Oh, and btw, is propane bad to breath?

Hey fam and friends! Hows it all going. Things are just fabulous here. Had kindof a crasy week, but it was pretty awesome too. Monday. Became an old guy. Already mentioned that. Tuesday we got up early and had to take a 4 hour bus ride to the nearest set of missionaries to have a meeting with them. Pretty cool. I´m pretty sure that we are the most issolated set of missionaries in the whole mission. Not the furthest from the office or anything, but the furthest from anybody else. Makes you feel kinda legit. The only problem with that is that it costs a lot to travel. Not like tonnes, but it adds up quick when you only have a little bit of money, and you´ve been waiting for weeks for a months worth of money in re-embersals (don´t even know if thats an english word...) to come back from the office. So basically we were living off of what little personal money I had for a whole week. I´ve never felt so poor in my life. It was a fun experience. lol. I almost regretted buying everyone a little birthday present before I left my last area. I´ll have to try and send those in a week or two.

Didn´t eat anything exciting this week... sorry to dissapoint. But Wednesday I did try something new. It failed. Theres a kind of soda flavour here called Guaraná. Its really good. But it would cost a lot to send it. So I bought the juice powder and thought maybe you could make your own by putting it in Carbonated water. So I decided to try it out first. Well they didn´t happen to have any carbonated water, so I bought tonic water. Gross stuff. Then when I put the powder in, the whole thing nearly exploded. What a mess. Not to mention that I tried to catch it from spilling on the floor with my mouth and it went all up my nose and stuff like that. Not fun. haha.

Thursday, the shower broke. Everything in our house started to breakdown the minute we decided to move. First I showered cold. Then the shower head melted a bit. Then Elder C tried to bend it back and it snapped in like 3 places. Then he broke the bathroom door off its hing too. A disaster. Oh well. We just payed some guy to fix it on Saturday when we moved.

But before that. Saturday. BAPTISM! Super cool. It seems like forever since I last had one. It was a lady named Clotilde and her son Adrian. After tonnes of problems trying to line up a taxi and everything we payed some guy to give us all a ride in the back of his truck. He drove us like a half hour to our ¨font¨. AKA the river. Super cool. Got changed into white in an abandoned house and then took turns wading into the river for the baptism. Really cool. Thankfully I didn´t get eaten by any paranas. Apparently there are some that live in the river....lol

Also this week was the planned temple trip for the ward. That was a disaster too. The people from the ward that we are a part of, 4 hours away, didn´t plan basically anything. After 2 weeks of getting the members all ready they almost didn´t get to go. Then at the last minute they sent some guy in this ghetto van to pick them up. We had to stay up till 1 in the morning to get them all out. Then we got woken up sat morning to find out that an hour out of town the van broke down and they were stuck on the highway for 4or5 hours in the dark trying to get home. Nobody went. :( But fortunately they will all be going again this Saturday supposedly. Hopefully its planned a little better. It was almost the happiest day of the mission until they couldn´t make it...

Saturday was a mess. We spent the entire day moving houses. The old house was a mess. I got stuck cleaning up a pile of half burned garbage. It was disgusting. Fortunately one of the members helped us move. Oh, and btw, is propane bad to breath? There was a little mishap with the stove when we went to move it....lol. But now we´re all good and settled in our new house. Its awesome. I haven´t had a shower that nice for years.

Besides that.... its actually pretty cool now. less than 15 degrees last night for sure. And its different here because the houses aren´t sealed or anything and there aren´t furnaces. I´m loving it right now. Elder Chatelains a little cold. lol. I´m excited to see what winter really gets like. I hear its pretty chilly. Tonght we have to leave for Asuncion at 10:30. Should get there ridiculously early in the morning. But it should be worth it. I get to go to the temple. AGAIN. Awesome. I got lucky. Then we get to go to zone conf, and then I get the interview with the president that I missed. Should be a blast.

By the way. Heard that Bin Laden died. Whats up with that? Sounds like you guys are eating well. Don´t get fat! lol. I´m eating alrightish but I think somehow even with all this walking and such I might be getting chubby. I still have to weigh myself, but we´ll see. Congrats to Tanner. Thats legit. A TOTALLY different mission than this one for sure.

