Dear Family,
I am really tired right now and a little flustered because we left the house like three times today trying to find an internet cafe. All of them were closed and it's very cold and misty today. Right now we're typing from the Elders' area because all three of ours failed us. Now I'm tired from all the running around and I feel like I didn't do much with my free time and the weather is only encouraging me to sleep. P-Days can be way too short sometimes. :)
But I really really enjoyed reading all of your e-mails today. Thank you so much Ashley, Sarah, Dad, Mom, Grandma, Amanda, Lucie, and Marcus Oliver for checking in on me. It sounds like your summers have all been fantastic. I can't believe how many different fun trips you all went on. It's so cool that you could find so many activities to fill your time and entertain your kids. :) Amanda, I can't wait to meet my new "niece." Sarah, I hope you have a blast at Lake Powell, and thanks for the pictures. Lucie, thanks for your summer update--I love hearing about my little cousins. :) Dad, you're kind of scary when you're in pain. But I laughed SO HARD reading all about your scorpion massacre, and Hna. Tua'one did too when I showed her what was so hilarious.
Did you guys ever get the pack of pictures that I sent? I sent it out towards the end of June so I hope you get it soon. Let me know as soon as you do. I deleted those pictures on my camera after I printed them, so I'll be really sad if the hard copies get lost in Bolivia or something.
We had a pretty good week. Nothing much to report, really. We're still trying to find the next golden investigator. Right now we're working a lot with some people who we've been working with since I got to Paraguay. They're good people but they're not very willing to break away from their addictions. We do a lot of fun lessons with the less active members, though. We used to only have five assigned families per companionship in our branch, but now that's changing to fifteen families EACH. That's 45 menos activo families that are going to be visited by the missionaries. Sadly, that won't even come close to covering all of them.
This week we had FHE with an adorable little menos activo family. The mom's name is Clara and she has three little kids. Sofi is the nine-year-old who got baptized along with Hna. Sanchez, and she has two sons named Axel (six) and Alex (one and a half). Sofi is very mature for her age but still super fun-loving. She always tells us how much she wants to go on a mission someday, and she loves to try on our nametags. Axel is a little show-off and is addicted to candy. He always raids Hna. Tua'one's bag looking for treats, and when we played Bingo for FHE using Rocklets (Paraguay-style M&Ms), it took all our effort to keep him from eating all of the candy while we were trying to play with it. Little Alex only ever says one word when we're around--"Amana!" Translation: Hermana! He just says it over and over, louder and louder, until we turn to him and say, "Hermano!" He's already very good at fist-bumping us goodbye. Anyways, after we played Bingo, Sofi wanted to play Hangman. When the first three letters were found to be E-S-P, everyone guessed, "Espiritu!" But she just laughed and said, "No...ESPRINGER!" It made me laugh really hard. We spent a little too much time with them, and when it was time to go the streets were pretty quiet and dark. I was a little nervous because we were a ways away from home, but as we were leaving Clara's big dog Tuki slipped out of their gate. At first Hna. Tua'one and I tried to shoo him back to his house, but we were late so we just kept walking. Tuki followed us wherever we went. All the dogs that we passed (and there are a LOT of dogs) got really mad at him for trespassing on their turf, and we were irritated that we had to keep protecting him. But as we got farther from Clara's and were still far from home, in dark silent areas, we found that we felt a LOT safer with a big old dog by our side. Suddenly we didn't mind protecting him--he sure was being a good protector for us. He took us all the way to our front door, where we patted his head in thanks before he turned and headed back home, this time without us to keep the other dogs away. We prayed that he would get home safe and were very glad to see him back in his yard the next day. Hna. Tua'one hates dogs, but even she smiles when we see him now.
For the third week out of the four this month, the weather was perfectly beautiful all week, then on Sunday the clouds moved in and the excitement of all our investigators died. Nobody came to church and all of their baptism dates have fallen so far that I probably won't even be in this area for their baptisms. I'm sensing a trend here. In April I had two baptisms, then none in May, then two in June, now none in July. That should mean that next month will be awesome! Sweet! No idea if I'll still be with Hna. Tua'one or in Mariano anymore next Change. I think I'll be leaving. I'll be super sad to leave this branch but I'd love to see more of Paraguay.
In the meantime, "By small and simple things are great things brought to pass." I know that every day I spend here, every person I talk to, makes a difference in the Plan that God has for us.
This week we got to go to Asuncion for interviews with President and a little training meeting. It was so nice. I always feel right at home at the office. President is so nice and encouraging, and the training meeting was a definite animo booster. We talked a lot about we need to be close to the Lord if we are to bring others closer to Him. I recently read King Benjamin's speech about something similar. He said that we need to serve Christ to know Him, and how happy we are when we do! God won't let us be happy in sin, but when we keep the commandments...Have you ever heard anyone say, "Man, I'm SO UNHAPPY because I'm not an alcoholic!" or "Man, I HATE how many problems come with keeping the Sabbath Day holy and strengthening my family!" Hmm...
Friendship Day wasn't quite as big a deal as Hna. Tua'one and I expected. That, or nobody in Mariano has any friends. We made cute little cards with D&C 130:2 on them, and people were like, "What is this for?" On Sunday the branch youth gave us little notes, which was nice, but yeah it wasn't as similar to Valentine's Day as we'd been told. :)
So yeah, this week was pretty nice. The weather is lame, but Hna. Tua'one and I feel good about how much work we put in. I feel extra good, too, because this week I (FOR ONCE) managed to plan my meals and snacks. I felt so much healthier. It's seriously so hard to eat a balanced diet here. No joke. Even when people (rarely) give us shredded cabbage, it's usually swimming in straight oil or mayonaise. When you step into a Paraguayan supermarket, you can tell what they do and don't live off of. There's like a little corner for all three types of cereal, then you turn the corner and there's a whole aisle just for mayonaise. The same with oil, noodles, and herbs for their terere. Oh, and today they had pig heads in the meat cases. Totally appetizing. :)
Well, since we had so much trouble finding a computer today, we're really late so I've got to sign off. I love you all. Thank you SO MUCH for your nice long letters. Keep them coming!
---Hna. Springer
P.S. Dad, you're probably right about "humidity sickness" just being dehydration. Except people here always carry huge jugs of water around with them and I can't imagine them being dehydrated. I surely was, but I'm curious what this humidity sickness thing is then
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