Thursday, August 31, 2017

WE'LL WE NEED A NEW ROOF FOR THE CHAPEL...

Mon., 8/28/2017 (Neuland)

Well it sounds like everyone got crazy weather! Y'all with the hurricanes and rain and us with... no rain. But we have moved into the 40s (Celcius) (100s in F) for the summer, and apparently in my area it went above 50 Celcius a few times. Fun stuff. Anyways, we had a zone conference Tuesday, and it was super good. About 70 missionaries were there, including 3 zones, and we learned a lot about using time effectively, and having a better companionship. Elder Schmidt from my MTC group is a zone leader in one of the other zones, and he and his companions taught about using better questions. After the conference, we got to talk to a lot of other elders for a few minutes, and I got to see a lot of old faces, including Elder Tesucun and Elder Villacresses. We took a colectivo home to Neuland, which took a looooooooooooooooooot longer than the other one, and we got in around 6am. We had an interesting load of work this week; we had to get the Branch's financial records straight and all that good stuff and we don't have the authority to do anything without the branch presidency and nobody has/answers their phone. It was a little hectic but it was a lot of fun. In the end we couldn't get quite everything worked out, so the branch wasn't able to attend the district conference in person, but we got it set up so they could stream it in the computer. The members in Paraiso, well we haven't been able to get in contact in about a week.. woops.. but we should be out there for a little while this week. Saturday we had a few meetings and interviews and such in Abundancia (another area that has the biggest chapel I've ever seen in Paraguay in the middle of NOWHERE with 56 church built houses) so we had to go out there. Elder Brower and his companion are really getting into exercise so we joined them for the evening. There was a lot of wind and a ton of lightning, and it even rained! For 30 seconds then it stopped hahaha. We were going to bed at 10:30 when we got a call, and the chapel in Neuland just lost the roof, the air conditioner, and a lot of other damage. Apparently there were VERY strong winds in the area, and all the power was out. The northern side of Paraguay church repairman (and Boqueron district counselor) and the schoolteacher (who the next day got sustained as district secretary) and Elder CastaƱeda and I piled into a truck and we sped over to Neuland to rescue the computer, documents, and everything else. The computer got a little wet, as there was no roof for a little while. We went looking for the roof and came across a couple of other roofs in the process. We went to our house as our roof is not stable, but there was no damage. 2 trees in the front of our house fell, so I am very glad they took the blow and not our house. We got home around 1 am and went right to bed. Sunday we had district conference, and the district had a LOT of changes in leadership. Apparently the new leaders are really going to be great, so we are excited to work with them. Sunday evening we had to run a few kilometers to catch the only bus that came all day. We are now in Loma Plata, another German founded city here in the Chaco. It's honestly a lot of fun here, and we are getting a lot done. We should have a couple of baptisms coming this week if we can get transportation for our investigators. We are really seeing the blessings with the people here, and their desires to come closer to Christ. That's really a good thing to do; think to yourselves, what can I do to come closer to Christ? Think on that for the week!

Pictures:

1 With 3 of my companions at our zone conference

2 With Elder Tesucun(my second trainer) and his trainer Elder Villacresses

3 They let our district loose in Asuncion

4 Where Elder Castaneda is from, it doesnt go above 28 Celcius, so he really wanted a photo hahaha

5 Nightly exercises in Abundancia. I don't know if you'll be able to find it, but the story of that place is really cool

6 We got the call around 10:30 Saturday that the chapel roof blew off...

7 Yeah...

8 I think there's something missing in the branch President's office... Oh wait, the roof!















9 It was pretty crazy... pretty windy too. Luckily we were able to rescue the computer, but we still don't know if it will ever work again because it also rained a bit

10 Well we did find the air conditioning unit...

11 and the light bulb didn't break! They're pretty expensive here.

12 We thought we found the roof but...(wait til 13)

13 It was actually someone else's. Here's part of the chapel's roof.

14 The Chaco Elders, Pte and Sister Evans, and the Assistants

15 We had to run a few kilometers to catch a colectivo

16 Walking to where we are writing y'all right now, (which is about a 45 minute walk) some guy in a truck that we met a couple pdays ago in a different city gave us a ride. MVP

I love y'all, thanks for the emails and prayers!

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