Concepcion, Paraguay (November 10, 2008)

Questions
Q: How far is the cyber cafe from your house where you email from? A: 2 min. walking.
Q: Do you ride buses a lot? A: There are no buses here. Well, there is one to go around the lil tiny city and one to go to other far places like back to Asuncion and Pedro Juan.
Q: Do you live in a house or apartment? A: It's a house behind the church. It's behind the church field on church property in the church gates.
Q: How many elders do you live with? A: 3 others.
Q: What's your companion's name and where's he from? A: Elder Sidwell, an American. He's from Utah.
Q: Are you learning Guarani? Is it hard? A: I'm starting to learn it. It's so, so, so, so hard.
Q: Are the people friendly to you there? A: Yea, they're really friendly.
Q: How long has your companion been serving in that area? Does he know Guarani? A: For 4 months. He knows it okay, like simple things.
Q: What do you eat? A: Cereal, rice, eggs, bread, pringles, stuff....
Q: Have you eaten any more gross parts of cows? A: No, not this week. I'm going to eat crocodile soon though.
Q: Is your shower like your last one? A: Yup!! But worse cause the wires don't have rubber on them so if you touch them you will get shocked.
Q: Has it still been raining a lot this week? A: Well, just about up to my knees. Q: Do you have lots of mosquito bites? A: About 100.
Q: Are there any cool, different animals where you are now? A: Not really. If I went outside the city I could find lions and leopard and stuff, cause we are like in the Chaco.
Q: Is it a ward there or branch? A: A branch. We had 3 people in church including us total for the first meeting, 5 in the next, and 16 in the last.
Q: Is the area you're in now as pretty as Luque? A: A lot prettier. It's a lot of fields.
Q: What kinds of houses do the people there live in? A: In one part plastic bags with wood and signs and in other parts the normal wood ones.
Q: Do you like this area? A: LOVE IT
Q: Why is this area one of the "dream areas" of the mission? A: Cause it's really humble, the people are nice, it's far away and just an AMAZING area.
Q: Do you walk as much as you did in Luque? A: Like way more, cause we have 2 branches that we're in charge of.
Q: Do members have you over for meals? A: Yeah, everyday except Wednesday. Q: Do you feel safe in this area? A: Yeah, I do.
Q: How's the missionary work going? Any serious investigators? A: Yeah, kinda. This little Indian girl, but we have to help her mom first.
Q: Will you still see your Mission President every 6 weeks? A: Yeah, we have to travel though.
Q: Does someone do your laundry for you? A: Yeah.



Well this week was a good week overall. Saturday was the hottest day I think I have ever felt. We left the house about 11 in the morning and began to work. That day we didn't take a lunch or dinner break like we can. But from the moment we left I was sweating not like a lil but a TON!!! Like I was soaking wet and there was no shade. But I have never worked so hard ever. Me and my comp really had to push ourselves cause we had to walk miles and miles, from 1 side of our area to the other because we had to visit people. But then we got ice cream. Then after working really hard we were expecting to have a ton of people in the church but that day when we woke up we went outside and it was raining really, really hard. So me and my comp were very disappointed cause when it rains like that people don't go to church because when I say rain, I mean rain. Like up to our knees almost. So then we went to church which is about 20 feet from our house. There was 1 person there. But then more people came. Like 5 came to the second meeting and then by the end of church there were 16 people there.

On Monday almost during the night me and my comp went to the Virgin Mary to take pictures. The gate was locked so we asked this guy if could open her for us cause you have to climb this stair thingy to get up. So he let us in and then I guess he forgot about us and locked the gate so we were locked in there with the Virgin. Then we look down from the top of her and see this guy waving at us and telling us to go the bottom and he let us out. He told us he thought we left so it was funny.
But yeah this week was a really hard week, dying from heat and then going straight into the rain up to my knees. In this part of Paraguay there are a TON!!!!!! of bugs. Well that is my life for right now. Love you all a lot.