Elder Humphreys breaks the 150 day mark!

Haha. I´m not keeping track really, but I did notice the other day that this Saturday was day 150. I feel so old and experienced now. lol

Anyways, we had quite an exciting week. Lots of good (and bad) stuff happen.
 
Also on Monday, I got my first package! It was exciting! lol. I don´t know if it was the first one sent or anything, but inside it had the business cards, Christmas stories, the CTR ring and a painted picture. Loved it! Made my day. The ring fits perfectly, the cards with my adress are sweet (I hate having to write it out for people lol) and the stories were nice. Thanks!

On Monday we had another FHE with the Serefini family. They´re awesome. We watched ¨Together Forever¨. It ended with everyone crying and feeling good. They´re the best. The 3 girls are set for baptism this week. I got to share my testimony of the plan of Salvation and eternal families. Super cool.

Tuesday. The best thing I can think of was that we went to visit this member. He´s usually just a little wierd, but he was having like an emotional breakdown. It was crasy. Apparently he has a mental disease or something and hadn´t been taking his meds. So we probably won´t visit again. It was exciting tho, cuz it was late and dark. Fortunatley he wasn´t violent or anything.

Wednesday me and Elder Call went on a division with a couple of the youth. It was intimidating at first because I was with this guy that has a super bad accent, and he didn´t know any of the people. But it turns out I can speak a lot better than I thought. And so although I didn´t catch EVERY detail of what people were saying, we survived and I finished feeling pretty happy with how much I´ve improved and that I can almost function on my own.... kinda. lol.

Nothing too exciting Thursday. Saw the biggest lady of my life. Thats about it. Oh. Also on this day a bunch of the youth from the ward went to the temple to do baptisms. That was cool. Diego went and really enjoyed it. Thats a proud moment in the life of a missionary. haha

Friday we were walking around doing contacts. Elder Call had another super inspired finding moment when he thought that maybe we´d visit somebody that Elder Calls last companion visited once. We went there and although they never had success getting back in before, the guy that came to the door immediately let us in. Turns out the guy has been inactive for the last 10 years or so. He´s about 25. Well after talking for a bit, he decided that he wanted to come to church. We didn´t even have to convince him or anything. The craziest part is that he works nights and so he would have to come home and get back at about 7, and then we´d be there at 7:15 to go to church with him. But that didn´t stop him. Him and his wife were there and ready when we stopped by in the morning. He´s pretty cool, and his wife isn´t a member, so we´ll see what happens. The only downside is that their little daughter is a pain in the butt. lol. She´s like 2, and she is SUPER distracting in lessons. Not only that, but she didn´t want to be in church at all, and so they left early, and only were able to be there for a bit. But I think they liked it and will be back. Hopefully the daughter can get used to it and they can enjoy and learn more.

Day 150 of the mission was pretty crasy. First of all, I weighed myself for the first time in a while. Not sure how accurate it is, but I weighed......136! Yes! Still haven´t changed. haha. Also, later in the day we were walking and saw some lady get hit by 2 kids on a motor bike. That was unfortunate. Fortunately at the house right by the accident the people had a car and were able to take the lady to the hospital. Fortunately everyone seemed to be okay. 2 broken foots on 2 different people. Heard a story from an inactive lady after that about her son. He had been at the dentist, parked his bike right out front. Well while he was in there somebody walked away with his bike, hotwired it and then drove away. Luckily he had like no gas in it, they found the bike were it was abandoned, and they caught the guy who stole it when he came back with more gas. Well the guy went to jail for a day or two, but now the lady is scared that the guys going to want revenge on her son. Hopefully nothing happens with that. The coolest part of the day though, came later when we were at the Serefini´s again. We were talking about the priesthood or something, but after it came to the point where they just started bearing testimony to us. The mom told us about how after we taught them about the word of wisdom, she started eating healthier and such, and how now she just feels so much better and how her quality of life is so much better. Also, how since we´ve been talking with them, how much more she loves just spending time at home with the fam, and not just working all the time. That was great. Then, the dad told us how he was feeling bad that his wife was the only one employed and that he was praying because he hadn´t been able to find a job for a long time now. Well out of nowhere he just decided that he should call one of his old work friends (can you say ¨The Spirit inspires you¨??), and now through him, he now has a job that pays well and seems pretty steady. Sick story. They´re awesome.

