Saltos - week 11

Hola. Hows it going with everyone? Sorry for not writing yesterday - the internet was apparently out in this entire section of Paraguay. Fun stuff. Fortunately our leaders have had mercy on us and we have been given permission to write today. That way you won´t be wondering how we are or if I died or anything. So thats nice. We had a pretty good week. It went by super fast. This has definitely been one of the fastest (if not THE fastest) change I think I´ve ever had. We are already almost half done the training program that the new missionaries go through. Just one week left and we´ll be half done. Its a 12 week program, So after thats finished I´ll only really have about 2 weeks left. The time is going by WAY too fast. Just trying to make the best of it with every day that I have left. Super good to hear that you got the tickets. What a relief. I´ll try and think a little (without distracting myself) about how we´ll use the days we have. I really just kind of want to see my old areas and the people there. Besides that there aren´t all that many sights to see. Just the giant water falls. Maybe if we have time we´ll go there. Besides that... the temple. I think thats it. lol. As far as booking hotels, I wouldn´t stress too much. I don´t think any hotels out here will ever fill up, and I´m not too worried. I was just telling my comp that I think that maybe rather than getting a hotel we´ll just sleep in the rental car. haha. We´ll see how it goes. I think it´d be probably good to have a car the whole time though. Just because my areas are kind of spaced out, and we don´t have tons of time to waste sitting on buses and stuff. I am super happy to hear that all of my doctorness is all ready to go though. It will feel weird to have clean teeth, I´m all out of contacts, and I haven´t met a single missionary that hasn´t been at least a little sick throughout his entire mission. haha. So that will be a good way to start fresh. The only other person I´ll need to visit is the pedicurist, but I don´t think I´ll need an appointment for that. Only other thing on that note - I can´t believe that you saw the Avengers without me. We´ve been staying as focused as possible, but at the same time, there has been a lot of chatter about that one. Heard it was a hit. lol. Anyways. The week. Last monday was pretty normal. Bought some cheap matching sunglasses with my companion. They´ll be great for our Italy trip. Tuesday was an unusualish day. Things were all just kind of out of order and messy. But we got quite a bit done. We left and did a bunch of visits with a member. That was great. It got a little bit rough at one point where a lot of our plans had fallen through, but after some thinking and some needed inspiration we went and contacted a referral that we had gotten a couple of days back. Turned out that not only did we happen to find her at one of the only days and times that would have been possible, but also that she was good friends with the member, and had talked a lot with missionaries back in the day. So that was a small miracle.We also got to know the kid of a less active member that we´re working with. He just moved back from Asuncion and supposedly really wants to get baptised. So we´ll be working with them and see how that goes. Wednesday was all rainy and nasty.. The best part was that it didn´t look too bad when we left the house, and so we got caught in the rain without rainjackets or umbrellas or anything. Oops. But in the end, the rain turned out to be a blessing. I had gotten all mixed up about the time at which one of our main investigators would have time to visit us. I didn´t realize until she should have been leaving for school that I had made the mix up. Man, I felt dumb. But fortunately the rain meant that she didn´t leave to go to school and that we still got to have a really good lesson. Besides that, the day was kind of a disaster, but the blessing of still being able to teach our most important lesson was really nice. This week we tried to work a lot with the members. Unfortunately things just didn´t work out. The rain, the members or the investigators - always one of those 3 things would come up last minute and have a reason for it to fall through. Bummer. But we´re going to keep doing everything we can to get their help. I´ve definately seen the difference it can make to have their help. Thursday was another typical rainy day. During the night, I think it rained harder than Ive ever seen it rain here in Saltos. We have a tin roof so that doesn´t really help with the sleeping. But I realized what a blessing it was just to have a house that was dry and didn´t leak. There are a ton of people that live around here that don´t have that luxury. That night the rain slowed down and we were able to have our ward night. There still wasn´t a great turn out, but we had fun anyways, and played our simplified version of Scatergories. A Paraguayan classic called ¨Tuti Fruti¨. Its tricky to play in Spanish though. Friday - Another busy day. Left again with the same member. Fernando - getting ready to go on his mission. Convert of ...3 months. Great kid. Finished the night off strong teaching him and Cleverson about fasting and challenged them to a fast with us so that they can find good work where they wont have to work on Sundays - something SUPER hard to do here. We also had to talk a lot about their group of member friends and how they were going to fix all of their problems. Its great because there are a bunch of 19-21 year olds in the ward that have the ability to do a lot of good, but at the same time, they´re having a really hard tiem getting along. Me and my comp are constantly just trying to keep them all from falling apart. So saturday we started our fast with them. That was really nice. We planned to run around and do a bunch of last minute visits to get people ready for church. Those plans kind of had a wrench thrown into them when all of the power went out in the city for an hour or two. It was pretty dark. lol. Thankfully the cell phone has a little light on the top. We managed to get into a lesson though where we taught by candle and flashlight until the power came back. Fun stuff. Taught another great lesson with our main investigator. Shes great and is really wanting to know that the church is true. Her name is Adriana. Shes got a ton of obsticals in her way to baptism, but she has tons of faith and really wants to follow God, and so nothing is imposible. Sunday, Adriana came to church. She loved it. The only bad thing is that she had to move her day off to Sunday to be able to go to church - that means that we won´t be able to visit till Sunday. Ugh. Bummer. But oh well. I think she is really starting to see that the church is true and is getting excited about her progression. Anyways. Yesterday was pretty good. We got to have our small zone soccer activity. It felt SO good to be able to go out and run again. I love it. Bummer about the internet but oh well. Anyways. Thats that. Got to get out and do some missionary work. Big old shout out to THEO GIBB. Birthday wishes from a really lame friend that never writes. Have a good one. But yeah. Things are going great here. Glad to hear that all is well back at home. Love you all tons. Have a great week, and talk to you in less than 7 days! Chau! Elder Humphreys

