The Office - Week 24

Bueno. Hi family. How´s it going. Life here is splendid. Working hard. Sweating hard. Having a great time.
Actually we had a really good week. Glad to hear that things are good at home. That the b-day party went well... that you´re enjoying the snow... that you´re enjoying the hockey... (how are we doing this year btw?). Crasy to hear that everyone is growing up so fast and that your trip is coming up so soon. How exciting. I can still never remember when the exact trip will be. You´ve been saying that its going to be soon for a while now. lol. Crasy to hear that everybody is getting married here. Things are sure going to be different when I get home. Oh well. Thats life right. Congrats to everyone. How is this EFY thing working then? You say ¨Stay at home¨ program, but I´m assuming its just sleep at home instead of spending the whole day at home by yourself right? haha. Good stuff. Oh well. Should be good anyways. Anyways. Good to hear that life continues on and that you are having a great time. Keep up the good work.
As for us... Sunday was pretty good. We got to church and waited for our investigators. We were dissapointed when they didn´t show up for sacrament meeting. So we called them and found out that they had accidently slept in. So they got ready really quick and made it back in time to go to the sacrament meeting of the other ward, and then to a really quick Gospel Principles class. We´ve talked to them since and gotten them asegurar-ed for baptism.. Wow. I honestly don´t know how to say that in non-Spanglish. Like.... locked in or have made certain. I don´t know. Basically they´ve commited themselves to get baptized the 24th of February, and they are pretty set on it. We´re pretty excited. Should be good. They have member support. We´ve done everything possible to really teach according to their needs. I think they both have pretty solid testimonies of the truth. They could have been baptized last week since they´ve been to church enough times, but we really wanted to make sure that they´d be ready. So hopefully next week I´ll be writing back with good news of baptisms. Its been so long that I´ve almost forgotten what its like. I´m pretty excited. Sunday we also got the news that the member family (the Familia Cañisa) DID go through the temple and were sealed as a family. Good feeling. We had been helping and teaching and encouraging them for a while now and so it was super nice to see how happy they were. The mother was just ecstatic to tell us about how it was and how happy she is. Awesome. Also got to have a really good ward council meeting as well as a great sunday dinner visit. Yum.
Monday was crasy. There were tons of things to do in the office. Worked like crasy. But it was actually not that bad. I much rather would have lots to do than nothing. Tuesday wasn´t much different either. President was leaving town on Wednesday, and so I had to do a whole weeks worth of stuff in just a couple of days because he´s the only one that can sign checks and stuff like that. Almost had a few close calls getting it done. At one point I needed a check pronto, but President was out and about. I almost ignored everyone's advice to just call and ask him where he was. In the end, it turned out that he wasn´t going to get back in time, so I had to meet him at the bank itself where he signed the check 10 minutes before it closed. Close one. lol. Tuesday had an interesting morning. First, Elder Roberts (one of the oficinistas) went to turn off the trickling bidet and instead turned it on, shooting himself in the face. Ugh. haha.  Then we had district meeting. The district leader was just busy telling us off for not getting the best numbers last week in certain key indicator areas, where we obviously knew that we could improve next week. Anyways, the new assistant (Elder Short) walked in and when asked if he had any comments went right out and said that the spirit was not felt there in the room and that something had to change. Wow. Bold statement. Anyways, he was able to turn the whole thing around and save some of the lesson. He does a great job here. Sometimes he´s does a great job of being a second conscience - sometimes a little naggy, but really just telling you what you already know and helping you to do better. Good stuff.
Wednesday I got to catch up on all of the stuff that had gotten put to the side the days before. I also got to see the rewards of hard work. I think I had made 7 or 8 checks in those 2 days, but in the end, I needed every one of them and was really glad that I had put in the little effort before hand to save myself from suffering later. Kind of a good analogy for life and the Plan of Salvation I guess.
Anyways. I don´t really remember Thursday. Pretty tranquilo day. But Friday is where the real excitement came. After office work, we got to help set up for the talent show that we´ve been planning. The ward mission leader had the idea a couple weeks back. We were all kind of skeptical because the last activity we planned kind of flopped. Big time. But we played along with it because he was pretty excited. Even up till Friday I was interested to see how it would turn out and who would come. Well, after set up we went and worked. Made some personal and phone-style invites. Actually got some good work done just by using technology to our advantage. Anyways, we showed up at the talent show and people were already getting all ready for there acts. Little by little more and more people showed up. In the end, there were lots of people there. Members, less active members, members and visitors from other wards. Exciting. We had a weird incidence at the beginning where some guy was trying to accuse a member for breaking into his house the other week. Definitely possible. But fortunately he didn´t make a scene, and in the end there wasn´t really any problems. But the talent show went 100 times better than I would have thought. We didn´t have any time at all to participate which was good because we didn´t practice anything. I got forced into accompanying a song I didn´t know, and butchered it. But fortunately I don´t think anyone noticed because they were busy listening to the little primary singers. Other funny parts: The mission leader tried to get me to lead a whole pack of ballerinas upstairs to their changing room by myself. Didn´t fall for it. haha. One of them also tried to give my comp the traditional double kiss thing on stage in front of everybody as he gave them a thank you note kind of thing. In the end he pulled out like a good missionary, but made a scene of himself in front of everybody. haha. The members liked it. In the end, it just went great. I only broke I bottle of soda, but I made sure that everyone knew that it wasn´t me. lol. The dancers were actually really cool. They did lots of traditional dances for us and it was a really memorable moment. In the end, a great ward bonding experience. Super cool. The youth even performed the EFY line dances and all that good stuff.
Today pretty normal. They are opening a new area (hasn´t been done for a while) and so the assistants got to go out and look for a chapel and house. Unfortunately we weren´t invited, but cool nonetheless. Played more piki volley. Sweated tons.
This next week should be good and crasy. We have zone conferences almost every day and so we´ll have extra work on our hands every day. Ugh. Oh well. I´ll also be getting the newbie to train. Crasy how time flies. It still doesn´t feel like I´ve been here that long. So that should be exciting. We find out Monday night who the Elder is, and then he´ll be here Wednesday to start his training. Fun stuff. This might be my one and only time to train anyone in anything, so I plan on making the best of it. Its nice though, because he´s almost guaranteed to be a cool guy and should already know how to speak and how stuff goes. So that´ll be nice. Wish me luck. lol. I also plan on doing a lot of divisions with the young men in the next couple of weeks so that we don´t have to work in a trio when we can be doing double work. Exciting.
But yeah. Thats kind of my week. Went well. For some reason I can´t think of anything new besides that. Hopefully all continues to go well. Glad to hear that things are going well with you all. Love you all lots. I appreciate all of your letters and support. The church is true! Hope you have a great week, and keep up the good work!
Chau!
Elder Humphreys

