One More Week... and a Baptism!

Mon., 4/24/2017 (Yby Yau)

Its been some fun times here in Yby yau. Last Monday after writing y'all, I went and visited a couple people with the other American in my zone, Elder Entze. We stayed the night with him and his companion, Elder Salazar from Peru. Tuesday we had our meeting, and then we wanted to get Elder Castro's bike fron the bike shop, but they didn`t have it ready so we had to go back in the night. We had another division, and I worked with Elder Salazar for the day. The bike guy ended up not starting the repairs, so we had to stay another day. Wednesday in the morning we got to go home finally. Friday we had a division, and I went with Elder Villacresses in Pedro Juan. His area there is pretty cool. It`s really big, and they have a prison that we passed by that has a wall blown up. We had a pretty successful day, with about 8 lessons or so, and it was great to be with Elder Villacresses. He is a good teacher, and I learned a lot. Saturday we filled up the baptismal font, which took all day, and the water only got up to knee height. It`s a miracle because there isn`t water here. It rained all week and somehow there hasn`t been water all week. Sunday really early we had the baptism of Sandri, a 12 year old girl who lives with her Aunt and Uncle who are members. After her baptism, we had church. Of the 30 people who came to church, 10 were investigators. We are hoping to get a lot done here soon! Today for Pday we hiked and climbed Cerro Memby. It is one of the scariest things I have ever done, it`s basically climbing straight up a big rock. We all survived and it was a lot of fun. I hope you all have a good week!

1 Making chipa last week

2 The oven

3 My chipa

4 The oven with chipa inside

5 Prepping some mate dulce, a drink with milk and coconut

6 Putting the chipa in the oven

7 The finished chipa!

8 Drinking mate dulce with Elder Castro

9 with the zone leaders

10 Hna Bogado, who let us make chipa with her

11 with Elder Albornoz from Bolivia

12 This is what empanadas look like

13 Elder Castro, E Ollero, random Assistant to President from Brazil, E Torres, other A.P. from Brazil, me, Elder Entze and Elder Salazar

14 The juice here is a lot better than in the United States

15 I wouldn`t advise driving your smart car down this road in Pedro Juan Caballero

16 Elder Villacresses was a little tired in the colectivo after our division

17 HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! (for Sandris baptism)

18 Saying goodbye to Hermano Paiva. He is moving

19 Baptism!

20 Same!

21 When I say there is a shortage of water in Yby yau right now, I mean it. Their knees are where is the water

22 We found a cool statue

23 The main event for Pday

24 CERRO MEMBY

25 Cerro Memby

26 same

27 same

28 nice views from the side

The pictures from here on are all going to be from Cerro Memby

BUENOS TARDES SENORS Y SENORAS

Mon., 4/17/2017 (Yby Yau)

Once again we had an eventful week. Monday we made chipa. It´s a kind of bread that I can´t really explain but it´s heavier than regular bread. It´s some pretty good stuff. We also had mate dulce to go with it.

Mate dulce is a drink approved for missionaries, and is easy to make. You just need to mix milk and sugar and heat up. Fill a cup with shredded coconut and pour in the hot milk. Drink with a filter straw to keep the coconut in the cup.

