FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!!

Highlight of the Week: BAPTIZING ELIAS

YES. We pulled it off.

With a whole lot of help from the Lord, and a lot of calling all the members of Amambay

 who have cars. And miraculously our saldo (minutes?) didn`t run out until just before

church on Sunday :) 

 

But Elias is great.

He`s so ready to be a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints :) 

Elias and family (they`re members)

Us and Elias

 

Other than pulling off a baptism we just saw a whole ton of mangoes this week.

They make the streets dangerously slippery and yellow.

And I made mango jam the other week. A lot of it.

And today I`m going to try my hand at mango bread.

Like zucchini bread, but a bit more tropical :) 

Well, FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!! hay que recordar de Cristo siempre :)

 

Our Christmas tree (made out of the wrapping paper from my comp`s presents. . . she couldn`t wait. . . :)

 

the . . . Palacio? I dunno. A big important building in Downtown Asuncion. . . where the president of Paraguay works I think.

 

 

Christmas plans

Everybody keeps asking us what we`re going to do Christmas

and we tell them we`re going to sleep :) hehehe.

Paraguayans stay up till 12.

We`re going to be in bed, with the air conditioner blasting at that hour. 

He is the Gift

Highlight of the Week: Elias went to church! YES! Next step, the rest of the family. 

Elias is the son of a recent convert, Sonia, who just turned 9 and is so ready to be baptized.

 We`re going to help him with that :) 

Today its almost cold. But the only way to reach that kind of weather here is to suffer a good week or two of unbearably hot humidity. We`ve been honing our freezing-water-bottle skills :) 

And we are just SO EXCITED for this new He is the Gift video. It is so easy to invite the spirit into our lessons with it. December is going to be awesome. 

WE FOUND SNOW. . . but only in the freezer.

 

The first mango of the season :)


 



And this is our jackolantern. So cute :)

 

the package that finally came :)



This is called Inga. It`s kinda weird. But you can eat it :) 

Our district last cambio.




 



The Great Apostasy

Highlight of the Week: Being told we`re going to have an investigator baptized next week :) 

Yep. We got a reference this week from the Elders along the lines of, "hey, This guys come to church 2 times now and is way excited to be baptized next week. . . he lives in your area, good luck!"

So we`ve been working with Andres Smith (the Paraguayans say "Esmít" :) and he is just super ready. So we`ll be pulling off a baptism this Saturday (yaaaaaay) and working a lot with the dear sisters in the ward so that we can finish up the lessons he still needs. 

AAAAand we had cambios this week. I sent poor Sister Ross to the grave (metaphorically speaking, of course) and I am now with Hermana Palombo de Utah. We get along well.

 This is going to be a good 6 weeks :) 

I`ve really been impressed during my studies this week by the fact that the more one knows about world history, the easier it is to clearly see and understand the great Apostasy. 

Maybe I`ll take a history class when I get home. . . :) 

Jackolanterns and Pumpkin Pie

Highlight of the Week: Carving a Jackolantern (no me importa si era tarde :) No! Algo mejor - Hna Puma found a Gospel Principles manual in Guarani. Love that girl :) 

I made pumpkin pie this week. And discovered that Hna. Ross is a bit sensitive to large quantities of pumpkin. Like throwing up kind of sensitive. Can people be allergic to pumpkin?

We ended up staying en casa for the day so she could recover. 

But we made up for it by working crazy hard the rest of week. 

It tormented on Friday, but we stayed in studying because we had a zone meeting Thursday. 

I`m getting near the end of Jesus the Christ. I really want to read the last few chapters, because I know they`re going to be fantastic, but I`m not so excited to not have more of it to read.

Maybe I`ll try it in spanish this time :) 

tini baby frog plague

Highlight of the Week: RAIN. I love the rain. 

The rain is nice, mostly because it`s not the sun. And even though it makes the whole world deathly humid (think sauna) it`s still better than the sun. And luckily it`s been really only raining

 in the mornings when we`re studying. 

And it`s tiny baby frog season. There`s a family of members that lives by the arollo (stream) that runs through our area, and when we went to visit them we discovered that their whole yard is just full of the tiniest little frogs. SO AWESOME. You have to be careful not to step on them,

 It`s like a mini plague of Egypt. :) 

The elders in our ward had a baptism this week, and institute happened to be at the same place and at the same time. . . it was so weird to get a glimpse of the single adult life. . .

I am so glad I have a few more months before I have to worry about all that again :) 

Apple pie and pictures

Highlight of the Week: 2 less active families came to church!

The chapel in Amambay is being renovated, (ok, that`s impressive that I was able to pull that word out of the dusty English archives of my memory, just saying)

and so we have to travel a bit to go to church, and there are a few less actives because of it.

But two families with whom we work came this week! 

Also, Wednesday we taught Hna Cordone to make apple pie. . . but in the process

 I managed to drench the both of us in grasa de chancho.

I promised her that wasn`t normal procedure and that the pie would still taste good,

 but she was a little skeptical. . . luckily yesterday we confirmed that it turned out ok in the end :)

And I will never try to half a really packed bag of melted lard again. :) 

 



me covered in grasa de chancho. . . pig fat :)

making apple pie with Hna. Cordone.. . :)

 

Learning how to dance the Galopera. . . with cantaro. :)



 

Me in front of my new home (well, since three weeks now. . .)



I don`t know if you can see it well, but there`s a chicken with curly feathers in this picture. So cool. 

 

zoom in and crop of the curly feathered chicken



 

 

Hna. Zuñiga (mi hija), Hna Flores, me, Hna Lino (comp. in Villeta) right after General Conference in Ñemby

 



The Gonzales Family



Montse, my almost convert of Villeta