The Office - Week 23

Howdy there family and friends! How´s it going?
Things here this week were pretty crasy... Tons of stuff to do and just not enough time. I have a HUGE list of things to do this week coming up. But its not all that bad. The only time tons to do really gets to me is when it causes mistakes to be made, or when there isn´t enough time to get everything done. But things are basically under control and so I actually don´t mind too much. Its better than a couple of weeks ago where I hardly had anything to keep me busy with here in the office. Because of all of the craziness however I can hardly remember when things happened during the week. I do however remember a few random details though so I´ll try and fill you all in.
This was my second last full week as the only Financiero in the office. I have this one coming up left, and then the new guy will be here on the 22nd. Crasy. Time has just flown here in the office. So far I´m still completely in the dark as far as who he will be... I gave a list of 3 names to President of who I would think would make a good replacement, but obviously those are just suggestions. He still hasn´t really given me any hints on who he´s been thinking of. We´ll see. Its kind of fun though to be the experienced one in the office though. I know how to get places, know where the streets are and usually what we should do in many of the random situations that we find ourselves in. So thats nice. Its a lot funner than not knowing what is going on all of the time. lol. I´ve kind of forgotten how to be a real field missionary though, so hopefully the transition back isn´t too hard.
Anyways. I don´t really remember what happened last Saturday... we played some piki-volley and had some fun. Went to work... Most of the people weren´t there. We started fasting at mid-day since Lunch is the main meal here. We also got a sweet invite to lunch at a members house. The coolest thing being that they are one of the 2 American families in the ward.
Sunday went alright. Our investigators didn´t come to church because they had to work. That was kind of a bummer because it means that they won´t be able to get baptized for at least another week or so. But thats alright. We re-explained the importance of Sabbath day observance and I think they really understand it now. I think they will be at church this week. They say that they have given up working on Sundays now. We´ll see how that goes. This will also give them more time to prepare and really understand the importance of baptism. We´ll see how they do in the coming weeks. Also, as I´m sure you all know, it was Superbowl Sunday. Normally, that wouldn´t be very exciting because nobody here watches Football, BUT we got to go to the American families house. It was Super fun. lol. Thankfully they weren´t big football fans, and the tv never even got turned on. haha. But we did have a feast with them and the other Americans in our ward. That was fun. Then we watched a mini-violin recital so that one of their kids could pass of Suzuki 1. That was fun because I knew the songs and even got to pick one of them to play. I picked ¨The Happy Farmer¨.
It was also this day that we went and visited a less active family in our ward and we found out that they were having a hard time. It turns out that about a year ago, he was preparing for his mission. Instead, he had a baby with his girlfriend who is now his wife. She has since gotten baptized and everything, and they seem repented and everything. But its still a touchy subject. His mom gives him a hard time for not having served a mission and it makes him depressed to think about it, or have us visit him. Anyways, they had been fighting because of this subject. So we shared with them a bit about the atonement and how it takes away all guilt and sin. That even though they´ve kinda messed up in the past, they can´t let it take them down. We taught a bit about the temple and how they still have the opportunity to be an eternal family. That a mission sure, would have been great. But he can´t put an eternal family on the line just because he missed a good opportunity in the past. Anyways, that lead to another cool visit about 2 days later. The new American family in our ward is really cool, and they are really excited to help us work. Anyways, we got permission to pick them up in the van and take them over to visit. They made brownies and everything. Soooo american, but super cool. Being in the car kind of scared her (I tried to drive really relaxed, but just being in the streets can freak you out if you´re not used to it). Anyways. He actually never served a mission back in the day, while she did. But now they have a super cool and super happy family. So we were able to share about that and try and show them that everything isn´t lost. I think it bumped up their animo, and I think they are more excited to go to church knowing that they have new friends there.
Annoying parts of the office this week: The bank gave me too much money and I had to give it back. More work then it sounds. Also, there was a zone leader meeting. That meant that there were tons of needy zone leaders kicking it in the office for a good chunk of the day. Ugh. All of the oficinistas have been kinda sick lately. Myself included. Probably from drinking water at members houses or from eating too much burger king since our cook didn´t come for a couple days this week. Oh well. Thats enough complaining though. We enjoy our trials even though we like to complain about them. lol.
Fun purchases of the week: Got a cool calculator watch from an investigators little shop. haha. I thought it fitted my calling as Financiero well. Now I just have to find a place to get a battery for it and I´m good to go. I´m excited. lol. I also bought a kids meal one day for lunch because they had cool Transformer toys. I think the guy working there thought I was ridiculous.... he was probably right.
Wordly but cool experiences: Got passed while driving the van. That doesn´t happen very often and so I was kind of weirded out. Then I realized it was an Audi R...8? I think thats what its called. Whatever IronMan drives. lol. Not something you see every day. Especially in Paraguay.
Language mix up of the week: Spanish is different in all parts of the world. I had to talk to a missionary´s Bishop the other day over the phone so he could send us some money. Anyways, he asked how Elder Meneses was doing. Well in Paraguay, there is a word that means hard-working - ¨Guapo¨. However, as far as my understanding, in every other country it means handsome. haha. So basically I said ¨Yeah, he´s doing great. He´s really handsome and.... I mean... Ugh. He´s... a really hard worker. Anyways, I got to go. Bye¨. And then I hung up. hahaha. Hopefully he knows a thing or two about Paraguayan culture (he´s from Argentina), or else he was probably a little weirded out by that comment. lol
The tire got a whole in it this week. That was lame. Had to take care of that. Not that exciting though.... what else.....We got to give a blessing to one of our members this week. His face was all swollen up and everything. Hopefully that gets better. An investigator gave up a job that he had because he wasn´t allowed to listen to us, and work at this catholic college place at the same time. So even though he´s going through a really rough patch, he gave it up to hopefully continue on his way to baptism. We´re praying that he can get another job soon. One of our member families goes to the temple this week. Thats a good feeling. Maybe I haven´t been able to help many people get baptized as of late, but thats another group of people that I feel like I´ve been able to help get to the temple. We´ve been inviting, teaching and helping them to prepare a lot, and so thats a accomplishing kind of feeling. One of our investigators also called us up and replanned our visit so that we could teach him about the book of mormon that we left him (something that never seems to happen). So that was kind of exciting. Anyways, all in all a really good week in our area too. Only had one run in with some really ¨snakey¨ people that were more interested in my comp than they were in the gospel. haha.
Anyways, today has been pretty tranquilo. Had to run errands and get the tire fixed. On our P-day. lol. Oh well. Got my hair cut. Just ate empanadas for lunch. They were really good though. Pretty tranquilo.
Thanks for the letters. Glad things are going well. Sorry for never really writing personalized letters. I honestly havent really been writing to anyone lately. Partly because I´m a little too lazy. But partly also because being 6 people together on Pday usually means that there is a lot of stuff going on that I have to participate in if my companion is doing. Oh well. I´ll try and be better.
Congrats on the hockey singing. Thats super cool! I´m kinda sad I couldn´t be there. Sounded great though. Glad you´re all working and playing hard. Having fun.
Anyways, I gotta run. My comp wants to go get some groceries. Thanks for everything. Love you tons and hope you have a great week! The church is true and I love being a missionary. Suerte!
Elder Humphreys

