Some Things I've Done So Far...

 

It's almost been a solid 4 weeks and to be honest, I still have no idea what I'm doing. But I will say this, my Spanish and overall understanding of everything that goes on around here has gotten a lot better. That 75% I made on my Spanish 2 Final Exam really shows up here when I am talking to these people. Ha! Honestly, I don't do a ton of talking. The person I am now is not the person I used to be. I used to butt heads with this Elder I used to live with. I think it's because he saw me as the Elder who always had something to say. And really that's who I was. I was always that kid with a joke (chiste) or a comment. But now I am the Elder with nothing to say. It's stressful sometimes but I'm not too worried. My whole mentality whenever I talk to someone or at least try to talk to someone is I have nothing to lose. I don't know these people, they don't know me. If I screw up, nobody is gonna die.

My old Swim coach emailed me and said, 

 "I can’t imagine you being quiet and not chiming in with your witty comments…you don’t think about that until you can’t speak the language, can’t laugh at jokes, no one can understand your comments, etc…. But again, it's all about being there, being present, and the relationships formed – spoken or unspoken…I know I have learned that this year in my small world with the swimmers."

Despite everything that I can't do, I really like this place. My Zone takes up almost half of the mission and my area is one of the smallest areas in the mission. It's because the main centro of Encarnacion and a little barrio called Cambyreta are the only main places that take up my area. It's still about a 3 hour walk if you're going fast from end to end...not tooo bad. 

I went on exchanges twice in the past 2 weeks, and I was honestly kinda bummed. Even missing one day in Encarnacion rama uno was pretty sad. But it was pretty sweet that I got to be with some junkies. A junky is basically the equivalent to a gringo here but it's kind of a loose term because in Paraguay, especially in Encarnacion, there is a lot of diversity. I went up to someone who looked completely North American one time and was like, "Yooo! What's up?" And he just looked at me and said he didn't speak English. That was kinda tough. There are many Koreans and Japanese people here living in their own communities. I don't really trust the sushi here though--Paraguay is nowhere near an ocean. But yeah, just tons of different people here. Also this is where all the college kids come to party. It's kind of sad walking to church on Sunday and just seeing a bunch of empty bottles of cerveza all along the sidewalk. But hey, it's summer here. Also fun fact: one Elder in our district has only served his mission in the summer. He was here a year ago when everything went down and left right as winter was approaching. He stayed home and then was re-assigned to Arizona for the summer again. And now he got back here right as summer started again. It's alright though, you think it's too hot until you take that cold shower in the morning. 

So, I was in this area called Itapasu which is way out in the middle of the campo. We had to ride all the way until the end of the collectivo (bus) route just to get close. Collectivo rides are kind of sketchy and the timing is always super poor. The collectivos usually come around to this one stop every 30 mins or so unless they just don't come which has happened a few times. Definitely have already had my fair share of miracles.  Like one time a bus happened to pass by right at 19:00 which is when they stop coming. But yeah, in Itapasu there's this member and I don't really know her name but everyone just calls her Mama Chino. Why? Because everyone in Itapasu is related to her somehow. She is one of the funniest people I've ever met, and she's always down to do one thing. Missionary work. She was out with us for like 3 hours and I'm not a huge "numbers" guy, but that day was pretty impressive. Mama Chino has absolutely no problem with straight up asking people if they want to hear about the Prophet Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon. I think it's just because the whole town knows or is related to her. Anyway we almost had too much fun working with Mama Chino and missed the bus straight from Itapsu. Somehow we found out that there was one more before 7 on ruta 2. So Elder Harmer and I (the Elder I was on exchanges with) booked it down to ruta 2. The roads in Paraguay in nice places are asphalt but most of the time they are like these flat cobblestones or just dirt so its kind of a miracle my ankles are still intact. Those cross country practices finally paid off. We ended up making that bus and it was a good thing because then we ran into some other member. But yeah, a lot went down in Itapsu that day.

But not as much as Alejandro Barboza...

There's a street super close to our pension named after Alejandro Barboza idk who that is but this street is literal gold. We have found like 7 people on just this one section of that street and 2 solid member families live there too. My companion, Elder Chamorro, is probably one of the very best at street contacting. He's a native Paraguayan and idk he just speaks their language. It's like every time I try to talk to someone they are always like 'nah fam' but then Elder Chamorro swoops in and by the end of the whole thing we have the guy's number and he wants to meet with us the next day. Most of the time the people are nice here. They are always offering us terrere which is basically cold mate which would probably smack on a hot day but it's a mission rule that we can't drink it. Probably because it's served with a metal straw that gets passed around to different people. Kinda sucks though. We can't even make it in our own house.

Some other things I've done so far:

 

taught a lady how to make brownies

saw this really derpy looking dog (Toby) kill a kitten

talked to a guy who moved to Paraguay because of the Sandinistas

taught Elder Chammorro the term 'bush league'

almost got scammed by a guy on the phone in the middle of the night

saw a burger king out of nowhere

helped paint a tire that was being converted into a dog bed (for Toby)

made my own peanut butter

helped my companion get a worm out of his foot

almost dropped all my guarani on some protein powder, but I decided not too (really tempting)

went to a valentines day party

drank the water 

emptied a can of raid in the bathroom because there were wayyyyy to many bugs in there

and last but not least scrubbed all the dirt out of my shirt collars. My shirts look PRISTINE.

I know I said I don't really know what's going on and that's true sometimes, but I really am enjoying the work out here. I have a firm belief that this is where I am supposed to be right now. It's not easy and sometimes getting out of bed in the morning and putting my tired feet on the ground is the worst, but it gets easier everyday.