Week 13 in Paraguay--Elder Rodriguez

Ha upei mi familia! Ikatu que la familia está tavora ko`äga. There`s a little jopará for you again, it means it could be that the family is crazy right now, pretty good huhpa. Anyway, this keyboard is really messed up because it is in Portugues, so I can`t put a question mark, and pa in Guaraní just means its a question, so if you see a pa, its because its a question and I don`t know how to put a question mark. I can put this cool thing really easy though ç, they use that a lot in Portugues. This computer also keeps zooming in, so everything keeps on getting bigger, and the typing is kind of slow, but I`m just going to answer all those questions from mom one by one, so here it goes.
Who is the new companion? Has he been out a long time? What nationality?
My new companions name is Elder Rodriguez, and yes, he is Latin, from Uraguay, but he is actually really white, he really looks like this one kid from Canada I knew from BYU. He has been out on the mission now for 17 months and goes home in September and he is also the District leader here right now, so he knows a lot about the mission. He is super funny and talks a lot in the street, so the Spanish is really improving quickly. He also talks super fast, a lot faster than anyone else here I`ve talked to, so again, the Spanish is going to improve quick. He is really excited about the work too, which is nice, because the Rama right now is right down about as low as it can possibly get. We went to go make a mission plan for the Branch with our Branch President two days ago because our mission President asked us to have one before the next zone conference which is this week. The very first thing our branch president did was laugh, and then talked about all the reasons we don`t have success here. It wasn`t fun. But we made the plan with him, when we actually got into it the President kind of changed. He really is a great guy, he just doesn`t want to do anything more than he has to, but he does want to help. We are going to get it going here and we are going to work really hard and I really feel like these next six weeks are going to be productive.
How were your days with the zone leader?
The days with the Zone leader were actually really awesome, we have probably the two most obedient Elders in our whole mission as our zone leaders right now. Just from one day with one of them I could really tell that he understands really well exactly why we are all here on the mission. The zone leaders when I got here were a lot different, they baptized a lot together, but now with the eight baptisms that they had that I personally know of, only one of them goes to church, which is kind of sad. They could get people to church really easily, but I don`t really think that the understanding of really why was there. I`m really excited for this change because of that too, because the zone leaders now are really getting on us for doing things the exact way they are meant to be done. Just from those couple days with Elder Snow I learned a lot about how the mission runs, how we should approach the work, and more about just working hard. He really showed me how important even the very littlest things are.
There are now four of you in your apartment again?
There are four in the apartment again, and I actually haven`t lived yet in the mission with just two. It is a lot more fun with four people but sometimes it can get pretty distracting. It takes a lot more to really get to it and focus, especially in the mornings, but we have been really good with it this past week so I hope it can keep going well for the rest of the change. I live with my companion and Elder Brazier and his companion Elder Hill. Uncle Lloyd before I left to go to the MTC actually told me to look for Elder Hill. They are next door neighbors, and now we are living together, so you are going to have to tell Uncle Loyd that we`re together now.
How are your investigators?
Honestly we don`t have many, we keep getting a lot of news and we have a few people to go back to this week, but we are pretty much starting out fresh now. We did have an investigator in church on Sunday, but it is this brother of one of the members we have already tried to work with and he was really drunk while he was there. He only stayed about 20 minutes. He just kind of walked in on his own during Sunday School, was a little mixed up about stuff, and then left on his own. It was something different. So we are going to be doing a lot of looking this week. We have a couple girls we are going to teach today that had a lot of good questions and I think really could progress because they actually have that desire to know, one of them has even investigated a lot of different churches because she doesn`t like the Catholic Church. Her parents make her go to church so we are going to have to do a lot for that one. We also have this man and his wife that seem really cool, we are going back tomorrow to teach about the Book of Mormon so we will see how that works out. I would really like to have a baptism this change, so we are going to work really hard to get that. We are in one of the highest baptizing missions in the world so I think we can do it.
What has happened to the young woman who was your first baptism? Do you follow-up with her or is the branch taking care of that?
She actually wasn`t really my baptism, I didn`t teach her anything, I just baptized her, and now she is a mess, she doesn`t go to church at all and doesn`t really like the missionaries or the members. I don`t really know what happened to that family, they had four converts in the family that were golden, did everything, and now none of them go to church.
What is the weather like there?
It`s really weird because we are in the Tropic Circle up in Pedro Juan so it started to get darker earlier like it was moving into fall, and then now it is getting lighter again and it is super hot right now, we are right in the time of the year where Paraguay is the closest thing to the sun, so it is really hot, but not as bad as Asuncion, it got up to 47 degrees out there recently, that is 127 degrees in the US, its crazy, all the Elders tell me I have no idea when I complain about the heat, but I will be here for all of summer so I guess I lucked out, to be in a cooler area of the mission.
Well, I`m out of time now, send me other questions next week, with the same ones I didn`t answer and I`ll do it again next week, I`m excited to talk to you about zone conference.