6th Man

Howdy there everybody! Hope you all had a fantastic week. Sounds like summer is in full swing. Fun stuff!

But don't you all worry too much. I've been having quite the vacation myself. I think this has probably been one of the most unusual weeks of my mission. To explain quickly, Elder Chatelain hasn't fully recovered just yet. So I sent my letter last week from Santani, and since then I've only slept like... 1 night in my own bed, and right now, I'm writing my letter from the office of the mission in Asuncion.  We've been chilling basically all week in the office. Elder Chatelain has been ordered to rest, but we've been doing all we can to help out in the office. I feel like I've almost been adopted into the office family... but not entirely. haha. I've given myself the official office title of "6th Man", because like in basketball, I kinda get to be the first substitute in any situation. haha. I think we'll be heading back home shortly, but until then... we're still just rockin it in the office. As we speak I'm typing on the office computer, so forgive me if any of this doesn't make sense - tonnes of people are here for p-day and I'm having a hard time concentrating. lol

But anyways. For a quick run down of the week. We spent all morning in the hospital as they pumped drugs into Elder Chatelain and tried to keep him alive.... Not that he was really going to die, but he was in a lot of pain. They ran some tests and told him to just drink water and take pain killers. But we don't really trust the medical system here entirely, so we headed in to Asuncion the next day. I was really happy that I wasn't the one sick... the hospitals are pretty sketchy here. For the most part they know whats up, but they just don't have the same kind of sanitary cleanliness here. But besides that. He survived. The only other cool things of the day were that it got SUPER cold that night before and we were even able to find a little bit of frost on the top of the trees in the morning. How legit is that! I'm loving the cold weather, but its throwing me off thinking about you guys running around and golfing and stuff, because its hard to imagine it warm there. lol. We also played football - I convinced them to use the Canadian sized football even which was cool - and I had a blast. I'm saying that we should start up one of those American Thanksgiving football traditions when I get home or something, because I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Sure felt it the next day though. haha

But yeah. Tuesday we took the bus into town. Got there and spent the rest of the day waiting on the ultrasound person and for results and whatnot. Finally got to our home for the week in the night, and started day 1 of Burger King dinners. We ate out a lot this week. Not going to lie. Its hard to eat good here in the big town.... lol.

Oh. Fun news from the office though. Newbies are coming in. And we're getting another Canadian! Yay! A Kurt Bennett from Cardston I think. Pretty cool. Don't think that I know him from before or anything, but right now I think theres just me and elder Patterson and one other guy, so it'll be good to have another Canadian in the country.

The doctors told Elder Chatelain had to rest for the next couple of days. So that meant that we spent a lot of time in the office. Bugging the office Elders. I did what I could to help. That meant that we ran a lot of errands so that only one office Elder had to leave his duties, and so that was fun. They took us to all sorts of fun places. The store, their houses, the bank. Wherever. But that also meant that we got to see the fun places, like the restaurant owned by some Texan guy. I got a legit Brisket sandwich at the TEXAS BBQ. Fantastic. All in all I've blown a lot of money this week. Because, you gotta eat right? lol. I think we're going to be really short on money at the end of the month again. But more on that later.

Spent some late nights at the office too. Had to babysit the guy that puts in all of the baptisimal records. Watched ALL of the movies in the office. I now know all about the Doctrine and Covenants movies, saw all the goodbye missionary movies, and now know all about the rules for driving and such. Funny movie. Ridiculous though. Not going to lie, I kinda started going crasy. Sitting around is overrated. I missed walking around and staying active.

The next day was about the same. I ate at burger king 3 times in as many days. I miss Paraguayan food now. And I'm fat.

All in all, kind of a sad waste of time. But I think we've helped a little and did what we could to make things easier here. I took a bunch of photos on Google Earth so that everyone will now have maps of their areas. Thats kinda cool.

Canada day went fantastically. Wished everyone a Happy Canada day. Some accepted it, some hated on it. Oh well. By the way, happy 4th of July. Along with that, a big shout out to GRANDMA HUMPHREYS and CHLOE as well. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Love you lots and hope they pass fantastically!!! The other cool part of Canada day was that I was able to talk to Elder Patterson as he called to wish me a happy day. Sounds like he's doing well. Always great to talk.

