Week 50 in Paraguay, Change 9 Week 1

First of all, it is funny you were talking about the weather, because some crazy stuff just happened yesterday and today. So yesterday during the day it got up to 102degrees here with some high humidity. You are exactly right about the wall that you hit, you walk out the door into a blaze. It was just super super hot and humid yesterday. Remember what that means from New York, there was a thunder storm to follow. It started around 7 PM last night while we were out working. It was some of the strongest wind I have experienced here, and to make it all worse I had the car last night and was driving. There was even hail, which really doesn’t make any sense, but I promise there was. It got super windy and all the lightning started from far off, then as it got closer there was some loud thunder, then some really heavy rain, a true tropical storm. I was driving around 7:45PM to pick everyone up for a meeting we had with the ward mission leader and all the power went out. There wasn’t a single street light. Tree branches were falling onto the road. I’m driving on empedrado, which is cobblestone kind of, I think I sent pictures, and the currents on the roads are carrying giant empedrado rocks that just lined up at the intersections. It was so dark out, the lights aren’t too great on the car either. It was an adventure. All the traffic lights were out so the intersections were kind of fun too. I’m alright, we made it out alive and had a really good meeting with our ward mission leader.
The rain finished today, we just finished playing soccer out in the rain. That was a lot of fun, some Paraguayans were here at the church cleaning and they all just huddled up under this little tin roof stand thing and watched us play. Paraguayans just freeze when it rains. If it were to rain straight for a week here, the economy of Paraguay would crash or something because no one would leave their house to work. Anyway, that is the weather update, we are right at the beginning of spring and it was already up over 100 yesterday. I’m probably going to get out of the air conditioning we enjoy, in the mission office, right in the middle of summer in January. We’ll see how things go.

Your question about my fingers which I mentioned in a letter a few weeks ago, my finger is doing a lot better, it is still a little sore but it isn’t swollen anymore and I almost have full movement now. It doesn’t bother me at all when I type, which is the most important thing.

Did this week turn out to be a little quieter? Not at all, it actually was really packed, all of the changes happened last week, but the people that were going home still had to go home this week and there were 20 of them so I had a lot to do with helping them get everything all squared away with being legal and then getting all 20missionaries onto planes. Some at ridiculous times of the night. On Wednesday night I had to get up at 1:45am and go to the airport because of a miscommunication ending up in the wrong ticket being bought. We got back home at about 3:15am and went to bed until 4:45am, when we once again had to go to the airport to drop two more missionaries, then at 9:00am we started taking everyone else to the airport. One’s plane left at 11:00am and another 14 missionaries had planes leave at noon, then we went again at 4:00pm to drop off the last one. After that we went out to work in our areas. When I got home, I was out within about 5 minutes and didn’t even move until 6:30am the next morning. It was a lot of fun though, I really am grateful for what I am able to do, there are a lot of really useful things I am learning in the office. I mean I took 15 people all at the same time to the airport and had all their documents they needed ready with immigration forms filled out and I got everyone through without any problems. It really is a big blessing to be able to have a position where I can learn all these things that really could help out a lot getting a job later in life and just getting through life. I still would rather be out in the field, but I’ll get my chance, 2 more months in the mission office.

Have you had an opportunity to get out in your area? Honestly, not really, we got a little bit more time in the area than last week, but it still wasn’t nearly as much as I would have liked. Next week we should be able to do a whole lot more in the area now that everything has settled down. I really just want to get out there and really get it going, we have been having a lot of success lately with less active members, but the investigator pool right now is really shallow, we should be filling it up now in the coming weeks at the start of a new change. Last Sunday I was able to do a division with Elder Ruiz, the cartero, and we found 7 new investigators in my area, something almost impossible to do here, especially with the limited time we have, so tonight I really want to get back to the rest of those to see how they are doing. We went back to a few during the week and found out which ones were the interested ones. I want to see how many we can visit today to see if we can get a few more people in church tomorrow, because we haven’t really had anyone in church lately, just Rafael, this really old investigator that always goes to church, but won’t get baptized because his parents don’t want him to. We have tried everything with him, he’s about 40 years old so he can get baptized easy without permission, but he is really dependent on his parents because of a health issue he has and doesn’t want to go against them. So lately we just visit with him at church on Sunday and sometimes go over to see how he’s doing.