Saltos - Week 10

Heeeey. Hows it going everybody? Thanks for the good weekly update. Glad that all is going well back at home. I´d say the only thing that was too bad about the letter was that it apears as though the family countdown has started... that means that my time is growing close. Not a fun thought... Glad to hear that things are working themselves out with the flights though. Hopefully everything keeps going well with that! Glad you´re all having a good time though. That the trips and weddings (wierd) went along well as usual. What fun.
As for this week. It went quite well. I am unfortunately a little bit less prepared to write my letter this week, but we´ll see how it goes. I think I´ll be able to remember most of it...
Last monday we had a blast. After our district meeting, all of the elders from the two districts closest to here (ours, and the one near by), got changed and we went and rented out an artificial turf field to play soccer on. It was kind of expensive, but with 9 guys covering the price it wasn´t too bad. Anyways, we played our gutts out for an hour and a half. It was a blast. I realized how much I missed the soccer playing days of the office. I was kind of rusty, and even fatter than I used to be. But I did manage to make a couple really sick goals and a handful of great plays. So that was fun. We were honestly sore though for the next 3 or 4 days. Thats what happens when you have great mission bodies like ours. haha. That afternoon I stuck my poor newbie companion on a bus all by himself to go off and do a division. Poor guy. Thankfully he had the phone and managed to get along all right. That meant that for the next day and a half I was on a division as well. Always fun to be with the zone leader. On one hand, hes a great missionary and its fun to be with him. On the other hand you get that feeling like your being judged all day. Oh well. Things went swell. The only bad part being when one of our main investigators just decided to hide from us. But I´m kind of used to that by now so oh well. We found some really cool people who should hopefully progress in the future.
Other fun news that day was that special changes hit our district. Fortunately me and my comp are pretty locked in with the whole training project that we do. The only way we´ll be effected by changes will be if I get demoted for doing something super dumb. So no worries there. However Elder Thomson got the change out. Thats kind of a bummer. He was the last of the original Saltos crew that was here when I showed up. Really good guy. That lead to a little bit of a mess. First him and his comp went in to the office. Then it turned out that his old comp (elder Schmidt) has yet to have a new comp. So, we had to go pick him up, and then we spent a day in a trio. Always fun like that. Even better when you have 2 areas that you have to cover. So we planned everything out to try and make sure that everyone that needed a visit got one. After one kind of crasy rushed day, we got a call that said that he´d be getting a local companion. So now we´re back to 4. The local Elder should be with us for about 3 weeks until he gets his visa to Argentina, or at least until changes.
As for that... the week was pretty normal. We did our visits. Tried our best to help others come unto Christ. Rewarding as always. Nobody came to ward night. That was kind of a bummer. Tried to do some visits with some of the members... the majority fell through on us. Oh well. We just keep doing what we can.