But yup. OUta time! Love you lots. Have a great week! Talk to the fam this Sunday! Should be SICK! lol

Love you,

Elder Humphreys

Me and Elder Chatelain

PS. Happy Birthday Uncle Kevin........And Marissa too I guess!!!!!! lol

Elder Humphreys is getting OLD

I accidently checked the other day... I can't believe I'm the only one that noticed. But today marks Elder Humphreys' 1/3rd mark on the mission. Wierd. But we're not going to dwell on that. Because its just a number. And it just hurts my brain to think about.,.. I feel like I just checked into the MTC yesterday....

 You can tell my sisters that I'll always reply if I get anything. Something seems to be broken somewhere. I thought it was just that nobody liked writting me...lol. As for grandma and grandpa... I haven't gotten anything for a while now. But its been 3 weeks since the mail got delivered so I'll have to tell you next week. And I think there area a couple that I got a little while back but am still writting back to. I have lots of bus riding time now so its great. Every week I have time with nothing to do so I just study, read, write a letter or two, and maybe get a short nap or two.

As for the security in the house we're just peachy. Its a good strong gate. But we're glad to be moving. It turns out that the owner of the house is kinda crasy and I'm glad that I won't have to deal with her anymore. Oh. And as far as sending pictures goes. Lots of people just buy SD cards. They aren't too expensive. Then just carry or mail them. I dunno. With the new picture taking rule I don't have tonnes myself. :( Gotta do something about that.


But as for this week. Its depressing to say but it turns out I've been living a lie....lol. Apparently the horse wasn't really horse. It was about as much of a horse as is horse radish. Some silly spanish play on words. Bife a Caballo, not Bife DE Caballo. LAME. I'm so embarrassed....haha. I did drink real cow milk this week though. It was pretty gross. Had like curds or whatever they're called floating in it. The milk situation in this country is a mess. I'm excited for a glass of "real" milk one day in the future back at home.


We talked with this really interesting guy this week. He's the friend of a member and he came to church this week and last week. Don't know if I mentioned him last week or not. Basically he used to be a preacher for some baptist church or something for a really long time. Also went to jail for a bit (not exactly sure why), but now he really wants to turn his life around. Claims to already know that the Book of Mormon is true, and has been preaching from it for the past 15 years now. Appears to know everything really well and is really excited to be baptized. So thats kinda interesting. Seems too good to be true. But we're teaching him anyways and we'll see what happens. Fortunately he has to have an interview with president for having gone to jail before. So hopefully president can figure him out. He seems just a LITTLE bit sketchy. Maybe he's just an answer to our prayers though. We'll see.


As far as Easter went, it was interesting here. People in this town are really catholic. Even more than the rest of the country. And so they take this "Holy week" pretty seriously.  It made work wierd for us because there were a lot of people around, but they were all visiting family, or just wanted to enjoy their week off rather than talk. It seemed like basically all of our investigators were out of town visiting their parents or something like that. Oh well. Hopefully next weeks more successful... Had some "ham" for easter dinner, but it was just really fatty pig leg that they BBQ'd. But beggers can't be choosers! We have a lot more people feeding us now which is nice, but the stomach doesn't handle food from poor members as well as the food we used to make at home. But the lunch visits are nice because you don't have to make it, and you get to spend more time with the members. So hopefully there are a lot more in the future!


Saturday the second councillor from the nearest ward (4 hours aways) came out and did interviews with all the members. That was super good. Its tricky because we run the ward, but we don't really do interviews like that. So its good to help people realize where they can improve. Stuff like that. Also the members are going to the temple this week. So we've had to teach like crasy to get them ready. Nobody in town has been before so they have no idea how it is. We've managed to help them with their doubts and problems, and get them all stoked to go and do baptisms. There are even one or two of them that might be going through to do an endowment session and so crasily enough I'VE been teaching temple prep. And to think that less than a year ago I was in the same spot as them. But its been awesome. I love talking about the temple (just the parts your allowed to talk about of course :). I think they love it too. There have been some missionaries in the past here that like to just go and hang out with people. Thats all fun and stuff, but its really nice to actually do something for the people and watch them progress in the gospel. Yah missionary work!