How's Laura and her family doing? Not great, they’re having all sorts of problems right now and haven’t gone back to church since Laura was baptized. I don’t understand why that happens so much here, but it is so hard to maintain new converts. She started having some hard things happen after she got baptized, which expectedly is going to happen to everyone. She talked to one of her friends that told her when he was down he read this part in Corinthians in the New Testament, so she has completely dropped studying the Book of Mormon for Bible Study. We have been trying to explain to her the importance of the Book of Mormon and how she can study both of them together, but she still just keeps with studying only the Bible. The Mom hasn’t been much of a help either, she had a long discussion with us a couple weeks ago about how she doesn’t want to come to church anymore, she told us that she hasn’t felt what she feels like she needs to feel in order to keep going to church, and the reasoning was because of sacrament meeting, she told us about how the members don’t seem like they prepare their talks at all; how the bishop doesn’t do anything during the meeting, he just sits up on the stand; about how the members are just waiting to go home when it is supposed to be the most important meeting of the day; and all sorts of stuff like that. Because of that she hasn’t felt right about continuing to go. That lesson really just made me want to cry, I feel like I have done absolutely everything for this family and they still just won’t accept it. I have come to love the family so much and I was just sure they would all get baptized, especially after Laura’s baptism. I guess I just have to be patient and work in the Lord’s time. That reminds me of a talk I was listening to the other day by Jeffrey R Holland, I actually shared it with the family last night when we were at their house teaching, he said, “Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come ’til heaven, but for those who embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they come. It will be alright in the end, trust God and believe in Good Things to Come.” I put that quote on the back of my plaque today and have really been thinking about it a lot lately with respect to my mission and it has really been giving me a lot more energy to go out a preach. One of the missionaries that went home this week was Elder Spencer, my brother in the mission, so I was kind of thinking about my mission family line; my dad, Elder Dennis had more than 105 baptisms in his mission; my brother, Elder Spencer had more than 110 baptisms in his mission; and me, the younger son, I’m more than halfway done with my mission and I have 8 baptisms, and out of those 8 only 2 are still completely active, and one of those active two isn’t even really my baptism. It was a girl I talked to at the MTC over the phone for a couple weeks that we introduced to the missionaries in San Antonio, Texas, and she got baptized the Wednesday before we left the MTC, I don’t know if I ever told you about that, I think I did. Anyway, what I am trying to get at is that quote has really been helping me and I really have new desires to get out and work, like there’s an energy, a drive there now I have been looking for I haven’t found in a long time, it is even helping in my workouts, I just feel really good, the baptisms will come, the blessings will come, because I am embracing the Gospel of Jesus Christ and trying to apply his atonement in my life, and as I come to truly understand what that means the more I want to share that with others, just like it says in Preach My Gospel, so I feel good.

Was I right is this now Change 9 Week 1 since you had your changes last week on Change 8 Week 5? Yes, week 1 of Change 9, that means I am past the halfway mark of my time outside the MTC, there are 16 changes in the mission, weird huh? I can’t believe how fast the time has been going lately, I have been in the office now longer than any other area, well the same as Pedro Juan, but it feels like I was in San Lorenzo twice as long as I have been here, and it is almost the opposite, weird.

How was your President's meeting with the Area Presidency? It sounds like it went really well, I haven’t had a chance to really ask him a lot about it, but it sounds like it was really nice, but really long and tiring. Elder Neil L. Andersen was the Presiding authority, they said that was a really great experience, I can just imagine 4 days of training by an apostle of the Lord, that would be amazing to be able to have the opportunity. They talked a lot about the new curriculum, the 8 lessons to more effectively use Preach My Gospel.

How is everyone doing in the Mission Office? We are all doing great, a little poor, but we get by, we are all going to go to TGI Fridays today to celebrate getting money on our cards today, one of the nice perks of being an office Elder, TGI Fridays, Pizza Hut, McDonald’s and Burger King pretty much whenever we want. I guess that is why we are so poor though, all we really eat is oatmeal and eggs during the week, but that’s life, but everyone is doing great. We have a great office staff, everyone gets along really well and we all got put in at about the same time so we are all going to be together for a long time. Elder Eddington is the new assistant, funny thing he was actually just Elder Gage’s companion in Capiata, where Elder Gage went when he left the office, a great pick for the new assistant, so with a new assistant that means I am officially the oldest in the office, the next to leave, can you believe that?