The Office - Week 22

Howdy!
Well, as you notice, we jumped week 21 and went straight to 22. Looks like I missed a week back and Christmas time, but now we´re back on track. Crasy how time flies though. It feels like just yesterday that I got here in the office. I now feel like I know how everything works, and what needs to be done, but at the same time, I still just feel like that young newbie office Elder that just barely showed up. It´ll be weird to leave and get back to the campo again. The weeks I have left are going to fly by for sure.
On that note, this was kind of a strange week for me. As a missionary, people always ask you how long you´ve been out for and stuff like that out of small talk. A while back I got to that kind of weird moment, where it was a lot easier to say how little I had left instead of how little experience I have in the field. And so that brought me to the strange realization this week of how little time I actually have left. Yesterday was the 3rd which leaves 6 short months before Dad should be showing up. Thats a very strange feeling, and I dont think I like it. Wow. How the time has flown. Once again, I kind of just feel like I´m still that newish missionary that I was a year ago. Obviously I´ve gotten totally used to the routine of getting up, wearing missionary clothes all the time, speaking Spanish, and not being around my family, and so I have grown up a lot. But I just can´t believe how little is left. To a lot of people, 6 months is a long time. Half a year. But from an old missionaries standpoint, that isn´t much at all. 4 and a half changes. One last area. 6 more fast sundays after tomorrow. Wow. Thankfully I feel like it gives me more animo to work. Some people get all homesick and lazy in their last little time. I think for me, it helps me see how much more I want to do, and how much I can do to make the best of what´s left. I think life as a missionary just really gets you thinking about the value of time. Your time is limited. Whether it be the time in each day, the time you have to study, or the time to work hard as a full-time missionary. I actually think its really good, because you see how no time can be wasted. That whether you´re a missionary or not, you really shouldn´t ever just let time go by without making something out of it. Good lessons for life.
Anyways, that wasn´t really my week. You try your best not to spend too much time concentrating on time, and instead, you try and put that time to work. This week was a little bit different of course - changes struck the office again. But, we tried to make the best out of it.
Sunday was a really nice day. Our investigators made it to church for their second time. Without us needing to pass by their house and pick them up or anything like that. They really liked the lessons and I feel like they definitely felt the spirit. That was cool because I think that that is the first time that I´ve had the same people going to church in months now. We´ve gone through quite the dry patch in the last while, but we´ve been doing everything possible to get out of it. Moving forward with faith and diligence and waiting for any miracle that the Lord is willing to give us. So they are both currently preparing to get baptized on the 11th. The mom, Maria, isn´t totally sure on what she wants to do yet. She likes the church and knows that its good, but is just kind of afraid to really commit herself to something new. Her daughter on the other hand, Maria Luz, seems quite set no that date. She reads and prays and feels like the church is true and that this is what she wants to do. So thats great. We´re doing everything that we can, visiting them, getting them to meet members and form relationships with them etc etc. to try and help them to be ready for this date. Awesome.
Other interesting activities of Sunday. My companion finally decided that he´s fed up with having a girlfriend back at home. lol. Its kind of been distracting him lately and he knows that the work here is more important from anything like that going on back at home. So. Hes decided to get cut it all off. So thats been fun. Helping him think of nice ways to let her off easy. Its sure to be a disaster. Luckily I don´t have anything like that that I´ve had to worry about. All I´m going to say is that all of those kids out there should watch out - because its just not worth it. lol. At least from a bystanders viewpoint. Anyways, the cooler part of the story is that with all of his stress and confusion, Elder Thomson did something that I thought was really cool and was humble enough to ask for a blessing. And so during our comp study time I was able to give him a quick blessing at the house. Something that I still don´t really feel 100% comfortable doing. But it was actually a really great experience. Its such a cool feeling to be able to serve your fellow man with that authority of the Lord. It was a special experience for the both of us. I think it helped him feel a lot better and at ease, and it was actually something really good for me too. So that was pretty cool.
Monday was pretty normal. We got changes info that night. It was my last boring, already-know-whats-going-to-happen kind of changes as it was quite clear that me and Elder Thomson would be staying in the same place for the next change. It did have some exciting changes though. Elder Anderson (the assistant) and Elder Pearson got their wishes granted, and have been sent out to ¨whitewash¨ an area together. Thats something that doesn´t happen very often. Also, an old oficinista, Elder Short, got called back as the new assistant. Poor guy. lol. That doesn´t happen very often either. Good stuff. We got to have a good freak out happy dance moment when we saw the changes. haha. But yeah. They left and now we´re back down to 4 oficinistas again. For 3 more weeks before my replacement comes in for his training. Its kind of nice to have less numbers. Less crowded and less opinions to deal with. We´ll sure miss Elder Pearson though...
Tuesday we had one of the easiest change days ever. Only 7 people showed up. We didn´t even have to go pick them up because they showed up scattered and President was able to fit them in his vehicle. There was no rushes, no panics, no lines, no things forgotten. They just sat in the waiting room, did what they were told, and we got them through the list of things to do with tons of time to spare. It was really quite strange. lol. In the end, me and Elder Pearson even slipped out and tried to make a visit to a sick member at the hospital. Unfortunately we were miss informed about visiting hours, but hopefully they think about how its the thought that counts. But yeah. Everything went surprisingly smooth.
The next day wasn´t even that bad either. I had to show up and hand out tons of money to reimburse taxi rides and stuff like that, but unlike changes passed, I had enough experience to not make any big mistakes or let the small things trip me up. In the end, everything went really smoothly. The only bad part being that I misplace a receipt that I kind of need... dang it. But I gave a photocopy of it to the guy that gave it to me, and so hopefully I can just get a copy of his copy and fix that problem. Thats something great about the office - it helps keep you humble. You would think that after enough time here I would be past making dumb mistakes, but oh well. Its all about trying your best, doing everything you can, and fixing any problems that you make. It takes some BAD messing up before you will get fired as an oficinista. lol.
Thursday we went to the airport to drop the dead Elders. There were only 2 Elders and 2 Hermanas. Once again, the easiest change ever. That didn´t mean that it went without problems though. Nothing ever goes 100%. Oh well. We got it done and I´m pretty sure that they made it home in one piece with all of their luggage. lol. Thats how it goes though. Anyways. Otherwise the day was pretty average. There were a couple of things that had me a little grumpy by mid-day, but then a really nice belated Christmas letter showed up and I felt a lot happier. lol. That night we had a Family Home Evening with the 2 that are planning to get baptized. It meant extra walking and planning to have the activity at a members house, and bring another family from a ways away to be there and meet them, but I think it was totally worth it. We got to talk a little about the plan of salvation. It was kind of funny because we accidentally got 3 very talkative ladies in the same room, and it was then kind of hard to teach the lesson we planned. But at the same time, we couldn´t complain too much because they were working on forming friendships. Also fun was that in the middle of the lesson this flash flood hid. I´m sure I´ve mentioned it before, but the drainage system in this country is terrible. I thought it would be better because we are in the city, but that sure wasn´t true. The house we were at is by a main street and looking out the window, I could see that the street was honestly 2 feet deep with water. There was a full scale river right in front of the house. Pretty fun. Fortunately it slowed down by the end and we managed to not get too wet.
Yesterday was pretty tranquilo. Honestly we were pretty pooped from changes. I thought that the exhausted feeling that usually follows changes wouldn´t be as bad this time, but it hit igual. Fortunately we had a fun activity with the young mens to go out and give away pass along cards. That was nice because it gave us a little more animo as we really wanted to set a good example for the kids. They´ve been really excited to work ever since they got back from EFY and so we´re trying to take advantage of that and keep them excited to be missionaries.
Todays been really nice. Being back at 4 has made things really easy. We got here, did some email time, went and ate, Elder Meryhew picked up some new shoes for soccer, we played some piki volley and now we´re wrapping things up. Might even be time to write a hand written letter or two, take a nap, or hopefully get some groceries...
As for the letters you all sent. Thanks for the photos. The guys thought they were hilarious. You can send me my embarrassing stuff whenever you´d like. Still makes me proud. haha. Where is the new Costco at? Closer to our house?? Hope so. After being in a place with such limited food options, Costco sounds heavenly. Sounds like a fun mutual activity. One of the girls should write and tell me more about it. Good stuff. Glad that the basketball is going good and you´re still working hard. Basically, glad to hear that the week went good and that all is well. I only minorly freaked out when you said that you were signing up for classes. Hopefully you can get it all figured out without too much hassle. Right before I left I left a list of all of the classes that I need to take. Hopefully you can find it somewhere. I basically had everything figured out so that all you´ll have to do is pick the times and teachers. Shouldn´t be that bad. But yeah. Sounds good to me. It just adds to the already crasyness of how little time is left.
Anyways, hope things are great. If you ever have any questions let me know and I´ll try and throw in the answers for you. Thanks for everything and for all of the love and support. Things are awesome here and I´m doing my best! Keep up the great work! Love ya!!