Heard there were some big earthquakes in the states this week or something? Is it just me or is the world falling apart? lol. I can't remember there ever having been so many problems in just one year. Ironically enough I just taught the Gospel Principles class on the signs of the second comming. Fun stuff.


As for success, I think we're finally going to see another baptism this week! Yay. Clotilde and her son Adrian look pretty set to go. I wasn't here when they found them, but they're great people and I think they'll be good and ready. So hopefully all the prayers go through and nothing gets in the way at the last second.


Just a small request. Sometimes there is a little bit of time at the church or at the house with nothing to do. I was thinking that trying to learn a little song on the piano might be good, and something besides just a regular hymn. Theres a classical piece that I got in my music and I think mom always used to play it and so I really like it. Doesn't sound toooo hard. So maybe you could just scan it in and I could print it out? Its called "Sonata #8 in C Minor, Op. 13 "Pathétique"" by Beethoven. I think its in that really old book of Beethoven thats falling apart. If you could that'd be great.


But that was the week. Went fairly descently. This coming week should be pretty good. Planning on teaching a lot of temple prep, driving 4 ours out and then 4 hours back for two hours worth of meetings with the district and zone leaders, having a baptism, moving houses, being able to see some of the members leave for the temple, then Marissas going to get old, I might get to go to the temple AGAIN (lucky me!), and we have interviews and zone conference too. Should be a blast. Not to mention that mothers day is coming up. Not too long and we'll be chatting by phone. Wierd! But thats how it goes. Starting out part 2 of 3. Hope it goes swell!


Anyways. Love you lots! Have a good week!


Elder Humphreys

Week 1 in San Pedro de Ycuamandyy​ú

Whew! Crasy week. Lots of change. Where to start....

Hope all is just swell back there at home. Heard about a bunch of tornadoes hittin down somewhere but not sure what the deal was with that. Hopefully everyones homes are still in one piece. I´m also glad to be alive here to talk to you as well. Had some river fish last monday. I think it was called Millanesa (basically means ¨breaded¨) de Surubí. Pretty good stuff at this place right by the river. Also, we got a couple of lunch visits here in San Pedro, but I haven´t gotten too sick yet. Besides that... went out for lunch today and I ordered.... Horse. Gross right? It actually didn´t taste all that bad. Came with an egg and a bunch of onions on top. That was the worst part. lol.

So Peter´s going to Chile then? How legit is that!? Sounds like Chile´s a pretty hoppin place. I´ll have to get some more details next time I talk with Elder Villalon. From what I´ve heard, I think they talk pretty fast there, but at least they speak spanish and not the half spanish half guarani they speak here. lol. But thanks for filling me in. I´ll have to make sure I hurry and write him back. Tell them that if they have any questions to just ask! Send an email or something. About anything too. I´m now an expert on shoes, hot climate, you name it. haha. Hope you´re all havin fun with the b-day plans. You wont be getting off as easy as you used to with mine.

But yeah. As for how the week went. Tuesday was pretty crasy. Ran around like crasy saying goodbyes and taking pictures with people. Didnt get to say goodbye to everyone that I wanted to, but oh well. I think I hit the most important people, and even got a couple of souvenirs. Turns out I´m still a painfully slow packer. lol. But yeah. It was sad to have to say goodbye to everyone. I had been thinking I would have been there a little bit longer, but turned out to be my time to leave. It appeared as though there were at least a couple of people that were genuinely sad to see me go though, so that made me happy.

Met up at the office wednesday. Turns out to get to our area and back is about 6.5 hours and there are only about 3 buses that leave a day. So the day was basically wasted sitting and waiting, and then traveling. The bus was pretty rough too. Didn´t have AC or anything. At least there were seats. And the view in someparts even reminded me of Alberta. But yeah. Turns out our area is pretty much the 2nd most isolated of any in the mission. We´re about 4 hours from the nearest set of misisonaries. So thats pretty legit. The area is really new and I´´m only the 7th missionary to ever come out here. So the are doesn´t have many people that have been members for more than a year now. We don´t even have a ward yet. Each week we have about 25 people that meet in a rented building. My comp runs the meeting and presides. So its pretty legit like that. But the members are awesome!They´ve had to sacrifice a lot, and they have really strong testimonies.