We can send you some new pants at Christmas time if you want or give you some extra money to get some. Send us the size and tell us what you want. I don't know how you repair slacks? Don’t send anything yet, I’ll take some inventory of my things and find out what I can buy here and then tell you what I’ll need, I want to try to go as long as I can without getting anything new, and if I absolutely need something new I can probably buy it here, so I will probably just ask for some money on my card. Elder Burr, my zone leader, just bought some brand new shoes here close for only 60 mil and they’re really nice, that is only about 12 dollars, so I’m thinking about checking that place out, I just need stuff to last until September, I really am not planning on bringing anything home, so I’ll make use of what we have, anyway, we’re about to head out, I love you all so much, I’ll keep you updated on the situation with Laura and her family, hopefully some good things can happen this week, love you sooooo much, Elder Adamson V

Week 49 in the Mission, Change 8 Week 5, Missionary Changes a Week Early

This week was the craziest week ever. I didn’t tell you, our President is going to Buenos Aires this coming week for a seminar with the area presidency so all of the changes were this last week. All the new missionaries came on Thursday, all the missionaries had their changes on Friday. Today we sent out mattresses to the old guys going home this next week so they could live their last week in trio companionships. It was so busy, yesterday especially, the last 3 days in a row I have got up at 5:30am in the morning, left the house by 6:00am, and haven’t got back to the house until after 10:30pm when I was supposed to be in bed. That wasn’t really caused by changes though, we had 4 missionaries go home this week early, and just one going home is a lot of extra work for me. The fact that it was change week just made it worse. It made it a really sad week, the first missionary that went home was supposed to go home this next week, he went home 9 days early and wasn’t able to have an honorable mission. I have no idea what happened, but it sounded like something from before because I picked up the phone on Friday to a really frantic Stake President that wanted to talk to President about this missionary and on Monday he was on a plane. Then Monday morning as I was going to the airport with this missionary, I found out another one was going home at 6:00pm the same day, so I had to get the missionary on the plane in a hurry, get back to the office, and take this other missionary to immigrations to sign out of the country, all before 12:30 when Immigrations closes. The second missionary went home because of some issues with depression, he started having panic attacks and couldn’t work, and then he had one so bad he couldn’t feel his face or hands, so they decided it was better to send him home where there is better medication and he can recover better and be less stressed. He came to Paraguay a change(a change is six weeks) before me, so he had about 14 months in the mission. Then on Tuesday, I wasn’t able to leave the office because I had to figure out what we were going to do with all the missionaries going home. We have 20 missionaries going home next week and all of their companions got new companions on Friday, but the missionaries need to be working until Wednesday, and they all had to come yesterday to go to the temple and do all the going home things, so on Tuesday I just sat down and called every one of them to find out if the house was big enough for three people, thought about how much it would cost to send back Elders that were in areas far away, if it would just be better to have them work a week here in Asunción, things like that, so I just made phone call after phone call coordinating things. Then, Tuesday night I got the flight plans for another Elder going home, we’d had this Elder in the office for a while that had a problem with his leg and he couldn’t walk. He had been going back and forth to the hospital to figure things out so we wouldn’t have to send him home, but they weren’t able to get him better, so we sent him to Buenos Aires to get checked by the area doctor and he still didn’t get any better, so they finally decided to just send him home to get better and then he could come back out to the mission. The only sad part is they are going to reassign him to a Stateside or Canada mission, so he won’t be able to come back to Paraguay. That one was the worst one because you could tell how much he didn’t want to leave. We took some pictures in the airport before he had to go through security and he just kept on giving us hugs and talking about different things because he didn’t want to go through airport security. It was really sad, but he’ll get back out there, that was on Wednesday. Wednesday afternoon, before the airport, President got a call from another stake president, and the same thing happened as what had happened on Friday, and another missionary was on a plane on Thursday. That made the day extremely busy because all the new missionaries also got here that day. I had to take this missionary to immigrations and to the airport, and do all the normal stuff that I do for new missionaries, which honestly I still haven’t finished, but I am going to have a nice really relaxed week next week to get really caught up. Anyway, that was also a super sad experience because I always heard about this missionary and how much he would just complain about Paraguay and how much better the states were, but while I was standing in line with him at the airport we started talking about what he was going to do when he got home and I could really tell he didn’t want to go home. It was not a fun experience, and I have to take 20 more missionaries to the airport next week, but I guess at least they are going when they are supposed to, so it won’t be such a sad experience for me, just a little bit of a trunky one.
Anyway, as for your questions about the robbery, I didn’t lose any money because I haven’t taken out any money yet. At the beginning of the month I took that one missionary with the bad leg to the airport to go to Buenos Aires and he needed a visa to get into Argentina so I bought it for him with my mission money and the money hasn’t been reimbursed back onto my card yet, it should have got there by now, but I am still penny-less. Anyway, I don’t think it was just one person who robbed our house though. Everyone thinks they were just looking for things they could sell really easily without anyone really asking questions. They actually stole 3 watches, it was just a coincidence they only stole one of everything else, they really just didn’t find anything else, which is weird because they tore the house apart, literally with the door. Our mission president reimbursed all the money that was stolen, but everything else was just lost, but don’t worry, Elder Williamson in San Lorenzo gave me his watch so I had two, so I’m okay, and I mostly just use my cell phone as a watch anyway. I haven’t worn a watch my whole mission actually. The only thing I used that watch for were my exercises in the mornings.
Oh, and as for things I might need I am doing pretty good. I saved half of everything like everyone said so I still have 4-5 brand new white shirts that have still never been worn. I want to wait until I get out of the office to start using them because that is when the real wear is going to come. Same thing with the socks, except a few I had to pull out early, but they will last just fine. The only thing that is getting really thin are my pants, but I’m getting them fixed up and they should last the rest of my mission, I’m worried about the shoes though, but I’ll make it, I don’t want to really buy too much new stuff, and there are a lot of people here that can replace shoe soles, so I will be just fine.
Well, I am going to have to cut it short, this hasn’t been much of a P-day, we spent all morning driving mattresses to companionships all over the greater Asunción area and fixing random problems. I still have to fill out new temple recommends for President to sign before he leaves for Argentina, so I’m going to go, I love you all so much, have a great week! Love, Elder Adamson V

