What a first week! Here´s the rundown of what went on.. I met my mission president and his wife, theyre super nice! I like them. They´re really loving and they care about us a lot. The first night I stayed in a small hotel with some other guys, I only knew one of them from the MTC. We woke up at 4:30 the next morning so we could "sign in" to the country and meet our companions and what not. So I slept on the bus ride to the place! There´s a lot of cool guys here, Paraguay is definitely the place to be right now. My companion is awesome! His name is Elder Patterson from Utah. He´s been out a year and a half, so he knows what he´s doing! Everyone I talk to tells me how lucky I am to have him for a companion and to be in the area I´m in. My area is named Caaguazú, its Guarani for "lots of herbs." The members are awesome and so are the rest of the people. Everyone is so nice here! We had 4 of our investigators come to church on Sunday, which is really good. All our investigators are progressing! We´re having a baptismal service on July 2nd for 3 of our investigators. One of our investigators name is Rumilda, she´s 18 and has 2 kids. She has a boyfriend thats 17, and he was baptized when he was 13. They´re awesome! My companion met them when he was first put into this area 7 weeks ago and said they weren´t progressing at all. They´re getting married on July 2nd and Rumilda is getting baptized! The gospel has changed their lives, even though they´re still so young. We´re also teaching a Baptist family here, and I was kind of nervous to teach them at first.. but unlike North American Baptists, these people are really nice to us and they ENJOY learning from us and how the Gospel of Jesus Christ changes lives.. How families can be together for eternity and be happy without all the nonsense from the world. The people here are just awesome! I love them!
The food is pretty good here..not my mamas cooking, but its good. My area is a 4 hour bus ride from Asunción, but I´m in Asunción right now because we went to the Temple! It was so awesome! And Elder Cleverly is in my Zone! I understood everything even though it was in Castillano (Spanish not from Spain). We had to wake up at 4:15 this morning to catch the bus to make it to the Temple in time. Today is our P Day this week because of the Temple trip.. Every other week its on Monday, FYI. I write in my journal every night! Don´t worry, Mom.. I´ve been taking pics too! There´s a recent convert family that have a monkey named Salomon (like from the scriptures...) and he´s super funny! He´s a head banger, especially when you get him food. We give him oranges from their tree, and suckers and starbursts. I have a bunch of pictures to send home, but I cant because this internet café doesnt have the stuff to plug in the memory card. So I might just mail them! Which reminds me, Latin people are EXTREMELY supersticious, so you can send pretty much anything in the mail and not worry about it getting stolen as long as it has a Virgin Mary picture taped to it.
When I first heard people speak down here I thought it was really fast! But I understand a lot now.. The Spanish is coming really well I feel like. My area has a lot of Guarani too, so I know a few words.. Its probably the hardest language you can learn..I´d even put it up against Cantonese. Everything has to be perfect, and every word in their entire language ends with a syllable.
So we´ve been averaging about 7 lessons a day here.. Thats a lot! I´ve learned a ton from my companion. The milk here is kinda gross.. but the yogurt is good! REALLY good! There´s not much food here that keeps you solid, if you know what I mean.. So thats one thing I´m looking forward to when I get back into the States..
Last night, we were doing street contacts, and we talked to a group of 4 guys that were all drunk.. One of them kissed me and my companion hahaha. Like the greeting thing that European people do.. I guess they do that here too, except guys arent supposed to do it to eachother. So that was super funny. I don´t know what it was about yesterday, but it was crazy. We had dogs chasing us and girls hissing at us and drunk guys kissing us.. The girls hiss at you when they wanna get your attention. But overall, this area is really awesome! I love it. I come home every night dead tired, and its really hard to get out of bed the next morning.. Especially when I could just take the easy way out and come home and not have to grow up really. But the people I meet and teach, makes all the hardships worth it. I´m excited to be here! I just hope the next 22 months don´t fly by as fast as this last week did.. Anyways, thats about all I have for this week! I love you all and hope you´re having a great week!
I love you!
Elder Colby Dane Heiner
My Address is:
Misión Paraguay Asunción
2881 Del Maestro c/Caballero
Barrio Herrera
Asunción PY