Our house is a dump. But we´re going to move at the beginning of next month :) We live in front of the highway, hav a gate for a front door, the bathroom is outside, the floor is made of dirt and bricks etc. But i´m not complaining. It did make me really homesick for my last area at first though.

But yeah. We áre in the poorest department ´(its like a province) in the country, but its not too bad here in town. Its just because the place is really spaced out and everyone that doesn´t live in town are farmers. Read a talk by Elder Christofferson in the Ensign this month about ´Always remembering Him´. It was really good. It talked about 3 things we need to do to keep our covenants to always remember christ. I cant remember them perfectly right now. But they were about always remembering that we´re going to be accountable for whatever we¨ve done and acting accordingly, having faith and turning to the lord in all our times of need.... and I cant remember the first point. But its one to look up for sure. I used it in the talk I had to give on sunday. Went pretty well. Crasily enough, it was the first time ive given a talk since beeing here. Thats what you get for being in big wards for so long. I played the piano and thats the first time theyve done that before I think. It was a disaster. Maybe we´ll go back to just listening to the hymns on CD but people want me to teach them piano too so that will be interesting. Donçt think I´m qualified for that.

Oh. Just for the record. I forgot to mention that me and Elder Villalon hitch-hiked to the church the other week. First time I´ve done that before so thankfully now its in the history books. Fortunately the driver was legit and not a serial killer or something.

Anyways. Thats how it is. Sounds like the last bunch of misisonaries here have been a bunch of goofs and slackers, and so we got a lot of work ahead of us. But thats cool with us. Elder Chatelain is a good guy and I´m happy to be able to work with him. Hes willing to work, and hopefully well be able to have some good success in this change.

But thats it. Out of time. Love you lots. Theres going to be lots of partying going down this week for the semana santa aka Easter week activities. So I´ll let you know how that goes. Hope you all have a fabulous easter get together without me. I cleaned out the freezer this week and all the ice and snow reminded me of home. Is it warming up yet? Its stillpretty hot here. But yeah. Love you lots! Have a happy easter´! Bye!

Love, Elder Humphreys

PS If you´re ever sending a package any time soon, do you think you could throw in a skipping rope. Like a nice one, not just a plastic kids one. I´ve been having a hard time gettin my hands on a new one and the one I got from Elder Lee broke. Thanks. Let me know what ya do.

Elder Humphreys is going LEJOS!

Mba´e la porte chera´a! (just practicing up on my Guarani. lol)

Phew. Had quite the week. Its funny because even as I write this I´m having a hard time not getting spanish mixed in here with my English. lol. Not even joking. Its funny what one week with a Latin comp can do to you. Fortunately Elder Villalón is really patient with me and my spanish. But it actually hasn{t been all that bad. At times I{ve had a hard time communicating what I want to say, but for the most part we havent had any problems getting along with the spanish. I think my spanish is probably 12X better after just this week. Its funny because Ive actually had a hard time just speaking in English with other missionaries though. Its cool too because E. Villalon knows a little english too so its helpful if I can{t find a word.

But as for the week. Went super well. Elder Villalon is(was) a great comp. He really knows how to work. Before I thought we were doing everything possible. Now I can see all the places where I have to improve. But its been super cool. We taught tonnes of lessons, found lots of new people to teach. Being latin, he{s got no shame at all and he talks to people all the time.  In buses, in the streets, inturrupts them from whatever they were doing, and gets them interested in hearing about the gospel. And on top of that, hes a hard worker, and not a goof like most of the other latins. Super cool. So needless to say, I learned a bunch, and am excited to keep up all the stuff I learned.

Not to say that the week was without struggles. Its hard to be better! lol. But its good. I like it. It was also hard to introduce the area to him when he has such a different way of working. I felt kinda useless in that regard at times. But we made it. I think he{s got a good idea of the area now and know the important places and people. Hes not the cook that Elder Call was either. Ive tried doing things like Elder Call did them and they didnt turn out as good. But I{ve been able to practice the cooking and so I{ll be a master chef in no time. lol. I think we ate something wierd in the streets too, but I can{t remember what it is.

