Highlight of the Week: Peanut butter. Manteca de Mani :) 

Apples and peanut butter is the best combination in the world. Why it took me 5 months in Paraguay to figure that out, I don`t know. But it`s fantastic :) 

We woke up to find a cockroach in the bathroom. Yuck. Not a fan of cockroaches. I thought about taking care of it. . . but decided it was more humane to let the poor little guy die of natural causes. . . I don`t want to touch him :) 

 

This is inside our apartment, with the Hermanas Lideres (hnas Cortes y Whitmer)

 

And this week we walked half of our limits - Our area is a big square, with 4 different main roads marking the boundaries. This is still a little new to me since most of our limits in Ypacarai were the jungle and lacked a certain amount of definition. . . :) But it was fun to get a bigger picture of where we`re at. 

 

 



me and Hna. Peña in one of our limits (calle Ultimo. . . creo)

We`re going to be busy this week preparing for a baptism this Saturday - Mario`s getting baptized! I`ll send pictures next week. And we actually have a font here - the only bummer is that it`s right before Fast Sunday, so we won`t be able to eat cake. . . but esta bien, almas son mas importante :) 

Mango season has died down a bit. Guayabas are still going strong. Certain types of citrus are on the brink of maturing (I think), and I can´t wait! Yesterday a certain type of small tree/bush/shrub with small white flowers all bloomed, so all the streets smell really good right now :) 

Oh! I made an avocado pie. . . 'tarta de aguacate' and it was gross. It was really bitter for some reason. I think it was the avacado`s fault. But the members ate it anyway - they didn`t believe me that it was gross. 

 

This is the view from our back porch/balc​ony

Another view from our front balcony on an almost rainy morning :)

 

 

 

 

Frio-Humido and Lomitos

Highlight of the Week: First taste of frio-humido. For nearly a whole day.

(we almost wanted long sleeves!)

This Domingo was marvelous! We had 4 investigators come to church, and we talked with an inactive member who told us she felt she needed to "get up and run straight to church". We agreed with her :) And one of our investigators, Mario, has decided to quit smoking (yay!) and so our mission for the next two weeks will be to help him follow through with that so he can be baptized. 

We had intercambios this week with the Hermanas Lideres - I stayed in my area with Hna. Cortez, and Hna. Peña spent the day in their area. We were only a little lost all day long.  

Not too bad for 2 weeks :) 

I made a banana cream pie for our Noche De Barrio (ward activity night) Miercoles - it was pretty great. More like sopa than pie, but that`s ok :) 

There are lots of cats in Monte Lindo. And not very many chickens.

I miss the chickens in Ypacarai. . . but not so much the vast amount of dogs. . .

there are definitely pros and cons to every area :) 

Oh! We got to clean the temple on Monday -  way cool. I miss going regularly. 

And happy Valentines Day! We celebrated by seeing off all the youth as they left for the big Valentines dance. . . and eating Lomitos :) 

Monte Lindo is HOT

Highlight of the Week: Completing Contactos EVERY DAY :) 

We have a mission goal to contact 5 people every day. Some days it`s easy and others not so much. But we made an effort this week to complete our contacts every single day, and we did it! It`s an important way to find new people to teach and to learn the area a little better. And I know we`re going to start seeing the blessings. 

Monte Lindo is HOT. I know I`ve said this before, but every day I`m surprised that people can live in conditions that are just so suffocatingly humid and hot all the time. And I now understand what heat rash is. It`s your body saying ' why!?!?!?' But supposedly there`s only a month more of it. So it`s ok. :) Another difference I`ve noticed this week is that I always have 'fan hair', because all of our lessons are underneath a ceiling fan going at full speed. So I`m always sporting the wind-blown look :) 

I`ve got exactly one year left in the mission. Crazy, right? Where has the time gone. . . 

New area: Monte Lindo

Highlight of the Week: Accidentally making butter. . .  

Well, I´m not in Ypacarai anymore. . . I feel quite like I`ve discovered a whole new Paraguay. I`m in an area called Monte Lindo. It`s only about 10 or 15 minutes from the Mission Offices, I`ve been told, and it`s all houses and neighborhoods and city. And it`s way nice. Some of the houses here are E.E.U.U. status. And the members have cars, and we have a chapel, and there are teachers who teach the classes every Sunday, and I don`t need to use bug spray, and there hasn`t been sand in my shoes for three days now. . . I kind of miss Ypacarai :) OK, I miss Ypacarai a lot. But that`s because I still don`t know anybody here, and I`m always lost. Give me another week and I figure it out. The people here are just so different. . . 

And nobody in Ypacarai knows where Monte Lindo is. Probably because it`s more known as Fernando De La Mora. . . I think. Mora means mulberry. . . or black berry, but I still haven`t seen any of either. 

My new companion, Hermana Peña, is from Columbia, and she is super nice and sweet and more patient than I ever will be. She`s also three months away from finishing her mission, so we`ll have to wait and see if she stays here for the next two cambios or if I only get one cambio with her. 

Oh! I made butter this week! Totally an accident. I had made a banana cream pie (totally possible without cornstarch) on Monday, and wanted to find whipped cream to top it all off. So I found what I thought translated to 'whipping cream' (it even had a picture of a bowl and a whisk and white fluffy stuff. . .) but when I started 'whipping' it didn't get fluffy. Just chunky. And it took me a while but eventually I realized that what I had made was a big bowl of butter. Oops. Oh well. What can ya do? :) Now I know what to do if I ever need butter, and I only have 'crema' :)