The Office Week 19

We climbed a mountain

The other guys

The view from the "Mountain"

Me and the other mountain man Elder Pearson

True mountaineers

Howdy there. Hows everybody doing. Glad to hear things are good as usual. We had a pretty crasy week here with lots of fun adventures.We´ll try and see how quickly I can get them out. We still have to go home and get showered and everything before going to work...
But. Fun to hear its cold back at home. Thought that was fun. Have fun with the driving and keep up the good b-ball work. Funny because as the letters go on, I feel like I seem to know less and less of the places and people that you mention. Guess its been a while now and that I´m kinda out of the loop. lol. Hope you´re all getting excited for the trip and that it all goes well. I think you´re right though - as far as getting tickets to come find me, maybe just giving the lady at the MTC that books all the tickets a ring might be beneficial. Just so that everything works out smoothly.
This week was pretty interesting. Sunday was fun. We had people in church. AGAIN. It was a miracle. Unfortunately the people from last week weren´t able to make it this week, but we had a different investigator with whom we´ve been working for some time finally come to church. She really liked it. So thats great. She has this really complicated doubt where she wants to get baptized, but wants to wait first because her daughter is getting married in the catholic church, and is going to be SUPER offended if she doesn´t take the Catholic sacrament. But our investigator understands that once she gets baptized, she needs to be a representative of the church and of her beliefs at all times, and thus doesn´t want to mock God by participating like that in another church. She wants to be 100% committed forever. So thats cool, and yet, it keeps her from getting baptized right now. We´re going to try and see if she´ll be able to just not take the ¨communion¨ at the wedding. Pretty cool though.
That afternoon we got to go and do visits with the Bishop to see some members and investigators. That was really cool. He´s a great guy. Convert. Hard worker. Really knows how things are run. Returned missionary. Is a pharmaceutical representative guy that sells medicine to pharmacies. Likes heavy metal music. lol. Anyways, that was great to be able to go and do visits with him. It also worked out really well for him too - this week they had their very first EFY in all of Paraguayan history. The youth have been saving up money for a really long time and doing everything possible to be able to go. Well, since the program is new, there have been several mistakes, and a couple of kids didn´t get into the first session like they were promised. Turns out that they just got signed up for the second week. Well, the kids here just didn´t understand. There were major temper-tantrums from all sorts of kids who thought that it was their bishops fault that they wouldn´t be going at the same time as all their friends. People threatening to never go back to church and ridiculous stuff like that. So we got to go around with the bishop and help him explain to the kids that the world wasn´t going to end, people aren´t perfect etc etc. Fun stuff. Then we went and picked up the van from the assistants house. That was where we got hit with some fun news. President Arnold of the 70 decided that while he was here for EFY, he wanted to stop in and pay us a visit. Wow. That changed a lot of things. Zone conferences cancelled, and a special zone leader and President Arnold meeting planned. Crasy.
Monday. Good stuff. Had my quarterly interview with President. I really liked it. He showed me ways that I could improve, while still congratulating me on our new found success. Nice. He also gave me some new news that I wasn´t expecting - turns out that the Lord might have mercy on me and let me out of the office earlier than I thought. lol. As in President is thinking that probably mid-March I´ll be out of the office. Still a solid 4 and a half changes, but not the 5 and a half or 6 that sometimes fall upon the Financieros. Cool beans. Not that I don´t like the office. But just exciting to be able to get back out and work full days in the field again... something every oficinista dreams about.
Also had a fun FHE night with some members and investigators.  I think it went really well. Good stuff. With the same member family, we taught them later in the week and found out why they don´t all go to church - turns out that the parents who have been together for almost 60 years just fight all the time and never get along. It was hard and weird to try and counsel two Fully grown adults about how to be happy and get along. Ugh. Fortunately, we just were able to stick to following Jesus Christ and how that will help everything in the long run. Weird.
Not sure what I did all of the other days. It was weird. Its been a pretty tranquilo change and so I actually haven´t had tons to do in the office. But that did mean for some fun adventures this week. We had to go back to Mariano Roque Alonso to drop off a new cell phone for some Hermanas that got robbed. That was fun. Drive around and see places I was a year or more ago. I´m excited to go back and actually talk to some people. Then we got to run around like crasy trying to find a chapel that was both open and had long tables that we could borrow for the conference. In the end, we just had to go to the south mission office and borrow some there. Crasy how hard it is to find some basic tables in this country. lol
