So where to begin. This last week was crazy!! So I left the MTC on a Tuesday I think haha. I can't remember and the flight to Paraguay went well. The flight was nonly about 2 hours. So we got to the airport and the Mission President picked us up and we all got our visas which took about an hour for everyone to get which was really short. After that, a couple office missionaries picked us up. So the rest of the night we had a couple meetings and we just stayed at the office. The next morning we met our trainers woooo! My trainers name is Elder Ortiz. He is from Paraguay. He is fluent in Spanish and Guarani yea!!! So that was exciting. So I was a little dissapointed at first b/c they said that there wasn't to much guarani in the city except for a couple areas. But it just so happens that I was called to one of those areas yea!!! My area is called CAAGUAZU. It's about 4 to 5 hours from the city so we took the bus out there on Wednesday and we got here like around evening. We kind of live in the city part but our actual area is about a 30 minute walk from where we live. So Thursday was the first day we actually went out to work and it was crazy haha. So we were probably out for about an hour and then it just started to rain. But we had to walk aobut 35 to 40 minutes to get to our next appointment so we got 100% soaked haha. It was a cool first day. We were seriously soaked from head to toe because when it rains here it pours! Like it wsa crazy you should have seen the streets. They were just completely flooded with water because there is no drainage system out here. So a little bit about the area I work in. It is crazy poor here! There have all dirt roads and your house is considered nice if you have a concrete floor. THe very first house we taught alesson in we walked in and it was about as big as our living room. Maybe a little bigger and 11 people living in it! How crazy is that?! It's basically just a shack. All the floor was dirt and they had two light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. THere living room(I'm surprised they had one)was about 1/3 the size of my room at home. Anyways that's what most of the houses are like mas o menos. But some are a little nicer. Some are a little worse. So the food. The food so far has been pretty good. THere is this stuff called chip. It's really common here. We have eaten a decent amount of that. It's pretty good. I like it atleast. But I mean everything we have eaten has been pretty good. We've had two meals with members and they were both decent. We have made some pretty good food here in the apartment. We made nanana bread twice. It was delicious. Also the money here is wierd haha. Its called guaranis and 100,000 guaranis is 20 bucks. Everything well almost everything is really cheap. We bought a whole chicken and some potatoes for 15,000 which is about 3 dollars american money. So this week was really slow investigator wise. We have a family we are teaching with 3 couples that all are not married and have a problem with the law of chastity. THe law of chastity and the word of wisdom re the biggest problems down here. But we got them to church and started them on the rpentance process. The hard part is that they are all living toghether. They want to get married but don't have the money so they are going to try and save up. We will see what happens. But anyways we haven't done a ton of work because we had to travel to Asuncion again last Friday which took out a whole days work and then Saturday we had to stay in the apartment all day because they were fixing the drainage problem. Haha, we had a little drainage problem. So the first day when we got back from working we got home and there was literally poopy water all over the kitchen and main floor hahaha. It was bad so we cleaned that up and on Saturday they came and fixed that problem. But an;yways this week we are hoping to do a lot better. Our goal this week is to have at least 10 baptismal dates set and I think it was 7 investigators to church. I think we can do it. We just have to work hard. Anyways the language! The language is crazy haha. Spanish is good. It's going really good. But nobody speaks spanish haha. Its all a mix of spanish and guarani. It's insane. So i can understand a decent amount if its just spanish but if they throw in the guarani I'm lost haha. But I am learning from my companion so thats good. I'm so glad I got someone who can already speak fluently in guarani. So that way he can help me! The hardes part about it is the pronunciation. Its crazy
Pictures:
1st - guys who live in my apartment. The one next to me is Elder Ortiz
2nd- view from outside my window
3rd-going to Caaguazu!
4th-the city in Caaguazu