Life of Pablo

 

I like looking back in my journal. When I am tired, I often express really random feelings in my life. Also, my handwriting is horrible. I wrote on Sunday March 21, "I am really hungry right now, representing my hunger for game (mission)." There's a quote from Spencer W. Kimball while he was referring to keeping a personal journal that says "angels may quote from it one day." I wonder which angel is going to quote my random thought.

The past 3 weeks have seemed more like a couple of days because of everything that has happened. The first thing I guess I will cover is Holy Week.

Holy Week or Semana Santa is the week leading up to Easter. The Covid cases in Paraguay recently skyrocketed and due to some problems of civil unrest, the government decided to put a curfew out. It slowed some things down but nobody really followed the 8:00 pm curfew, so they decided to shut the country down for Semana Santa. It was pretty dead on the street. About as dead as a Sunday morning but lasting the whole week. At first I thought quarantine for 9 days was going to be pretty boring, but it was actually a lot busier and filled up than most other days. There were just a billion things I had to due including reading 2 hours in Preach My Gospel everyday. I am pretty blessed to be a fast reader so it only took me a couple of days to finish. Our mission president did a really good job keeping the morale up during quarantine. Everyday we had a zone call and then every night we prayed together as a mission. It was honestly a breeze and it went by really fast. We also had to memorize a scripture every day.

The last day before quarantine was the first time I got into an argument with someone and I could actually understand in Spanish. There was a gentleman outside of his dog food store telling us we were lying and that our testimonies weren't true and stuff. I was like brother chill--we literally just asked the name of the street we were on. But yeah, he continued to tell us we were liars and then he went on about how he only believes in the Bible and THEN goes on about how tithing is a false practice. I thanked him for his time. 

Every day in quarantine we had to take caminatas de gratitud or gratitude walks. We could leave our apartment for 30 minutes a day and do that. We each had to name 30 things we were grateful for. It wasn't hard really. It was honestly just nice to get out because being inside reading or calling people all day reminded me of my work in the states.

It was around this time last year I received my call. I don't remember the exact day but I do remember I thought it was coming the week before and when I didn't see it I was so sad. It was a bittersweet moment because I knew I was called to an awesome place but I didn't think I would be able to go there. I remember thinking, when am I going to get my "real mission call?" It's crazy how that all came and went so fast. I remember thinking about how much 6 months was and if I could get to that at least this whole thing would seem a lot more manageable. But now I'm just a few months past that. Older missionaries say there's a time in your mission where it just sort of feels like life. There was no life before or after your mission it's just the mission. I'm pretty far in, but I'm not there yet.

This last week was crazy. Since we just got out of quarantine we made up for all of our exchanges. We went on 2 exchanges in the span of 3 days. The first was really chill. Another Elder and I went to probably the nicest neighborhood in this entire country. It literally felt like I was walking around the Lake Hickory Country Club area. Obviously every now and then there was a shrine to the Virgin Mary because you know you can't have everything normal. Turns out a member lives there too, so we tracked her down. Just remember if they say they live in Carmalitas Encarnacion, the bathroom probably isn't sketch.

The next day we went to the "colonia" which is just a nice way of saying the boons. Both of the Zone Lords came to the area and we just took it on 2 by 2 and wrecked the whole place. It was actually super awesome because there is just never enough time in the day to do what I want to do there. On the way back it was getting dark but we saw a collectivo (bus) like 100 yards away down the road. Elder Cartwright and I go running every morning. Now I know the reason why. That was probably the fastest I have moved because I was not walking home. It was insanity though, weaving in and out of bikes, it was dark, cars were honking, it was straight out of a movie but we got on the bus and it was so sweet.

The next day we were looking for something to eat for dinner and there was this lomito place that looked pretty good. A lomito is basically a burrito without rice or beans because they do not do that here. Anyway I asked what the best lomito on the menu was and he was like "it's called shawarma" and the only difference was the name and the price. It was a dang good lomito/shawarma though. Even if it did cost me as much as a box of cookie crisp cereal.

Speaking of food I improvised some pancakes the other day. Since I didn't put any sugar or salt in the batter it tasted more like a noodle than anything else, but it was still nice because I had not had pancakes in a long time.

Last story about Pablo. The life of Pablo: So last p day we were walking to a store to pick up some boots for an elder who had worn his shoes all the way through. We stopped outside the ATM and sat down for a minute while they were getting some cash, and this guy walks up to us and in broken english says, "wassup guys. you have lot of money." I thought he was about to rob us. Anyway we got his number, and he said he wanted to give up smoking. I told him I would take his cigs for him, but he told me he would give them to me on Sunday when he came to church. We were like okay. So then like a week later he sees us and is like, 'Hey I actually got a new number sorry I didn't text you back. Let's meet up in like 1 hour at your church.' (This is when we found the shawarma place.) Then we find him again, different location, and I made the mistake of mentioning a ton of eggs that are just in a carton in his father's office (his father sells printers). He's like, 'Oh crap I forgot!' and puts them in this really nice Kia (nice for this country) and is like, 'Get in, we are going to the egg stand.' Unfortunately we could not go but he said he would be back in 20 mins. About an hour and a half rolls by and we see him as we are on our way home riding a bike. Since then we have not seen or heard of Pablo.