But besides this I{m not really sure what to say. Its wierd becuase there weren{t really any fun stories. Maybe that shows how much we worked. Not that we weren{t working before!! I don{t want you all to think I was slacking before or anything. But he just really knows what he{s doing and Im just really happy becuase I just feel like I know so much better what I should and can do. All new missionaries get trained by really good missionaries like him now. I feel kinda ripped off. lol. Not that Elder Lee was bad, but every missionary has different levels of commitment and ability. Elder Villalón is like the ¨dad¨ I never ha. lol.

Had the time change this week. That threw me off. I keep waking up at 5:30. Lame. Its wierd too because its not dark when we get up which is nice, but its going to take some getting used to. The sun goes down at.. 7?... and then you get to work in the dark for 2 and a half more hours in the dark. Wierd.

Got a letter from Craig and the family. Say ¨THANKS!¨ for me. I really enjoyed it.

Read Alma 26 this week. Super legit. I enjoyed it a lot. lol. Kinda applies to the whole missionary work in Paraguay thing.

Today we´re going out to eat fish down by the river. Should be an adventure. Elder V loves fish (apparently there{s a lot in Chile). Its kinda scary if you think too much about it because I{ll probably get mercury poisioning or something because the fish are coming out of the Rio Paraguayo. Its pretty dirty. But its another experience I gotta try. lol. Wish me luck!

When{s Natalie{s baby comming? If you{re still looking for names, I think I{ll suggest Juan Carlos, Liz, Maria, Pedro, Romina, Diego, Amado/a, Ruth, Gustavo. Something like that. Not that those names have any special significance or anything... Its just wierd because it feels like I don{t get to hear those names anymore....lol. They seem really original.

But now for the part that you{ve all been waiting for.... CHANGES! I{m sure you{re about as excited to hear about them as we always are. lol. Turns out that its finally time for me to pack my bags and take some pictures because I{m off! Elder Villalon is staying to be zone leader with a newbie, and I{m headed lejos. If you haven{t gotten around to looking that word up yet it means... far. lol. My new area is called San Pedro. Not sure if thats what its called if you look it up on a map. But its about half way between Asuncion and Concepcion. Right out in the middle of nowhere! Agh! Scary, but fun stuff. Sounds like I{ll finally be in a ward where there isnt the leadership to run itself and I{ll be half in charge with Elder Chatalain (not sure how you spell that). As far as I know hes a good guy. From what I{ve heard. I{ve heard San Pedro is a really pretty place so I{m pretty excited. Should be an adventure. I{m sad to leave because I really love the people here, and I was kinda hoping to stay one more. But I know its all in Gods plan. He knows best! So next week I{ll be writing you from way out there. Thats supossing that there{s internet and that my bus doesn{t break down on the way. I{ll let you know. But thats a wrap. Love you all! Hope all is well! Have a great week!!!

Love Elder Humphreys

Special Changes!!!

Howdy. Glad to hear that you all had what sounded like fabulous weeks. Mine was a little crasy...

The week started pretty normal. Got a package from the Lloyds. That was super nice and awesome. Elder Call loved it almost as much as I did. haha. Took a nap on Monday during p-day time. Turns out that I don{t really like naps anymore. Wierd eh? When you don{t get to sleep for at least 3 hours its just not worth it. lol.

Random question if anybody happens to know: I was looking for a scripture that I thought I remembered learning about in Seminary but I can{t seem to find it anywhere. It talks about how we are a ¨strange and unusual people¨. That people look at the things we do and may think that we{re a little wierd. But we should be happy with that because its right. We are a little unusual. But in a good way. Something like that. I think the problem might just be that the words aren{t strange or unusual. Just something like that. Oh well.

What else. Oh. I was super excited for this week to come. We got to go to the temple and also got to listen to GenCon. Sweet! We had a little bit of a let down when we found out that this time when we went to the temple, we{d only be allowed to do a normal session, and not baptisms, confermations, sealings etc. But oh well. The only thing you could do was accept the fact that that was the rule. But we were just happy to get to go in the first place and the session is the most important part, so it wasn{t too big of a deal. No missionaries rioting or anything like that.

