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!