Friday I had a fun moment. Thursday my companion was telling me how at his house he has an entire room dedicated to art and deep thinking. Obviously being the person I am, I couldn´t just let that go -  I had to ask him all sorts of questions about it. I was liking the idea a lot until I found out that all 25 pieces or so of art are of splash painting. I thought that that was humorous. It turns out that I really just don´t have a good understanding though. He explained to me the feeling that can be found and understood from splash art. I was still kind of skeptical. So Friday we continued on the theme. He told me to come to Italy with him and he´d show me all about it. I told him that I didn´t have that kind of money. He told me that he would take me there with him, as long as I promised to have an open mind and try and feel the beauty of the art. So its a deal. Not sure when the trip will be but its set. We have a deal. He even sign the place in my planner where I made the note. haha. So thats how it goes. I´m pretty excited. It sounds like the suit rentals for the actual art show might get a little pricey, but oh well. Its a sacrifice that I´m willing to make.
But yeah. Thats life here. We´re actually working with quite a few really cool investigators right now. This week was kind of a bummer because they all seemed to have really good excuses for not going to church, but I´m hoping to continue to see progression. Doing what we can and working to do our best. Having a blast. My mind keeps betraying me by reminding me about how little time I have left, and my body keeps trying to tell me that I´m tired and that I should just rest. But my heart is still totally here in the work. I really love working here and doing this work. Sometimes its hard, tiring, even disapointing at times. But the moments where you see that you´ve made a diference in somebodies life makes it worth it. I really love the people here. Sometimes the culture and just the way things are, are humorous or even quite backwards. But the people themselves are just great. I really am just so thanful for the oportunity to be here and serve. I´ve honestly learned so much in just the last handful of months. Lots of change. Lots of progresion. Lots of room to go. Theres nothing that I´d rather do. I love you all and thank you so much for your support. You´ll have to forgive me for not staying in touch as well as I should have, or not always sharing all of my true feelings for this work. But I really do know that this is the Lords work and I love being a part of it. Love you all, and hope you have a great week. Work hard, play hard, and don´t forget to be great missionaries!
Chau!
Elder Humphreys

Saltos - Week 9

Hey. Long time no write. Or talk. Hopefully I make it through this letter because the lady just sprayed all of these toxic fumes under my desk to try and kill all of the mosquitos. I´ll probably die a year earlier than I was supposed to, but oh well. Anyways, I have to be quick because my comp has to go catch a bus for the division that we are doing. Fortunately I already told you all of the more exciting things that happened this week on the phone.

I just showed my companion our Mamma Mia vid. Now he knows how goofy we really are. haha. I think he probably thinks less of me for it, but oh well. It makes me proud every time that I watch it. Good times.

Anyways. We had a pretty good week here in Salto del Guaira. I´m having fun. We´re working hard. All the studies are kind of throwing me off still and I´m having a hard time keeping up with everything we need to do. Oh well. Last week the recent converts and less active members were gave us a really hard time because we had neglected to visit them. I tried to explain to them the best that I could that we didn´t forget them. But that with the conference and trying really hard to help people progress and get baptized there just hasn´t been enough time. I think most of them understood. Its still rough though because I´ve promised them all that I would do my best to visit them AT LEAST once a week. Not going to lie, I´m kind of freaking out as I try and keep up with the needs of all of the people that we know. But oh well. We´re doing our best and thats what really matters. We´ll do what we can and I´m sure that the Lord will do the rest.

