to hear that you all had a good week.
Sorry that I`m writing later and that these letters are probably getting boring-er. With each and every week there seems to be less and less to say, and I also feel like we just talked the other day and that there is nothing much to say. Its probably just that I`m getting lazy. Must be a sign of my age in the mission. Crasy to think of how many letters I`ve already written by now. Anyways, hope they are still decently enjoyable...
Wow. Sounds like your week was fun. Sad that I couldn`t have been there. Those days are a blast. The sit at home, hang out with fam, just do whatever days. Good stuff. Glad you enjoyed it. Thankfully working hard is also quite rewarding, and I had a good week too. I thoroughly enjoyed the HP vid, as did the other oficinistas. Glad to hear that the music went well, that everyone got some fun presents and that you all got to spend some good quality time. Hope you liked the presents. If there was anything in particular that was cool, just let me know and I`ll find something similar for your birthdays. I basically end up going souvenir shopping every other week with all of the Elders that are finishing, oficinistas that leave the office etc. The skating, the skiing... I hope you don`t take it all for granted :) The cold sounds great. I`m excited to hear how the longboarding in the snow goes though... haha. You`ll have to teach me when I get home and we can roll togetha. How much time do you have left before school starts up again? Crasy to hear that Emmas going to have contacts. Fun trip to the play. And wedding reception. Crasy. Still can`t believe that one. Congrats!!! Everybody else should just wait till I get home to get married though, cuz it just going to weird to come home if not. lol.
Anyways. This week went pretty well for us too. We in the office have the opportunity to work extra hard every day with double responsibilities, but we`ve also got some great perks. Thankfully that meant that even though all of you guys at home were having a blast and a classic Christmas, we were able to actually have a descent one too. Usually Christmas is kinda depressing for the people that don`t get to do anything special, and have nobody to celebrate with. But we were super lucky and blessed. It all started with our phone calls. Really nice to be able to chat on a good phone and whenever we wanted. Then we went and worked for a bit, and then ran over to Presidents house for dinner. While things were getting ready, I got to play the piano and have fun as we sang carrols. Then we feasted. And did we feast. lol. I thought I was going to explode. Again. The second time in my time here that I`ve actually ever seen turkey and stuffing. Awesome. And if that wasnt good enough, we then went and read the Christmas story, stopping every verse or two to sing a Christmas hymn. I had to play the songs, but fortunately I did OK. Not great, but good enough to get us through. Then we had our secret santa gift exchange thing. I had had to buy for President, and fortunately I had been able to find some wood art picture thingy.... hope he liked it. lol. And then I got super lucky, and either Preisdent or the Hermana had my name. And they got me this cool soccer jersey. Not for any team in particular, but still super cool. So I`ve got to wear that every morning for soccer. So that was great. Then came the down side of the office - Elder Meryhew had to talk to his family late at night. Well we had to take him to the church. And then he talked and such. Didn`t get home till like 1 in the morning. UGH. Thankfully I was able to fall asleep on the couch. lol. Thankfully, Elder Meryhew, the new mail guy, fits in great with us. It`ll be weird when Elder Thornton leaves though.
Sunday was fun. We woke up and ran to the church. Elder Thomson is great and filled everybodies stocking with fun little things. I helped, but not as much as I could/should have. lol. Then we opened those and all of our packages together sitting by the Christmas tree. It was cute. haha. Good times. Also nice because mostly all of our packages were here because we get them first, and so we all had things to open. I especially love the nose flute, all of the candy, and I`m stoked to make my snow. haha. There was only minor loss of goods due to melted chocolate, but all in all it got here quite well. I had lots of fun. Now I`m just trying to do my best to not eat too much at once so I don`t get fat. haha.
We got a fun lunch visit Christmas day with an American family. Then we got a dinner with another super cool family. All in all, we ate a LOT of food. Awesome.
We got another new oficinista this week. Shes a super cool older lady in our ward. She comes in once a week to help with all of the house contracts. Its great. She gets to talk to all of the angry land lords for us. haha. Its also good for her because her husband has alsheimers and shes quite bored all the time. So thats nice to be able to work with Hna Riveros once and a while. Shakes things up a bit here in the office.
I also forgot to mention that last week was the ward party. That was exciting. Basically, it started an hour and a half late, but I`d say it was a success in the end. haha. Lots of not active members and a couple of investigators. It was fun to see a little life in the members for once. lol. We did a little song and I think it helped it finish really well. Brought the spirit home with our stirring rendition of Silent night. lol. But for reals. And it was great to just be able to talk and be happy with everyone. Some good skits from the primary and the Relief Society. Funny though because I had to play the music for everybody, and nobody told me about it until 5 minutes before. NICE.
President went on Holidays with the family this week. That makes things different in the office. We managed to hold down the fort without him though. Thankfully. I still haven[t been able to go the bank though because it turns out that the end of the year is a big deal for companies and banks and stuff. That made things a little more crasy for me, just because everybody was needing things from us, and I had to run around and finish up a bunch of stuff to send the records and files to the people in Paraguayan Church headquarters.
Got to go to lunch at Presidents AGAIN just for fun. AWESOME. It was funny though, because we arent allowed to play soccer with members, but when Presidents son in law asked if we wanted to play, I was sure he would give us permission. But I was really impressed when President DIDNT give in to peer pressure and told us that we couldnt. We were disappointed, but I actually like that even though it would have been easy, president didnt make any exceptions that would make things difficult in the future. Fun to be able to learn from Presidents example all the time, being in the office.
As for the work this week, things were decently successful. Taught a good number of lessons. We have a good pool of people we know right now, the trick is just getting them to progress. Thats what they lack right now. All are good people, but none of them are willing to make the next step into discipleship, going to church, doing what we invite them to do, and preparing to be baptized. But we[re trying and doing our best. Im sure something good will happen in not too long.
