As encouraging as that subject line sounds, it has been a good week. So many things have changed...crazy. We left for the Buenos Aires airport at 4:30 am Tuesday morning, it was really hard to say goodbye to Hna. Boehmer, but I know she will do great. Our flight was delayed until about 9:15 because of bad weather in Buenos Aires...it was so cold and rainy! I placed a book of mormon in the airport, that was a good feeling, even though I am not sure how much she got out of my AMAZING spanish:) We stepped off the plane into Asunción and tried to breathe. EPIC fail. It is so humid here. W walked out of the airconditioned airport in our jackets and cardigans and started to sweat buckets. NOT fun. We spent the night at an apartment for the sisters...I was the only person there who couldn´t understand anything, and I was so tired..I was thinking the whole time....What. have. I. Done. The next morning was fine, sleep is wonderful.
I met my companion, Hna. Chempén the morning after we arrived. She is from Peru, and speaks pretty good English. Thank goodness. She has been out for 9 months, and is an amazing teacher who knows how to adapt to the needs of the investigators. She is SO patient with me and my awful spanish! I met her exchanged pesos for guaraniis, and then left for our area! Our area, Maramburé B (yes, that is guarani) is only about 1/2 hour away from the mission home. It is still in the suburbs of Asunción, but it honestly looks like the middle of some jungle place, complete with dirt roads, tons of weird looking plants, and lots of poverty. After unpacking a little, we caught a colectivo (bus) to our area, which is about 10 minutes away, and started proselyting. Here in Paraguay, they don´t believe in saying the s at the ends of words, so when the first person we contacted began to speak, I was like...What? Pretty much everyone in these poor areas also speak Guarani, so when someone begins to speak and I REALLY don´t understand what they are saying, I know it is Guarani or Portugese.
We ate lunch at a member´s home on Thursday. This family literally has nothing. While we were there, one of their 8 kids brought a pair of shoes he had found, and the mom just put them on the little girl and those were her shoes. However, they do have a TV and a satellite dish on the roof of their shack mom, just like you said. While we were eating, a girl came up to my companion and offered her a little gusano blanco (white worm), and told her to eat it. She was like....uh no. Anyways, so this little girl popped the head off of this worm, all the guts spewed out on her fingers, and she just popped it in her mouth and licked all the guts off of her fingers. We were like...WHAAAA...yeah, we were a little traumatized. We ate at another member´s home (an actual house) and while we were eating, a huge cockroach fell on the guys head, and he just shook it off and it fell on the floor. I didn´t freak out, you would be proud of me! However, I may or may not have taken my feet from off the floor.
The people here are so incredibly nice. Like to find a legitimately mean person is weird. However, they are so laid-back that they don´t have a desire to change. Which is why we have missionaries. On Sunday, we went to go get an investigator and her brother came out and told us that she had left, which we were pretty sure was a lie. Anyways, that was really disappointing, and then when we got to church, I found out that they have the new missionaries bear their testimonies in sacrament meeting. GREAT. It actually went pretty well, not too scary when the people actually kind of want to hear what you have to say. There is this little old man in the ward named Milciades. He is handicapped, only speaks Guarani, and is in love with my companion. It was really funny until he started to touch my shoulder, arm, and hair (which I am never wearing down again).
We get to handwash all of our clothes, so everyone be really grateful for your washers and dryers. My first time was this morning and it was interesting to say the least:)
Anyways, I am slowly adjusting to the culture and the people, but I love it here. I love studying the scriptures and learning Spanish y michimi (a little bit in Guarani) de Guarani. Thank you for all of your emails, please keep them coming, I love hearing from you!
Love,
Hermana Farish
 |
| Me and Hermana Chempen |
 |
| Doing laundry by hand for the 1st time! |
No comments:
Post a Comment