Sunday was good too. For the most part. It started out really bad though. I poured a bowl of cereal. Opened up a brand new bag of milk. Filled up the bowl. Took a big sip of the milk before I put it back in the fridge. WOW it was sour. UGH. That ruined the morning. Threw out the cereal and went hungry. Made me feel sick. Anyways. We went and picked up Enrique (the guy that we found). Church went good. That evening the President came and gave a fireside to the ward. That was really good. One of the coolest parts of the day though was that we went to Diegos house and watched a movie about sharing the Book of Mormon with your friends. Well although the plan was to get them stoked on that, it turned out that we just had a big discussion with Diegos dad. He comes to church occasionaly, and we think he knows its true, but he has problems with drinking, and smoking and some other stuff like that. Well he told us about how after we invited him last sunday (something that we just kinda did offhand),  he came and had some questions. During sacrament meeting he was thinking, decided to pray, and he told us about how he got an answer. He was really suprised about that. He still has a long way to go before he can get baptised (still doesn´t want to stop the drinking and smoking), but it was really cool to see that progression and know that the Lord answers prayers.

Dad, good to know works going good. Keep up the good work. Sounds like you´re getting well taken care of. Say thanks to everyone for me. Things are doing great here. We´re working hard and starting to see how the Lord is blessing us each and every day. Its great. Give Toby a high five on still being healthy. I got a DearElder from grandma that said about everything that they´re doing and how the schedule around there works. Sounds crazy. But its cool to see how everyones pulling together and helping out.  Have fun boating at the lake. lol. Jks.  Have fun with the skiing and such. Sounds like a blast.

Anyways, out of time! Love you all a tonne! The church is true! Be good missionaries! Being a missionary is great and I´m doing well.

Love ya,

Elder Humphreys

Cool and Cloudy

 Diego and Family - Yes, Diego looks like another scary dude. But like Daniel, he´s actually super cool in person. The beard and lack of smile just kinda throw you off a bit. lol

 Us and Diego

 Me and Diego

We made German Pancakes lol

Another week has flown by! Its been a great one. Sorry if my thoughts are all kinda disorganized. I didn´t really plan this email all that well. lol

Anyways. Changes were this week. Me and Elder Call stayed together which I was really thankful for. We get along well and work hard, and the areas cool and so I´m glad that nothing really changed. So we´re just working hard as usual. Getting lots done. Having a good time, and seeing more success with each coming week.

This week has been the best week of weather since I´ve been in this country. Its awesome. Its been really cool and cloudy and I´ve even got to use the covers when I´ve been sleeping a couple times. Its been the first time we´ve turned the fans off since I´ve gotten here. We´ve been loving not being soaked all the time and I haven´t had to worry about wearing sunscreen like I usually do. All I can say is that we´ve been really grateful.

Monday was cool. We had a good old P-day waiting to hear about changes. That evening we had a family home evening with the Serafini family, the one with the 3 daughters that are going to get baptized. We watched the Restoration movie and it brought most of them to tears. That was really cool. On the way home from that I also saw my first Tarantula on the street (thankfully dead). Now I´m scared to death. Elder Call´s been making up stories about them ever since. Fortunately our house is built in a way and place that I shouldn´t have any sneaking up on us in the night. But still. I´m going to scream like a little girl the first time we see one run past us. Don´t forget to remember me in your prayers! haha

Random note about Paraguay. Foods that we think of as staples back at home are actually kinda hard to find here. For instance cheese. Its annoying. Same with taco seasoning. So we´ve been working on being creative with our meal ideas here, but every missionary recipie book that we´ve seen is basically useless because we´re missing lots of basic ingredients. All in all we´ve been eating lots of pancakes, hashbrowns, eggs, cereal etc. But yeah.

Just with everything going on... Whats Toby going to be up to all the time now? Poor guy. Fun that you all got to go sleding and driving around. We´ll have to do that one time when I get back. Dad, I´m thinking you should just keep checkin out those cars. And not let Marissa drive the Civic hahaha. Just kidding. But really. Maybe you can upgrade when I get home. I´d happily take the car off your hands so you´d be back down to 2 vehicles. But whatever. Thats a long ways away. Nice that you get so many meals though! We get basically none here. At the same time, I haven´t gotten sick all change so maybe its a good thing. lol

What else was cool this week... Oh, So not only has Diego changed a lot and gotten more interested in church, but now he´s becoming a stellar missionary and everything. He went out with us to work the other day, and then this Sunday him and Araceli went and invited one of their friends to church all on their own. They invited us over to talk about church and stuff with the friend, but then instead of us teaching basically anything, they did it all by themselves. They´re getting excited to share the gospel with their friends, so thats super cool. We´ll see if anything comes from it. The only bad thing was that there was a youth trip kinda like EFY that all the youth in the district went on, but Diego didn´t go because he thought 3 days was a long time to be away from home. Try 2 years! lol. ´Hopefully he can get over that...