Today was kinda crasy. We played soccer, as always. Then I had to wait 2 hours to get my hair cut. It turned out... alright. The last while we've all been doing classy Christmas comb-overs, and its been going well. But now my hair was SUPER long. Had to be done. Unfortunately the guy that cut it thought that I wanted to keep it long, then I had to get it shorter. Just a mess. Oh well. Hopefully it turned out okay. Cant tell yet. Then we went out because people wanted to buy cool soccer jerseys... well i have my new one, and there was nothing I really saw that I like... so I just got something different. haha. I used some of that personal money and bought a cool ADDIDAS t-shirt... With a storm trooper on it... in multi colors... Something to wear after the mission. lol. But I think its cool.
Then we played a little softball in the gym of the church with a really soft ball that somebody got. We had a blast, but we could say that it could have ended on a slightly better note. No more comment on that one. haha.
Tonight - the BEST members in our ward (AKA President and the Hna) invited us over AGAIN for dinner. So we've been half fasting and are ready to enjoy what might be the last big meal of the year. Actually, THE last big meal of the year. On that note, HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYBODY! Crasy how fast that the year went by. I don't know about you guys, but for me, it just went crasy fast. In reality, one of the best years of my life too. Its been a good one. Can't really say it was the BEST of my life, just because I'd feel bad since I've been away from home and my family all year, but in reality, I can't think of more good times, or time better used. I've thoroughly enjoyed my time here. I love being able to serve the Lord, and do nothing else day in and day out. Wouldn't trade it for anything. Hopefully the next year can be as good, spiritual, memorable, joy-filled, purposeful, fulfilling and great as this last one has been. Love you all. Hope that your New years parties and week go great. I'm excited to hear from you next week and see how its all been. Have a good one!
Love, Elder Humphreys
HAPPY NEW YEARS!
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Christmas Eve
Hey. Sorry if this ones kind of short. This morning was focused on Christmas shopping and getting lunch (somehow I got to be the lucky one put in charge of buying for President in our secret santa exchange. ugh. lol). Then we were just waiting on calls and all that fun stuff. Talking to other peoples families over skype. Then we open the assistants present and found some balls to toss around. That lead to some full scale wall ball/homerun derby in the gym. That leaves me short on time to write. But oh well.
It was really great talking to you all today. Sad that it was so short, but I actually really enjoyed it. Fun to just chat, and I really liked how we could just talk about any old thing. Some of the guys were all stressed out about what they were going to say to their families, but I like how it didnt really matter what we talked about. Just good to catch up. Glad that youre all doing so great. Sounds like life is going swell and that youre all growing up well. Keep up the good work, study hard and listen to your daddy! lol. Thanks as well for helping me to be obedient and stay on the time limit. Something always really hard to do.
Anyways, this week went pretty well. It was a little bit crasy with changes and everything. We had the deadies go home on monday, the newbies show up on tuesday and the changes themselves on wednesday. The best part was probably that we got free catered food 3 days in a row. haha. Then we also had a free food Christmas party for some of the zones on Friday. Elder Patterson stopped by and so that was fun.
Trying to feel Christmas-y but its kinda hard here. Oh well. We put up decorations and listen to Christmas music and everything, but its not the same. Thankfully we get to go to Presidents house for dinner tonight with their family, so that should be really cool. Here in Paraguay they celebrate Christmas just like New Years. The real day of Christmas is tomorrow, but everyone will have their big meal tonight, set off tons of fireworks and have a party, and then tomorrow will be the recovery day where all the adults get over their hangovers. But yeah. Picked up a couple present. Might just re-gift a couple of things so that I can have enough for everybody. lol. It doesnt really matter here though, because presents are usually exchanged on some other holiday later in January I think. Also nice is that my comp is super on top of things, and we got some stuff for our members and investigators. Hopefully they remember that its the thought that counts, because the presents are fairly lame. Oh well. haha.
Church this sunday will be interesting. 5pm to 6pm. Well see how that goes. It will be the same thing next week too. Interesting. Besides that, next week should be good and tranquilo. Nothing too big to worry about.
The weather this week was ridiculous. You step outside and it feels like walking into an oven. lol. I am SOOOOOOOOOO counting my air conditioned blessings this month. Thankfully it rained today, but with the humidity it left, it probably wont feel much better. Oh well. Im just thankful that Im not stuck out in some far away place with just one fan between me and my comp. Good stuff.
We got a new guy in the office this week. His names Elder Meryhew. Really good kid, and fits in really well with the rest of the guys here. He'll be the new mail guy and Elder Thornton will probably be out in about 3 weeks here.
Anyways, I gotta be rolling so that we can get to work on time. Sorry for being short and boring. But it was really great talking to you all. I hope you have a VERY merry Christmas. Enjoy your presents. Im excited for mine! But dont forget what Christmas is all about! I know Christ lives, and that because of His birth, we have a chance to be perfect and to live with God again. His birth was an important step in the course of His life. His life was perfect. He is perfect. And we can become perfect because of Him. Through him, we will be able to be a family forever. Theres nothing better than that. Being a missionary is great. I love to serve the Lord, and its especially great to be able to do it at this special time of year. Im excited for the day when well be able to be back together, but I wouldnt give up this oportunity to be here for anything. The Church is true! I love you tons!! Merry Christmas!!!!!!!
Elder Humphreys
Saturday, December 17, 2011
The Office - Week 15
Hey everybody. Glad to hear that things are going good at home. We had a pretty good, and a little bit crasy week here in the office. Yesterday being the climax. Today... pretty tranquilo-ish.
The week started off pretty normal. We did our work. Made our visits. President left on Tuesday and so most of the week we were on our own in the office. Next week is change week, and thats always fun. We´ll be running around like crasy. Strangely enough though, we were able to get all of our preparations done ahead of time. That left us with a couple days with very little to do in the office. Thats no fun. It was weird because usually we complain about how busy we are, but I think having nothing to do is even worse.. lol. But we survived. All ready for the week that is coming.