Elder Humphreys

THE Office - Week 20

Hi.

Hope everything is well back at home. We´ve gotten into the habit of writing right away in the morning now so that there is more time to goof around in the afternoon, but nbd. I´ll log on later to see whats up.

We had a pretty good week here in the office though. However, a bunch of the other office guys just told me that I should write shorter letters. That long letters are probably super boring to read, and that I should just be more to the point. So thats what I guess I´ll do to save you all from the weekly rundown.

Needless to say. The week went well. The mission is fantastic. No complaints here. Should have another good week coming up again. Hope you had and have a good one. The church is true! Love ya lots!

Elder Humphreys

Hi.
haha. Sorry about the short one earlier. Really, I just didn´t have tons of time to write right then. Lots to do when your p-day is only 8 hours long! lol. But yeah. Let me know if I should shorten them down for reals. But until then, I´ll just stick to what I normally write...
Sunday was cool. We unfortunately didn´t have any investigators this week in church, but all of the people that missed seemed to have semi-decent excuses, so I think they will probably be there tomorrow. The coolest part of the day though was after church. Normally every Sunday after church we eat, do our studies, and then have our weekly planning. Its a little different because in the field you usually do it Friday, but thats when most people remember that they need something from the office and so they call us up. And there are always people stopping by and so we just move it to Sunday. Anyways, that was recently changed, and so we´ve started this week to plan on Fridays anyways. We´ll see how it goes. Its what President Arnold told us to do. Anyways, this was our last week to do it on Sunday, and it just so happened that President had a little bit of extra time on his hands, and decided to pay us a visit. Fortunately we were warned ahead of time, and so we had time to make sure that our room was nice and clean. lol. Anyways, he joined us for our weekly planning. It was pretty cool. He gave us lots of great advice, and at the same time got to see how the things that we´ve been taught are really carried out in the actual work. So it was good because he got to see how it really goes, and we got to learn and get advice on how we can do things better. Cool experience. What else. Oh, we also had our missionary correlation meeting for the first time. It went pretty well. It was funny though - our ward mission leader has gotten himself all excited about a talent show activity that he wants to have. We´re all up for helping him, but its funny because he has super high hopes for it. The part we didn´t tell him is that after all of the work that we put into the movie night a couple weeks back, we had a total of one active member family show up. Ouch. So we´re trying to be optimistic, and yet realistic at the same time. I talked him down to only having it one night, and that each organization (primary, relief society etc.) only should have to do one presentation each, instead of 4. Hopefully it goes well. He´s pretty excited, so we´re going to help him out with it...
Monday was super fun. Lots of errands to be run during office hours. Had to return some tables, go to the bank, get sick peoples lab results from the hospital. Something else, but I can´t remember what. Oh. I think that was when we got to go out to my old zone (Mariano Roque Alonso) to drop off a cell phone. That was fun. Exciting to see a place that I loved and miss. Then in the afternoon we got to work. Went well. There is a new family in our ward, so it will be exciting to work with then. Really young recently married couple. They don´t really fit in with the style of our ward (mostly nearly-deads), but its fun for us to have somebody exciting to visit. Anyways, after all of that, we got to go to a dinner visit. That was really out of the usual because nobody eats dinner here. But there was another family that moved in a month or two ago - and they are from the states. Jackpot. The Lloyd family from Utah. We went to their house which was one of the nicest houses I´ve been in in a while. I was minorly freaking out. It was funny. We ate spaghetti, homemade cookie things, and oreos. It was LEGIT. But the even cooler thing is that they are super hard working, and want to help out the ward in any way that they can. Wow. Something that nobody else around here is really interested in doing. So thats super cool. Right now we have them trying to help a really tricky less active member that lives close that nobody else will visit. Once their car gets shipped in from the states though, it´ll be out of control. lol. I´m really excited to actually be able to work with members that have animo to work. Should be good.
Tuesday was the opposite day in the office. There was tons of paperwork and stuff to do in the office. President, the hermana and the assistants went on a road trip this week to do mini zone-meeting things with all of the zones that are farther out. So that meant lots to get done so that everything was in order, there was money in the safe etc. Tons of reimbursements to do. So that was that. But President was at EFY all day, so that meant that we had to go to his house so that he could sign the checks before he left. Awesome. The hermana won´t let you go by their house without making you stop and eat something. She spoils us.
I honestly don´t remember what happened Wednesday. It was about this day though that were just driving randomly down one of the busy roads in our area and saw one of our investigators who had reluctantly accepted a Book of Mormon a couple days before, sitting out in front of his house reading. So that was cool. Don´t know if anything will come of it, but it was a little exciting. Most people here really aren´t into reading, and so usually people don´t just pick up a book and read during the day unless you´ve really convinced them to do it, or they are just exceptional people. lol
