Family what is up? Just finished my first week here in Paraguay and I gotta say this is the craziest place I have ever been to in my life. Flying into Asuncion the other day about made me cry because the first houses I saw were little 6 by 6 tin huts and I couldn´t even believe it.
Things are going good though my companion is Elder Dyches from Arizona he has only been here 3 months so we´re both pretty fresh out here. Oh and yeah its freakin hot I can’t even describe it, haha. We are teaching a ton but the people down here don’t know what a commitment is at all. It’s kind of sad cause this area that I’m in (Fernando de la Mora) is the worst baptizing area in this mission they average like 3 a year which is pretty bad considering how well some of the other areas do. My first few days I figured out real quick why that is. The people are really nice and anyone will listen to you but they just won’t commit to anything. The ward is tiny here too there is like a 25 percent activity rate. If there is a member that got offended by anyone they just say the church isn´t true and they stop coming. They don’t have a Young Mens leader and the Relief Society President is inactive. Yeah this is just a huge shock for me right now I haven’t been able to figure everything out yet. We teach people every day in little tin huts and just seeing the way the they live is really sad, but most of them are really happy. When you tell people that you have a great message about families and happiness some of them just say hey look at my house, look at the way I live and after that can you tell me that there is happiness in life?
So yeah when I heard about the baptizing thing I was a little upset but like Friday afternoon I just said to myself and Elder Dyches.... ya know let’s turn this around, what a great opportunity we have right here to really get things going because through the Lord we can really do anything, anything to his will. So that’s the plan right now, we have baptism dates for like 4 people but none of them came to church yesterday, we even went out before church yesterday and woke them up and told them that church was in a half hour and all of them said yeah sweet I’ll be there no worries, then church came and it never happened. I don´t know it’s like they are scared to offend you if they say no so everyone says yes to things, yes to being baptized, yes to coming to church, yes to letting us come by their house another day, but when it comes down to that they shy away, but when it comes to those situations we just work our butts off to remind and to testify like crazy. I have already met some incredible people here though, some of the greatest people in the ward, and a lot of the ward members are just so faithful and will do anything for you. It’s pretty amazing too cause you will go into other peoples home to teach and they want to offer you food and water when you can see that their bed is just a blanket over in the corner and they only have one pair of clothes. I told the bishop the other day that in Farmington the city I live in has two stakes and like 13 churches within a mile of my house and he was just amazing he couldn´t believe it at all. So yeah I think I’m pretty safe to say that this is a completely different world down here with a lot of work for the missionaries to do. What a great opportunity I have here to serve these great people and through the gospel change their lives. I’m still kind of in the culture shock right now and don’t know my way around this city but I know with time that things will all work out, I’m excited.
Oh and how flippen stoked I was to hear that my older bro went on the mound last week and tore it up, what a stud and I am not surprised at all, Dev you deserve all the success and great things in your life right now. Family I don´t know much more to say so just know I’m praying for you and I hope your praying for me, I love you all so much and I will talk to you next week. Suerte
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