Found a couple new people this week that look promising. One guy has a really big testimony of the Book of Mormon and everything, but he just didn´t get baptized before becuase he had to work every sunday. Well now he´s free, and so we´re going to see if we can help him stop drinking and then maybe he could get baptized too. Its been great. We´ve seen lots of blessings this week and I think we´re improving with each coming week.

Dang it. I need to be better at keeping track of fun stuff to talk about. Oh. Another part of FHE that was fun was that after we brought the Serefini´s to tears with the movie, we played some ¨Don´t eat Pete¨ which brought me back to the good old days of FHE. I think they enjoyed it.

Ugh. Sorry. I think thats the best of the week. Things are going great here. We´re working hard and seeing some success. I love being a missionary. Miss you all, can´t wait to see you all again, but loving serving the Lord. I´m praying for all of you. Hope things go well with exams, work etc. Love you tonnes!

Elder Humphreys

Back in the groove

Hola everybody! Hope things are going well with everyone back there at home. I had a pretty good week this week. There were moments when things got hard, or I got thinking a lot about family, home, everything thats been happening. But at the same time, we´ve started to get back into the groove and we´re working hard and starting to see more success. Just to start, thank you all so much for your love and sympathy. Its been great to get so many letters of love and support. Its really awesome to see how much people care about me, my family, and my mom.

 

For business (aka responding to Dads letter... not that it was all business but you know what I mean): I got the wards letter. Thank you kindly for that. Hope you´re all good and getting healthier. Nice work Marissa on passing the test! Don´t even sweat the marks. I barely passed too. haha. I actually was wondering what you were going to do about the cars... good luck getting that all figured out... Don´t let Marissa crash any of them or anything though, whatever you do ;) Still no package but no worries. I´ve been getting tonnes of DearElders to keep me busy. Thanks for forwarding those picture-letter things. They were very nice, and I could read them just fine. Say thanks to the vances for me for all the great letters and love they´ve sent. One other thing I was thinking was that I am allowed to email family, and so if the girls were feeling discouraged by the time difference on DearElders or anything, they can feel free to email me if they want. I can probably even find some extra time and email them back personally.

 

Anyways. Somehow I totally used up a bunch of time writing the President or something. So I gotta hurry, but theres a lot to say about the week. Monday was pretty low-key. But I did get my haircut and that was a terrifying experience. It turned out okay, but the guy was really sketchy and the whole time I was thinking I had made a terrible decision and I should have just payed the big money for a legit cut. But it turned out okay I guess. I survived.

 

Tuesday we had district meeting and got stoked on the work. Then we had a great day. got lots done. We went back to this family that we had found where the mom and dad are inactive members. Well it turns out that they´re super legit, both really want to go back to church, and their three daughters all want to get baptized.  They´re super awesome. What a blessing it was to find them. They all came to church this sunday (except the mom because she´s working on getting her work hours changed), but it looks like they´re going to be a great family to work with. Awesome.

 

Wednesday studies were kinda cool. Somehow I ended up going back in my reading in Jesus the Christ, and found a part I had read over but didn´t mean much to me the first time. Its talking about Luke 9:57-62, and Matt. 8:19-22. I like how it explained it in the book, but basically it talks about a few guys who all wanted to be disciples of Christ, but they didn´t want to do it right away. The one that I thought really applied to me was the man who said that he would follow Christ, but first he wanted to go home and bury his father. Chirst told him that to follow him he would need to leave those things behind and devote all his time to Him. It explains it better in the book, but I just felt that it applied to me a lot, and I felt like it helped me to feel like I did make the right decision in not coming home for everything. It is sad, but to be concecrated to his work requires leaving those things behind and devoting 100% of our time to him, which is what we´ve promised to do as missionaries. So that was kinda nice.

 

Also saw the biggest spider of my life on Wednesday (in our house). Fortunately I convinced my comp to take care of him. lol

 

Thursday we had another division. This time it was me and a guy who only had about 6 months on his mission. It didn´t go as smoothly as the last division, but we had a good time, learned lots from each other and it went well.

 

Ah! No idea what happened to the time. Sad cuz I had so much to share this week. Like how we got shot at in a drive by shooting (just some guy that pretended to shoot at us with an invisible gun. lol), or how we got to teach the smartest Paraguayan I´ve ever met, and we had to really be on our toes, answering the toughest questions me or my comp have been faced with since being here. But oh well.