Had some really good visits this week. We had a Family Home Evening with a family that has an inactive mother, 2 kids that are active but go to a different ward with their grandparents, and a non member dad. The idea was to get them pumped to be an eternal family. It started off kind of rough, as the mom was out at work and the dad was busy, nobody knew how to make the popcorn right, and the kids had their goofy teenage friends over. So that was weird. But then the mom got home, we got everything under control, and were able to watch ¨Together Forever¨. Sickest movie ever. The 80s clothes and talk on eternal marriage got the teenagers giggling now and again, but once the movie was finished, you could really see how the message affected everybody. Got them all thinking about what is most important in their lives and what they care about most. Even the dad, who usually seems kind of cold and uninterested told us what he thought and liked about the movie. Hopefully we can help them to make the right decisions, get married, get baptized, that kind of thing. We´ll see how it goes.
We also appear to actually have someone that is really excited to go to church this Sunday. That´ll be fun. We always have a really hard time getting people excited to come to church in this area. I think we´ve only had about 1 person come to church in the last 15 weeks. Depressing. If people don´t come to church, they can´t progress. Well. Looks like she´ll come. Its going to be legit. Hopefully the members are nice and we can help her feel the spirit while she´s here.
One last lesson that stuck out was with Gabriela. Shes been having a hard time lately. Not due to a lack of faith or anything like that, but just because she can´t do what she knows is right, and thats frustrating. She still knows that the church is true. She´ll be a fantastic member once she´s able to get baptized. Right now, her parents are still being difficult and not letting her progress. Oh well... we do everything that we can do and then wait patiently. Anyways, this week we kind of let her choose what she would learn about. We talked roughly about the commandments and then let her pick what she wanted to hear about. I think that worked really well. She asked about the Word of Wisdom. Thankfully she doesn´t have any big problems with that. She did say that she drinks a bunch of coffee though. The cool thing though, was that as we explained it to her, she already seemed to know it was true. She knew that she needed to give it up, and she committed herself to give up drinking coffee from now on. Super cool.
Wednesday or Thursday we had a fun experience in the office. We got a phonecall in the mid afternoon. Turns out that an Elder was at the hospital, one signature away from getting his appendix removed. The Hermana wasn´t answering her phone and so they called us. That lead to an exciting multi directional conversation as we called all of the necessary people and made a game plan. Unfortunately I didn´t get to participate in the rescue crew, but it was still fun because everybody got kind of goofy with the panic. Fortunately, they were able to get tests done, and then with approval of the mission doctor, he got surgery soon after his appendix actually burst. Thankfully it wasn´t anything toooo serious in the end. He´s doing good, though his sickness REALLY threw a wrench into all of the plans that we had for the weekend.
Anyways. Long story short. I ran around ALL day yesterday in the van. I honestly didnt stop driving basically all day long. As of right now there are only 2 people in the office that can drive (should change this week). But we had to put one of us in the hospital to babysit the sick-y. Then I had to drive for Christmas parties, to the bank, to lunch, to some random area 45 minutes away to drop off a matress, to drop the old missionaries at a testimony meeting, take them to the temple, take them back home. Disaster. I basically drove all day. Ridiculous. Thankfully we were able to do it all without a single scratch. A couple close ones but... lol. Turned out all right. The fun part was that by being the driver, I also got to go to the temple, and also to fancy dinner for the people that are finishing their missions. A good benefit for being the chauffeur. haha.
Also got to chauffeur a bit today too. And so I thought I´d have a lot more time to write than I now have. Sorry about that. Its been crasy. Today I had to drive the district presidents around, make hospital people trades etc. Crasy. Oh well. Anyways, so I guess I have to finish it here. Lame.
Anyways. There wasn´t really much else exciting. Today we brought some little presents that we are going to try and give away. Good thing that Elder Thomson is so on top of things. haha. Glad to hear that Marissa gets the suffering that I got from learning on the standard. Shoveling sounds more fun now that I can´t do it. lol. I liked the letter and the pics. And how little I showed up in them. hahaha JKs.
The week started off pretty normal. We did our work. Made our visits. President left on Tuesday and so most of the week we were on our own in the office. Next week is change week, and thats always fun. We´ll be running around like crasy. Strangely enough though, we were able to get all of our preparations done ahead of time. That left us with a couple days with very little to do in the office. Thats no fun. It was weird because usually we complain about how busy we are, but I think having nothing to do is even worse.. lol. But we survived. All ready for the week that is coming.
Had some really good visits this week. We had a Family Home Evening with a family that has an inactive mother, 2 kids that are active but go to a different ward with their grandparents, and a non member dad. The idea was to get them pumped to be an eternal family. It started off kind of rough, as the mom was out at work and the dad was busy, nobody knew how to make the popcorn right, and the kids had their goofy teenage friends over. So that was weird. But then the mom got home, we got everything under control, and were able to watch ¨Together Forever¨. Sickest movie ever. The 80s clothes and talk on eternal marriage got the teenagers giggling now and again, but once the movie was finished, you could really see how the message affected everybody. Got them all thinking about what is most important in their lives and what they care about most. Even the dad, who usually seems kind of cold and uninterested told us what he thought and liked about the movie. Hopefully we can help them to make the right decisions, get married, get baptized, that kind of thing. We´ll see how it goes.
We also appear to actually have someone that is really excited to go to church this Sunday. That´ll be fun. We always have a really hard time getting people excited to come to church in this area. I think we´ve only had about 1 person come to church in the last 15 weeks. Depressing. If people don´t come to church, they can´t progress. Well. Looks like she´ll come. Its going to be legit. Hopefully the members are nice and we can help her feel the spirit while she´s here.
