So yah. What up everyone? Right now I´m dying of the heat, and although Christmas is right around the corner, it sure doesn´t feel like it. I don´t know if I mentioned it last week but whenever I catch myself thinking of home it sure isn´t of Christmas... its usually about boating and going swimming or something. lol
And so thats kinda silly. People here don´t really celebrate the same way as us. To them, it seems like Christmas goes like this: The 24th everyone gets all ready. Nobody really buys presents or anything. They get a huge dinner ready and at 11pm they start feasting and getting really drunk. Then at midnight they all light off their fireworks. Party through the night. Lots of beer, lots of fireworks. Then the 25th is just pretty chill. Its depressing. So thats part of the reason it doesn´t feel so Christmas-y. Its too hot and there are very few decorations.
And I can´t believe it, but I forgot to mention the biggest difference about this area - our house is HOT. Like, its usually hotter inside than outside. Its usually about 35 or 40 degrees in there all day long. Its ridiculous. The only way you can survive is by sitting directly in front of the fan. We have three fans between the two of us. No AC - the landlord is too cheap to put it in, and the house is otherwise too nice and cheap for us to want to move. The roof of the house and all the walls are painted black. Every morning you wake up sweating. Its so hot that me and Elder Call have even been sweating the bed quite regularly. hahah. You heard right. Not wetting, but sweating. Theres usually big wet patch where you´ve been laying on the bed. Its disgusting. We´re going to see what we can do about some AC. Its ridiculous. Another bad part of that is that i put my head by the fan but my feet are uncovered and the fan is too far away so the mosquitos usually have a feast on my feet. I think I have 15 bites on one foot. But I can´t cover my feet from the heat either. I think I´m going to have to pull out the bugspray before bed from now on. lol
Anyways. Sorry. This is kind of a wierd letter. As for phone calls this week I really don´t know too many details yet. Theres that one email I forwarded and thats about all I know. I should call sometime this week (probably the 24th) for a couple minutes just to let you know when to call me and on what number. Hopefully you´ll be home and I won´t have to call a cell. It should charge me though for that part so no worries tho. And then Christmas you can call me. I´ve heard that you´re going to want to use a calling card if you can, because E. Calls family called without one, or a long distance plan once, and it cost like 400 dollars for one hour. So I´d watch out. And calling cards are funny cuz 1000 minutes might last less than an hour due to the long distance. So I´d just look into that. I´ll be calling you first though and hopefully I´ll know more by then...
Huh. What else. Oh. Just btw, I´m liking how dad sends his letters. I don´t know what he does, but it works nicely. So if Mom wants to do that too that would be cool. As for other mail, I learned last week (Thanks Grandma), that it takes one of my hand letters about a month to get home. DearElders like just over 2 weeks. So yah, just a heads up.
Sorry, but I´ll tell you right now that I didn´t send any presents. Sorry! I´ve been collecting some cool stuff but I didn´t have things for everyone and it didn´t seem worth buying lame stuff. But once I got some cool stuff I´ll send a bunch home to lighten my load.
Oh. And there are no such things as postcards here. At least not as far as I´ve seen. So there are a couple people I guess I´ll just write some thankyou letters to, but sorry, they probably won´t be cool. I´ll be keeping my eyes open though.
Tried mangos this week. They are everywhere. Most aren´t ripe yet, are already mashed on the ground, or are out of reach so I hadn´t had one yet. But I tried my first Paraguayan mango. It was interesting. They are SUPER stringy, and so they are a real pain to eat. There are also big Brazilian ones and I like them way more. They´re pretty good. I´ll send a picture some time. Sorry, no pictures this week cuz I´m low on time.
Update on Elder Call - Hes pretty chill. Likes Taylor Swift. Has great taste in ties. BUT, he´s never seen star wars. So I just don´t know if we can ever be friends.... we´ll have to see. haha. We get along well though. He´s from Grover Wyoming (basically a non-existant hick town... hahaha). Been in Paraguay for 13 months or so.
To finish answering your email mom - We spend our days doing all sorts of stuff. Feels like mostly all we do is walk though. lol. My feet hurt, but they´re doing good. And my face is getting pretty burned too, but I sweat so much sunscreen doesn´t really stick.. especially when you´re sweating in your own house. You just can´t get dry. We spend a lot of time doing visits though.. haven´t done toooo much contacting yet thank goodness. Contacting is probably my least fav part of being a missionary. lol. My area isn´t really in Asuncion, but I think the cities have kinda grown together, so you can´t really tell you left. Its pretty close. Crasy they got a dog. Hopefully it´ll like me more than Penny did. lol. Keepin most of my stuff dry. Only got really wet once, but fortunately my fancy scrip cases saved the day.
Oh. Cool thing. Theres this isolated native group in the middle of our area. Most don´t speak Spanish so nobody´s really ever worked with them (they speak Maka or something like that), but there are some people from the tribe that want to start opening up the area so we´ll see how that goes. Could be a real life Ammon story. We´ll have to see...
Haven´t got my package yet, but I still have today and Friday where it might be here. We´ll see. If not, no big deal. Its like fake Christmas here anyways. lol
Wow. Sorry. I didn´t really share much about the week. And I only got 5 minutes. I guess the highlight (which I can´t believe I missed so far), was the baptism we had this Saturday. It was great. Things didn´t really go all according to plan, but it was alright because the investigator showed up and it all got done. Elder Call was going to do the baptism, but he asked her if I could do it and she accepted. So that was a really cool experience. It was really stressful memorizing the prayer, her really long name (Maria Viviana Gabriella Martinez - she goes by Vivi), and everything, but in the end it went fine. I´ll send a picture next week. Besides that... this week was pretty usual. I´ve been assigned to do this job where I call people and make sure their investigators get the pristhood - means I have to call people in our zone twice a week. UGH. lol. Went for this hike around in the dark in dress shoes with a member one night. It was fun/sketchy. lol. Oh, and we had noone in church. That stunk. Our investigators car broke down, one disappeared etc. It stunk. We´ll do better next week.
Tonight we get to see the devotional and eat good food at the office. Should be SWEET!
Anyways, thats all I got time for. We got some meals booked this week which is awesome. Anyways. HAVE A GREAT CHRISTMAS EVERYONE. LOVE YOU LOTS. ENJOY ALL OF YOUR BLESSINGS FOR ME AND DON´T TAKE THE COLD FOR GRANTED. KEEP IT REAL. REMEMBER THE TRUE MEANING OF CHIRSTMAS, BUT ENOJOY YOUR PRESENTS AS WELL. lol
LOVE you lots. Merry christmas!
Elder Humphreys
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