Nope, Saith My Abilities for English - Week 14
Hola Todos!
I Hope everyones doing super well and enjoying life! I certainly am not enjoying seeing my ability to form coherent sentences decline. This week was a little more interesting than last week.
The first interesting thing that happened was intercambios. Me and good ol Elder Draper explored part of Area amambay that hasn't been explored. We walked and talked with a ton of people. Spanish is hard and man does it suck walking up to people and talking in broken spanish. At this point i'm really just faking it till I make it. A lot of the time I make and it's great! Then there are other times where I dont make it and that makes me want to disappear into the sidewalk. Maybe thats just me being dramatic (definitely part of it) but it really sucks sometimes. My goal for the month of February is to do 100 street contacts more or less by myself. Well, we´re at day 5 and I have about 8. We do at least 10 contacts a day, it's a work in progress! Haha!
There was one event that scared the wiggles out of me and Elder Alcivar. Elder Alcivar is the district leader and every wednesday and Friday we have an emotional resilience class in our chapel with our zone. We´re the only ones with keys to open our chapel and our morning Wednesday was A MESS. Long story short we sent the keys with the Elder of centro to open the chapel for us. The best part is... when we showed up to the chapel late the Mission Presidents car was there to greet us. We walked in and filled the open seats... right next to President Alleman. Yea... of all days to be late... it had to be the one when the president decided to drop by. Go Amambay! Woo!
We had the opportunity to extend another baptismal invitation this week. A nice woman named Cynthia and her family were ready to accept the gospel. We have a lot of hope. When we asked her she was visibly excited and came to church the next day. The wards have been super helpful in fellowshiping them and making them feel welcome. It's exciting to see the blessings of the gospel come into their lives. There's a small problem with the family. Cynthia and her husband aren't married. The husband also doesnt want to talk with us. They need to be married for us to go through with the baptism. As I´ve seen miracles in the mission, I now pray the Lord will show us his miracles with this family!
P-Day today was pretty good too! Bought some knock-off LEGO minecraft toys for a couple bucks and then proceeded to purchase another bad haircut. No, I will not show you. Until next week. 😑
Other than that there was more walking, walking, and more walking, with a sprinkling of walking. This week I've come to the realization that Paraguay is an anomaly of a South American state. Our neighbors of Argentina and Brazil have a lot more going on (more baptisms and more of everything churchy). I've come to think paraguay is like a mission in the United States in terms of success. The upside here is that you can actually talk to the people, just nothing ever comes out of it (catholicism, laziness, the sun)! It's also not like a state mission because we dont have the creature comforts of home. Like english.
Anyway, wishing everyone the best! I want to make clear I am enjoying the mission! It is not easy and there are a lot of moments that really kick me in the butt. But God is good. Every moment in the downs comes moments of comfort and peace. Eventually we do have good moments like with Familia Cynthia or in a beautiful sunset or in really good Lego minecraft knockoffs. The Lord knows how to make those moments extra special and turn our days of nothing into days of something. The Lord knows what we need everyday and won't leave us alone in our trials. I love seeing that everyday. Somehow he makes every moment wonderful.
Suerte and Exito para todos! May the force be with you all and may the grind never stop!
Hopefully not the only missionary to have received an unsatisfactory cut in the mission,
The first interesting thing that happened was intercambios. Me and good ol Elder Draper explored part of Area amambay that hasn't been explored. We walked and talked with a ton of people. Spanish is hard and man does it suck walking up to people and talking in broken spanish. At this point i'm really just faking it till I make it. A lot of the time I make and it's great! Then there are other times where I dont make it and that makes me want to disappear into the sidewalk. Maybe thats just me being dramatic (definitely part of it) but it really sucks sometimes. My goal for the month of February is to do 100 street contacts more or less by myself. Well, we´re at day 5 and I have about 8. We do at least 10 contacts a day, it's a work in progress! Haha!
There was one event that scared the wiggles out of me and Elder Alcivar. Elder Alcivar is the district leader and every wednesday and Friday we have an emotional resilience class in our chapel with our zone. We´re the only ones with keys to open our chapel and our morning Wednesday was A MESS. Long story short we sent the keys with the Elder of centro to open the chapel for us. The best part is... when we showed up to the chapel late the Mission Presidents car was there to greet us. We walked in and filled the open seats... right next to President Alleman. Yea... of all days to be late... it had to be the one when the president decided to drop by. Go Amambay! Woo!
We had the opportunity to extend another baptismal invitation this week. A nice woman named Cynthia and her family were ready to accept the gospel. We have a lot of hope. When we asked her she was visibly excited and came to church the next day. The wards have been super helpful in fellowshiping them and making them feel welcome. It's exciting to see the blessings of the gospel come into their lives. There's a small problem with the family. Cynthia and her husband aren't married. The husband also doesnt want to talk with us. They need to be married for us to go through with the baptism. As I´ve seen miracles in the mission, I now pray the Lord will show us his miracles with this family!
P-Day today was pretty good too! Bought some knock-off LEGO minecraft toys for a couple bucks and then proceeded to purchase another bad haircut. No, I will not show you. Until next week. 😑
Other than that there was more walking, walking, and more walking, with a sprinkling of walking. This week I've come to the realization that Paraguay is an anomaly of a South American state. Our neighbors of Argentina and Brazil have a lot more going on (more baptisms and more of everything churchy). I've come to think paraguay is like a mission in the United States in terms of success. The upside here is that you can actually talk to the people, just nothing ever comes out of it (catholicism, laziness, the sun)! It's also not like a state mission because we dont have the creature comforts of home. Like english.
Anyway, wishing everyone the best! I want to make clear I am enjoying the mission! It is not easy and there are a lot of moments that really kick me in the butt. But God is good. Every moment in the downs comes moments of comfort and peace. Eventually we do have good moments like with Familia Cynthia or in a beautiful sunset or in really good Lego minecraft knockoffs. The Lord knows how to make those moments extra special and turn our days of nothing into days of something. The Lord knows what we need everyday and won't leave us alone in our trials. I love seeing that everyday. Somehow he makes every moment wonderful.
Suerte and Exito para todos! May the force be with you all and may the grind never stop!
Hopefully not the only missionary to have received an unsatisfactory cut in the mission,
-Elder James Tanner
Emotional Fortitude O'Meter
What goes up, must come down. RIP - 4/10 Mahjong Pieces
🀄🀄🀄🀄
1. He speaks through his servants the profets!
2. Behbeh Hwahkeen (not how you spell it but how you say it), man's a little menace to society. Please take some time to zoom in on his face
3. So many amazing flowers in Paraguay
4. My workspace has become my little home, Elder Porter bought me some nice plastic flowers this week 😊
5. Familia Cynthia
6. Biggest soccer stadium in Paraguay
7. Yes, yes, I am beautiful
Comments
Post a Comment