Basically as far as the actual work of proselyting goes, it hasn´t been our best week. Not sure why, but we just have had a really unlucky time finding our investigators at home this week. Kind of frustrating. Lots of walking, getting shut down, thinking of plan B´s and having them fall through as well. Oh well. Seguimos adelante. Me and Elder Thomson were actually talking about one of the big problems that are in the mission that actually relates to that. One of those problems that can´t really be fixed, and so we just have to work around. The problem being that making appointments with people usually brings little or less success then not setting times to visit at all. Its funny because back at home, you typically have to call ahead of time, set apointments with the families that you are going to visit, and then you go to their houses when you said you would. Here on the other hand is a little bit different. You can try and phone people and plan things. But typically no matter the way that you try and set up a visit with someone, they don´t really do anything to help themselves remember. Nobody has a day-timer, or a calendar or anything like that. So you rush to get to their houses when you planned, and they either aren´t there or they are busy with something and just can´t talk at that moment. Really frustrating. So rather than be direct with people about what time you are going to visit them, you usually try and say ¨We´ll probably try and pass by maybe this day at about this time¨. That way you don´t have to stop in the middle of a lesson or run across half of your area to get to their house. Instead, the culture usually just has the people let you in to share with them any time you happen to show up at their houses. But that has its downsides too as you show up and there still aren´t people there or when 3 visits in a row fall through, you quickly have lots of time with a lot less to do. But, you do your best. Try to be prepared and yet flexible. Planned and yet ready for anything. Makes things exciting.
We had another short term office addition this week. A sick Elder who got pulled out of his area far away to be closer to the doctors and on a better diet. Put with us until changes. Well, basically, it made things a little interesting here. Not to be rude, but its been a long time since any of us have been put with somebody that moved so slow, complained so much, was so bad at sticking to his diet, or distracted us as much from our work. haha. We tried really hard to be positive, but wow. It was a challenge that we werent really prepared for. That occasionally made things a little tense in the office. Thankfully Friday, after a good morning of weekly planning and homemade pizza for lunch, I got another fun day of errand running to do. Its nice because I´m now almost the most experienced office Elder, and so I have the most driving practice (it takes practice with such crasy streets), and I now have a pretty decent idea of where most of the areas and people are and such. So that puts me as one of the more designated drivers for now. Something I enjoy. Only had one close call with a very typical, Paraguayan style, unlabeled, invisible speed bump. But we came out alive. haha. So we got to do a huge route around the mission dropping things off, and helping people out with stuff. Had to drop off shoes, maps, teaching supplies, and buy some proselyting bags. Took all day. lol. Fun stuff. I remember that back in the day I hated errands, but now its one of the numerous benefits of being an office Elder, and help the work move forward in a different way. Don´t get me wrong though. Can´t wait to get back to the good life. Working on 100% missionary work day in and day out. Good stuff.
Side note, but when you´re with your comp for a really long time, you get to know a lot about their very unusual previous life. Anyways, my comp and the other office Elders have now seen Mamma Mia. All that good stuff. Anyways, Elder Thomson now requests a picture or two of ¨Elder Humphreys in Overalls hits up the beaches of Hawaii¨. But only if its not that big of a hassle. haha.
Anyways, that basically brings us up to today. Today was pretty tranquilo. Basically the boringest p-day in a while. But I guess thats not all bad. Typical soccer in the morning for exercises. Emails in the morning. Only got a bit done before going out for lunch. TGIFridays. Delish and expensive as always. Tried our best not to get distracted by the TVs, but I will say that Dakar and the X-games looks like something that I will be excited to watch on the big screen. AFTER the mission. Also, Elder Patterson kind of had a funny moment today that we kind of got involved in. I hate to share it and ruin the story. But basically one of the companions in the area nextdoor to them has had some sort of brain problems in the past. Tumors or something that seem to have been all fixed up. But his comp tried to wake him up this morning and for one reason or another he wouldn´t wake up. They had to call a taxi and rush to the hospital (more reliable than calling an ambulance). He was fine, just for some reason out of it. Finally woke up in the hospital. Somehow he had also had a sleep walking moment and shaved a large chunk of his hair and his eyebrow off. Weird stuff. Then I had to take Elder Patterson and his comp back home and whatnot. Crasy stuff. So that kind of took a large chunk out of the day. Oh well, we would have probably just wasted it playing sports or something anyways.
But yeah. That was kind of the week. All of our investigators are basically in  the same places because we couldn´t visit them this week. Lame. Oh well. Hopefully more results this week, and people in church. Wish us luck! - Aka, you can pray for us whenever you want :) But yeah. Changes this week. Should be crasy as always. Thankfully small groups leaving and coming. Good to go.
Anyways, gotta run and get some groceries. Love you lots! Thanks for the letters. Have a good one!

Elder Humphreys

The Office Week 19

We climbed a mountain

The other guys

The view from the "Mountain"