Before the temple though was Thursday. We were just minding our business, trying to prepare people to go to church to see the conference and whatnot. Talked to this one bible fanatic guy. It was another one of those kinda sad situations because he knew lots and was almost entirely 100% right in what he said. But he refused to let us read from the Book of Mormon or read it himself. Didn{t want to talk about it. He just wanted to do all the talking. We got stuck talking for waaaay too long. Dang it. I almost lost my patience because he wouldn{t let us leave. And then to top it all off, we gave him an invitation to conference. On it, along with other pics, it had a picture of the Christ on it. He started going off about how that wasn{t really Jesus Christ, and that we were worshipping images. We explained that it was just a picture but he told us it was like saying ¨its just one smoke. I won{t get addicted¨. And so he ripped that part of the invitation off and gave it back. lol. He was just a little crasy. But oh well. It was more sad than anything. He wants to follow Christ really bad, but he just couldn{t reccognize how to do it when it was right in front of him.

But ANYWAYS. That afternoon we{re just minding our own business. Got a phone call. What!? Yup. Special Changes. Changes aren{t supposed to be for a week and a half, but apparently President has something planned. Fortunately its me who gets to stay. So Elder Call and me ran around like crazies to say goodbye to everyone he wanted to remember. I was terribly scared of to get a new comp after so long. But word on the street was that the new guy was a good guy. And someone from Chile. Ahhhh! lol

Went to the temple. Guess who I saw? Elder Patterson!! First time since I{ve been here. Super cool. Sounds like he{s doing great. Hes had what appears as some bad ¨luck¨ with his comps (of course its not luck, but you know what I mean), but he{s doing great and is in great spirits. We got to talk for a while after the session and it was really nice. Just got to talk about home, other people we know, how the works doing etc. Fun stuff. The temple was great. LOVE IT there. Its too bad we can{t go more often with it so close, but I guess we{re here to do work for the living and not for the dead. Shucks.

Looks like the dollar is dropping eh? Thats no good. They put the money on our cards before the dollar dropped too far, so it looks like we{ll have to live off a little less this month. Hope I can make it. lol

I got double ¨had¨ for April Fools day. But I don{t want to talk about it....lol

Anyways. After that I got my new comp Sat morning. His name is Elder Villalón. He{s from Chile. Hes actually super legit. Its actually sad because it looks like I might be leaving in a week and a half here, and he{ll be zone leader, but I hope we get to stay together. Im really enjoying being together already. Being latin, hes able to communicate with the people a lot better and I think that really helps. The problem with latins is that they{re more often slackers, but not in his case. He works harder than any other missionary I know, so thats awesome. Theres so much Im going to learn in just this week. Im excited. And its nice cuz even though  we speak Spanish all day I know it well enough now that we can communicate, and he{s helping me get better where I{m lacking. I think I{ve spoken more in this last weekend that in all of the last week. Its awesome. He{s also really good at sharing the teaching, being obedient and going the extra mile. Theres a lot of things he does that my other comps and I never did and so its cool because it shows me all the ways in which I can improve. I just wish we could have been comps sooner. lol. So yah, I{m pretty happy about that. Theres already been a lot of progression in the people we{re working with. He{s already dropped me and Elder Calls number one investigator though...lol. Oh well. I think it was the right choice for her right now too, it was just hard to do. Oh, thats the other thing. He{s not worried at all about just talking to anybody anywhere. In the street, busses whatever. My other comps were a little scared of that. I{m excited to improve and follow his good example.

Anyways, I was going to mention all the AWESOME things I learned at conf but no time! Shucks. One thing I liked though was how true Pres Hollands talk was. I saw in each and every talk how it could either apply to me, my investigators and/or my family and their situation. The Church is true! I love hearing the words of the prophets. Sorry gotta run. Re-listen to the talks if you haven{t. They}re the best. Love You all!

Love,

Elder Humphreys

Gone Fishin'

The Gang

Diego

The bridge to Chaco

Ridiculous pic of me with my bad tan wearing E. Call{s shoes. lol

Bridge

Hola! We had another fabulous week. Not much to say about it though... most of the things me and Elder Call could think to write about were just things that we cooked, or to send the pictures that we took this morning. But igual no más. I{m sure I{ll find something to write about. lol

We got a new rule last monday - no taking your camera with you during the week. The rule was kinda there before, but now its legit. So its harder to get pictures because we can only take them on P-day and our last day in the area, but I{m going to try and get as many as can during legit time.