 

This week we had Diegos baptism. It was great. Sorry, but I forgot the pictures. He looks like he´ll be a great memeber, and the service went great.

 

This sunday we broke my record for number of investigators in church. That was cool. It still wasn´t super crasy high, but it was just cool for me. Hopefully we can just keep improving with that.

 

Changes are this week. I´ll find out what happens probably tonight. I´m thinking that we´ll probably both be staying and so I haven´t thought lots about it, but you never know what will happen. I´m hoping we both stay, but we´ll see.

 

Anyways, out of time. Dang it. I´ll have more next week. Hope everything is going good for everyone back home. Thanks for being strong through everything. It´s been a real example for me. I´m doing well. Occasionally sad, but we´re working hard and staying happy. Being the best missionaries we can be. Thanks to everyone for all the letters. I´ve really been loving to hear from so many people. I´m going to write as many back as I can, but it´ll take at least a month before they get to you, so know now that I´ve been appreciative. Thanks for everything. I love you all! Things are doing great here. Talk to you again next monday!

 

Elder Humphreys

Una buena semana.

Hola everybody.

I had a pretty good week considering everything. The funeral was actually kind of the highlight of the week. It made me feel a lot closer to you all back at home, and although it made the whole situation more real to me, we all thought the funeral was so well done as to make us feel good despite our loss. I really loved how it was a tribute to a good righteous life, well lived, as opposed to a 2 hour cry-fest.  Not going to lie, I definitely got really choked up for a lot of parts. But I also just learned a lot, remembered a lot of good memories, and loved to see how she blessed the lives of so many other people. Elder Call and the President and his wife all watched with me. They all said it was one of the best funerals they´ve seen. It was nice to share it with them. Elder Call said he learned a lot about me. Dang it. lol. He also said that he thought that Kevin did a great job of starting out on a sad and yet happy note. I agreed for sure. I also got that picture email. Its great. Looks just like her. Make sure you give a great big thanks for me. That's super cool.  All in all its made me feel lots better. I´ve been a tad distracted for the past couple of days thinking about home and stuff, and Friday kinda went entirely to waste. But whatever. I think it was the right choice. And this week I´ll be good to go. So yah. Great work everybody. Thank you so much. Especially all those who got it hooked up and working. It went perfect.

Wow. I´ve been getting distracted. Need to type faster. lol

Huh. What to say though.... Diego looks all set for baptism this week. Exciting stuff. I was kinda worried because he could have gotten baptized this week but he wanted to wait until later this week. I was afraid that it might lead to more excuses and temptation. But he came to church this week. He even bought some shoes so he could look classy for his baptism and confirmation. Super cool. Looks like there shouldn´t be any foreseeable problems or anything.  Another cool thing I noticed this week is that he´s 17 years old, turning 18 in a month or two. He hasn´t said anything really about it yet, but I realized that a mission is totally possible in his future. How cool would that be? It would be like baptizing way more than just one person. Think of how many people that could help in the long run.

What else. This week I went on a division with the Zone Leader. His name is Elder Decker and he´s from Orem Utah.  It actually went really well. I was kind of worried because I´ve never had to introduce my area to anyone before, and I´ve also as a result of that never had to plan a day all by myself. So it was kinda stressful at first. But we actually had a really good day. My planning was a little bit unorthodox and we did a little walking in the wrong directions, but all in all I think it went pretty well. Funny story: There´s this giant water tower across from our house that isn´t in use anymore. The people that live under it are members though, and so I took Elder Decker for a climb up it to see all of our area just for fun really quick. Anyways, apparently we don´t take to many stairs in our usual walking day or something. Because after having climbed up and down 4 stories worth of stairs, we both got down, and at the exact same time had these gigantic leg cramps that forced us to leave the house limping. It was embarassing but funny. It hurt so bad. lol. But besides that, it was another good division. Learned lots from Elder Decker. Its also nice to do divisions because he was able to be more forward with people without having to worry about offending them. If they were unhappy, they´d never see him again. But hopefully they´d just realize that what we told them is important and start making better decisions. So that was cool.

Did some interesting contacts this week. Found one lady whose nephew murdered his wife and now that he´s in jail she has to take care of his 6 children that they left behind. Not to mention that her husband is really sick. And so she said she´s probably going to have to put the kids up for adoption. That was kinda depressing news. Made me thankful to have a good family. And also it just made me think about how although its really sad to be missing mom, I´m just so glad that it was just the work of God. No bad memories. It wasn´t anybodies fault. We´re all good. Anyways, we´ll see what we can do to help her out.