Me and the other mountain man Elder Pearson

True mountaineers

Howdy there. Hows everybody doing. Glad to hear things are good as usual. We had a pretty crasy week here with lots of fun adventures.We´ll try and see how quickly I can get them out. We still have to go home and get showered and everything before going to work...
But. Fun to hear its cold back at home. Thought that was fun. Have fun with the driving and keep up the good b-ball work. Funny because as the letters go on, I feel like I seem to know less and less of the places and people that you mention. Guess its been a while now and that I´m kinda out of the loop. lol. Hope you´re all getting excited for the trip and that it all goes well. I think you´re right though - as far as getting tickets to come find me, maybe just giving the lady at the MTC that books all the tickets a ring might be beneficial. Just so that everything works out smoothly.
This week was pretty interesting. Sunday was fun. We had people in church. AGAIN. It was a miracle. Unfortunately the people from last week weren´t able to make it this week, but we had a different investigator with whom we´ve been working for some time finally come to church. She really liked it. So thats great. She has this really complicated doubt where she wants to get baptized, but wants to wait first because her daughter is getting married in the catholic church, and is going to be SUPER offended if she doesn´t take the Catholic sacrament. But our investigator understands that once she gets baptized, she needs to be a representative of the church and of her beliefs at all times, and thus doesn´t want to mock God by participating like that in another church. She wants to be 100% committed forever. So thats cool, and yet, it keeps her from getting baptized right now. We´re going to try and see if she´ll be able to just not take the ¨communion¨ at the wedding. Pretty cool though.
That afternoon we got to go and do visits with the Bishop to see some members and investigators. That was really cool. He´s a great guy. Convert. Hard worker. Really knows how things are run. Returned missionary. Is a pharmaceutical representative guy that sells medicine to pharmacies. Likes heavy metal music. lol. Anyways, that was great to be able to go and do visits with him. It also worked out really well for him too - this week they had their very first EFY in all of Paraguayan history. The youth have been saving up money for a really long time and doing everything possible to be able to go. Well, since the program is new, there have been several mistakes, and a couple of kids didn´t get into the first session like they were promised. Turns out that they just got signed up for the second week. Well, the kids here just didn´t understand. There were major temper-tantrums from all sorts of kids who thought that it was their bishops fault that they wouldn´t be going at the same time as all their friends. People threatening to never go back to church and ridiculous stuff like that. So we got to go around with the bishop and help him explain to the kids that the world wasn´t going to end, people aren´t perfect etc etc. Fun stuff. Then we went and picked up the van from the assistants house. That was where we got hit with some fun news. President Arnold of the 70 decided that while he was here for EFY, he wanted to stop in and pay us a visit. Wow. That changed a lot of things. Zone conferences cancelled, and a special zone leader and President Arnold meeting planned. Crasy.
Monday. Good stuff. Had my quarterly interview with President. I really liked it. He showed me ways that I could improve, while still congratulating me on our new found success. Nice. He also gave me some new news that I wasn´t expecting - turns out that the Lord might have mercy on me and let me out of the office earlier than I thought. lol. As in President is thinking that probably mid-March I´ll be out of the office. Still a solid 4 and a half changes, but not the 5 and a half or 6 that sometimes fall upon the Financieros. Cool beans. Not that I don´t like the office. But just exciting to be able to get back out and work full days in the field again... something every oficinista dreams about.
Also had a fun FHE night with some members and investigators.  I think it went really well. Good stuff. With the same member family, we taught them later in the week and found out why they don´t all go to church - turns out that the parents who have been together for almost 60 years just fight all the time and never get along. It was hard and weird to try and counsel two Fully grown adults about how to be happy and get along. Ugh. Fortunately, we just were able to stick to following Jesus Christ and how that will help everything in the long run. Weird.
Not sure what I did all of the other days. It was weird. Its been a pretty tranquilo change and so I actually haven´t had tons to do in the office. But that did mean for some fun adventures this week. We had to go back to Mariano Roque Alonso to drop off a new cell phone for some Hermanas that got robbed. That was fun. Drive around and see places I was a year or more ago. I´m excited to go back and actually talk to some people. Then we got to run around like crasy trying to find a chapel that was both open and had long tables that we could borrow for the conference. In the end, we just had to go to the south mission office and borrow some there. Crasy how hard it is to find some basic tables in this country. lol
Had ward council the first time in a while. It was actually really cool though because it seems like the leaders are a lot more animated after such a long Christmas break. Everybody is excited since there are actually non-members in church and stuff like that. It was also fun because after the meeting we got to go out with the bishop again and visit some new members in the ward. They are from the states, and its exciting because they are actually really excited to work and help out in any way they can. I´m excited to see if we can help put them to work.
Had a weird experience Thursday night. We were out working and then President called us and told us that there was an Indian ¨Nivacle¨ person that was at some chapel and needed us to pick him up, take him to the bus terminal and then buy him a bus ticket. Its kind of a weird relationship that we have with them. They are sometimes very needy, or will come here for meetings without bringing money to get back home. Anyways, we all got in the car and searched him out in the South mission. Then we had to drive him around to all of these places. We bought him the ticket. Then he said that there was another ticket that he would need to get from where the bus stopped to his home. Then that he hadn´t eaten all day. President told me just about buying the ticket, but then everybody just told me that we needed to get him food, pay for his other ticket etc. Anyways, it was late and so we just trusted the guy and gave him some money for the ticket and some food. Oops. Turns out that he wasn´t even a member and that in the words of president ¨He probably just went out and used the money to by beer or something like that¨. Dang it. I knew that I shouldn´t just let him have it, but I gave in to peer pressure on that one. And my charitable side. lol. Anyways, lesson learned. NEVER just give people money on their word. lol. President felt bad because he didn´t tell me. I felt silly. Oh well. We learn.
Oh yeah. I got the package from Grandma and Grandpa btw. THANKS! I have all the pics up on my walls. I´ll have to remember to take a picture. And I get to drink my juice in the office every day. Love it.
Friday was kind of crasy. We showed up in the office and Elder Arnold was already at work teaching the zone leaders how things should be done. Intense. They had to come fasting, and so they had 5 straight hours of meetings. Where he talked the whole time. Wow. Pretty intense. Apparently it was super spiritual. We really wanted to be in there but weren´t invited. We were just at work as usual. But with the little bit of fear that if you got distracted from your work for even half a second, that President Arnold would be there to tell you to do your job better. lol. In the end, I only talked to him for half a second, shook his hand, and passed him in the hall once. haha. He´s a great guy and a very spiritual man. The craziest moment though was when the Hermana told us that we needed to bring her Presidents car. That meant going into the meeting, interrupting and getting the keys to the car. Thankfully Elder Thomson was willing to do that. President Arnold stopped the meeting and told him that he should be better prepared and not interrupt meetings like that. Ouch. I think I would have cried. haha. Thankfully once President found out why and told it to President Arnold, neither of them were mad. Close one. The best part: turns out that there was a spare key in Presidents desk all along.
That takes us up to today. Yesterday Elder Pearson went out on a limb and asked President for special permision to go to a city named Aregua and climb a hill called ¨Cerro Ko´i¨. The closest thing that they have to a mountain here in Paraguay. Surprisingly enough, he told us to ask the zone leaders who subsequently gave us permision. Wow. Super cool. So today we got to make a little road trip and do a small hike. In the end, the hike was really just a short walk. But the hill was really cool. It had some really interesting rock formations. Some guy told us that there are only 3 or so mountains in the world like it - apparently one is in Canada. I dont really know. Anyways, we got to go up there and take some fun picks. Great view. Maybe I`ll go back with dad if he wants. As usual, all of the pictures of me looked kind of stupid, but oh well. I sent you a couple. Enjoy. But yeah. Fun adventure of the day.
Anyways, that was the week. Tried our best to work with the people and get them ready for church. Hopefully more people go. Its sad because we still only get to teach a couple lessons a day with the limited time, and so there are less fun lessons to mention. But they are almost always great. I really like how me and Elder Thomson teach together. We are really trying to teach by the spirit, and I think most of the lessons go pretty well and that both us and the investigators leave edified. Its great to be able to share with the people and be a representative of Christ in all that we do. I`m excited to get back to the field, but at the same time, am really enjoying all of the adventures here. Should keep coming. I`ve realized how little time I really have left and so I`m doing everything to make the best of it. It really won`t be long at all before this is just a past memory. I love it, and I cherish every day of it.
Anyways, gotta run. Hope you have a great week. Love ya tons! Keep up the good work!
Chau!!!
Elder Humphreys

