Hell & High Water

Rain in Paraguay isn't as fun as I thought it would be, so this week was quite the experience.

A fun fact I didn't know about Paraguay is that they have crazy lightning storms that light up the sky like a fireworks show. My area (Coronel Oviedo 1.3) is one of the largest in the mission, and goes all the way from where I live (which is the corner of the area) to Caaguazu. I barely actually have any places with shops in my area, and I'm mostly running around large fields of dirt and grass and things of that nature. The combination of these two things means that the area gets really, really muddy.

We also have a few investigators who live slightly off the beaten path. One such investigator, Elida, who has everything she needs to get baptized this saturday (here's hoping!) lives in sort of a medio-campo area. Friday my companion and I ran (RAN) a few miles in the straight mud just to get money so we could pay for a taxi to take her to a youth activity. It was awful but she made it. On a side note, Elida is also what we here in the mission field call a "snake". She likes Elder Arrington, and has started to act a little creepy around yours truly, and you all know I don't want anything to do with that. Talk about "yo tengo una novia" amiright? But seriously, her ex boyfriend is really mad at Elder Arrington (he's also an investigator, and he has a googly eye so I call him Mad Eye Moody) so we'll see where that heads in the future. He's got his EYE on Elder Arrington. Or on me, or on the ground. That thing moves around a lot.

Our other investigator is Pedro, who I think I mentioned last week. Pedro is 90 years old and has no way to attend church on his own. He is also like the sweetest person ever and he really wants to go to church and get baptized, but he needs to come to church 3 times before he can. We went to his house on saturday and he was shaving and getting ready for sunday and was super enthusiastic about coming.

He wasn't at church on sunday because nobody picked him up.

We had asked the ward members if someone could go get him, but nobody wanted to help. When I say that I don't just mean to say it like I'm mad. The Branch President, one of the only ones with a car (and who is currently under investigation for stealing money from the church, but that's another story), was too busy working sunday to help, and the other ones just said it was either too far or too hard to get there. A branch member said he went to Pedro's house and he was all ready to go to church and excited but had to break the news that nobody was coming. Makes me sad.

We also had to pay for a second taxi for Elida to get to church.

Later that night however, and after a stressful week of wading through mud and running and having people cancel on us, we had a little itty bitty miracle-ish thing happen. We met a golden investigator (one of those "okay just one more house") type things, and she is baptized in the church (when she lived in spain), but has 3 daughters that haven't been baptized. She told us that she had seen us walk bye every day and was dying to talk to us.

Oh and about the Branch President, yeah we all think he's robbing the church. The last Branch President was excommunicated for the same thing. Only time will tell how that'll play out.

Overall it was a stressful but rewarding week. As you can tell from the pictures, I'm really turning Paraguayan. We also made some more brownies that Elder Arrington got in a package. He's definitely a cool companion, even though he hates the Beatles which is heresy.

Love,

Elder Wilson

Paraguayan Soccer Champion

P.S. Our mission president doesn't let us drink
Coca Cola because white missionaries drink nothing but soda and get dehydrated and go to the hospital.