We had some really good days and some trickier days this week. We had some guy demand that we visited him at a certain time and place last Sunday. So we went to meet him on Tuesday like we had planned, and after having walked as fast as we could across the entire city almost, we showed up just in time to find out that he wasn´t home. Apparently he had forgotten. Ugh. But oh well.

Fun fact. You went to McDonalds in Japan right? No promises, but theres a chance that you visited one that is owned by Brother Svedin, dad of my comp. I´m sure there are lots in Japan, so it probably wasn´t. But you never know. If only he owned a few in Canada....

Wednesday morning we moved all of our stuff. Fortunately it was´t a very far move and so we managed to get everything done in the morning. That was nice. It did kind of use up a lot of our day but oh well. Thats how it goes. I think we are significantly more focused now which is really nice. Its not like we were really wasting tons of time before, but its just tricky sometimes when the one companionship is getting ready to leave in the middle of your study time. Conversations ALWAYS come up. So now its a little less fun, a little bit of a smaller space, and whatnot, but I think it was a good move. Its not like we don´t see each other anyways. We eat lunch together, we do service together, we go to church together. P-day together. Thankfully they are really good guys. Elder Thompson and Elder Schmidt. Love them. Good district.

Thursday I started ready the book of mormon again in Spanish. We´re doing a ready challenge with some of the youth. We´re taking notes on what we read and comparing at the end of the week. My comps idea. Good kid. Anyways, my favorite part so far has just been the testimony of Joseph Smith. The first time I read it in Spanish it was HARD. He uses a lot of tricky words. lol. So it was really fun this time to see how much my spanish has really improved. I just looked up a few words to be sure of their meaning. Fun to see how much I´ve really learned. I thought I hadn´t learned all that much in the last year or so, but it looks like I was wrong.

Thursday we also got to eat ¨Chura¨ (cow insides) again for lunch. That was a fun experience for my comp. lol. Everyone was being babies and so I had to eat the most. Good thing I´m kind of used to it now. I´m not going to lie though... it was still pretty bad this time. I think it was the large intestines that were the worst if I decifered what it was right. The small intestine was the best followed by the stomach. Still something I´ll be happy to be without in the future. I´m actually kind of afraid though that North American food is going to give me a hard time though when I get home... we´ll see.

Friday was another rougher day. Oh well. There was a huge rainstorm though so that was fun. Thankfully there are lots of good days to make up for the days that don´t go right. :)

Saturday we got told that we needed to go and visit a reference by a member. We went and taught him and his wife. They are great and made it to church on Sunday. Younger family. So that was fun. Hopefully they can keep progressing. My comp also talked to his family. I´m glad I didn´t have to worry about if our vid was working and that you didn´t all stare at me for the 40 minutes. I dunno. Still not my idea of fun. lol. I did really love talking though. I like how we´re better at knowing what to talk about than the first phone call. Weird to think that its the last one. AS for dad coming - I´m pretty sure that I definately would like you to come. Hope its not too much of a hassel. I´m really excited to be able to go and visit all of my old friends. Not sure why I even hesitated over the phone in the first place. Let me know if its going to be too big of a deal though.

We had Sunday lunch with a less active family. That was nice. They are kind of goofy but I really like them. Sad to see that the last Elders didn´t really give them a chance. We might even be able to get a baptism with them since one of the kids moved back from Asuncion so thats fun.

Had another really good lesson with a newer investigator yesterday. Fun we are finally starting to meet a bunch of new people that look like they really might continue progressing. Hopefully they keep showing such promise. We´re doing our best. Keep praying for us!

