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