March 3, 2014 - Week 9

Wow can you believe that I've been out here for 2 months already?! Time sure does fly... It also seems like it was just P-day.. Crazy! Well anyway, this week has been really good!

Things have been going pretty good. Just visiting everyone and loving it. Spanish gets easier and easier to understand and to speak everyday it seems like. So that`s good. I love the people so much. Like they are all just super nice and patient with the fact that I don`t always understand what is being said and stuff. Super patient. And they all just wanna talk all the time! We seriously never have problems with finding people to share our message with because everyone is just so open and willing to let us share a MICHIMI (that is "little" in Guarani!) message with them! So that is just really cool. Paraguayans are just so chill!

Houses in Conavi - super cute!

So Tuesday was alright. We didn`t really get a ton of stuff done because we just had a lot of things come up.. Then Wednesday it rained and I got to wear my rainboots! We had to walk from this place called Cañada to this other place called Conavi (places in our area) and that takes about 25 or 30 minutes to walk, and it was all muddy... So it was a good thing that we had our boots! It hasn`t rained too hard since I`ve been here, but I`ve heard from everyone that sometimes the streets are like flooded up to your shins... So we`ll see how that goes when that happens!

So I had an interesting day on Thursday. My companion has been sick with a cold for like a week and on Thursday, it was just really bad. The other Hermanas and I told her that she should get some rest so she could start getting better. So she slept the whooooole day (which was really good for her). BUT I actually still worked that day. We decided that I would go out with Hermana Hunt and we would work in BOTH of our areas to get some stuff done and that Hermana Hernandez would stay with my companion at home. So we did that and it was really fun! I just love Hermana Hunt. She`s hilarious and such a good missionary. We went out and visited some of her people and it was just really spiritual and good. Then, we were going to just visit some of the people that live in this one part of our area that we don`t really visit too often. So we go and visit with one family--super good lesson. And then we both had this feeling that we should go to Conavi to visit with this menos activo girl named Sabrina (her family is active, and she`s trying hard to get her life together and be active again). So we go to visit her and she`s home! We were worried that she would`t be because she has school at night. Anyway, we have a super good lesson with her about repentance and how there`s all this cargo when we sin and if we have the help of the Savior, it`s a lot easier and feels so much better when you don`t have the weight of sin.... Anyway... Super good. So that was a great day. I learned a lot from Hermana Hunt that day.

 

Then, Friday comes along and we end up having divisions! So the two Sister Leader Trainers, Hermana Tomco and Hermana Owen, come out to Itaugua and we had like a double division in our area. (Usually, they come out and one stays in the area that the visit with one of the other companions and the other takes the other companion from that area and they go to the area of the SLT--make sense?? Hahaha) So they just both stayed in our area and I went with Hermana Tomco and Hermana B went with Hermana Owen. It was so fun! I love Hermana Tomco! I know exactly why she is Sister Leader Trainer, too. Cuz she is a DANG good missionary! She is SO good at teaching the gospel in such a way that everyone can understand it and everyone is involved in the lessons... WOW it`s just super good. Plus her Spanish is just amazing! But it was really fun to spend a day with her and stuff. It was also cool cuz I totally know our area! She was really impressed that I knew exactly where to go and how to find my way around for only being out here for the time that I have. So that was pretty cool! ALSO, she is just a cool girl. She totally likes The National and other good music, so we got along pretty darn well :) And at the end of that day we went to one of our members homes (familia Flores--the family with the daughter Sabrina who is trying to change her life around) and had a party for Hermano Flores cuz he was just released as our Ward Mission Leader. So that was really fun too! We made him a cake, hahaha. They are a really cool family and the Hermana Flores washes our clothes every week. They`re awesome.

Hermana B, Hermana Whittaker, & first baptism of three ladies

Then on Saturday we went to a baptism for some of the Elders in our district. They had like 3 people getting baptized. That was pretty cool. Then that night we had a Stake Conference meeting thing, so all of the missionaries in our zone and a ton of members went and also our Mission President and his wife. So they showed this video.... So on Thursday, they told our district that they wanted to videotape our Ward Council meeting so they could show everyone what a really good example of a ward council meeting looked like. So I was in it. At the end all of the missionaries in our ward (three companionships) are talking about why it`s important to have the members involved in mission work. So when me and my companion come up, it`s just hilarious because she is speaking Spanish and I`m just nodding my head and smiling! Hahaha it was so funny, but you had to be there to understand just how funny it really was...... Anyway... We had one of the Hermanas that Hna B and Hna Hunt knew come over to our house and spend the night because her companion went home early on Saturday and she needed to go to the same place the next day for Stake Conference, so we asked President if that would be ok cuz it would be easier and he said yes. So she stayed with us. She`s so cute. Her name is Hermana Buss and she was in the CCM the same time as Hna B and Hna Hunt. We ate these chicken wraps called Lomitos that night, after the Stake thing, and they were so good. But I totally was eating the paper wrapper of the Lomito and didn`t even know until Hermana B pointed it out. Then everyone laughed. Haha what an idiot move! Anyway, it was pretty funny.... ;) Then we had Stake Conference on Sunday. It was really good and there were a ton of people there.

Today, we went to this place called San Lorenzo and ate at Pizza Hut with two other Hermanas (Hermana Buss and her brand new companion that she just got) and then went to this frozen yogurt place! I totally felt like I was in the States again for a minute cuz it was just like a YogurtLand and it was in this nice mall! So that was pretty funny.

 

Me holding a turtle at a members house!
Then Hermana B and Whittaker getting ice cream
after the baptism.

Things are going great! I am pretty stoked about this week. We are gonna get stuff done and I am going to just keep learning the gospel and the language! Wow... Already been two months. I can`t believe it`s March already. Tht`s like the 3rd month of the year! Wow... Anyways, I love you so much!

LES AMO MUCHISIMO!

LOVE, HERMANA WHITTAKER!