Oh. One thing I have to remember to do for sure is say thanks to everyone for all the great letters. They´ve been really nice to have everyones support, and to know of their love. I´m sure there will be lots more coming in the future, but just a preliminary thanks to everyone for your love. Its a help to me, and its also great just to know how many people care and that there are so many people out there who are praying and watching out for us. So thanks!

As for today... its going to be really tranquilo. Nothing too ridiculous planned. We´ll probably go and get some way overpriced McDonalds or something at the mall. lol. Oh, and I´m planning on getting my haircut today as well, so wish me luck with that. You don´t really know what you´re getting yourself into here until its too late. haha.

But yah. Just trying to think if there´s anything else... huh. Nothing comes to mind. Hopefully I have a good week ahead of me. I looks like things should start getting back to normal here. Shouldn´t need as many trips to the office, the holidays are all over... should be good. Get lots of work done.

Anyways. Times up. Love you lots. Thanks for all the support. Things are doing good here. I´m thinking and praying for you all, but staying focused on the work and hopefully we´ll be met with more success in the coming weeks. Hope everything goes good with school, sports, paperwork, regular work. Whatever. Love you lots. It was really fun to see you all at the funeral and show Elder Call all my family and friends and tell him how awesome you all are. Can´t wait to see you all again in real life. But until then, I´m going to do my best, and have fun doing it. Its great to be a servent of the lord and see people find happiness as they come closer to Him.

Love you lots!!!

Elder Humphreys

Funeral Broadcast

Hey there. Just watched the feed. Worked great. There were a couple of little technical difficulties at the start and so we missed the opening song and half of the opening prayer. But besides that I think we caught everything else. So you can tell thanks to whoever was running it for me if I forget to mention it later. But yeah. Hna. Madariaga just told me that I could email my family if I would like and I thought why not take the chance while I´m right at a computer. She said that its perfectly good to just call me tonight and we can talk for sure. Just give me a call whenever (shortly after 10 our time works great). Hopefully the reception is better this time. I really enjoyed the funeral. It was for sure sad, but like everyone said, they were tears of good memories, and tears that there will be a short time before we see again. But I loved how it was a tribute to a wonderful life well lived. I thought the talks were great, and I appreciated how much everyone did and what they shared.  I loved seeing that others appreciated as I did. I also loved hearing stories I had never heard and things I have never thought of. I loved seeing you all, and wished I could have been there with you, but of course, the Lord would have me here and I think that's important to realize. But I love you all very much. Thank you for the opportunity to "be there with you" and I´m excited to one day be back together again. But until then, there´s obviously much work to be done, and so off I´ll be, trying to make the best of the time I have. Keep your heads up! I think that at least for me, this has been a great opportunity to mourn and feel of our loss even though I´m so far away, and now we can move on and continue to remember the good and important things, but not dwell on what we are missing. Hope everything goes well with the lunch and the burial. You can tell everyone that I say hi, thanks for what you do, and be a good missionary! lol. But really. Thanks everyone for all you do. I know she´d appreciate it, and I sure have. Have a lovely day. Talk to you tonight. Love you lots! God be with you till we meet again!

Elder Humphreys

A New Year...

Hey there everyone.  Hope things are doing well at home. Things are doing surprisingly well here considering everything thats happened this week. I´ve been able to keep up good spirits and work despite all of the challenges. Its been kinda weird because of how blessed I´ve been to be able to spend so much time on the phone talking with my family. Its just too bad that it couldn´t have been due to better circumstances...

Ah. One thing I want to remember though. Happy Birthday Uncle Craig! Hope that goes well. I´m pretty sure that´s this week....lol

What else. Oh yah. Dad: Went to the office this morning. Didn´t have the opportunity to spend much time talking to the President because he was all busy and whatnot, but I did check for the package... nothin. Not sure. They only come in on Wednesdays and its not in the mail for tomorrow either so we´ll have to keep waiting. But I wouldn´t worry too much. It sounds like there haven´t been many packages come in to the office the last week so there must just be a bottle neck somewhere or something. But I can wait. Patience is one of the Christlike attributes that we are supposed to work on. lol. Got a chance to print out a bunch of old emails there too, so that was nice. Especially because it was free instead of 40 cents a page.  And yah. Didn´t talk to the president. But in my email today I said thanks for the opportunity and that he can call me about it. If not, I´ll be sure to call him in a day or two.