This monday we made tinfoil dinner in the oven. Me and Elder Call are getting pretty legit. I was thinkin thought that if it was possible, do you think you could send that recipie that Mom would make. Basically tinfoil dinner, but you could just do it in the glass pan in the oven? Tinfoil is expensive. lol The other recipie we were looking for is bread. We have one that E. Call{s mom uses for pizza crust, and we{ve been making all sorts of bread like things from it. Buns, cinnamon buns this morning etc. But if there were other more specific recipies that weren{t too complicated that{d be legit too. We also made Paraguayan Gizo as well this week. Left out the cow stomach though and just did it with chicken.

Had an interesting experience Tuesday. We were contacting houses and got to one house. It was just a 15 year old girl and so we asked if her dad was there. She called him, and he came out, super happy to see us, invited us in and we started talking. And when I say we started talking, I mean HE started talking. The guy seriously talked for an hour straight without stopping to think or barely even breath. We decided afterwards that he had some type of mental ilness or something. SUPER smart and such, but just the way he talked and such was ridiculous. We tried to leave 5 or 6 times and it was almost impossible to get out of there. I almost went crasy afterwards. It was just so hard on the brain. lol

We heard about the whole radiation leak stuff. According to the people here sounds like its going to be quite the problem? People having malformed babies, not being able to eat vegtables for a while, that kinda thing? Any more sound word on that?

We had some crasy weather the last couple of days. The worst lightning I{ve ever seen. Sooooo loud. Woke you up at night and I actually jumped out of my seat in a lesson yesterday. haha. I think it might have something to do with the humidity too? Makes it seem louder.

We had a district conference this week. All the members from around here came in. It was cool to see everyone in the District together at the same time. President Madariaga shared about how the members can open their mouths and share the gospel with others. He mentioned how sometimes it can be really simple. Although its all about following the spirit, there are certain things we can try. The one he suggested was to ask three simple questions. 1)Do you like to read? (Most people should probably say yes because they want to look smart. lol. At least thats what he said) 2) (If they said yes...) If I was to send you a book about Jesus Christ when he came to the Americas, would you read it? (Hopefully the answer is yes...lol) 3)Ask them to write down their name, address and phone number. Then go home, write your testimony in a book of mormon for them, and then give it to the Elders and get them to deliver it to the person. Not sure how that{d work back at home, but its an idea. Sounds terribly simple and could maybe backfire if the people don{t like to read, but you know. At the same time I think he has a point in that we sometimes just over complicate sharing the gospel. The Book of Mormon testifies of the truth and is a witness to all of the truthfullness of our message. If people will just read the book, chances are they are going to understand the gospel better and hopefully even gain a testimony of the gospel.

Anyways, didn{t use my time as good as I should have. Gotta run. We went fishing this morning. The weather wasn{t great, but we had fun, and I think it was really good that we could spend some time with the youth. Hopefully they feel more comfortable with us and want to intruduce us to their friends and such.  Ah! Almost forgot! Happy birthdays to Toby (give him a treat for me! How old is he now?), and to Uncle Ken! Have a good one! Have a great week! Love you lots!

Chau!
Elder Humphreys

Elder Humphreys survives day as Senior Comp...

Hola! Hows it going? Things are doing just fabulous here.

Had another great week. Some good experiences and whatnot. We{ve heard a lot about problems going on around the world with Japan and wars (or maybe just rumors of wars), but the news we get is from unreliable people watching a very unreliable news station. So not really sure what any of the details are. Hopefully everyones doing good. I don{t really care tonnes for the details, but it would be nice to get the info straight. Theres one guy whos got legit satalite and he said there was something like an earthquake in Ottawa. Sounds like a pretty diverse place for an earthquake....lol. At least its helping people to open up to us, seeing some of the signs of the times happen week after week now. Crasy.