But yeah. We realized that without being in San Pedro, there wouldn't be any church. And that can't happen. We always promise people that there will ALWAYS be church, and so we had to keep our promise. Elder Chatelain had to do more tests, so I borrowed an extra guy in the office - Elder Sean Lane from California - and we went back to San Pedro for one day. It was quite the road trip. Traveled in 6 hours. Worked Saturday to tell everyone that we didn't forget about them and tell them that church still was going to happen. Then we had church. Made a visit or two, and turned around and went home. Fun stuff. LOTS of time on the bus. It was my first Sunday leading church on my own. Fun stuff. Kinda went a little rough, but hopefully it'll get better in the coming weeks. And our bus broke down on the way home. It took 11 hours to get to Asuncion. We left at 4 in the afternoon and showed up at 3 in the morning. Not fun.

But yeah. Hopefully Elder Chatelain and me will be able to go back tomorrow. That is as long as there aren't changes because otherwise we might have to stay even longer. Messy stuff. Its been just a whirlwind of adventure. Quite the week. Don't think it'll happen again in the future.

But yeah. Out of time. Sorry that there wasn't anything inspirational or all that cool. It was a really weird week. I can't wait to get back out there. Not going to lie. But at least I'm great friends with the office Elders now so I can call on them anytime I want a favor :) haha.

But yeah. Gotta run. But thanks for your letters. Great stuff. Congratulations to Emma! Nice work. Congratulations to everyone else for doing well in school. Now enjoy that time off! I liked all the funny gossip lady stories. Fun stuff with the ranch (love that place...miss it), and golf. Another tradition I'm excited to have again back when I get home. I can't believe they aren't having the Stampede breakfast. That was my fav. Oh well.

But don't you worry. Yah, I miss those little things. But I'm having a blast. Things are doing really well. Da gusto to be a missionary! I just can't wait to get back to work. Glad you're all doing well. Hope you have another fantastic week. I'm so happy to hear you're all well. Love you tonnes and I'll write you again next week!

Love,

Elder Humphreys

KIDNEY STONES

Hahaha. Hope I didn´t scare you tooooo much with the subject heading there. More on that later. But don´t worry. I´m perfectly healthy. :)

Glad you all had a fantastic week.... even though the TV had to be such a bummer. LAME! Thats one of the benifits of having given it basically up. I sure as heck miss it, but its never a hassel at least. lol. Except this computer that I´m on is really slow, and its taking a lot longer to write then it should. But you know... You got a good year and a couple months to get it all fixed up and ready for my big homecoming right? haha.

Anyways, gotta be quick. Lots to say. Monday was fantastically traquilo. Finaly got my hair cut, didn´t have to travel. etc.

I did forget to mention last week though. We had this wierd phenomenon come through where summer hits a second time. Last week I was back, just sweatin a ful. Not fun at all. Blah. But then within like one or two days, winter finally hit here. Last night walking to the house it said it was 4 degrees in the streets. Not really THAT bad, but if you aren´t moving around and you don´t have a good place to warm up it can get to you. The Paraguayans are of course just dieing because they´re so used to the heat, but I really enjoyed it for the most part. Except for church where i sat by the door and the wind was just blowing in. Not that fun. My face and lips where all blue after. haha. But we´re keeping warm, and doing good. I actually really like it. I just put on a sweater and I´m good to go. Everybody just tells me I got Canadian blood. haha

We got a call asking about how much room we have in our house... sounds like we might be getting stuck in another trio this change. Ugh. Oh well. You do what you gotta do. There are TONNES of new missionaries showing up in the next few changes here, so within just a litle bit we´re going to see LOTS of changes. I´m excited. Should be really good. I´ll probably get to/have to (not sure what the right way to say that is) go up to senior comp which is alright with me, but I´m just praying that I won´t have to train a newbie or anything crasy like that. LOTs of responsability!

Kinda was a little sick this week. But just a cough and whatnot. And I got it BEFORE the cold, so don´t worry about that. I managed to pass it on to my comp and a couple others before it got stopped, but its luckily going okay.

Had a couple cool lessons this week. Got to share about the Book of Mormon with a guy that was pretty sceptical. He´s talked with a lot of people before and just doesn´t know what to believe. But we shared with him the books promise, and I think he´s really going to read and pray with some real intent, so that would be cool.

Had a sad experience where one of our faithful members started drinking again. Its been really hard on his family, and it was really sad to see. But we´re going to see what we can do. Its really wierd because we´re kinda like missionaries, branch presidents, and home teachers here, and so when people have a problem, we´re the first people they go to. Not that thats bad, but theres a lot of responsiblity.

