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