Week 48 in the Mission, Change 8 Week 4, Robbed

I’ve got a lot of really good stories this week, so get ready. First of all, Elder Payne, the records guy, and I have really got into playing amazing basketball games with all different sorts of rules in the house with this little basket and rubber ball that one of the missionaries going home left in our house a while ago. Mostly we play pig with only slam dunks, bouncing it off walls and things, and occasionally we play some one on one. Well, I got a pretty jammed finger out of it, and it really hurts to hit the backspace key, because it is the finger I use to hit it; so if the letter doesn’t sound very well thought out or well formatted, it’s because I’m just being lazy with the backspace key.
With that said, first story I’ve got is from Sunday afternoon, so we left after church and went to some members houses to eat lunch like usual, which was really good food by the way. We have a family in our ward from Utah, the dad works at the embassy here, and we ate tacos. I swear it felt like I was back home and we had the missionaries over, except I was the missionary. Anyway, that isn’t the story, so we get picked up from the lunch appointment so all of us are in the car together driving home to get out stuff from the house to go out and work, well we get to the house and the front gate and the front door are both wide open. Someone had taken a crowbar and pried our front gate open to be able to go under the electric fence we have and then pried open our front door. There were marks all over the door and all the wood from the frame was broken right off. We have this dead bolt and they broke it right through the wood, so in our door way there was just wood chips everywhere and the door was still locked. The dead bolt was still alright and we didn’t have to get it replaced, just the frame, which now has a metal plate in it, and the actual doorknob, it was completely destroyed. So anyway, this is all we see and the first thing we think is that they are still in the house, because it is 3 in the afternoon. So all 6 of us go in together and look through the rooms and everything has been gone through, all the suitcases were opened all, our clothes were all over the rooms, our drawers were all pulled completely out, our desks scattered, but the interesting part about the whole thing, they took almost nothing. It was amazing some of the things they left. We had some money sitting on a top shelf they didn’t even touch, they scattered all the books on our desks, but Elder Payne had his Ipod under a book in his room and they didn’t find it. All of us have speakers and radios out on our desks and they didn’t touch a single one. Elder Vance had his camera in his backpack, which was completely emptied, he later found his camera on the floor in his room. They opened up a pocket in a bag where Elder Morrill keeps his money and his credit cards, stole all the money but left the credit cards. The only things they took were all the money they could find, 250 mil from Elder Payne, 500 mil from Elder Morrill and about 250 mil from Elder Dailey, which all together is equal to about $200, and a few watches. The only thing that was stolen from me was that $5 watch I bought in that store where I bought my soccer shoes. Elder Dailey’s camera, Elder Ruiz’s camera charger, and Elder Vance’s Ipod were all stolen. So we got pretty lucky, but it was still pretty scary. They broke into the house between 2pm and about 3:30 pm. We asked all of our neighbors and no one saw a single thing. We live in the nicest, and I thought safest, house in the entire mission.
The next cool story is about this investigator. All this whole week President has had interviews, so he wasn’t in the office to really give us much to do. It is in the middle of the change, so I didn’t really have too much to do from just normal jobs. I decided to pass a bunch of references I had been getting over the last week. This one I got had a very confusing address and was a reference from a mission in Brazil. They had passed it to the south mission and then the south mission passed it to us because they couldn’t find it and thought it might be in our mission. So knowing all this before doing anything, I decided to just call the number and ask the lady herself. I mean the worst she could tell me is that she didn’t want missionaries to come over. So anyway, I call up the number and a woman answers, I talked to her for a little bit about her family in Brazil who were members and how they had contacted us to get in contact with her, to share with her a message about Jesus Christ. I found out her husband had recently died and she is only in her 30's. She has one son who is 2 ½ now without a father. I asked her if we could come over to her house and share a message with her and she said she would love to share with us but she isn’t really ever in her house. So, first thing I think is that she doesn’t really want to share