Ran out of money again this week. But I just got more so we´re good. I´m learning to budget and its great!

Anyways, somehow I´m already totally out of time. I´m happy the b-day went so fantastic. My favorite thing was the old spice present... and the car. haha. Glad everyones loving it. Cool to hear that AMbers getting married. I´d say go for the golf. Me and Elder Chatelain have been talking about it and I want to go golfing again sometime soon. HAPPY CANADA DAY! ´We´re going to try and do something fun.

Anyways, just to finish, I guess I should explain. This morning Elder Chatelain woke up in a lot of pain. So we got dressed quick and we headed over to the hospital. They took some tests, I had to run around and buy all these meds for him and whatnot, make a bunch of phone calls to our doctors and the like. Anyways, looks like he´s got kidney stones. Crasy! I´m making it a habit today to drink more water. But yeah. He´s good now cuz he´s on pain killers, but we get to go in to Asuncion tomorrow to get some ultrasounds. But yeah. I´m trying to take care of him. Its quite the adventure.

Anyways, I´d love to say more, but my computer is in demand. Hopefully more news next week. Love you lots, glad all is well. Have a fantastic week!

Love

Elder Humphreys

Always pack extra socks

 Little puppies

 Elder Humphreys milks a cow. Fails.

 Scarecrow thing

 Motocross race

We got a little bit lost...

Howdy folks! Hope things are just swell back at home and you´re all getting pumped for a great summer! How exciting.

We had a pretty unusual week here too. I started out the week in a different area called Curuguaty. Kinda a different place than I´ve gotten used to. Going to the city always makes me freak out a little bit because I´m starting to get used to little town life. So many stores, people, traffic. It´ll be a shock to come home one day. lol

Curuguaty is a pretty cool little place though. I had fun. Elder Chatelain and Elder Sorensen were just having so much fun in my area that I had to/got to stay in Curuguaty for an extra day. Thankfully me and Elder Thomas got along just smashingly. He´s a good kid. Comes from Las Vegas. Tries really hard to be the best missionary he can, and it was cool to see how even though we aren´t all perfect missionaries that have the best language or teaching skills, that really the majority of what counts is your desires, how hard you´re willing to try, and really just relying on the spirit. Good stuff. As always, I learned a lot on the division and improved a lot personally too. The only thing that stinks about the divisions is that you miss your area, and are worried for your investigators, and you kinda want your own bed and some clean clothes and whatnot (i wasn´t planning on being there so long, and so I only brought one shirt - BAD idea. 4 days later it was pretty dirty. Extra socks would have been nice too. lol). And you get to know all these cool new people, and then you have to leave and you won´t ever see them again. Bummer, but I guess we´ll get to say hi again in the next life.

Elder Thomas is also working on learning guarani. I´ve had a really hard time getting started on learning myself, but now that I speak descent spanish, the time has come to start. He helped me out and even though I´m still a LONG ways away from being able to speak, at least Im getting going here.

Apparently I missed a lunar eclipse when I was out. I was kinda bummed about that. But I did see a super legit shooting star when I was talking with a member in the streets. Super cool. I don´t know why I´m mentioning this, but you know. I´ve never really seen one before, and this one was HUGE. Once in a lifetime experience?

Finished reading the book of Mormon this week. That always makes you feel good. Learned TONNES this time through. Goes to show how much more you absorb reading at a desk in the morning compared to reading in bed at 2 in the morning. I still think my favorite scripture is the one that I asked to be put on my plaque thing (did that ever turn out?). Helaman 5:12. I thought it applied back in the day, but I think I can see it applying even more now. There are trials that will come upon us, whether we be members, investigators, kids or adults. And those trials have the ability to crush us and bring us down if we aren´t prepared and we have a shaky foundation. But if we are built on the rock of Christ, nothing can stop us. Thats really what I´ve seen and felt in my life for sure, and the lives of every member and investigator who comes across trials. Christ will help us even when things are rough, and we are beat upon with all manner of trials and afflictions.

