Lunes: Last pday my companion decided we would buy groceries tomorrow, so we headed home worked hard until about 8:30
and then swung by the famila sosa. They were wrapping up family night
but were more than happy to share with us there treat. Some sort of cake
with a cup of super hot milk, like they brought it to a boil and then
gave it to us in a plastic cup, it was hard to drink becuase it was so
hot, and i only like cold milk but it was an extremely nice gesture so
it was alright.
Martes: District meeting today was good, but since
it was the first of the month we had to spend extra time with the
computers and it felt like it took forever, and then after we went
shopping, i thought we were gonna make it quick but my comp bought a ton
(enough for two weeks) and we got back to remansito a little later than
expected. Lunch we ate in our house today because the hermana said that
she could only make it to go because she wouldnt be there, it helped my
comp justify shopping for so long but it was good. We then taught one
lesson and after the first our next lesson went for 2 hours!! it was
with a recent convert who hasnt been to church for a while. He started
by talking about nah, and then the 10 tribes of isreal, and then we
taught our lesson on the gospel of jesus christ and when we talked about
going to church he brought up why he cant. Its because president of the
branch talked to him about tithing and he said he doesnt think its
fair. He thinks all the church leaders are rich, that 10 percent is
alot, and that he can pay tithing by doing acts of service not paying
money. I will admit that that has to be one of the cleverest ideas ive
ever heard of for paying tithing but we had to let him know that only
after he shows his faith he will recieve the blessings and he has to pay
it first. its gonna be tough for him and its hard testifying about
tithing when ive never been in the same situation of poverty as them. Its
always sad when its too hard for people to take the first leap of
faith. We have a goal in the mission where we try and make all of our
daily goals and if we do its called 7 for 7. If we do it every day of
the week we then have 7, 7 for 7. becuase we had this lesson for two
hours it was really tough of the rest of our plan to reach our daily goal.
we did recover and got to the point where we were only short one lesson
with a member. which is something thats pretty tough to coordinate in
paraguay. we were running out of time and decided to go contact a group
of 4 kids about or age. Sure enough one of the kids was a member who
hadnt been to church in more than 5 years, we were able to teach a lesson
to the others with him there, and then teach his family later in the
week. It was truly a blessing to run into him like that to reach our
goals. Also just so you know most of our lessons with investigators that
have a member present are with less active, cause we have so many less
active and very few active that can help. we have found it to be very
effective. Killing two birds with one bullet, as they say in spanish.
Miércoles: I put together a super shnazzy budget..
im getting pretty good at budgeting my monthly money and am excited to
see how close i can follow it. We went to go do service this morning. A
sister in the ward works for a children's daycare in our city and they
are putting dirt behind the building. We went to go help her at 9 liked
planned and she didnt have a wheel barrow or a shovel yet, so we helped
search for one until she called us and said she found two shovels and a
wheel barrow. This pile of dirt was monstrous though it was about 4
feet high, 4 feet wide and 6 feet long, and we had planned an hour cause
we had no idea how much she was gonna get. the wheel barrow ended up
being for only light garden plants, so after 6 loads of basically
filling the wheel barrow and carrying it to the back she said that we
will try next week with better equipment, but those six loads we took
were exhausting i am not looking forward to it hahah, but a good work
out nonetheless. After we returned home to find out that we didnt have
any water to take a shower, that was frustrating. We also called the
hermana that was supposed to feed us and she was in the hospital with her
daughter so couldnt. We called around but couldnt find anyone. For the
first time in my mission we cooked something in our home. My comp had a
soup and powdered potatoes he made the potatoes and added a little too
much water but it was good and the soup was just made in the microwave,
it was good but not the normal filling stuff, i ate a bowl of cereal to
suffice. We then had another night where we were short a new
investigator and all we had left that was planned was a meting with an
inactive family that was all members, and a dinner with pedro and Raquel
( investigator living with less active, trying to get married but
waiting to find out if raquels first marriage was valid or not.) We went
to the ladys house and here kids were all members, here grand kids were
all members, except for bryon a 9 year old who wants to be baptized it
was perfect and we again were able to get 7 for 7. Also other thing that
happened today a probably 25-30 year old lady yelled across the street
that i was a beautiful blonde, we could tell she wanted more than the
gospel so we just kept walking.. it was the first time that a paraguayan
has just blurted out something from such a distance in public to me,
strange in deed.
Jueves: We went out to san jorge today a neighboring
city out of our area that we had to get permission to go to because
there is a lady we contacted that was very interested that lives there.
We were walking towards the shade to wait for a colectivo and a nice car
pulled over and gave us a ride. I wasnt sure if there was a rule
against it but my comp said get in, he has to be a member. He wasnt a
member but was extremely nice, respected our church, and his brother is
young mens president in our ward. His car was so nice just cause it had
air conditioning and padded seats, felt good and we were able to get
there pretty dang fast. We then had a very good lesson with the lady
there and are thinking that her and her daughter are baptism candidates
for sure, if they can make it to church in remansito. We taught a 15
year old kid today who had no previous religious influence but believed
in god and jesus christ. The easiest lesson ever, he believed every
single one of our words it was super awesome!! and he has like 6 friends
in the church. Also while we were teaching pedro tonight i had the
realization that he could be my first family the i teach and go through
the temple with in a year. it is now my goal for them. We are killing it
now and taught 8 lessons today! the most we've taught before is 6.
were working way more effective its awesome.
