Its true, I am alive and well. Paraguay is nuts! Mother, I am writing in a journal and have only missed two days of my mission so far even though they were both in the mtc and all my entries about the mtc are the same haha. But yeah its different here, a lot different.
So starting on monday the 28th the day i left. sorry for the bad punctuation, it bugs me a lot but i cant do anything about it on this computer. so monday the 28th we left the mtc at about 10:20ish and drove in a charter bus to the airport. from there we flew to dallas tx and chilled for a little while until we got on the biggest plane i had ever been on to fly to brazil. so we fly all night long to brazil and i could not sleep at all. it wasnt nervousness or anything I just could not get comfortable. but its ok because like none of us could sleep so we all just talked. and they let us get up and walk around and sit on the ground next to our friends or whatever so we did that. So we land in Brazil on tuesday morning at around 9 am brazil time. so we get off the plane and barely anyone speaks spanish, only portuguese. So we had to figure out where to go by reading portuguese signs and stuff so that was interesting. but we made it and still had about 3 hours to spare. so we laid on benches and took naps. brazil was pretty cool looking from what i could see from the airport but mostly all i saw was the tarmac and it just looked like any other airport. and the sao paulo airport was nothing like an american airport. well kinda, but really ghetto. anyways. so we finally get on a plane to paraguay land in asuncion 3 hours later.
The first thing i notice is how hot it is. I was missing the heat so much. Provo was so stinkin cold i hated it. so i met president Callan and his wife in the airport and then the office elders who drove us back to the mission office. we got to the mission office and then had some dinner. we had what is called Milanesa. Its this big huge piece of meat that is covered in some kinda sauce that i didnt know what it was and then some wierd mashed potatoes and then the best orange juice i had ever had. so that was interesting, its a true paraguayan meal i guess. so then we had some orientation stuff and president interviews. then we finally got to go to bed in the mission office. there is like a room with some bunk beds that we all slept on.
The next day we had some more orientation stuff and then we met our trainers and our companions for the next twelve weeks! my comp is named Elder N. and he is from California. He is really cool and teaching me a lot. So then we got in a taxi and took off to our area.
My area is called Lucerito. We have a ward here and 4 elders in this area but each companionship lives in a different house. we have i think 3 other companionships in our zone and stake but they live in a different area so we will only see them at district meetings and stuff like that.
So some cool stuff that happened this week. My very first day I did a contact in spanish! That was pretty cool. I was pretty comfortable with my spanish when I left the mtc so it wasnt too scary but i was a little nervous. we have to do 20 contacts a day so its not even scary anymore. we only contact men and not usually young men so its tough sometimes to find people to talk to. But yeah our lessons were pretty good. we have a recent convert named E. who we teach and she is really nice. We also found a family that the wife was baptized when she was 14 or something and she has been inactive ever since and she is now probably 35 or something. so we teach her and her husband. The two times we have been at her house she has made us peach juice that is so good! She just takes a can of peaches in the syrup and everything and puts it all in a blender and then thats the juice! its sooooooooooooooooo good. i highly recommend it.
Church was interesting. It was fast sunday so we had testimony meeting and the guy who was conducting asked me by name to bare my testimony from the pulpit! hahaha so yeah i did that. that was funny. then there wasnt a teacher for gospel principles class so us 4 elders taught and we taught two new converts about the millenium. hahah i didnt say anything. our distict leader is from mexico so he taught because his spanish is the best.
so yeah thats about all that happened. my area is really wierd. some people will be driving around in brand new cars like nice cars and then on the other side of the road you have a guy with his horse cart picking up plastic to recycle for money. crazy stuff. but most people are nice and when we ask if we can come visit them later they always say "no hay problema" so thats cool. but then they are never home. we walk a lot. tomorrow i am taking my first public transportation to district meeting. the streets are crazy. lots of motorcycles and now speed limits or anything. i saw 4 people on a motorcycle with the mom holding a baby in one hand and groceries in the other hand. crazy stuff.
i will attach some pictures from this week of my apartment and of me and my comp.
The church is true, even in paraguay. testimony meeting was awesome. there arent many life long members in this area but everyone that comes to church every week is very strong in the church. everything is good and i will talk to you next monday! attach píctures to emails!
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