Anyways, gotta catch my comps bus. Thanks for everything you do. I love you lots! Have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Humphreys

Saltos - Week 8

Hola everybody! Glad to hear that things are going great back at home. Glad to hear that all is well. Weird to think how long I´ve not been there. Feels like I don´t really know what it must be like back at home anymore. Everything has changed so much. Oh well. As for my companion - his mom and dad live in Utah, but his house is in Arizona and he spent some of his childhood growing up there. So he´s kind of from both. As for my week. It went just swell. Unfortunately I have very little time today, but realistically, there isnt too much to say about the week, and we´ll be talking in no time and so we can just talk then. lol. Monday was fun. We had another hot dog roast and nap off. Went swell. Tuesday was a big holiday in the country. We got to go to the church and eat free BBQ. That was nice. As for the day, it acutally went pretty good considering that people were either trying to make tons of money by working while all the Brazilians came to town, or they were completely drunk. Wednesday was kind of weird because nobody at all was working in the town center. Wednesday went not too bad. Lots of drunks, but what can you do right? Got to help give a blessing to a younger member girl that had got into a small accident on her motorbike. Pretty typical in a country with so many bikes, uneven roads, and no rules on the streets. Thursday had a fairly scary moment - while taking the shortcut to lunch through some field, I managed to step on a board with a nail sticking up out of it. That didn´t scare me at all.... lol. Fortunately it was more to the front of my shoes and so it just ended up poking one of my toes. Close one. The heels on both pairs of shoes are basically gone by now, and so fortunately I didn´t step on it further back or it could have gone worse. Bendiciones! We had an unfortunate situation where we were the only ones with keys and so we had to spend our evening going to the church to have a really boring ward activity. Really bad turn out. Ugh. That night we left to go to zone conference in Asuncion. Fortunately I wasn´t sick this time. Showed up bright and early in Asuncion (5ish). Had my interview at 7. Thats always nice. President is great. The conference was swell. Depending on how the calandar goes that might be my last one. Weird. Then we got to go to the temple. That was great as always. I love the temple. We also got to go shopping and I dropped a ton of money buying books and stuff for the members. Thankfully when it is changed to dollars, it really wasn´t that much to sacrifice. Got to eat yummy Asuncion food and then had to wait till midnight to catch our bus. That was a bummer. Fortunately some lady came and sat down with us and talked to me for 2 hours. She didn´t have too much good to say and she didn´t really accept our message too well, but it helped pass the time. She tried to make me buy her food. Thats against the rules so I bought some food for myself and shared. She tried to tell me off for not being a better Samaritan and giving of myself. I had to explain to her about 5 times the rules. When she finally understood, she felt kind of bad. haha. Oh well. I liked being able to help her out and still keep the rules. That made me happy. We got home at about 7 in the morning. 2 nights of just bus sleep. Man I was tired. But, we cleaned the church and got our study on. We´re trying really hard to work hard and effective. Taught a good lesson to the lady that came to church last week. Sunday we were looking pretty good for people in church. As usual, most people that had promised to come didn{t, but there was one lady who is living with some members that came. She really liked it. In zone conference we talked a lot about how every companionship needs to be doing everything possible to baptize this month, and so she´s our most hopeful one. Anyways. That was the week. Sorry that it wasn´t that crasy. Hope you liked it. We´re having fun, trying hard, and I´m having a blast. Training is super fun. Elder Svedin is great. Anyways, continue to have a great week! Talk to you on sunday! Chau! Love ya, Elder Humphreys

