Okay everyone! I know it's been a while, but boy do I have a lot to talk about! The CCM in Argentina was pretty crazy, and my companion was really interesting there, but the second I stepped off the plane onto Paraguayan earth, it was like the entirety of the idea of truth and right filled my being and poured out into an overwhelming sense that I was where I should be. The first day I spent partially with the Mission President and went around the Asunción Temple, which is actually in our Mission. Then I went out with an Elder who was not my companion, because my companion was afar off and we wouldn't meet until early the next day. So, next day comes and my companion turns out to be Elder Yauney, a 1/2 Peruvian Elder from Sandy who is pretty much awesome. I'll include a picture (and many, many other pictures) next week. But yeah, he's cool, and he took me to the whole apartment we have and we went around the area quite a bit. He's a good teacher, but he's also Zone Leader, which isn't normal
[except in some Missions: love, Baxter :)]. In every Zone of the Mission, there are two Zone Leaders, who are almost always companions, but in this strange case, they were separated so I could be trained by someone awesome. So we have a lot of added pressure and weirdness. But, let me define a Zone:
Two Elders= One Companionship
Two (or generally a lot more than two) Companionships = One District
Two (or more) Districts = One Zone
And each companionship works in an area with their own pool of investigators and workload. Our Zone has like 22 or so Missionaries with a good mix of Elders and Hermanas, but I don't know how many Districts there are at all... I'm kind of a weird thing that this Mission has never seen before by being the companion of a Zone Leader.
Anyways, Paraguay!
This place is absolutely crazy! Our area, which is in a part of Asunciòn called Viñas Cuè, is poor, like most of Paraguay and Asunciòn. The people live in these run down shacks mostly, which are made from corrugated sheets of metal or wood or whatever's lying around, but there are a lot of other types of buildings mixed in, and there's not a whole lot of severe socioeconomic distinction just based on geography. Case in point, a man we contacted named Juan lived in a two story house with a gate, several vehicles, and seemed to have a lot. He lived across the street from a family of like six who lived in a house the size of a child's room (no not even a master bedroom size).
Guaranì is a crazy Native American language that is really common among the common people of Paraguay, but no one is just this fluent Guaranì speaker, so if I were to get good enough to read the Book of Mormon in Guaranì, I'd know more than just about everyone here (except for some older folks). Guaranì is more just the language of colloquialisms and severe emotional expression (when someone says leave in Guaranì, you leave. That still hasn't happened to me though).
Food is mostly pasta, but the weekends are all about the Asada, when they just take an entire half torso of a cow and just grill it up whole without any real seasoning, which doesn't seem to have caught on here either. Other traditional foods: Sopa Paraguaya (cornbread with onions and cheeses baked into it), Chipa (bread maybe? It's just weird), Empanadas, Milanesas, and a lot of fried things. They even make the Empanadas by frying them here, which is kinda weird because I thought they were always baked, but people just do things differently in Paraguay. Another case in point, Adìos here is a greeting. You say it to pass people on the street, but you NEVER say it when you say goodbye.
Other things about Paraguay: Everyone I've met has received little to no education, so that kind of perpetuates poverty with poor money management and lack of educated work, but it also means that the work of the gospel moves pretty slowly here. You have to work really hard to get things done, but in the end it can be really fruitful because it means that people are more willing to trust the feeling of the Spirit. That doesn't actually make it easier to then try and get people to commit to things like going to church or quitting smoking or marrying their partner with whom they live, but that's always kind of done one step at a time. We have really big problems with the church attendance though, so we're trying to figure out a way to really get to people here, and we are met with varied success. The weather here seemed not to be in our favor this week. We're in the middle of the Winter to Summer transition here, so some days get blazingly hot, but others (like today) are sooooo cold and just really wet. It is really humid here, and rather like a jungle (the roads here are mostly not roads: just their orange sandy/claylike stuff), and since yesterday was like today, no one we committed showed up to church. That kind of devastated me, but you really just have faith and know that if you are obedient, if you really care for the people, then things will work out the way God wills and people allow. I definitely have been putting in my effort.
So, in my area, we are part of the Zeballos Cuè Branch, which is weird because most of the other missionaries are part of wards. But the branch had a meeting of like fifty three yesterday, and I'm told that there are generally more, so this is just kind of a preview. But remember the whole lack of schooling thing I talked about? It makes all the classes really, really, really odd, because, if you think about it, if you just had to teach a class, you might know what to do just because you've had teachers in school your whole life, but when you don't have much of that, then what would you do? Well, I got to find out yesterday, and it was mostly just quirky and gave me opportunities to share a lot. The area is interesting too. I feel like our investigators might be going stagnant, but I'll tell you more about them in a second.
So, it's mostly really poor, which means you have like no front doors, and all the properties have some sort of barrier around them (from barbed wire fences to brick walls with shattered glass covering the tops of them), so you just have to clap outside of an entrance or say hi to whomever might be sitting outside the house and then talk to them. The people here are oddly believing and receptive to missionaries, and they kind of have this weird belief that we're all sent from God, no matter what church we belong too, but at the same time, we occupy a void in their society where you can feel free to lie to us and treat us disrespectfully. That gets frustrating, but even then, it's not too bad. No one has ever chased me away or threatened me and I always really feel safe. The whole receptiveness is awesome though, and we actually find new possible investigators just about every day. It's really cool to be part of the work progressing.
I almost forgot! The main meal of the day is lunch (El Almuerzo), so that's when we have our appointments with members and people, never at dinner. That's just another little quirk that I thought I'd let everyone know about.
Investigators:
Luz Còlmann:
A sweet little 15 year old girl who actually makes me think Kassi a ton! The reason Elder Yauney and his companion started teaching her before I got here is because she's dating the son of the Branch President. But yeah, I think she must be of German descent because she's whiter than everyone and has blond hair... It's kind of unnatural here. Anyways, I've taught her one lesson, and it was actually almost the last thing she needs to learn before baptism, and she's been awesome and kept all commitments and really just believes, but her parents need to give her permission to baptize, and they're just kind of being difficult about it. But, we're planning for
this Saturday, and we're teaching her on Thursday all of the remaining things about the Gospel needed to know to be baptized, so please hope and pray that her parents give her permission!!
Leticia Gonzalez:
She's like 19 I think. Everyone here looks way older than they are, so I really thought she was in her late 20s, especially since she has three kids running around. Her boyfriend/roommate/father of her children is named Alfredo and he's actually a Menos Activo (Less Active) member of the church. She's progressed with lessons, but just cannot seem to read the Book of Mormon and pray to know that it's true, so we really don't want to baptize her just as soon as possible. She needs to really know the truth of the church, but it's really frustrating when the family won't keep commitments! I say the family because Alfredo is in on this too. That's because, in order for her to be baptized, they need to be married, which is actually going to happen (they informed us), but it'll be a little while, so this is more of a long-term investigator. I really hope she's held up on other commitments, because the gospel could be such a help to her, and if she only knew all that I've had the blessing to learn, she would be so helped and could be so strong.
Those are our only two really solid investigators who have plans of getting baptized. There are about two or three other possibles, and this next week we'll find out about getting even more (a lot, lot more). But the work is amazing, and I've been teaching and testifying so much every day. God is with us, and I can bear witness of that. Every day of Personal Study is amazing, and I'm so happy to be out here.
But this is week one! Next week, I'll have more time to tell you about random quirks and things about actually living here. I love you all! Thank you for your emails and support! I'm going to respond as much as I can!
God be with you,
Elder Harris