The Office - Week 18

Hey everybody. Hows it going? Glad to hear that all is well. Bad news - I just went to look for the notes that I usually jot down so I remember what happened this week.... well, looks like I forgot them at home. So hopefully I can remember the most important things that happened. Not that there was anything out of the normal as far as I can really remember.
Anyways. Sounds like things are going good back at home. Getting back into the swing of things. Lessons and practices. Good stuff. We´ve been going to a decent amount of those ourselves. lol. Didn´t get much soccer in this week, but today we played a bunch of this game that they play a lot here. Called ¨Piki volley¨. Its basically a cross between volleyball and soccer. We played the version with a short, maybe 2.5 foot net. Basically it has all of the same rules as volley ball, but you use your feet and head a lot more than they do in volleyball. And obviously no hands. Good stuff. You see a lot of people playing that in the neighborhoods and such. Its fun because we never would have had enough ball control back in the day to play it. But now we get some pretty good rally's going. But anyways, thats nothing too important. Good luck on the basketball! And the driving and the weather. lol.
So... what happened this week.... We had capacitaciones this week. Not sure how that translates. Basically, they were like mini-zone conference training meetings. That was good. I enjoyed what we learned a lot. Created a little bit more action in the office, but not too bad. Thankfully most of the meetings were out of office, and so it ended up being a really tranquilo week in the office. There were even a couple times where I found myself with very little to do. That got me thinking of my new goal: If there isn´t anything to do, think about how you can help your investigators or plan better of how to help them in the future. Often we get really caught up in the office work, and by the time we hit the street, I realize that I haven´t thought about our area all day, that we forgot to get more pamphlets or a Liahona or whatever, and that we aren´t as prepared as we could be to do our proselyting work. And so I think that helped us this week, as we had a little more time to prepare to work with the people. It also meant that I actually got in a little time to study the language and other stuff like that.
Other fun news. With little to do one day, that put us in place for designated drivers. That was cool because we got to run an errand pretty far away to a little town called Villa Hayes. The funnest part being that it is in the part of the country called the Chaco, which is basically the deserty unpopulated half of the country. I´ve only stepped in there once, and so it was fun to see some new stuff. It also meant that I got to drive past my old area and see a place that I haven´t been to in more than 9 months now. Benefits of the office. So that was cool..
We also got a new guy in the office today. Elder Thornton is out, and Elder Roberts is in training to be able to replace Elder Pearson in about 3 weeks. It´ll be sad to have Elder Pearson leave because we enjoy his company tons. But fortunately Elder Roberts seems like a good guy, and in the end, the change is good. We´ve all come to realize how hard it was sometimes having Elder Thornton with us. He was a great guy, but usually wanted things his way, and wasn´t the most obedient guy by any means. So although we miss him, things are a lot easier going here, people are a lot happier, and we´re all helping each other out to be as obedient as possible. Thats great. Obedience is always a personal decision, but you realize what a big affect people have on you when you´re with a companion all the time. If your comp wants to be disobedient, sometimes the best you can do is try and keep his nonsense to a minimum, and push him to work as hard as you can. But when your comp wants to be good, you push each other to be better. Something we all take note of when thinking about who will be our future wives. hahaha. Or maybe just about the friends we will choose to hang out with when we get home. Its always about associating with people that push you to be better than you are.
Had a super sad experience last night. It was raining on and off, and as we were walking down the street we found a bunch of baby kittens just sitting on the side of the street crying. We felt bad for them because they were abandoned, so we played with them for a couple of seconds. Just nudging them with our feet. Well, didn´t want to waste time, so we decided to let nature do its work. But then as we left, we found that we were being followed by one little kitten. It was running as fast as it could, following behind us, meowing. Awww. Every little kids dream. So we had to speed walk away trying not to cry as it got stuck trying to run across the uneven road. Poor little kitties....lol
What else. Oh. Our investigators. They are doing pretty well. I think. It was one of those weeks where you do everything you can to visit the people that are or should be progressing, but you basically just can´t find them at home or with time to talk. Lame. I think a lot of it probably had to do with the intense heat, followed by downpours and out of control humidity. Oh well. We did what we could. Tonight is our movie night. Hopefully it goes well. Supposedly people should start showing up in about an hour or so. But if we go by Paraguayan time, the majority will probably show up about an hour or an hour and a half after that. We invited all the members, investigators, everyone we know, and a bunch of people that we don´t know. We´ll probably watch the movie about Joseph Smith. The new one that's about an hour long. Hopefully the people like it, that people actually show up, and that it turns out as a success. We did get a chance to talk to our number one enemy this week though - Gabriela´s dad, who doesn´t want her to get baptized. Well, we were kind of expecting this evil bully-ish guy. But he turned out to be quite nice. And Gabriela has permission to come to the movie tonight as long as she can find somebody responsible that isn´t a member to go with. So hopefully things will keep improving with her. She has all of the faith, testimony, and understanding of a well seasoned member, but she just lacks the ability to follow what she nows to be true. Anyways, her dad seemed nice enough, and then when the conversation was ending we kind of had a silly moment. He was kind of saying bye, mumbling about something or other, and had his hand out kind of to the side. Seems that in the end, he was really just trying to point something out to us. Well, in one of those awkward misread situations, my companion got the mis-impression that he was opening up for a hug. hahaha. So Elder Thomson took it in full stride and gave him a big squeeze. haha. Fortunately the guy didn´t seem to mind too much. Maybe it softened him up a little bit too. lol.
Anyways... I can´t think of much else. We had a missing/runaway Elder situation at one point this week, but I wasn´t really involved in the rescue crew and so I´m still a little out of it as far as the details go. President has been doing interviews non-stop for the past 3 days, and has a ton lined up for this next week too. He came back really late from some and found out that not only did he have to interview almost 35 missionaries, but that there was even one that took a whole hour and a half to do. Wow. President works SUPER hard. Great guy. Had more fun listening to fun stories about how him and the Hermana met, and got together and dated and everything. Turns out that she met him a week before his mission, that they wrote letters for basically his whole time, then he got back. They wrote more letters because they lived far away, only dating once and a while. Then before they could get married, the Hermana went on her own mission. haha. Talk about patience. They must be good at writing letters or something because in the end, it seems to have worked out well. lol.
Oh wow. I forgot about one of the coolest things about the whole week. For the first time in forever, we actually had people in church! It was fantastic! We´ve been fighting forever and just waiting for the blessings. The coolest part though is that 2 weeks ago in his talk in church, my companion invited the people to fast for the missionary work. Well, last week was fast Sunday and some of the people actually took his invitation to heart. And wow. Did we ever see the blessings. One was an older getleman named Dario. The other two was a mom of about 40 and her daughter of about 24. As far as I could tell, all 3 really liked it. The members did a good job of getting to know them. Elder Thomson was kind of in charge of staying with them and answering questions. I kind of took the roll of finding people to say hi and make them feel welcome, and trying to get the rest of the things running smoothly. Turned out great. So I´m really hoping that they all can make it again. It was a real testimony builder though that fasting really does work and help. I don´t think it was any coincidence that the fast and the results happened in the same week. For the whole beginning of the week, the zone leaders and district leader were congratulating us on our great numbers, people in church and the like. But it all seemed so silly to me. They didn´t realize that we didn´t have basically anything to do with it. We did nothing different the last week. We just kept working hard as we could like normal, and I think the Lord just blessed us with what we needed. That and the fast put together was the true cause of our success. I´m just really thankful for the blessings that the Lord gives us. We talked a lot about that in the conference - as missionaries, we don´t have control of what success we get. True success is when we give everything that we got, we do all that we can do. And then the Lord blesses us and the people as He sees fit. Its not always something magical that we just have to do or change to all of a sudden just baptize tons of people. But what we can do is just put our whole hearts into it and leave the rest up to the Lord.
Anyways, I gotta get running. Change out of my gym clothes and start helping on the movie set up. Thanks for the letters, love and support. I now that this is the Lords work and that He is in control. That we are super blessed to be in His service, and I really do enjoy every minute of it. I hope you all continue to have a great week. Make good decisions, be good missionaries, and stand for what is right! Love you lots! Have a good one!
Elder Humphreys
PS. Tell my sisters that they can write whenever they want. If they haven´t forgotten about me already that is....haha