with us, that is what they usually say when they don’t really want to share, so she asked if she could meet us somewhere, and I just kind of asked again where she lived to get a better idea of if she was even in our mission. I mean all I was trying to do was pass the reference to the appropriate missionaries, so I asked her if she knew of any chapels of ours close to her house, and she tells me the only one she knows is the one in front of Super Seis in Mburucuya, our chapel. So then I got super excited. The reference just happens to know our church, so I set everything up with her to meet in a members house to teach her. We get there and have the lesson at the members house and it was probably one of the best lessons in my entire mission, one I don’t think I will ever forget, because of how much I could literally see how the gospel would and was blessing her life. We taught about eternal families and about repentance and baptism and committed her to be baptized on the 5th of November. She is coming to church tomorrow. The only bad news, she doesn’t live in our area, she actually lives closer to a different chapel, a lot closer, but she knew this chapel because her uncle is a member and when she was really young she remembers our chapel from where he would go to church. So, at church this Sunday we are going to try to pass her off to the other Elders, but it was such a blessing to just teach her that first lesson. It was like I was immediately seeing the effects of our efforts, the change that can happen to the people we teach. Anyway, I’m really excited to see her in church tomorrow, and hopefully we can get a few more people tonight that will go tomorrow for sure. I love you all so much, can’t wait to have more good experiences to tell you next week, Elder Adamson V

Week 47 in the Mission, Change 8 Week 3, Mission Secretary

Another fast week down in the office, there was so much work this week, every single day I was doing some kind of unexpected thing. It made it a little bit of a hard week. We barely even got out into our area and its suffering for it, but it looks like the coming week should be pretty normal, anyway here is a quick little overview of the past week.

Sunday- We enjoyed a great day of General Conference, but had a little bit of a setback. Church started a lot later than usual, so we went out in the morning and just contacted people inviting all of them to come and hear a prophet. Then we came back and watched the first session of conference on our computer in the office. After that I called Laura and her family to make sure they were still all ready to attend the 5 o’clock session and they told me they were all getting ready and planning on going. We had previously told them to go to a different chapel to view conference because it wasn’t going to be shown in our church, but we got everything working in our chapel so when I called Laura and her family I told them they could just come to our chapel thinking it would be easier. Well the session began and they didn’t come, I just sat there listening with my chair in the hallway so I could see the front door just in case they were coming late. I remember just listening to what Elders L. Tom Perry and David B. Bednar spoke about and sitting and thinking how perfect the talks were for that family. They didn’t show up for the whole session so we went to their house after to see what happened, because only an hour and a half before the session they told me they were getting ready. What ended up happening is that when I told them that they could come watch conference in our chapel, they thought it wasn’t playing anymore in the other chapel and there are no buses Sunday night going to our chapel, so it would have been easier for them to just go to the other one, so they all got ready and were going to walk, but then it started raining and they realized it is a pretty long walk, and Juan had some things to do later that night and didn’t think he would get back on time, so they just stayed home. They would have went and seen conference if I hadn’t told them to come to our chapel, I just thought it would be easier for them, but I guess that is how it goes sometimes. They are going to come to regular church this Sunday, and I am going to try to get them to watch some of the talks on the internet. They know so much about the gospel, so much, it surprises me sometimes, because the mom just reads and reads, we gave them a new member packet of books and she is reading through Gospel Principles, teachings of the prophets, the little book for temple preparation, pretty much everything, but there is still just some little thing that is keeping her from getting baptized. I really think she is just afraid of change, afraid to believe that everything she has learned her whole life isn’t right. But I’m positive she has felt the spirit and in the Lord’s time it will touch her enough to let her know of a surety that she needs to get baptized.