Had ward council the first time in a while. It was actually really cool though because it seems like the leaders are a lot more animated after such a long Christmas break. Everybody is excited since there are actually non-members in church and stuff like that. It was also fun because after the meeting we got to go out with the bishop again and visit some new members in the ward. They are from the states, and its exciting because they are actually really excited to work and help out in any way they can. I´m excited to see if we can help put them to work.
Had a weird experience Thursday night. We were out working and then President called us and told us that there was an Indian ¨Nivacle¨ person that was at some chapel and needed us to pick him up, take him to the bus terminal and then buy him a bus ticket. Its kind of a weird relationship that we have with them. They are sometimes very needy, or will come here for meetings without bringing money to get back home. Anyways, we all got in the car and searched him out in the South mission. Then we had to drive him around to all of these places. We bought him the ticket. Then he said that there was another ticket that he would need to get from where the bus stopped to his home. Then that he hadn´t eaten all day. President told me just about buying the ticket, but then everybody just told me that we needed to get him food, pay for his other ticket etc. Anyways, it was late and so we just trusted the guy and gave him some money for the ticket and some food. Oops. Turns out that he wasn´t even a member and that in the words of president ¨He probably just went out and used the money to by beer or something like that¨. Dang it. I knew that I shouldn´t just let him have it, but I gave in to peer pressure on that one. And my charitable side. lol. Anyways, lesson learned. NEVER just give people money on their word. lol. President felt bad because he didn´t tell me. I felt silly. Oh well. We learn.
Oh yeah. I got the package from Grandma and Grandpa btw. THANKS! I have all the pics up on my walls. I´ll have to remember to take a picture. And I get to drink my juice in the office every day. Love it.
Friday was kind of crasy. We showed up in the office and Elder Arnold was already at work teaching the zone leaders how things should be done. Intense. They had to come fasting, and so they had 5 straight hours of meetings. Where he talked the whole time. Wow. Pretty intense. Apparently it was super spiritual. We really wanted to be in there but weren´t invited. We were just at work as usual. But with the little bit of fear that if you got distracted from your work for even half a second, that President Arnold would be there to tell you to do your job better. lol. In the end, I only talked to him for half a second, shook his hand, and passed him in the hall once. haha. He´s a great guy and a very spiritual man. The craziest moment though was when the Hermana told us that we needed to bring her Presidents car. That meant going into the meeting, interrupting and getting the keys to the car. Thankfully Elder Thomson was willing to do that. President Arnold stopped the meeting and told him that he should be better prepared and not interrupt meetings like that. Ouch. I think I would have cried. haha. Thankfully once President found out why and told it to President Arnold, neither of them were mad. Close one. The best part: turns out that there was a spare key in Presidents desk all along.
That takes us up to today. Yesterday Elder Pearson went out on a limb and asked President for special permision to go to a city named Aregua and climb a hill called ¨Cerro Ko´i¨. The closest thing that they have to a mountain here in Paraguay. Surprisingly enough, he told us to ask the zone leaders who subsequently gave us permision. Wow. Super cool. So today we got to make a little road trip and do a small hike. In the end, the hike was really just a short walk. But the hill was really cool. It had some really interesting rock formations. Some guy told us that there are only 3 or so mountains in the world like it - apparently one is in Canada. I dont really know. Anyways, we got to go up there and take some fun picks. Great view. Maybe I`ll go back with dad if he wants. As usual, all of the pictures of me looked kind of stupid, but oh well. I sent you a couple. Enjoy. But yeah. Fun adventure of the day.
Anyways, that was the week. Tried our best to work with the people and get them ready for church. Hopefully more people go. Its sad because we still only get to teach a couple lessons a day with the limited time, and so there are less fun lessons to mention. But they are almost always great. I really like how me and Elder Thomson teach together. We are really trying to teach by the spirit, and I think most of the lessons go pretty well and that both us and the investigators leave edified. Its great to be able to share with the people and be a representative of Christ in all that we do. I`m excited to get back to the field, but at the same time, am really enjoying all of the adventures here. Should keep coming. I`ve realized how little time I really have left and so I`m doing everything to make the best of it. It really won`t be long at all before this is just a past memory. I love it, and I cherish every day of it.
Anyways, gotta run. Hope you have a great week. Love ya tons! Keep up the good work!
Chau!!!
Elder Humphreys