Saturday was pretty exciting. Had all sorts of picture worthy experiences, so thank goodness that Elder Chatelain always has his camera with him. Thus I´ve sent a bunch this week. Unfortunately he´s more concerned about getting pictures with him in them, and less about me, but he usually snaps one or two just to make me happy :). If you haven´t yet noticed, yes, I really do need a haircut. But I´m getting that done today. We´ve been out of town the last two P-days. Disaster. This week we´re cracking down, cleaning the house, and getting all this dumb hair off my head so I can look more like a missionary and less like a hipie. Fortunately I´ve been able to hide it not toooo bad and nobody here seems to have noticed. But yeah. The lost picture is from a while ago. Its still in my area, but we got a little far out. Those puppies are brand new and really cute. But I think the whole litter has died now because the mother dog has something wrong with her. Pretty sad, but its like living on a farm here. The owners are less attached to the dog than I´ve become while visiting it for like 3 minutes. lol. The other day Elder Chatelain told a member that the last time he cried was at the end of ¨Marley and Me¨, and she honestly laughed for 20 minutes that anyone would cry about a dead dog. Dogs just don´t get the same respect here. Thankfully she laughed before I mentioned that the last movie that may or may not have got me teary-eyed was with Sam in ¨I am Legend¨. haha. I tried milking a cow this week. It took me like 10 tries. Its harder than it looks. I finally got a couple drops or two, but then I got kicked out because the lady was worried that the cow was going to kick me for doing it so bad. haha. The next time I´m going to be pro. Its kinda gross, and I don´t think I like milk nearly as much any more, but it was a neat experience. The scarecrow. Yeah. The members don´t have cameras so they wanted a photo shoot with their new creation. And there was a huge motocross thing in town. Pretty crasy. We stopped in for just a couple of seconds. Kinda crasy because I don´t think they´d ever let you get that close back home. lol.

Oh. Big, not confused news this time. I REALLY DID EAT HORSE. It was in paste form spreaded on some bread. Tasted like meat paste with a lot of spices put in it. But I´m sure I´m not confused this time, so I´m pretty happy. And sad, becuase some horse died for that paste. But once again, once in a lifetime kinda thing. I keep thinking of how much fun it´ll be to feed Dad all these things when he gets here. Hopefully you got a strong stomache and don´t get sick in the short space of one week. haha. The hoof from last week was cow I think. Maybe I can get the members to make us that one day... not sure if I want it though.

Saw some members from my first area (Moroni) this weekend. They were out visiting for fathers day. It made me happy because somebody actually remembered the quiet kid that was only there for 6 weeks.

Glad to hear everything is swell at home. That grandma, grandma, and grandpa all enjoyed their trips. Came home safe. Liked the new car. I liked the quote that you sent on preaching and sharing the gospel always, and only sometimes using words. I think they used that in conference this time around too if I´m not mistaken.... sounds familiar. But yeah. Just emphasizes the importance of always being an example of the believers in everything we do. I also read a talk in the ensign from YW conf (yeah, i read ALL the talks. lol) where it talks about that too. You never know what kind of an influence you´ll make for people. But I´m glad to hear you´re all working on actively sharing it too. Keep up the good work!

Whats this on a mail strike? We don´t get news when you´re out so far.... If its true that mails not moving though, I guess I´m happy. Explains why I haven´t got many cards lately...lol. And you can all know that even though you haven´t got letters from me, they´re coming. Don´t worry. lol. As for our money.... I don´t really know how much we get a week. We get one lump at the beginning of the month. Then we have to pay for all sorts of monthly things. Then we travel, wait for money to come back to us. We mix our personal money into the mission money while we wait for the money to come back. Its all really messy. But I´m learning how to budget better. I could take out more personal stuff, but I´m trying not to unless its an emergancy so that I don´t spend more than I need to. Its good. We have enough to live no problem. Its more just that sometimes we want all the tasty stuff. Its good to live off of water, bread and simple stuff for a while....

But yeah. That was kinda my week. Really short. Oh. Me and Elder Chatelain did a musical number in church this Sunday. Lets just say that we didn´t get a single compliment after church.... we´ll see if we ever try that again. haha. Chruch was a little empty because people travel for fathers day and whatnot, but we should have more to come.

But whoah. Almost forgot. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!! And Michael and Tara too! (if you guys read my letters). HOPE THEY ARE JUST FANTASTIC! I have presents (for dad... sorry Michael and Tara). I´ll try and send them next week. Fun stuff. Hope Fathers day was a blast and that the B-Days even better! Maybe we´ll eat a cake for you or something....

Anyways, gotta run. Love you lots. Thanks for the letters advice and support. Tell me if there is anything that I should put in my letters that I forget. Our investigators are doing well, but moving slowly. We´re practicing patience. Prayers are always much appreciated. But we´re doing what we can. Its great to serve a mission! Hope you all have a great week! Love you all tonnes!!