One last lesson that stuck out was with Gabriela. Shes been having a hard time lately. Not due to a lack of faith or anything like that, but just because she can´t do what she knows is right, and thats frustrating. She still knows that the church is true. She´ll be a fantastic member once she´s able to get baptized. Right now, her parents are still being difficult and not letting her progress. Oh well... we do everything that we can do and then wait patiently. Anyways, this week we kind of let her choose what she would learn about. We talked roughly about the commandments and then let her pick what she wanted to hear about. I think that worked really well. She asked about the Word of Wisdom. Thankfully she doesn´t have any big problems with that. She did say that she drinks a bunch of coffee though. The cool thing though, was that as we explained it to her, she already seemed to know it was true. She knew that she needed to give it up, and she committed herself to give up drinking coffee from now on. Super cool.
Wednesday or Thursday we had a fun experience in the office. We got a phonecall in the mid afternoon. Turns out that an Elder was at the hospital, one signature away from getting his appendix removed. The Hermana wasn´t answering her phone and so they called us. That lead to an exciting multi directional conversation as we called all of the necessary people and made a game plan. Unfortunately I didn´t get to participate in the rescue crew, but it was still fun because everybody got kind of goofy with the panic. Fortunately, they were able to get tests done, and then with approval of the mission doctor, he got surgery soon after his appendix actually burst. Thankfully it wasn´t anything toooo serious in the end. He´s doing good, though his sickness REALLY threw a wrench into all of the plans that we had for the weekend.
Anyways. Long story short. I ran around ALL day yesterday in the van. I honestly didnt stop driving basically all day long. As of right now there are only 2 people in the office that can drive (should change this week). But we had to put one of us in the hospital to babysit the sick-y. Then I had to drive for Christmas parties, to the bank, to lunch, to some random area 45 minutes away to drop off a matress, to drop the old missionaries at a testimony meeting, take them to the temple, take them back home. Disaster. I basically drove all day. Ridiculous. Thankfully we were able to do it all without a single scratch. A couple close ones but... lol. Turned out all right. The fun part was that by being the driver, I also got to go to the temple, and also to fancy dinner for the people that are finishing their missions. A good benefit for being the chauffeur. haha.
Also got to chauffeur a bit today too. And so I thought I´d have a lot more time to write than I now have. Sorry about that. Its been crasy. Today I had to drive the district presidents around, make hospital people trades etc. Crasy. Oh well. Anyways, so I guess I have to finish it here. Lame.
Anyways. There wasn´t really much else exciting. Today we brought some little presents that we are going to try and give away. Good thing that Elder Thomson is so on top of things. haha. Glad to hear that Marissa gets the suffering that I got from learning on the standard. Shoveling sounds more fun now that I can´t do it. lol. I liked the letter and the pics. And how little I showed up in them. hahaha JKs.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
The Office - Week 14
Wow. I can´t believe that its already 3 o'clock here. Today has been kinda crasy. So hopefully I have enough time to tell you all about it.
But I´m glad to hear that all is well back at home. Fun to hear about our new President. I never realized that the same President that set me apart wouldn´t be the same one that released me. Not a big deal though. I think President Craig was my leader for Moronis Quest way back in the day. So I don´t really remember him super well, but I remember that he´s a nice guy. I´m sure he´ll do a fantastic job. Sounds like a good group of guys. Crasy to think about snow. Hope you enjoy it! Glad to hear that Toby is looking good as well. And is well behaved for the most part. Fun to hear that there still are real Christmas trees in this world. I haven´t seen a good pine tree in... more than a year now. Fun that you won that DVD player. Not fun that there are braces. Hope they start feeling better! And that ward parties happen there. I´m interested to see how our party will work out (I´m actually happily prized to see that we are actually going to be having a party. Good stuff). I don´t envy the Christmas buying situation either. Good luck! How about drivers ed? Did you make her learn on a manual, or does she get out easy with the automatic? I think either way its a win situation. Suerte!
Anyways, we had a pretty good, minorly crasy week. I enjoyed it. Monday.. all of the zone leaders were here in the office. Thats always fun.... lol. Its nice because I get to see a lot of my friends. Its also kind of a pain though just having so many people around that all need things. Hard to get your work done. Oh well. Oh, and also there had been some special changes. None of us got changed, but there was somebody that was left without a companion for the day. So Elder Thomson went out to be with them. That left me without a companion to work with in the afternoon. There were people that should have been available to go out and help me do visits, but nobody wanted to leave and help me because they were all busy doing stuff in the office or whatever. In the end I missed a visit that we had promised to do. Usually its not that big of a deal. But it turns out that the members invited their friends and made food and everything. And then we didn´t show up. Wow, I felt bad. The worst thing too was that there wasn´t really anything that I could do about it. Lame. Hopefully everything goes well with them in the future. While I was sitting around without a comp though, a stroke of briliance hit me though. I looked in the packages and found that a bunch of my packages were pre-wrapped and so I could open the bx. Even better is that there is one for each day of the month. That sure made us happy. haha. The other guys in our house really like it too because we get to have something fun and exciting every night before bed. They FREAKED out when we got the new Mo-tab CD with David Archuleta on it. hahaha. We´re losers. Oh well. Needless to say, Christmas is treating us well.
Tuesday was super fun. We worked and such like normal. But after work, we got together and were able to go to Presidents house for dinner. It was fantastic. The Hermana KNOWs how to cook. It was a goodbye meal to one of our assistants and an emeritus office elder who were going home the next day. They gave up their super fancy Brazilian BBQ meal to eat together with us. That was really cool. It was fun to hang out with them one last time. Especially since they are both from Mexico and you never know if you´ll get in touch with them again. Elder Cerda and Ruiz will be missed a lot around here. Elder Cerda was probably one of the best missionaries that this mission has seen for a while.
