Week 9

Hello Family!!!!

I´m alive!!!! (barely). Just kidding. Hey!!! I´m glad I get to email. It seems like a long time since I´ve been able to talk with you.

I don´t have a ton of time, and there´s a ton I should let you know, so buckle down.

First off. I can´t email anyone outside of my direct, direct family. Siblings, Parents, and Grandparents. I can´t even email aunts or uncles or cousins. It´s just the mission rule, and I just go with the rules, no questions asked.

Second. Yes, this is the right address, and I got your emails! And I got one from George and Grandma connie too. Awesome. Keep forewarding me george´s emails if you can. I love them. Dad, could I get that email that you sent earlier that never got through to me? If it is what I think it is, I could really use it right now!

Third. My addresses in Paraguay will never change, even with transfers. The President says it´s pretty safe, the mail system we have. He did say though, please not too many packages. It´s really expensive for the Mission to get the mail from the mission mail headquarters in Paraguay out to the missionaries. However, a few hand written letters would be nice. It takes about a month to get here, and a month to get back to the States.

I forgot the addresses, but I´ll write them down and tell you them on monday. Monday is the day that our P days are. Today´s just a weird p day because it´s transfer week. So, this monday, in four days, i´ll email again.

Alright, now, the trip. Crazy!!!!!!!!!! Haha. Holy cow. Salt lake to dallas, dallas to Buenos Aires. I forgot my glasses, and didn´t have contact solution on my carry on. Haha. We had to sleep on the plane, and I probably got one hour of sleep. When we got to Buenos Aires something went wrong and they wouldn´t let all of us missionaries on the plane, so we decided to all just wait. Well, the next plane wasn´t until 10 tuesday night. So we waited in the airport for twelve hours. We were bummed, BUT, when you´re a missionary, everything happens for a reason. We ended up teaching quite a bit. We gave out every spanish book of mormon we had, and almost all of our pamphlets. There was a man who came and sat right by us and just started bawling. He had just got a call and his dad died. Elder Dexter taught him about the plan of salvation. Incredible how the Lord will place us, His servants, in the way of His children who are in need of His help.

We arrived in paraguay, looking bad, and smelling even worse, at almost one in the morning yesterday. Our mission president was there to greet us, and his wife. President and Sister Mark J. Callan. I couldn´t ask for a better president. Incredible. I got to meet with him already. He´s from Farmington. Humble, wise man. I like him a lot.

New comp! Got him yesterday. Elder Swenson. He´s INCREDIBLE. I was going to be happy with whoever I got. I had a strong faith that, good or bad, the Lord would put me with the person I needed. I lucked out, and probably scored the best elder in the whole mission. He graduated 2009, from East High in Salt lake. He´s been out here 10 months. He lettered 10 times in 5 sports. He loves to work, and to work hard. It was really hard for him to pick up the language, and so he is super patient with me now. He´s worked sooo hard at it, and can speak incredibly. He speaks perfectly with all of the natives. He had a full conversation, like twenty minutes, in a taxi with the windows all rolled down and cars honking and everyting, with the taxi driver. I was awestruck. Haha, anyways, he´s great, the people love him, he helps me to not have such a gringo accent, he corrects me with eveything I say wrong, which is what I asked him to do, and he makes me speak to him in Spanish. He says almost nothing in english. If I don´t understand, he explains in spanish until I do understand. I´m super grateful for him. I can´t even tell you. I´ve been hugely blessed. He lets me say what I can in the lessons, and gives me opportunities to teach whole parts of lessons.

It´s sooo different here. The culture, the people, the way people interact, the hair cutting place, the food, the toilet, the shower, the way cars drive with no regard for human life, the bugs, the mosquitos, the dirt floors, everything. I´m sitting in a mall, on a way nice computer, typing. Two blocks a way, we taught a family last night that had NOTHING. They gave us their extra clothing to swat away the mosquitos that were eating us alive. It´s amazing.

Dad. Really important. They have milk and frosted flakes. I just bought some this morning. I fiesta will follow this evening.

Haha, I´m actually really worried about cooking for myself. It never hit me until I was walking out of a strange market with mostly non american food this morning, and I realized that even if it was amerian, I wouldn´t know how to cook it anways.

Gotta run. People to teach. Spanish to learn. God´s work to spread. See you around!

Elder Stewart