Zachary Justus Johnson

In a lot of missions the tradition is to burn a tie at 6 months and a shirt at a year. Because I have neither a shirt nor a tie to spare, I have decided to burn a pair of pants. It was an old pair that ripped along the side as I was waiting for a collectivo one time in Encarnacion. It's weird how even that seems so long ago to me now. I remember reading my friend Henry's weekly when he hit a year and I was sitting in my sister's old room in a brand new shirt and a tie in my Home MTC thinking I would never make it. A year seems like such a long time to a new missionary. It almost seems like close to being done. I always hated the beginnings of things like that. I remember my first day in high school wishing I could magically transport to the time I would be a sophomore just to cut out the awkward beginning parts. It's hard to believe that my journal now has duplicate dates. I haven't always been the best at writing and my journal sometimes has weeklong periods missin...

Tranquilo is a word that often gets thrown around to describe what life is like in Ayolas. In comparison to Encarnación or even the brief glimpses I've seen of Asuncion, this city is not like any other city in Paraguay. There are two huge neighborhoods of government "cookie cutter" housing and the rest of the housing areas are mainly poverty stricken families who live in the riverside. But no matter where you find yourself in Ayolas, there are always two things: sand and mosquitos. The mosquitos haven't been in full force due to the winter but the ones that didn't hibernate have chosen our bathroom as a common meeting place. Luckily Presidente's wife sent my new companion with a fresh bottle of Raid. As far as the sand, I thought I had left all of that in the high desert of Nevada but some of the places I walk take me back there. Especially when the dawn clouds sink behind the horizon giving the illusion of the Sierras. Ignoring the dogs and goats, maybe for a...