Wednesday we got to get up early and see them off. Always nice, but sad. Oh well. Thats how it goes. We´ve been working on a slide show this week here in the office. Its supposed to be a kind of Christmas present for everybody. It has pictures of all of the missionaries that are here working right now. Got to submit 3 photos each. Should be a fun souvenir. Fortunately I´m not the one in charge of it though, because it looks like it´ll be a lot of work. lol
Thursday we got to take the van out to work. That was fun. Usually the other guys get it because their area is a little bit farther away. I actually did a lot of the drivinig this week because there are only two of us left with licenses. So if Elder Thornton doesn´t want to or can´t go somewhere, that leaves me in charge. Fun stuff. That even won me the chance to drive Presidents car the other day when the van was busy. That was fun. Our van is.. good and reliable. But Presidents car is nice and speedy and the shocks aren´t blown like they are on the van. lol. So that was fun. Anyways, we got to go out and visit the people that live farther away. Got to talk to this older lady. She´s one of the pioneers of the church here in Paraguay, and is heavily involved in the history keeping of the church-ness in the country. And her husband is suffering from Alzheimer's and is basically a child of 70 years old. It was fun. She showed us all of her pictures, and served us food. She was just so happy to have somebody to talk to. Its gotta be hard having to take care of somebody like that, especially when they can´t even communicate with you. So that was really nice. Also, that evening, since I´m the newest designated driver, I got to make a semi-long trip out to trade out a zone leader for an assistant after they finished their division. Its kinda fun getting to go and drive around like that. I like it. The funniest part though was when the person that was telling me where to go tried to direct me down the exact same path that I got stuck on last time. lol. After having many nightmares about that place, I wisely decided to go the long way rather than get stuck again. They all thought I was freaking out about nothing, but I had promised myself to never do that again. So that was a potential disaster well avoided. haha
Yesterday was cool. We werent able to get out of the office until late, but once we got out, we had to great lessons. Right one after the other. You could really feel the spirit in both of them, and I think we were able to really teach to their needs. Thats the best. We´ve both been missionaries for long enough now, that we´re getting a lot better at going with the spirit and just doing what what needs to be done, rather than following a set lesson plan or saying the same things that we always say. Thats really nice. Obviously we always go in there with a plan and try and be prepared, but its nice to be able to really listen to them and base what we say on what they´ve said, rather than just hearing them, and then just continuing on saying the same things that they don´t need as much at this time.
Oh I forgot to mention. With the exit of our last assistant, we obviously got a new one. His name is Elder Castillo. From Northern Chile. Great guy. I´ve come to find that of all of the Latins that I´ve come in contact with, I´d say that most of my favorites seem to come from Chile. Seems like a good place. So thats fun.
Oh. Friday was also our Christmas party. It was fun. I think I liked last Christmas party better, but this one was really good too. We got together to eat, then watched the movies that the church came out with based on the New Testament. Then we got to go and sing carols at a Orphanage. That was really fun. And then today, since I had to drive, I got to go with the next group. They went and visited a old folks home and sang to a bunch of grandmas. Its funny, because I didn´t even know that those things existed here. lol. It was a really nice oportunity. The grandmas were just thrilled to have people to talk to. The best was the lady with no teeth that talked to me for a good 15 minutes - I could hardly understand her, but it felt nice to give her somebody to listen to her. Good stuff.
Anyways, I´ve written for way too long now. People keep coming to bother me and so I´ve been kind of distracted, but I feel like I´ve been here forever. lol. Glad things are good at home. Love hearing for you. Hope you are all feeling the spirit of Christmas and are enjoying the Christmas season. Things are great here. Love you all tons! Have a good week!
Love,
Elder Humphreys
PS We got the rules on the phone calls this week. I almost just forwarded it again, but then remembered that it was in Spanish. Basically, they don´t want us to break the sabbath by phoning on Sunday (maybe because people would need to use a phone or internet place??) and so they want the calls to be on Saturday or Monday. Not Christmas day itself. Oh well. We can phone or skype, but I think it´ll just be easier and more reliable to phone personally. We can talk for 40 minutes tops, and it needs to be done before 6pm our time. Just let me know what would be best for you. I´m usually just here in the office at that time, so whenever works for me. Let me know! Chau!
But I´m glad to hear that all is well back at home. Fun to hear about our new President. I never realized that the same President that set me apart wouldn´t be the same one that released me. Not a big deal though. I think President Craig was my leader for Moronis Quest way back in the day. So I don´t really remember him super well, but I remember that he´s a nice guy. I´m sure he´ll do a fantastic job. Sounds like a good group of guys. Crasy to think about snow. Hope you enjoy it! Glad to hear that Toby is looking good as well. And is well behaved for the most part. Fun to hear that there still are real Christmas trees in this world. I haven´t seen a good pine tree in... more than a year now. Fun that you won that DVD player. Not fun that there are braces. Hope they start feeling better! And that ward parties happen there. I´m interested to see how our party will work out (I´m actually happily prized to see that we are actually going to be having a party. Good stuff). I don´t envy the Christmas buying situation either. Good luck! How about drivers ed? Did you make her learn on a manual, or does she get out easy with the automatic? I think either way its a win situation. Suerte!