Monday- We have a missionary here that is really sick and can’t really even walk because of it, I had to take him to the airport at 6:30 in the morning so he could fly to Buenos Aires to be checked by the area doctor and then pick him up again later that night. After dropping him off I had to drive with one missionary to the center of Immigrations downtown for him to sign in, I took everyone that needed to sign the week before, but this missionary is out in a place where there isn’t really service so I wasn’t able to get a hold of him so he ended up going separate from everyone else. He signed and we left and ran a quick errand across the city and got a call from the lawyers that he had to come back and sign something else, so we didn’t get back to the office until about one in the afternoon. By that time that day I hadn’t showered, shaved, eaten or studied the whole day. After that President also had to deal with a different missionary and had a special interview late in the afternoon with him, President had been discussing with the missionary to stay for a while now, but he decided to go home, and so Monday night I got his flight plans and had to get everything ready for his flight on Tuesday.

Tuesday- I got to the office bright and early to weigh the missionary’s bag and get him all ready for his flight, I had to go back to immigrations for him to sign out of the country, then we went to the airport and dropped him off to go back home. It was actually a really sad experience, right before he left the office to go to the airport he was able to call his family and I don’t think he realized until right then how hard going back to life early was really going to be. All he knew is that he didn’t like the mission, didn’t like his companion, and he wanted to get home. Then, when he was going home like he wanted to, he realized the environment that he was going to have to go back to wasn’t at all what he had imagined. He had been fighting some depression and things of that sort since he got to the mission in August and he had so much help here in the field, access to great mission doctors, almost 200 missionaries trying to help him, and an environment far away from the reasons he developed his problems in the first place. After his phone call home you could tell he didn’t really realize how great he really had it here, so it was actually really sad to see him go off by himself and walk into the terminal. I hope he is doing alright now and maybe he’ll be able to come back someday, decide it really was what he wanted to do, I just hope more than anything he really holds strong to his testimony, no matter how little it was, so he doesn’t let this experience become an excuse to leave the church.

Wednesday- So after I sent Elder Jensen home early, the next day Elder Rush went home early also, but this one was planned. His release date is the 27 of this month, but he had permission to go home early because he is part of the marine core and has basic training starting in less than 2 weeks. So I took him to immigrations, to go shopping for some mission memorabilia, and then he was off to the airport also. Other than that, there wasn’t too much Wednesday, the only big challenge I had was booking a hotel for President in Pedro Juan. He is there right now he is on a trip to do some training of local leaders and interview the missionaries out there, but apparently the 12th is a holiday in Brazil, so getting a hotel for him was way harder than normal. I called 4 hotels on Tuesday and only one had any rooms, except one room in this really nice hotel, and the only room open was the presidential suite, 950 mil guaranies a night, which is about $200. So I booked the suite because there was nothing else and told President on Wednesday. He told me it was too expensive and I needed to find a different room, so I spent a good part of the afternoon calling hotels. I got a hotel list in Ponta Pora, that is the city on the Brazil side, of 10 hotels and just started calling all of them one by one, not a single hotel had rooms except the very last one, but the hotel didn’t have a website, pictures, and it was only 150 mil guaranies a night, which is only about
$30. So I called up President and told him the situation and he told me to cancel the old reservation and to book the other hotel. I talked to him yesterday to see how the hotel was and he told me, “It is something to sleep on.” Moral to the story, I think I need to make a note for myself and future secretaries to book hotels well in advance, but everything turned out alright, I think.

Thursday- So Thursday was actually a pretty normal day, there wasn’t anything to outstanding, honestly thinking back I can’t really remember anything I did, which hopefully means it was just a normal day and I did everything right, hopefully.