We stayed the night with the Zone leaders, then had district meeting. I had another division with Elder Ollero, then went home Tuesday night. Wednesday we went to find some new people and also the Assistants stopped by to pick up Elder Castro´s bike, which doesn´t work because an unnamed Elder hit a tree with it. Wednesday night we went to Pedro Juan, because early on Thursday we had interviews with President Evans early in the morning. We were going to stay with Elders Vasquez and Andrango from Rama 3. We may or may not have gotten lost in the process. Thursday we got up early, and had interviews. We played Ping Pong in the mean time. I ended up making it into the final 4 of the zone. The zone conference went well. We learned a lot about working with the church members, and applying the teachings to my area, putting the members to work. Hermana Evans has been on the warpath with house inspections. She will continue to have a couple of random inspections in every zone every 6 weeks, so hopefully everyone will keep their houses clean. She asked me to share my story of the house in Yby yau as part of her lesson. There is a new mission nurse this week, and she talked about general health guidelines. The assistants went and bought Pizza Hut, so we got some real pizza! After the conference, they gave us a ride home to Yby yau. The bike will stay in Pedro Juan while undergoing repairs,so we have been on foot all week. Thursday evening we had a dinner for Easter in the chapel, followed by an activity where 1 person is in the middle and other people have to make animal noises and the person has to guess who. It´s cool here because the people have fun playing the most simple games. We also went home to find a tree on the roof. We started cutting off branches and such, but encountered some problems as the tree had snagged a powerline. Friday we were able to get the tree cut up, and the powerline restored to its position. We tried to go get food to eat lunch but EVERY STORE WAS CLOSED. Welcome to Paraguay on Good Friday. We finally found one place that was open, but we had to buy our food at a very steep price. We also met a cool new family to teach. The mom, Rosa, was very nice and started talking to us, and one of her daughters, Rosanna, has been looking for the truth all her life (22 years or so) but they had never talked to the missionaries before. The other members of the family also listened in. They also gave us some chipa. Everyone this week gave us chipa hahaha. I have come to learn that some chipa is really really good, and some is really really bad hahaha. Saturday we cleaned the church, and also played soccer with the youth. Sunday we got some rain. Paraguayans don´t like the rain. We normally have around 30 or 35 people in church, but this week we had 11. While cleaning, we encountered a program from the Branch president (a missionary) from one Sunday in 2015 when they had a total of 4 people in church (there were 4 missionaries here back in the day). Today we are in Pedro Juan again for Pday. It was fairly uneventful, but we met the assistants from the mission on the other side of the Brazilian border. They were driving around looking for missionaries from our mission, to get the number of Elder Vasquez, who they had somehow heard has a ponytail during his mission (he is indigenous for Ecuador and has special permission from President Monson). They wanted to get a photo with him. It was pretty random, but that´s none of my business. Tomorrow we get to get the bike back to take home.

I would like to share something with you all. Please read this story and apply it to your life. There once was a couple, in a small branch of the church in Paraguay. They wanted to get baptised, but need to get married to get baptised. They need identification cards to get married. They need papers to get ID cards. They need Birth certificates and authorizatiuon from their tribal chief to get papers. They don´t live near their tribe. They need money to go to these places to get these things. They don´t have money. They reallllllllllllly want to get baptised. They still don´t have money. With all this, they want to pay tithing. When told that they can´t because they aren´t members, they still try to pay tithing. This story is true. Think about your life, and about what you could do to think of ways to be more obedient, not for ways that you can´t be obedient. We can all be more obedient. We can all give the widow´s mite, and we should! I have seen the happiness from following commandments and rules. I know you can too. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

1 Last Pday with the Zone leaders, Elder Albornoz from Bolivia and Elder Villacresses from Ecuador

2 We walked an hour and a half to Shopping China, and Elder Villacresses couldn´t handle the heat hahaha

3 Brassssssilllllll

4 Pday event, shopping Chino. It´s basically a big Walmart that has stuff from all over the world, and it´s all the name brands of stuff. Everything there is normally super expensive.

5 We made Chipa with Hermana Bogado from Rama 5 in PJC. Sadly, I am unable to send all the other photos from making chipa. I´ll try to send them when I can

6 Eating lomitos. Imagine a burrito with just grilled chicken and steak, with a bit of lettuce and such

7 I made a chipa for Justin jackson and the crew (Its a GDTBATH!)

8 The assistants´ truck has a snorkel for the air intake

9 Elder Crofts (assistant to the President) is leaving this change, so he wanted to get some red dirt on his last trip to Pedro Juan caballero

10 The other assistant, Elder Fairbanks, may or may not have stumbled on a beehive

11 A couple of branches of the tree that fell on our house

12 Easter(Semana Santa) dinner at church

13 same as 12

14 same as 12

15 same as 12

16 I encountered this classic this week! This is me back in December with Elder Bridge

17 My best friend

18 Hermano Paiva. He is leaving us to go work in the Chaco for 6 months

President and Hermana Evans have a blog for the mission too and it´s pretty cool if you all are interested. The link is paraguayasuncionnortemision.blogspot.com

Have a good week!

Say your prayers!

Read your scriptures!

I love yall!