Anyways, we had a pretty good, minorly crasy week. I enjoyed it. Monday.. all of the zone leaders were here in the office. Thats always fun.... lol. Its nice because I get to see a lot of my friends. Its also kind of a pain though just having so many people around that all need things. Hard to get your work done. Oh well. Oh, and also there had been some special changes. None of us got changed, but there was somebody that was left without a companion for the day. So Elder Thomson went out to be with them. That left me without a companion to work with in the afternoon. There were people that should have been available to go out and help me do visits, but nobody wanted to leave and help me because they were all busy doing stuff in the office or whatever. In the end I missed a visit that we had promised to do. Usually its not that big of a deal. But it turns out that the members invited their friends and made food and everything. And then we didn´t show up. Wow, I felt bad. The worst thing too was that there wasn´t really anything that I could do about it. Lame. Hopefully everything goes well with them in the future. While I was sitting around without a comp though, a stroke of briliance hit me though. I looked in the packages and found that a bunch of my packages were pre-wrapped and so I could open the bx. Even better is that there is one for each day of the month. That sure made us happy. haha. The other guys in our house really like it too because we get to have something fun and exciting every night before bed. They FREAKED out when we got the new Mo-tab CD with David Archuleta on it. hahaha. We´re losers. Oh well. Needless to say, Christmas is treating us well.
Tuesday was super fun. We worked and such like normal. But after work, we got together and were able to go to Presidents house for dinner. It was fantastic. The Hermana KNOWs how to cook. It was a goodbye meal to one of our assistants and an emeritus office elder who were going home the next day. They gave up their super fancy Brazilian BBQ meal to eat together with us. That was really cool. It was fun to hang out with them one last time. Especially since they are both from Mexico and you never know if you´ll get in touch with them again. Elder Cerda and Ruiz will be missed a lot around here. Elder Cerda was probably one of the best missionaries that this mission has seen for a while.
Wednesday we got to get up early and see them off. Always nice, but sad. Oh well. Thats how it goes. We´ve been working on a slide show this week here in the office. Its supposed to be a kind of Christmas present for everybody. It has pictures of all of the missionaries that are here working right now. Got to submit 3 photos each. Should be a fun souvenir. Fortunately I´m not the one in charge of it though, because it looks like it´ll be a lot of work. lol
Thursday we got to take the van out to work. That was fun. Usually the other guys get it because their area is a little bit farther away. I actually did a lot of the drivinig this week because there are only two of us left with licenses. So if Elder Thornton doesn´t want to or can´t go somewhere, that leaves me in charge. Fun stuff. That even won me the chance to drive Presidents car the other day when the van was busy. That was fun. Our van is.. good and reliable. But Presidents car is nice and speedy and the shocks aren´t blown like they are on the van. lol. So that was fun. Anyways, we got to go out and visit the people that live farther away. Got to talk to this older lady. She´s one of the pioneers of the church here in Paraguay, and is heavily involved in the history keeping of the church-ness in the country. And her husband is suffering from Alzheimer's and is basically a child of 70 years old. It was fun. She showed us all of her pictures, and served us food. She was just so happy to have somebody to talk to. Its gotta be hard having to take care of somebody like that, especially when they can´t even communicate with you. So that was really nice. Also, that evening, since I´m the newest designated driver, I got to make a semi-long trip out to trade out a zone leader for an assistant after they finished their division. Its kinda fun getting to go and drive around like that. I like it. The funniest part though was when the person that was telling me where to go tried to direct me down the exact same path that I got stuck on last time. lol. After having many nightmares about that place, I wisely decided to go the long way rather than get stuck again. They all thought I was freaking out about nothing, but I had promised myself to never do that again. So that was a potential disaster well avoided. haha
Yesterday was cool. We werent able to get out of the office until late, but once we got out, we had to great lessons. Right one after the other. You could really feel the spirit in both of them, and I think we were able to really teach to their needs. Thats the best. We´ve both been missionaries for long enough now, that we´re getting a lot better at going with the spirit and just doing what what needs to be done, rather than following a set lesson plan or saying the same things that we always say. Thats really nice. Obviously we always go in there with a plan and try and be prepared, but its nice to be able to really listen to them and base what we say on what they´ve said, rather than just hearing them, and then just continuing on saying the same things that they don´t need as much at this time.
Oh I forgot to mention. With the exit of our last assistant, we obviously got a new one. His name is Elder Castillo. From Northern Chile. Great guy. I´ve come to find that of all of the Latins that I´ve come in contact with, I´d say that most of my favorites seem to come from Chile. Seems like a good place. So thats fun.
Oh. Friday was also our Christmas party. It was fun. I think I liked last Christmas party better, but this one was really good too. We got together to eat, then watched the movies that the church came out with based on the New Testament. Then we got to go and sing carols at a Orphanage. That was really fun. And then today, since I had to drive, I got to go with the next group. They went and visited a old folks home and sang to a bunch of grandmas. Its funny, because I didn´t even know that those things existed here. lol. It was a really nice oportunity. The grandmas were just thrilled to have people to talk to. The best was the lady with no teeth that talked to me for a good 15 minutes - I could hardly understand her, but it felt nice to give her somebody to listen to her. Good stuff.
Anyways, I´ve written for way too long now. People keep coming to bother me and so I´ve been kind of distracted, but I feel like I´ve been here forever. lol. Glad things are good at home. Love hearing for you. Hope you are all feeling the spirit of Christmas and are enjoying the Christmas season. Things are great here. Love you all tons! Have a good week!
Love,
Elder Humphreys
PS We got the rules on the phone calls this week. I almost just forwarded it again, but then remembered that it was in Spanish. Basically, they don´t want us to break the sabbath by phoning on Sunday (maybe because people would need to use a phone or internet place??) and so they want the calls to be on Saturday or Monday. Not Christmas day itself. Oh well. We can phone or skype, but I think it´ll just be easier and more reliable to phone personally. We can talk for 40 minutes tops, and it needs to be done before 6pm our time. Just let me know what would be best for you. I´m usually just here in the office at that time, so whenever works for me. Let me know! Chau!