Friday- On Friday both of the assistants and President and his wife were out of town, which means the office Elders had the whole office to themselves, which means we went over to Super Seis, the big grocery store here, and made no bake cookies in the kitchen while our chef was making us lunch. They turned out to be really good, but they ran out quick. Then just as we were getting ready to leave to work we got a phone call from a stake president in Ecuador telling us that the father of Elder Lucas, who is actually our Zone Leader right now, pasted away Thursday night. I guess he had been really sick with complications of diabetes, had already had both of his legs amputated because of it, and was already about 80 years old, but obviously it still came as a shock to Elder Lucas. So after I got the call I called up President so he could pass the bad news, and then we waited in the office so Elder Lucas could come and talk to his family. It was tough to see him have to go through that, but he is doing a lot better now. He is one of the best missionaries I know in the mission, and is actually on the little office list of potential new assistants, he is a convert to the church too, so I don’t know if his family are members, if not hopefully this can help the family come together in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Saturday- Friday afternoon we got a bunch of extra mattresses put in our house so Friday night we lined them all up in our living room and had wrestling matches to celebrate P-day eve, when we finally got to going to bed Elder Dailey and I decided to sleep outside; we set up our beds in the back yard, which has razor wire and an electric fence, so don’t worry, and camped out for the night. We woke up in the morning, got things cleaned up, and had a two on two soccer game in the backyard, ate, studied, and then came to the church to play some more soccer, three on three this time. After that we all pitched in for Elder Ruiz, the Mexican of the office, to make us fajitas and now we are writing our families. I think the original plan involved sleeping after emails, but I don’t think we’ll have time now. I still don’t know what our night will bring us, hopefully some good new investigators and lots of people that want to go to church!

Anyway, that is pretty much the week, there were a lot of ups and downs, it was actually a pretty rough week, but P-day eve and P-day have made up for it, and I don’t think there is really anything big coming up next week, so we’ll try hard to devote a lot to our areas in the coming week. I love you all sooo much, Elder Adamson V

Week 46 in Paraguay

So, as you probably can imagine, I didn’t have much of a P-day with conference and everything today. I am already loving conference, the talks have been so great and really helpful. I want to try and use of lot of the things said about prophets in my lessons, it seems like that has been a pretty big topic today, prophets and the importance of following them. I also really enjoyed President McConkie in the Sunday School, he shared a lot of good things I can apply in my teachings. He touched on a few of the things that dad wrote me about in his last letter, thanks Dad. I am really excited for the sessions tomorrow, Laura’s family will be going, hopefully it can really help them progress. They aren’t really progressing much anymore, it has been really hard actually. Estela, the mom, is starting to get frustrated during lessons, and to avoid contention it seems like we always somehow get off subject. I really honestly feel like we have done everything and they still haven’t decided to get baptized, so hopefully Conference tomorrow can really help them. There has to be some way to better teach them by the spirit so they can feel the need to be baptized. I just don’t think they have recognized that spirit yet, they definitely see that it is something good in their lives that is bringing blessings. Something else has got to happen, so we’ll see what happens, but we might have to start lightening it up a little going to their house. We have a convert there at least, so I don’t feel like it is really for nothing because Laura is still progressing, we are trying to get her to go to the temple and she seems to be getting pretty excited about it. We really do need to try and seriously start looking for more things in our area. This week we found a new family, a wife and her husband, but they weren’t at the return appointment. We’ll see how that goes, we are going to go and try and visit them before Priesthood starts, hopefully we can teach them a little today and get them to go somehow tomorrow to see some of conference.
To answer the few questions at the end of your letter, my companion is from Reno Nevada. He is a convert to the church and he is a great elder. It is so much fun being with him. We have the same amount of time in the mission. We are learning the new curriculum together and applying it in our teaching. Another thing, he is way into cars and just stoked to be able to drive. My time behind the wheel might decrease a little, but I’m alright with that, I’ve still been driving a lot. I will still have to drive for parts of my job, so I don’t miss out too much, plus it is really amusing just to see how much joy and pleasure he gets from being behind a steering wheel, so sometimes I let him drive just so I can watch.
As for the baptisms, as I already said, they didn’t go through, and the more we go over the less sure I am about if it is going to happen, we are praying specifically for them every day and I know the Lord will only bless them based on their diligence, so I am learning patience a little. I guess we do have time, Elder Dailey and I aren’t really planning on leaving the area any time soon. Anyway, I love you all so much, sorry the letter is a little short, but like I said, I didn’t really have the ideal P-day today, so I am going to have to go so we can get a few more things done before the Priesthood session starts. I love you all sooo much, enjoy the rest of conference! Elder Adamson V