But yah. Its been kind of a wierd week. Just being a little bit in a state of shock about everything. But at the same time, it hasn´t prevented me from working. The president told me that we could take Friday off, but we just stayed in for the morning. Read some old letters from home, looked at pictures. Did some deep thinking. I´ve been feeling okay. Its been kind of a weird, surreal experience being here in Paraguay. I understand what has happened and that things are going to be really different from now on. But at the same time, I´m kind of isolated here and so my life hasn´t been too drastically altered at the present time. So its just kind of a wierd situation of feeling. I think I´m going to watch the funeral if it all works out so that I can feel like I´m more of a part of everything back at home. Sorry that I couldn´t come home and be with you all there like I would love to. But I know that this is where the Lord wants me and that its also where mom would want me to be, doing what I should be doing. Its all a little hard to put down in words, but things are going well. I think its been a really great blessing for me to be out here during all this. Its been a real blessing for me to have no regrets, and to think of all my memories as of late with mom, and to know that we haven´t had one argument, that we´ve been able to share how much we love each other every time we´ve talked, she knew I´ve been working hard/being obedient etc. etc. So theres been lots of thinking and a few tears, but I´ve been blessed to be comforted by the spirit and to be able to continue on. One of the things that has actually been on my mind a lot is how hard it must be for everybody back home, and so I want you all to know that I´ve been thinking about you, praying for you, and wish you all the best. I´ve had my testimony strengthened a lot on the power of the spirit in his role as the comforter, and in my testimony of the Plan of Salvation. I know that although things are hard now, that everything will be okay in the long run.

Just as a heads up, I´m also going to warn you all that these letters might start getting shorter and boring-er, just because the main reason I worked so hard on making them so good was for mom, because I knew she really appreciated them. But just tell me if I need to kick it up a notch again and I´ll see what I can do. Another blessing I´ve been able to pull out of this week is that I´ve been able to start writing more faithfully in my journal again, and writing more personal and meaningful things. So thats been nice.

Besides all this I guess I could share some interesting points from this week.... We found the other elders in our ward a new house with AC and such, and then helped them move in.  We´re really jealous and wished the house was a little closer to our area so we could justify living there.  Fortunately our house has been cooler lately cuz there has been a lot of rain and clouds. The only downside to that is that my shoes have been really wet and muddy and I´ve had to carry around my umbrella. But I´m not complaining.  The week was a little challenging as far as the missionary work goes because of the holidays and such again. Lots of drunk people and fireworks for the new year. But we were able to work hard regardless. It was funny because everyone I know woke up from all the fireworks, but apparently I´m a pretty sound sleeper because I didn´t even notice them. lol. This week the sisters in our ward were supposed to have a baptism. We went to do the interview for the investigator, they never showed. We went back the morning of the baptism and did it. And then the lady never showed up for the baptism. Weird.

Our investigator Diego seemed to progress a lot this week and I think that he´ll get baptized pretty soon here. He went to all 3 hours of church and then a youth fireside about sharing the gospel with your friends. He also came and played soccer with us bright and early again this morning. So thats been good to see, especially with some of our other investigators falling apart on us (as they often do). Another progression I noticed this week was with my Spanish. Its still pretty rough, but in the fireside I was doing a practice with a couple of the youth while my companion worked with some others, and I found that although it wasn´t the smoothest communication, Í´ve progressed a lot and can actually communicate not too bad. So thats been nice to notice.

Fun experience that we sadly weren´t able to get a picture of - one day when it rained really hard there was a canal in our area that was full of super muddy water. As we walked by there were about 100 indian kids all playing in the nasty water just having a blast. Sliding down the banks. Swiming under the bridges. Shouting friendly ¨Mormon¨´s at us. It was really cool. We´re going to just hope it rains hard again so we can get pics.

So yah. Things haven´t been toooo bad. Had some good points amidst the bad. And even with the bad news I´ve been able to stay positive. Its hard at times, but I know we´ll all be able to make it through this. I´m really glad to be a missionary at this time, and to serve the Lord in this great country. This is going to be my only full year (Jan-Dec) in Paraguay, and I´m excited to make the best of it. Hopefully everything at home is well. Keep up the good spirits. I know the Lord loves us all individually and knows our needs. And we always have the spirit to be with us and comfort us through our hard times.

It´ll be nice to see you all at the funeral. Love you all. Talk to you again soon!

Elder Humphreys