Saturday, December 3, 2011
The Office - Week 13
Hey family and friends. Hows it going. Sorry if this a shorter one. This is Elder Cerda (one of the assistants) last P-days, and so we´re trying to make it a good one. lol. We just got back from this cool Paraguayan t-shirt store, and then eating at TGIFridays. It was excellent. I forgot how awesome Frenches mustard and Hienz ketchup is. Not to mention the rest of the food. lol. It was good. Now we´re working on gettin ready to play some soccer, and hopefully there is some time afterwards to make sure this isn´t the lamest letter ever. I guess thats an interesting point though. Elder Cerdas going out. We´ll be shaking things up here again shortly as far as the office crew goes. That´ll be interesting. Christmas preparations are also in full swing. Its funny because we're in one of the least Christmas-y countries that I can think of. But at the same time, being in the office makes it interesting. We´ll be helping out with the Christmas parties (they do a little one with each of the zones so that you don´t have the least Christmas-y Christmas ever), and we actually have a Christmas tree and a couple decorations. We´re also making the transition from EFY music to Christmas music in the car and in the office. So it´ll hopefully be more Christmas-y than ever. I also got another Christmas package this week (THANKS MYSYKS!!!), though I haven´t opened any of them yet, just to save the suprise.
Okay. So we just got back from the laziest game of missionary soccer and basketball that I have ever played. We basically just sweated for nothing. I basically just walked the whole game. Zero hussel. Oh well. Good times.
We only have an hour and a half though before P-day is over so I better be hurrying up. We still have to go shopping and shower and whatnot. So yeah. Glad you all had a good week. Nothing too crasy. The wind sounded fun though. I thought the garage door story was kinda funny. Hope your feeling better Grandma! Your right dad. Time is just flying by like crasy. Its weird how it does that.
Thankfully we had a pretty tranquilo week in the office. Basically nothing out of the ordinary went down, and so we could just do the basics. Usually its not the stuff that really makes up our jobs that take the time and make things stressful. Its the things that we don´t really plan for. This week, the only thing that really went down was that an angry landlady came in to collect the rent money. The missionaries had recently moved, and she was angry about this that and the other, as landladies usually seem to be. Its hard, because we obviously need to be nice, loving and representatives of Jesus Christ in all things that we do. But that doens´t mean that we can be pushovers either, and squander the lords money on people that think they can take advantage of us. So that makes things fun. Thankfully I´ve been here for a descent while now, and so I was able to handle the situation quite calmly and without being taken advantage of. Just 5 or 6 weeks ago I totally would have been flustered and it would have been a disaster since I had to handle everything alone since the Hermana Madariaga wasn´t here. Everybody was just sitting outside of my office looking in at the lady with disbelief on their faces, baffled by how crasy the lady was being. Threatened to use her lawer-ly powers to take us to court and everything. In the end it all turned out well, and we didn´t have to waste the Lords money, nor was she losing anything that was rightly hers. So thats nice to know that I´m finally really getting the hang of things here.
This week in district meeting we talked a lot about talking to everybody. Something thats really hard to do. Sometimes we miss the opportunities to share with the people right in front of us, and go looking for them in other places like in their houses and stuff, where its really easy to reject us. So we tried that a lot more this week and it went really well. Taught a couple of lessons that we otherwise may have missed out on. Even got to teach a guy that was sitting out front reading the newspaper in just a towel. haha. Its getting really hot in case you were wondering. REALLY hot.
Other exciting stuff - Thursday we got to go on a division with our district leader. Normally the office elders just do divisions after office time and so divisions are typically short. This one was a little different though. Since we didn´t have way too much to do in the office, we were able to do a whole day division. Its funny because our district leader (Elder Gallacher) lives with the assistants. So I slept at their house where I´ve already lived before, then played soccer in the morning with all the same guys, and then worked in a familiar-ish area. We´ve actually been playing soccer every day this week. Its been fun. We have to get up a little early to do it, but oh well. Its fun and its good exercise. But anyways. We went on this division. It was actually pretty fun. I was working in the other area, and so I just got to follow him around and see how he teaches and whatnot. Very little pressure and just fun to get to know new people. It was actually fun to be able to work a whole day (thankfully it wasn´t too hot), and be ¨Real¨ missionaries again. Had some fun experiences. Ate chicken kidneys for lunch (not that good at all, but not gag worthy or anything). Didn´t have a crasy successful day, but got to teach some good lessons. Its crasy what you can get done in a whole days worth of work! lol. Also fun to work with Elder Gallacher. We came at the same time (different MTC districts), and it was fun to see how the mission has gone for him, his view on things etc. It was funny though - I was really worried for our area. Our area doesn´t usually get worked every day and there really aren´t that many people to visit. Not to mention that people have jobs during the day and this and that. I thought it might be a VERY long day for my companion. At the same time, division days often are just randomly some of your most successful days of all. And luckily they were blessed with that. Elder Thomson and his comp were actually able to fill the day, get lots done, teach some great lessons, find new investigators, and best of all - find a supposedly awesome family to teach that are just great. Elder Thomson said that when he saw the house, something felt really familiar about it. So he contacted it, and told the guy that he felt like he should go and meet them and everything. In the end, they accepted the invitation to be baptized on the 24th. So thats super cool. At first it made me sad because it seems like all the success always happens after I leave an area, but Elder Thomson reassured me that they did nothing better than usual, and that he actually would have appreciated me having been there to help him out. So that made me feel better. And so I get to go meet them today. Should be great.
Yesterday we decided to try something new. As you probably all remember, I´m not a very creative guy. But with the help of Elder Thomson, we were able to try a fun new activity. When we left to work, we walked across the street and set up a table with all sorts of books and pamphlets and stuff. Then we tried talking to everybody. Inviting them to read more about Jesus Christ and his gospel. Got some cool referrals and met some cool people. Unfortunately, most of them live in other areas, but oh well. We´ll be sending the referrals out and trying to follow up on the people that we met that live close. Hopefully something comes from it. We´ll see. We might try it again in coming weeks. It was weird because at first it was just a little awkward standing in front of a grocery store trying to talk to people, but in the end we were able to really get into it and meet new people.