Elder Humphreys

Live from Curuguaty

Hey everybody! Sorry to write so late. I'm on a division in this town called Curuguaty. Kinda far from my regular house. Elder Chatelain and Elder Sorenson (my old comp for two weeks and now district leader) wanted to get together and talk about how excited they are to go home and go golfing together and stuff. haha. Really we're supposed to just do divisions every once and a while, so here I am. The towns a little bit bigger than what I'm used to though, and so I'm kinda freaking out. Its got like, lots of cars, and traffic, and stores and stuff. lol. Apparently I'm getting used to small town life. Its wierd. So I'm here with Elder Thomas. We came together from the MTC, so we're about at the same experience level and whatnot, but I didn't really know him back then so its kinda fun like that.

Monday went well. We kinda missed our bus home though... lol. That was embarrassing. But fortunately there was a later one so it just meant that we got home a tad later than we planned. I missed wishing Elder Patterson a happy birthday via email, so I was kinda ticked about that, but it caused me to work up the guts to ask for permission to call out of zone to talk to him. So it all worked out well. Didn't get to talk to him on his birthday because I couldn't get a hold of his number, and then he didn't answer once I finally got it, but two days later we got to talk. That was nice. Its always great to talk to an old friend. And it just made me feel good cuz I actually did an act of good friendship to somebody for once. lol.

Got offered to eat hoof this week. I woulda done it but it was kinda just sitting on the table (no plate) and i dunno.... looked like he had already eaten all of the meat off of it. But I think it turns out you mostly just are eating the cartilage from between the joints. But I'm not really sure. Some other day. Speaking of bad food, Elder Chatelain ate a bug this week. It was fun to see him take some initiative and actually eat something gross without me for once. haha. Turned out there were bugs in the noodles he was cooking that he thought was just seasoning or something at first. Kinda gross.

Sorry if some of this doesn't make sense by the way. I have a pretty nasty headache after riding the bus out here. The soccer madness didn't help much either. That makes two weeks in a row now where I've almost killed my self running around chasing down soccer balls after district meeting. But its been worth it.

I accidentally told Elder Chatelain that I had a movie on Youtube and he helped the members look it up against my discretion. They liked my beard and stuff, but I don't think they really grasped the joke behind a mamma mia remake. Funny stuff.

It makes me happy to hear you're all just sharing the gospel and being super missionaries back at home. Thats legit. I was reading the ensign on the bus the other day, and it was really good, but I felt kinda bad for not being a better missionary back in the day. Glad to see you're living it all up. Keep up the good work! Speaking of the ensign, I re-read Elder Uchtdorfs talk in the Priesthood session, and I liked it WAY better in English. haha. Its hard to get the feeling in Spanish, even if you understand it. Made me want to magnify my calling even better.

Taught the lesson AND talked in church this sunday. We have to be better at asking people to talk. I translated some of a talk about having Christ-centered families from conference. Its lame cuz there's so much good stuff that I want to share with everybody but we still haven't been able to get it in Spanish yet and so I just have it in English. Lame.

Had a cool experience today. We were on the way to the bus and some guy stopped us. Apparently he's a student and he wanted to do a little interview with us. So we got to explain our purpose and beliefs for him. Hopefully it'll make it into the final project and we can help a lot more people understand us better. Cool stuff.

Speaking of which too, Elder Call called me while we were on the bus. He said to say Hi to my family btw. Elder Calls the man. One of my favorite people that I've come in contact with while on the mission. He just called to see how things are going. Told me too that he had talked with some people from my last area. Fun to see that they're still progressing and whatnot. Also great to see how certain seeds that we were able to plant have started to blossom. Like there was a family we spent a fair bit of time with and weren't really progressing for various reasons, but have now gone to church like 5 times and are planning on getting married and baptized. Awesome to know that we didn't "waste any time on them", and that not giving up paid off.

Anyways, gotta roll and take some headache medicine! lol. And go to some FHE with some family I've never met. Should be great. Glad to hear you're all doing well. Thanks for being so awesome. Keep up the good work! Crasy to hear that school's almost over. Thats madness. It feels like just yesterday that that happened last time. Madness. Love you lots, and have a great week!

Elder Humphreys

PS - I know its like a week away, but HAPPY FATHERS DAY!!!!! Couldn't decide if I should be a week early or a day late. Oh well. LAme that we can't phone or anything. Hope its a blast! Thanks Dad for being so good, strong, and such a good influence! Sorry I can't be there, but I know you understand. Hope everyone gives you a extra big hug on my behalf. Love ya! Chou!