But yeah. We had a couple of eventful happenings this week. It started right after we finished writing emails. Walked across the street to this little restaurant place. The same place where I ate cow stomach a week or two ago. Anyways, I just told Elder Call to order me what he ordered.... so we got two plates of cow tongue. haha. It was... interesting. It would have been a lot better if they had taken the tastebuds and such off before serving it, but oh well. We just cut that part off. Its ridiculous how chill I{ve been with the food though. It doesn{t bother me like it would have before. Still don{t like onions though...lol

Oh, just something that I randomly remembered during the week. Yakisoba (sp?). Mmmm. You guys should eat some for me. I think we were talking about cooked cabbage for st. patricks day or something. Anyways. We were like never eating that when I left. You should start again if you{ve managed to get that freezer emptied out yet.

Probably the most exciting part of my week happened on Thursday. We had another division. This time, I got put with a noobie in my area. He{s been here... like less than 3 weeks. Basically speaks very little spanish. Man I was scared! lol. I don{t think I{ve prayed that hard or for that long any other time than that morning. Not only did I have to work around the area and plan the day, but I{d basically have to say everything. Stressfull. And I didn{t have very much faith in my spanish. Anyways, I can testify that God hears our prayers. We survived. Actually, it was one of our most successfull days I{ve had in a while now. We were able to make our visits, and I was able to keep the conversations rolling even though I didn{t understand everything completely. I{m thinking the people must have been going easy on me. It was really wierd having to teach basically all by myself, and now that I can speak alright-ish, its apparent that there is a lot of room for improvement in the teaching aspect. But I think we helped people to progress and did some good work. It was a good confidence builder for me. Really good experience. Not one that I{d want every day though. lol. It was kinda wierd being with a noob though. They don{t really get how things work, and they kindof have a wierd understanding of how things work. But I learned a lot from the guy so it was alright. Elder Vance was his name by the way. Didn{t know any Vances from Canada though. But yeah. I sure don{t feel ready to be a full out Senior comp just yet. But we survived. Thankfully the Lord hears our prayers and helped us out bigtime.

Other notes. We had some lady that we{ve been teaching for a bit now turn us down and try return the book of mormon we gave her. She said that she didn{t like how different it was from the bible and how it has so much about Joseph Smith and stuff. Remembering a quote from preach my gospel, Elder Call asked her who told her that, and then told her that we knew that she had clearly not read the book, because although the beggining of the book mentions Joseph Smith, he merely translated the book. Hopefully she realized how silly she was and actually tries reading it. It was a little funny because she got caught in her lie, but at the same time kinda sad. Its crasy how little people like to read here. If they{d just read the book and pray like we teach them, they would know that its true. Its just really hard to convince people to do that.

Realized the other day that being March, March Madness was probably in full swing. Not that I care whats going on, but it feels like just yesterday me and my roommates were all sitting around watching the games. Wow. Its crasy how time flies.

The other greatest moment of the week was when some members of the ward came out and visited the non-members with us. Nobody does hometeaching here, and its hard for them to do visits and such. Lots of walking. But its crasy how much it helps! We{re working with the Ward coucil with this new 15 families program. Nothing has really progressed until Saturday. But its unbelievable how much progress is made that way. We{ve been visiting and helping these people for ages and in just one visit by the members they moved so far. Its ridiculous. The people just relate so much better with adults and people from their own country. It just really testified to me how important it is that every member do there part as a missionary. I{m sure its the same at home too. I wouldn{t be suprised if baptisms and reactivation of people that have been inactive for years came from just these simple visits. So basically what I{m getting at is that I{d like to encourage you all to do what you can to help the missionaries! They need your help! Almost all of the baptisms come from references too. One guy that we had in church this week is SUPER legit. And its all thanks to a reference from 2 members. Awesome.

Anyways. That was some of the week. Out of time though. We met our main investigators husband this week too finally, so that would be super cool if they could start investigating as a family. We{re all super stoked for Gen con. lol. We get to go to the temple in a week or two as well and so we{re super stoked for that. Mind you, they planed it for april fools day, so it might just be a big joke... but I think they{re serious. Should be super fun. But yeah. Gotta go! But I love ya all. Hope all is going well! Don{t forget to write!! lol. The mission is the best and I{m loving spending so much time doing the Lords work!

Have a great week!

Elder Humphreys