Anyways. Thats all I got for this week. Otherwise it was pretty tranquilo and ordinary. Things are going great, and are even starting to look up. I´m really enjoying working with Elder Thomson and I think things are going to start improving here in the area soon. Sorry that there wasn´t much exciting to tell. But, things are great. I love being a missionary. The church is true, and Heavenly Father answers our prayers. Hope everything continues to go well for you back at home. I love you all and you are in my prayers! Love ya lots!!
Elder Humphreys
Okay. So we just got back from the laziest game of missionary soccer and basketball that I have ever played. We basically just sweated for nothing. I basically just walked the whole game. Zero hussel. Oh well. Good times.
We only have an hour and a half though before P-day is over so I better be hurrying up. We still have to go shopping and shower and whatnot. So yeah. Glad you all had a good week. Nothing too crasy. The wind sounded fun though. I thought the garage door story was kinda funny. Hope your feeling better Grandma! Your right dad. Time is just flying by like crasy. Its weird how it does that.
Thankfully we had a pretty tranquilo week in the office. Basically nothing out of the ordinary went down, and so we could just do the basics. Usually its not the stuff that really makes up our jobs that take the time and make things stressful. Its the things that we don´t really plan for. This week, the only thing that really went down was that an angry landlady came in to collect the rent money. The missionaries had recently moved, and she was angry about this that and the other, as landladies usually seem to be. Its hard, because we obviously need to be nice, loving and representatives of Jesus Christ in all things that we do. But that doens´t mean that we can be pushovers either, and squander the lords money on people that think they can take advantage of us. So that makes things fun. Thankfully I´ve been here for a descent while now, and so I was able to handle the situation quite calmly and without being taken advantage of. Just 5 or 6 weeks ago I totally would have been flustered and it would have been a disaster since I had to handle everything alone since the Hermana Madariaga wasn´t here. Everybody was just sitting outside of my office looking in at the lady with disbelief on their faces, baffled by how crasy the lady was being. Threatened to use her lawer-ly powers to take us to court and everything. In the end it all turned out well, and we didn´t have to waste the Lords money, nor was she losing anything that was rightly hers. So thats nice to know that I´m finally really getting the hang of things here.
This week in district meeting we talked a lot about talking to everybody. Something thats really hard to do. Sometimes we miss the opportunities to share with the people right in front of us, and go looking for them in other places like in their houses and stuff, where its really easy to reject us. So we tried that a lot more this week and it went really well. Taught a couple of lessons that we otherwise may have missed out on. Even got to teach a guy that was sitting out front reading the newspaper in just a towel. haha. Its getting really hot in case you were wondering. REALLY hot.
Other exciting stuff - Thursday we got to go on a division with our district leader. Normally the office elders just do divisions after office time and so divisions are typically short. This one was a little different though. Since we didn´t have way too much to do in the office, we were able to do a whole day division. Its funny because our district leader (Elder Gallacher) lives with the assistants. So I slept at their house where I´ve already lived before, then played soccer in the morning with all the same guys, and then worked in a familiar-ish area. We´ve actually been playing soccer every day this week. Its been fun. We have to get up a little early to do it, but oh well. Its fun and its good exercise. But anyways. We went on this division. It was actually pretty fun. I was working in the other area, and so I just got to follow him around and see how he teaches and whatnot. Very little pressure and just fun to get to know new people. It was actually fun to be able to work a whole day (thankfully it wasn´t too hot), and be ¨Real¨ missionaries again. Had some fun experiences. Ate chicken kidneys for lunch (not that good at all, but not gag worthy or anything). Didn´t have a crasy successful day, but got to teach some good lessons. Its crasy what you can get done in a whole days worth of work! lol. Also fun to work with Elder Gallacher. We came at the same time (different MTC districts), and it was fun to see how the mission has gone for him, his view on things etc. It was funny though - I was really worried for our area. Our area doesn´t usually get worked every day and there really aren´t that many people to visit. Not to mention that people have jobs during the day and this and that. I thought it might be a VERY long day for my companion. At the same time, division days often are just randomly some of your most successful days of all. And luckily they were blessed with that. Elder Thomson and his comp were actually able to fill the day, get lots done, teach some great lessons, find new investigators, and best of all - find a supposedly awesome family to teach that are just great. Elder Thomson said that when he saw the house, something felt really familiar about it. So he contacted it, and told the guy that he felt like he should go and meet them and everything. In the end, they accepted the invitation to be baptized on the 24th. So thats super cool. At first it made me sad because it seems like all the success always happens after I leave an area, but Elder Thomson reassured me that they did nothing better than usual, and that he actually would have appreciated me having been there to help him out. So that made me feel better. And so I get to go meet them today. Should be great.
Yesterday we decided to try something new. As you probably all remember, I´m not a very creative guy. But with the help of Elder Thomson, we were able to try a fun new activity. When we left to work, we walked across the street and set up a table with all sorts of books and pamphlets and stuff. Then we tried talking to everybody. Inviting them to read more about Jesus Christ and his gospel. Got some cool referrals and met some cool people. Unfortunately, most of them live in other areas, but oh well. We´ll be sending the referrals out and trying to follow up on the people that we met that live close. Hopefully something comes from it. We´ll see. We might try it again in coming weeks. It was weird because at first it was just a little awkward standing in front of a grocery store trying to talk to people, but in the end we were able to really get into it and meet new people.
Anyways. Thats all I got for this week. Otherwise it was pretty tranquilo and ordinary. Things are going great, and are even starting to look up. I´m really enjoying working with Elder Thomson and I think things are going to start improving here in the area soon. Sorry that there wasn´t much exciting to tell. But, things are great. I love being a missionary. The church is true, and Heavenly Father answers our prayers. Hope everything continues to go well for you back at home. I love you all and you are in my prayers! Love ya lots!!
Elder Humphreys
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