Spent our last couple of dimes

Good week! Glad to hear that all is going well. Havin fun. Working hard. Doin nice little dances. Going to the Temple. Legit. Thats where its at!

We had a pretty good week. Nothing TOOOO out of the ordinary. Spent our last couple of dimes on Monday. Thankfully the money arrived like it was supposed to on Tuesday and we didn´t have to starve to death or anything. Had a nice little Noche de Hogar monday night. Taught about how although not keeping the commandments makes it look like you have more freedoms, in the end you find that Satans got you in his grasps, and you´re left with bad health, nobody trusts you, you have a mess for a family. Stuff like that. But when we follow Gods comandments, we are restricted a little bit in the things that we can do, but in the end we find that we have what we need, we have blessings, friends, health, security, a great family, eternal life. Stuff like that. I think they liked it. Adrian (the last kid we baptized) told us that one day he wants to be a missionary too. Pretty cool stuff. ´He´s only 11 right now, but they got great hearts and I think they can do it with a little help.

We didn´t get to go to district meeting on Tuesday because its so far away and uses a lot of time. So basically we´ve been in San Pedro for 3 weeks without leaving or seeing another missionary. Pretty crasy. We´re doing good, but its nice to get out, get all pumped to be good missionaries. Suff like that. Instead we visited a less active member that lives WAY out of town. They haven´t been too church cuz they live too far away and they don´t have  a way to get in to town. So we took a bus out. The dad almost got baptized before, but they were waiting for papers to get married and then moved too far away. But they say their papers have come and that they now are going to move back into town. So thats super cool. They didn´t move this week like they planned, but hopefully it goes well. Blessings. It only took us like an hour or so to walk back, so I hope they move soon. lol.

Wednesday we finally got all our money out, so that ment bill paying. You feel really rich when the month starts, but after you pay rent for the house, church, and then the electricity and water from both of those that you didn´t pay earlier because you didn´t have money... you realize you dont actually have that much at all. But I think we´ll do better this month. I hope.

One of our investigators invited us in when we passed by. He was super drunk. It was fun. He kept spitting everywhere. Tried to feed us uncooked sausage and make us show him our families on facebook. Fortunately we got out without any problem. Next time we´ll try and visit him earlier in the day.

Taught piano again this week. Its harder than it looks! The language doesn´t help either, and they don´t have any way to practice during the week. But we´re trying.

Accomplished lots in my studies this week. Finished Preach My Gospel and True to the Faith! Yeah. Good stuff. So now I´ve basically finished the whole missionary library. Its been great. Now I´m going to really focus on the scriptures, and now that I´ve gotten my new Liahonna, the conference talks again. Ya.

Found a couple really cool investigators this week. Ones a single mom with great member support. The other is a family that have 3 kids, one whos old enough to get baptized. They didn´t come to church this week (I think its because it was cold - the reports said it would be only 8 degrees or so, and so most people didn´t even bother to wake up in the morning.. even the members), but I think they should start progressing this week. Pretty cool.

Cleaned the church this week. Its filthy. The dust collects in there and its not nice. Can´t wait till we have a real chapel. None of the members bothered to come and help so me and Elder Chatelain did it. But we got most of the cobwebs out of the sacrament room, so I´m pretty happy.

Sunday went normally. But we got to take a suprise 4 hour trip to visit the nearest set of missionaries, so today I´m writing from a city called Santani. Good stuff. Its been fun. Played some soccer, got the letters and Liahonas I´ve been waiting for (Grandpa - I got your letter no. 4. Thanks!), and its been good. Heading back tonight. Had to sleep last night without a pillow though. I´m telling you right now that pillows are suprisingly UNDER-rated. You sleep a lot better with a good one. Oh well.

But yeah. Good stuff. That was the week. Out of time. Glad you´re all well. Stay safe and don´t do anything too crasy! Remember that the church is true, do your best, share the gospel! Love you lots, Be good people. Ya.

Love ya!

Elder Humphreys

PS - Did I really see bro Mclain and Matthew in the Liahona? If I did, thats legit that I spotted them. If not... Tranquilo.

