Week 10

¡¡¡¡¡¡hOOOlla!!!!! (they have a sweet way of almost singing certain words, where they exaggerate a vowel. They do it with hola. I like it a lot)

My family! Good to hear from you. And sooo much to tell, even though it´s only been a few days.


Well listen, this whole mission deal is quite the business. I´ve had probably some of the biggest ups and downs of my life already, and I haven´t even been here a week!

Let´s start with the downs. ( It´s like eating the vegetables first, so that you can enjoy the dessert last, right?)

I´m in a different world. Most of the time I feel like someone who got thrown off of a ship, and I´m just getting tossed right and left by these monstrous waves...... Ok. It´s not that bad. But it´s a little discouraging at times, when I´ve worked so hard to prepare myself in the areas of Preach my Gospel, with the lessons and scriptures and whatnot, and then I can´t hardly communicate with the people. You know? It´s just a little frustrating sometimes, when I have so much I´d like to contribute, and I can´t.

But. There´s no sense in complaining about it. I already tried it, and it doesn´t help one bit. Haha, for the most part, if I listen really carefully, I can follow the conversation and throw in a sentence here or there. Elder Swenson and I talk all day in Spanish, and he says that there´s no better way to learn than just to speak, and speak a lot. He corrects me as we go, and I have a firm hope that one day I will learn to speak here.

The people. It´s incredible. They´ve really got nothing. Nothing. I can´t complain about the food. At all. They´re dead broke, and there´s a family every day that feeds us lunch. When they feed us, they feed us a HEAPING plate of whatever they can make, usually the nicest food they have. We know that they dón´t have enough money for it, but we don´t want to offend, so we eat. To turn down the food would be to tell them that they´re poor, and to not eat all of it is to tell them that we´re ungrateful north americans. So we eat.

Mom, I´ve never seen a child dig through garbage bags for food before. Garbage bags that have been picked over a hundred times before. It´s just a way of life here. We pass it all the time. There´s families we teach that, for their job, they find paper and plastic in the trash, put it in a big wagon, and pull it to a recycling place. It´s just sad. Terribly, terribly sad. And they´re stuck. It´s a poverty cycle that´s almost impossible for them to break out of. Haha, Elder Swenson says that we lived in a never land back home. A place where you´ve got good friends, good strong leaders, good parents, good schooling, good food, clean water, and everyone´s got a place to stay. It´s just different here. It´s hard to adjust to. American Fork is a dream.

Whew. Haha, on that happy note! Sorry. I don´t mean to sound down. Life is good. We share a ton of scriptures about hope and faith here. Ether 12 vs 4, and Alma 34, the last verse in the Chapter (41 I think). Lesson two is all about where we can go after this life, why it´s important to keep working, to keep pushing forward. It´s good. I forgot to mention, yes, I am in the city of Asuncion. Elder swenson and I cover our area, which is just a section of it.

The happiest time so far in the mission was sunday morning. Incredible. We start at 8 in the morning with priesthood meeting, and I´ve never been happier to get up after a meeting has already started, and move to a different seat. One of our investigators who Elder Swenson and I started teaching this week came to Church, and we went to go sit by him as he walked in. Soooo awesome. Guess what?! We´ve got two baptisms this week! Both are people who already commited before I got here, and so I just get to help with the tail end of things, but still, it´s so awesome to be a part of. This is what the mission is about. Right here. To bring people unto Christ. This is where not having MTC food to eat, is worth it. Because we have real investigators with real needs. I love it.

Anyways, the work goes on.

Just kidding. Haha, we´re safe here. I´ll get my bugspray out of my suitcase. No worries. What you can worry about though, if you have a few SUPER simple recipeis, that would be awesome. We dont´have ranch dressing here, so be real careful. I just need something I can slap together so that I come back weighing more than 100 pounds. But, if worse comes to worse, frosted flakes and milk haven´t failed me yet.

Alright. Gotta go. I forgot pictures. Next week. Love you all!

Elder Stewart

p.s. If you want anything specific, let me know, like info or whatnot. Food, culture, whatever. Everything´s different, and I can´t write about everything. But it´d be fun to answer some cool questions, because, I don´t know. Everything´s different!