Veirnes: Weekly planning today was good, when went a
little bit different route this morning with it but got it all done and
should have a pretty good next week, on our way to lunch i got my
second cat call from a girl who was probably 15 but looked like she was
10, i decided i dont like it at all, she commented on my eyes as she
walked by... yup. after lunch we taught a lady who was baptized a little
over a year ago, who hasnt been to church in a while. she started
crying and said all the best times in her life happened in the church it
was awesome, were hoping she can come back and go through the temple
soon too! when then went and taught the family of the miracle guy from
martes, he wasnt there but we taught his sister and her friend, Diosnel.
What a name right.. being it that god in spanish is dios. He seemed
super interested and wanted us to teach him again. after that almost
every single one of our plans changed, but since we have so many people
we can teach it all worked out.. it was good and we hit all our goals
again.
Sabado: CONFERNCE!!! wooooo we started the day by
teaching a little and then headed over to rodue for conference. While we
were waiting for a colectivo i watched a horse roll around and literally
like a dog, and then stand up it was quite the site. We got there and i
found out there was a room with conference in english!! i was planning
on spanish all week, my comp wanted to listen to it in spanish so we
started in spanish, but after the first talk elder bonzo, from my
district in the ccm arrived and me and him went into the english room
and my comp stayed there, It was soooooo good all of it!! in between
sessions we taught in mariano, it was cool, and then the second session
was the bomb too!! conference has never flown by so fast!! after the
last talk we left the second session a little early because we went back
to remansito to teach a lesson and then go to preisthood session with a
less active member. We taught our lesson and then called the guy to
find out he couldnt go, when then called another kid, and he was too
tired but we were able to get his 14 year old brother to go so that was
good! preisthood session to was the bomb!! literally this conference
answered all my questions i had before with complete clarity it was
magical. after preisthood session it was 10 oclock,
we went to wait for a collectivo but it didnt come until 11 at night!!
and to top that off when we got home, we found the bathroom floor and
kitchen floor and outside the frnt door cause its all conncted, wet with
water, cause we didnt have water again this morning and my comp left a
facuet open, so when we got water, it filled up his bucket he set
underneath it and a lot more. We are lucky that the house was designed
probably more by luck to have most the water leave out the front door
and drip off the balcony. and also one third of the electricty went out,
the refrigrator and the room we sleep in, my comp was too tired to call
any one or do anything about so we went to bed. crazy night ehhh.
Domingo: We woke up and the water had dried... and
we didnt have water again making it 3 days in a row with no shower and 4
out of 5 this week. we did our daily routine and then headed out to
teach. We did get our power fixed too, so that was good. We taught a guy
named enrique. He has this giant komoto dragon that i thought was a
snake at first cause i only saw its head, also he has a pet dove, and
gave us this fruit to try that he claimed was super delicious, but it was
just this little tiny orange ball, with a huge seed in the middle, and made your mouth really sticky, it was interesting, after we went to
pedro, to teach him and then head to the conference. We got their and
then got a phone call about the time change from our branch president
saying we had 30 minutes until the colectivo left. It was a Crazy to
lose an hour just like that, and to make matters worse pedro didnt feel
like going but said next week when its here that he will go to church, i
was so frustrated, it truly is heart breaking when investigators dont
go to church after all the double checking and stuff we try and do for
them. we made it to conference which was super awesome. In between we
had lunch as a branch, ham cheese and mayo sandwiches, they kept
feeding them to me and thought it was funny but i was super hungry and grateful to be the butt of the joke, they gave me 5 haha. We had 42
people and 2 investigators at the 1st session so i cant be mad at the out
come but i really did think more were gonna make it this time. also
in between sessions we taught victor again, that was good. Then we had
the second session and headed back to remansito. when we got back there
was a huge party going on in the middle of the town, we tried to go to 4
different peoples houses but they were all at the party. so we headed
back home and called it a night.
Lunes: today has been a good one i got to shower
today which was needed haha, also we headed out to Luque to play soccer
with other missionaries, there i was able to see elders luke, craig,
goss, george, and stopper from the ccm with me. They are all doing good,
our team had three latinos and me, and honestly we struggled immensely,
the one game we did win i scored the goal it was awesome! it was fun to
play something on pday, and good to see the other missionaries. i also
bought my first 2 jerseys today, the away jersey for cerro, and the
paragauy national team jersey ill try and get a picture of my in them
for next week. they were 40 mil each so about 20 bucks in total it was
awesome, i plan on buying more throughout my mission. then we headed
back and i went shopping. my comp didnt need to go because he got so
much stuff last week, we were in and out in less than ten minutes and
now im writing you...
so that was my week, there wasnt anything special
about paraguay that stuck out this week but i have come to realize that
after these next six weeks its almost a guarantee that ill be in a new
area and out of remansito. its sad because i feel like we are on the
brink of having so much success and im gonna leave right before all the
baptisms, i just hope i can return to this area later in my mission.
Ciao
Love
Elder Jace Gummersall
this is dinner each night.... dulce de leche and jelly.. boom!!
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