Winter in Paraguay

Hola everybody. Glad to hear that things went pretty good this week. We had a pretty normal week here in San Pedro. The news on changes came Monday night and... we're staying. Tranquilo. That means that we'll probably have about 9 (now 8) more weeks together, as Elder Chatelain will be heading home a little early a change and a half from now. So thats that. Good thing we get along. The only real problem that that brought was that it meant that we didn't have to go into the office for changes. Which meant that I didn't get to pick up all my reimbursals (not sure if thats a real word...lol. Like money back for all the buses I had to pay for out of my own pocket). And that meant that being the end of the month and having spent all that money on buses and stuff... I pretty much didn't have any money for the whole week. Me and Elder Chatelain even considered not writing home this week just to save the money that we're spending to use internet right now. haha. Jks. But yeah. I had to spend what money I had SUPER wisely. Basically that means that I ate a lot when the members offered us food, and then ate a lot of cheese+bread sandwiches, and oatmeal pretty much every day for 2 or 3 meals a day. Not the healthiest thing you could eat, but thats what multivitamins are for right? haha. And I had some snack food like easy-cheese, smores and popcorn that somebody sent just at the right time. THANK YOU MYSYK FAMILY! haha. But yeah. Kind of a disaster of food and money, but somehow I think we'll make it till tomorrow when we SHOULD (crossing our fingers so we dont get stranded 4 hours away at district meeting) have our next months money to take out. I guess I could take out some money on my debit card or something, but then when the money shows up I'll be too rich and just waste it all. I think this will hopefully just train me better for next month when hopefully we can spend what we have a little wiser. lol.

But yeah. That was basically the highlight of the week. Rough stuff. Sounds like the week back home went alright. Sounds like a crasy lot of driving though. 10 hours... haven't done that since the time we road triped out to Toronto. Hopefully the girls are better trained now and didn't cry the whole way there like last time. haha. Glad to hear that nobody had an accident quading or anything either. lol. What else. Membership clerk. Legit. We could really use more of those in this country. I don't know if its the same back home, but records like that are kind of a disaster. I'm happy to hear that your keepin up the racketball because I'm going to need people to do fun stuff with like that when I get home, because the jumping jacks and pushups just aren't cutting it. And its no fun to get fat. Also crasy to hear that everybodies just trippin off to Ireland. Lucky. lol. Sounded like Sunday School was really good though. I'm sad that I missed it. Oh well. Even just sunday school in general I miss too though. Sunday school here is lame. The teacher doesn't know what he's doing and he often says the same things over and over because he still doesn't have enough words in his vocabulary. And he's teaching stuff he's just barely learning himself. Yeah, thats me. This week it was my turn to teach. We're just finishing up the Principles of the Gospel book, so I had to speak on Exaltation. Pretty deep stuff to try and teach to all new members, including people who were coming to church for their first time. Oh well. I think it went not too bad, and its helping me teach and do stuff better so its good.


Besides that... we had a good week. Not tonnes to report. Its starting to get pretty chilly at times. The thing that I noticed that makes the biggest difference is that here theres no such thing as a furnace or internal heating. So if it gets down to 5 degrees outside, it wouldn't be as big of a deal, except that it means that its only 5 degrees when you roll out of bed. Reminds me of camping. Good stuff. We got some big blankets, hoodies and long underwear so we're all good. lol. Apparently it'll keep getting cooler until July though, so we'll see what happens. I think everybodys just a little sissy, but we'll see if even the Canadian gets cold.


Had a disaster at the restaurant where I spent the last of my money for lunch. The hot sauce kind of exploded when I was strugling to get it out of the bottle. No good. Then even after I cleaned it up, my eye itched and I forgot that I still hadn't washed my hands yet... but it all turned out good because when my eye started to burn and I kinda teared up I think the waiter guy had some pity and he replaced the food that I had soaked with hotsauce free of charge. Nice guy.


Sunday was probably the highlight of the week. We had a pretty good turn out for the second week in a row. Had some good investigators finally come to church and they liked it. Set them up with some baptismal dates, so hopefully we'll have a couple more baptisms in a week or two. Yeah!


I've also been really enjoying my studies lately. I'm just about to finish reading Preach My Gospel cover to cover after President challenged us all to read it in 3 months. Good stuff. Finding all sorts of parts that I've never noticed before. Also reading a lot in the book of Mormon and enjoying that. I've really liked the part on Nephi and Lehi in the book of Helaman. Super good and underrated missionaries. Now I'm in 3 Nephi and reading all about the teachings of Christ. Great stuff.


