FIRST BAPTISM!

Okay. Wow. Lots to write about today. Hopefully I can get it all in and a few pictures maybe too...

 

Wow. That was lame. The computer just restarted on me. So a few less minutes, but we´ll see what I can do.

 

First of all. Sorry. I´ve been getting your dear Elders. I´ve just forgotten to respond. But: Marissa - Sick costume. I approve. lol. You sent your letter on the 29th of Oct, I got it the 9th of November

Dad - Weekend sounded sick. I especially liked more free hockey without me (lol), and the shoes. Enjoy!

I´m still enjoying Theo´s letters. They´re funny. They make my companions laugh too.

Sis. Mysyk - Thanks for the letter! Much appreciated

Grandma - Sounds like you guys had one heck of a sweet trip! I´d be jealous if I wasn´t on a trip of my own. lol. It sounded super cool

Mom - Just for reference you sent one on the 5th of Nov, I got it the 16th. I´m cool with the Dear Elders. Emails are nice cuz they´re more recent. I´d say one email a week is good just to get the low down. But DearElders are nice cuz i can read them more than once at my leisure. And they´re easier to respond to. So its up to you. If its something more interesting more recent than email it. If not, DearElders are chill. Kurts talk sounded good. He´s got it right. People here are obedient for sure, but theres always the little things that sometimes people don´t care about, but I still think are important. So if he´s already got it on the brain than thats perfect. Crasy how hot its been. But its been REALLY hot here. lol. And its only going to get hotter.

 

Yesterday was my one month mark in Paraguay. Crasy! It kinda feels like I´ve been here forever. Kinda feels like I just showed up yesterday. American Thanksgiving is this week. Although I missed the Canadian version, I´ll at least get to enjoy it the American way. There´s this super cool American family in our ward (probably the most with-it people I know AND they speak English.), and they´re having us over. It´ll be good.

 

Lots of rain this week. I´ve started a love hate relationship with my umbrella. First I forgot I had it when I needed it. Then I would neglect to take it with me. And so I´ve been pretty wet lately. lol. We got rained out of working on Friday for most of the day, and it rained yesterday too. But I like it cuz its nice and cool.

 

Just an interesting thing I´ve noticed here - Ward Mission Leaders are so key. Don´t know if I didn´t give them credit back home or what. But they´re like second only to the bishop in the ward it seems like sometimes. Fortunately the mission leader is sweet. He might be moving though. I might cry. We´ll see.

 

Oh. Perchance, do you think you could send a pic of our house? Maybe with some snow on it? All I have is the picture of my university house. People want to see the real deal. Oh, and another just idea. A list of things from ¨How to be an Extraordinary Missionary¨. I forgot what they are. Might be interesting. I dunno.

 

Oh. So we got our first baptism this week. More on that later. Anyways, hopefully its the first of many. But just so you all know, there have been 100 baptism missionaries before in this country. But I don´t think that I´ll be doing that. Things are different now. Everyone used to know they would be getting free food from the bishops storehouse and so that got a lot of people baptized. Also, apparently they used to get people to sign to allow their kids to be baptized while they were drunk, just for baptisms. We won´t be doing that. Anyways, just so you don´t have unrealistic expectations. But we´ll be trying our best, and our investigators should hopefully remain strong and active members.

 

Anyways, what else. Alright. I guess I´ll just start day-to-day stuff.

 

Monday: Chill P-day. Didn´t do anything fun. But thats alright. It was nice taking it easy. Also found a place with an inactive member who wants to go back to church, and her 9 year old son. Jackpot. He´s getting ready to be baptized and we´re working on getting her back fully active. They look very promising.

 

Tuesday: We had zone conference. It was cool. Elder Foster from the 70 was there. He was a pretty cool guy. I almost had a one-on-one interview with him, but that fell through. Apparently someone else needed it more than I did. Whatever. He´s a very business-y type guy and so I´m not sure how personal it would have been anyways. But the conference was good. Got to see some old MTC buds.

 

Wednesday: I contacted us into the richest house Elder Lee´s ever contacted. Sweet. The guy was pretty cool. We get to go back once he gets back from his business trip. Got to know the sisters area better. Daniel had his baptismal interview and passed

 

Thursday: Nothing all that exciting. Work as usual. Planned the baptism. I volunteered to give the talk.

 

Friday: Had lots of plans for the day. But then it rained and we got stuck at the Church where we had been filling the font. But it was cool cuz there was some guy interested in the church that got stuck there with us and so we got to become his friend and talk about the church for a while. Anyways, besides that, the day was basically just the baptism.  It went really well. My talk went pretty good (what most people didn´t know was that it was basically just the stuff from Preach My Gospel organized like I wanted to say it. lol), and the baptism was really spiritual. Daniel bore his testimony. I think he´ll be a good active member for some time. It was only like the 7th baptism this year in this area and so it was a pretty big deal. Cool stuff. And it was well organized with treats and everything. The only thing that could have been better would be if more showed up. But we invited everyone so it wasn´t our fault.

 

Saturday: Accidently got ourselves into a bible bash. Bad stuff. It made me angry once we finally left. Not cuz of what he said but because we fell into that trap. So we won´t be doing that ever again. Oh well. We learned from the experience.

 

Sunday: Took marcelo to church. He liked it (he´s the 9 year old). It was my one month mark. Crasy. Lots of people promised to come to church like usual. We believed in them. They failed us. Oh well. We tried.

 

Anyways, nothing special planned today. Haircuts. Probably buy some handmade Paraguayan ties. Cool stuff I guess.

 

Anyways. That was the week. Hopefully the pictures work. Keep it real! Missionary work is grand. The church is true. Keep being good member missionaries and read the Book of Mormon! Love you all. Hope everyone is healthy and safe! Don´t do drugs! Stay in school! 

 

PEACE!

 

Elder Humphreys