Saltos - Week 7

Hey family and friends. How goes it! Hope everything is well. We had a pretty cool week here in Saltos. At least I did. Can´t speak for my comps... lol. But yeah. I´m really short on time so I´ll have to make it quick.   First of all I forgot to mention that last week I finished the Book of Mormon in Spanish for the first time. Took a while, especially at the beginning when it was really hard to understand. But that was really fun. I love the book of mormon and its awesome that no matter how many times that you read it, you still leave knowing and really being able to feel that its true. Awesome.   Monday. Worked hard. Normal. Kept wondering about changes. Got home and they didn´t show up until really late. That was annoying. But................................ I found out that.............. I would be training! How cool is that right? Kind of nerve wracking too though but oh well. Elder Humphreys is now a daddy. But more on that later.   Tuesday we just spent with a quick district meeting, then lunching, last minute shopping for Elder Wheatley and then packing. Sad to see him go so quick. He was really great and I really relied on him a lot as far as our plannning and everything went. Great guy. Spent the day saying goodbyes and everyththing. Managed to miraculously get them all in and just in time. Grabbed a couple of things for our training meeting and went to the bus terminal. Well, packing little didn´t pay off. Didn´t bring my usual travel pepto bismol or imodium. Well... payed for that later. Just as we were about to get on the bus I realized that I was pretty sick. Too late to turn back though. Got on. Worst bus ride of my life. Fortuately managed to survive it and only had a few panicy moments. Hardly slept at all though.   Made it to Asuncion alive. It was really fun to go back to the office and see tons of people that I knew from my office days. Miss the place. So many good memories. Elder Richins is doing a great job though. Really proud of him. Had a great training meeting. Really cool to know that the Lord trusts me to help train one of His new missionaries. Means that the presure is on though. No room to slip up or be the least bit inobedient. Not that I wasn´t shooting for 100% obedience before, but yeah. Gives you even more motivation. Learned about the importance of training with obedience, hard work and with the spirit. Anyways. My kids name is Elder Svedin. He´s from Utah/Arizona ish. Hes great. Hes got an awesome testimony, a great attitude, a incredible conversion story, hes really motivated by his love and testimony, he´s not afraid to work hard or open his mouth (even though hes just started learning spanish in the last couple of months). Not to mention that, but hes really humble, he likes some really cool stuff, and best of all, he´s willing to put up with me. haha. I´m super happy that I got so lucky. I feel bad... it sounds like Elder Thomson (my old office comp), got a slightly lazier, not as motivated comp. I didn´t really get to know him, but he was Elder Svedins MTC comp. All I know is that I feel really blessed for what the Lord has blessed me with, especially in the case of my missionary ¨offspring¨. haha.   Started getting to work with Elder Svedin on Thursday. Had fun. We have this cool study program which I´m sad didn´t exist at the beggining of my mission. We spend 2 extra hours in the house each day which is a bummer, but I really think that its going to help him to be a pro in no time. We will be together at least until the very last 2 weeks of my mission. So thats kind of interesting that my destiny is kind of decided now. We had a great day. Had a Ward night at the end of the day. It was fun. Bad turn out but oh well. The only sad part was that a bunch of the kids had fun at Elder S´s expense. But he´s got a great sense of humor so no worries there. Thank goodness. He´ll pick the language up soon enough. Anyways, the rest of the week was really fun. The only slightly discouraging part is that when we do something like service or weekly planning and then we have our extra studies, it feels like we hardly have any time at all in our area. thats kind of a fun sucker. I´ve been having a hard time balancing everything out with the time we have - visiting members, investigators, contacting etc. But I´m sure we´ll be able to smooth it out in time.   Saturday night we taught a quick lesson with a family we had met. Sunday the lady miraculously showed up at church. That was really cool. She left early because her kid was being a disaster but hopefully she liked it. Church was kind of a disaster, but oh well.   Anyways. Gotta run. But.... HAPPY B-DAY TO MARISSA AND KEVIN THIS WEEK! LOVE YA! Hope that they go great. Turns out that while I´ve been gone, everything at home has all of a sudden become super technologically advanced, and that all these cool movies are out and all of this other crasy stuff. So hope that you have some cool hi-tech birthdays full of technology and cool movies. And then we´ll enjoy them when I get back. lol.   Anyways. Glad you had a great week. Crasy that Riley is already going on a mission. Hard to believe. Great work on tthe play. Thanks for the work on the house. Sounds great. Funny that you visit Edmonton so much when you didn´t even visit me when I lived there. haha. Anyways. Have a great week. Love ya.   Elder Humphreys