But yeah. Things are going well. Loving life here in San Pedro. Even when it gets lonely. Tryin our best to work hard and do what we can, even when my comp gets a little trunky or the members make me want to cry by pumping the Taylor Swift music so loud that I can hear it even with my ears plugged. haha. Sharing the gospel is great. The Lord is really blessing us and we're having a great time sharing the gospel and seeing it bless peoples lives. Being a missionary is great!


But thats all for another week in Paraguay. Gotta run. Love you lots and keep doing whats right and sharing the gospel!


Love,


Elder Humphreys



PS Happy Birthday to Theo. Wherever you are....

Last Week Before Transfers

Hoooolaa.

Had a good week. Really quick though. Sounds like you all had a great little weekend. Had a blast I´m sure. I´m excited for when we can all have fun going shopping at West Ed again. Okay, really more excited to go to West Ed and eat food and enjoy a fancy new Hardy kitchen, and not to mention sleep on my favorite couch, but you know what I mean. You´re going to have to help me out with my geography though because its been a while. Slave Lake? Northern Alberta or somewhere up in North West Territories? Still pretty crasy sounding. Church buildings never burn down! lol.

Anyways. Like I said, we had a pretty good week. Not sure if you guys were listening to the same crasy news that we were listening to here, but one of the distinguishing parts of the week stemmed from some priest or pastor guy in the United States. Some guy from the Evangelical church or something like that? We didn´t really get the details, but we did get every person we talked to asking us if the world was really going to end on Saturday. We probably said 100 times that ¨yes, it is true. The world is going to end..... but nobody knows when. So I wouldn´t worry about it being this Saturday. But we do know that the 2nd coming is getting near, and that we need to be prepared physically, mentally and spiritually¨. Something like that. Most people seemed to think it was a lie (which was a little surprising because people around here seem to be quite gullible), so our answer didn´t change much for them, but there were a few children that were really worried about it.

Tuesday I got to go on another division. This time I was put with a guy who´s actually from Paraguay. He grew up in my first area, but always went to church in the south mission because the church was closer. But that was kinda cool. He knew a lot about Paraguay and so we talked about that, and then I also got to tell him a lot about Canada. He was only baptized 4 years ago with his brother and they are both here. They´re probably going to both spend all of their missions way out far like we are now. His name is Elder Escriva and hes 24. Old guy. lol. But yeah. It went well. He worked hard and we had a successful day. Its cool to see how much more the people open up to him and how much easier it is for him to be a good teacher just with his Paraguayan background. It´ll be really cool to see in the future when people can serve closer to home. It won´t be as fun for people like me maybe beacuase we wouldn´t get to go on long distance adventures like this, but I think it´ll really help the work grow when they are able to have missions full of latins, and keep all of us North Americans back closer to home. lol.

Found a really cool person this week. She called us over while we were walking down the street. I had read about her in some of the notes some missionaries from before had left us. She was baptized like 10 years ago in another town. They were teaching her husband but right before his baptism they moved about 20 km from town. They are really poor and don´t have a way to get in for church, and so nothing more happened about it. They were waiting on getting some papers so that they could get married and everything. Anyways, we looked for them once to see whats up but we ended up just wandering around for a couple hours and not finding them. Anyways, now we have better directions to there house and now we can visit them. Sounds like their paperwork came through and so they can now get married. Want to move back into town and he really wants to get baptized. Sounds almost too good to be true. So we´ll see what happens with that. We´ll probably get off the bus early one of these days and try to visit them. Hopefully everything goes through.

Another really cool guy we found on monday. Named Jorge. Contacted his house. He looks like he´s got a fair bit of money. Anyways, he seems pretty interested. Already has a friend in the church. Wasn´t able to come to church because he had to go on a business trip, but acutally basically skipped work just to come to our English class. Told his friend that he´s really interested to learn more and looks really sincere. I´m excited to work with him too.

That of course only as long as I don´t get changed. Haven´t found out just yet what the changes are. More realistically though, its more likely that either Elder Chatelain leaves and I get a new comp, or he stays and we´re together for another change and a half before he goes home. We´ll see what happens. They say there are a lot of changes going on and that a lot of people are going to have to go up to senior comp this change. I´m kinda scared about that because I´m starting to get closish to the point where I might be going up. I don´t feel ready for that yet, so wish me luck that my comp next change is somebody with some experience! haha. If not, make sure you pray for me. lol. Scary stuff. Anyways, out of time. Love you lots. Have a great week! Sorry there weren´t too many exciting stories this week (didn´t eat anything wierd...lol).

Love you!

Elder Humphreys