The Office - Week 17

Hi.
Hope this week was good for you all. We had a pretty good one here. Maybe not the most memorable or filled with crasy moments. But for the second week in a row now, we´ve been super blessed, and able to get a lot more work done in our area then we typically can. Things are looking up here in Campo Grande, and hopefully that can continue on in the coming weeks. For the first time in a while, it looks like we may actually have some investigators in church. Good stuff.
Last Saturday went well. We were able to meet a referral that President gave to us. He used to teach President Guarani, and the missionaries used to talk to him. But he never ended up getting baptized. But recently his wife just had a baby, they are going through rough times, and it looks like they are more prepared to accept the gospel. So thats cool. We´ll see how that goes. After that we got to go to Presidents house for the last super of the year. It was fantastic. The Hermana and her daughter spent basically the whole day just cooking for us. It was awesome. After which we got to watch the video that we made for all the missionaries with some pictures of all of them in it. That was fun. Maybe I´ll try shrinking it down and sending it to you.
Last Sunday on the other hand was a little bit funny. Church was at the typical time of 8AM, but unlike usual, there had been a LOT of partying going on the night before. So there basically weren´t any youth there at all, and that left the missionaries in charge of the sacrament. And I had to conduct like I do every week. And there was nobody there and prepared to teach Priesthood.... lol. But we managed, and it was actually one of the best weeks we´ve had in church for a while now.
After that.... I don´t know. Like I said, there wasn´t tons of crasy things that happened... But we did get to teach a lot of lessons. Were able to find an investigator or two that we haven´t been able to make contact with for a while. And I think I like it better that way. So thats been really nice. I´ve been able to have some really good study time too. I finally got my own copy of the conference Ensign and so I´ve been reading in that a bunch. Also I´ve been reading in El Libro de Mormon every day and have been loving that. Good stuff.
I guess there were some stranger moments though. We showed up at one part member families house justamente at the same time that there dog was having eye surgery. In the front yard. On a box. By some of the neighbors. Super professionally done. haha. Recently the dog had had babies, then got sick, then had flies lay eggs in its eye. One thing lead to another, somebody told the owner to put diesel in its eye, and I´m sure that helped.... lol. Anyways, by the time we had gotten there, there was nothing left of its eye, and half of its face was filled with maggots. And so we watched as the guy pulled out the maggots one at a time with a big pair of tweezers. It was pretty cool, not gonna lie. I think in the normal world it would have just been easier to put it to sleep, but the ¨vets¨ probably wanted to make more money, and so they went ahead and did the ridiculous surgery. That same night, Elder Thomson saw somebody that he thought we knew about a block away. It was dark, but he shouted and asked her where she was going, when she´d be back home. And then found out that it was somebody he had never talked to before. haha. I think she was probably a little freaked out. Thats alright though. Because I got it worse this week. I was at the place to pay the light bills, explaining my situation to this lady at the till, and out of nowhere, she just really loudly says ¨Ahh!! You have SUPER pretty eyes!!!! Hehehe!¨ Gosh. I just said nothing for a second, made a confused face, and then continued asking my question. hahaha. Sometimes people are ridiculous with the missionaries. Makes things more exciting though I guess. lol.
Worked hard in the office this week. Lots of errands to be run. Bills to be payed. People who need food. lol. There was a little problem last week that meant that the rent money for the houses didn´t get put on peoples cards until wednesday. Thus Monday and Tuesday my phone was ringing off the hook as almost every companionship in the mission called to ask or advise me that their card wasn´t working, or that I had made a mistake or that for some reason, they just couldn´t get the rent money off of their card. Ugh. The office does a great job of teaching you how to be patient. haha
Wow. I´m already out of ideas. Today we ate at a place called Paulistas. Its a Brazilian place near the office. I´ve only been there twice before since it costs a whopping $17 a person, which is almost enough to feed small Paraguayan family for a week. And it typically takes a huge chunk out of the money you have for the month. But today was Elder Thornton´s last day here in the office, so we went out and got a treat. Its SUPER good. People just walk around and bring you all sorts of cooked meat. Its all you can eat. There´s a guy that makes you personal salads, and another one that makes personal pasta dishes. All sorts of dessert. Legit. I´ll make sure that me and dad eat there in the time we have si o si. Afterwards we played some more indoor baseball and such. Now we just have to finish our emails, buy a little food and call it a day. Well, kinda. Then we´ll be out to work. Get people ready for church tomorrow. We were going to make some t-shirts, but looks like that will have to wait.
Glad you had a great week. Sounds like fun. Road trippin, and just hitting up the province sounds like a blast. Glad you made all of your trips safely. Hope you said Hi to everyone for me. My condolences to the Courts and Olsens, and hope sister Cooper is feeling better. Hope you all have a fun semester. Weird to think that there´s like one more semester and half the summer and I´ll be back. I don´t know how I feel about that. lol. Things are doing great here and are really looking up in our area. I´m really enjoying my time as a missionary and I love learning, coming closer to Christ and inviting others to do the same each and every day. Miss you lots, but staying as focused and diligent as possible. I know that this is the Lords work and that there is nothing more important than this. Always representing Christ in all things that we do, and helping everybody, whether they are family, friends or any other person to come unto him is one of the most rewarding things that we can do. I love this work, I love you all, and I hope that you all have a great week. Talk to ya next week!
Chau!!!
Elder Humphreys