This country I swear

For the first time in my entire life, I actually used an entire can of bug spray. At one point I was breaking off the cap and trying to get the last few drops out. In all my years of Scout Camp and camping with family and friends I never thought I would see myself actually finishing off a can of bug spray. I would always buy a can and then use some of it and then lose it or start spraying it on a fire or something dumb like that. To think of all of that precious bug spray I wasted. It's a shame. Especially lately because in the last 20 lessons or so I have found myself brushing spiders off of my arm. Every single lesson it's a new type of spider. It doesn't even matter if it's inside or outside. It's a miracle I haven't been bitten yet! 

In Cambyreta and across the bridge in Rama 2 a lot of the roads are just dirt, so it's pretty easy to spot some interesting stuff. I like playing this game with my comp called "broken glass or crystal." 99% of the time it's just broken glass but there have been a few times where we have found some really sweet looking crystals. I always save them because there is this member who has a rock garden and she said that she's trying to find as many crystals as she can for it. I have a super big crystal that I had to break out of a termite hill. It's super dirty, but it's been soaking in some laundry detergent for a couple of days so I hope that it gets all clean. 

A lot of people have been asking about the food here. Many of you may think that I only eat rice and beans. At least 3 people have emailed me like, "How are them rice and beans everyday? Hahaha!" The truth is, you find rice a lot but beans are almost never eaten. In fact, they are kind of shunned. This lady said she wanted to feed us and so we were like "esta bien" and then she brought out this big ol' pot of rice and beans with Paraguayan cheese--the cheese is apparently a big thing around here. I thought the food was super good but Elder Chamorro was like, "this is weird because nobody eats beans here." I think it's because a lot of people consider beans a substitute for meat, and if you take away meat from a Paraguayan you are playing with fire. Anyway that's when I realized that it's super rare to find beans. When you do come across beans, they all look the same. If you really want to find beans here you should ask the total of 5 vegans that live in this country. 

My companion had to give a baptismal interview in a really far away area. Nothing like walking for 30 minutes, taking a bus for an hour, and then waiting outside a random house for 20 minutes--just to take the long trip back again. Actually, I thought it was awesome. The guy getting baptized is a freaking legend. But while he was getting interviewed, I had to listen to a lady go on about how her dog got pregnant out of nowhere and she now had like 30 puppies that she didn't know what to do with. She was like, "do you want one?" We told her we couldn't take care of them. What a shame because they were only 5 mil each (less than a dollar). And then she forced us to like look at this beehive she had. I hate bees because it feeds on my fear of needles. Bees are like flying insects that have needles that they want to stick inside of you. So yeah, not my favorite thing in the world. But she gets a lot of free honey so that's dope. But yeah that's pretty normal for a day trip to Itapaso. 

I really wish I had taken a picture of was a termite hill that I destroyed. Termite hills are freaking everywhere and there was one that just got on my nerves for some reason, so I decided to give it a good kick. I think I originally thought it was just a random pile of dirt. Boy was I wrong. It looks like these termites have a gray cement stuff that they line the inside of their hill with. Some of the most fascinating architecture I have seen. I don't really know why I decided to write about this. Maybe it's for some wise purpose that I just don't know, like Alma. 

Classic missionary story: We taught a pastor from another Church and at first I was like, "oh great, here we go again another hater." But this was one of the most interested people I have ever taught. I'm not sure if he's actually the main pastor, but we are pretty sure he's in a leadership position in some other congregation. He sells fried chicken for a living too. It's a "special" fried chicken called millanessa. They put it on a hot dog bun and call it a hamburger so idk. This country I swear. So close sometimes, but so far away. (When I ordered a pizza with Elder Watson on divisions this week, we got a freaking pepperoni-olive pizza with no sauce. NO SAUCE. And why would anyone put green olives on a pepperoni pizza? So close.) Anyway we asked the pastor if he would come to church and he was like  SIIIIIIIIIIIII. But when we pulled up to his house on Sunday, he was dead asleep. Couldn't even get him to come to the door. Like I said, classic.

A guy that we have been teaching posted a pic of us on Facebook. It kind of got big-- a ton of the members in our ward were like "yooo we know those guys!" He's this anchor for the Encarnación News Channel and he sends us some of his "bad cuts" when he's filming. Like one time the camera guy literally just tripped over himself and face-planted in the ground. Another time a guy he was interviewing just started to sing out of nowhere. Anyway, he is one of the coolest people I have ever met and he said that he wanted to read the Book of Mormon because he "needed to know" if it's true. Not just wanted to see, he needed to know. I think he sees something in us. He is so intrigued by why 2 kids--one who can't even speak the language that well--would drop everything and leave their lives just to talk about the gospel and not even get paid for it. 

Yeah, who knows why :)