Horqueta 7 December 2015
Horqueta 7 December 2015
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1 - Our favorite
hamburgers at Lometeria San Lucas. You can see they wrote their name on
the top of the burger in garlic sauce.
2- A goat resting.
3- A nursery (Vivero) near our house named Achu. Especially relevant for those who have allergies or hay fever. 
4- A large, very large red bee on our flowers this morning.
Greetings to all. Thank you so much for your love, support, and prayers. We truly appreciate all that you are doing for us.
This
has been another week of cool, rainy days. It usually starts to rain
very early in the morning with lightening, thunder, and heavy rain -
starting around 4:00 or 4:30 am. It rains heavily for several hours,
the lightens up and just drizzles after noon. There is always mud
everywhere, and with the high humidity everything we have is damp -
towels, clothes, sheets on the bed, all of our books and papers.
Cheryl’s Book or Mormon came loose at the binding and the branch
president reglued it - now mine is falling apart. The rains is having a
serious impact on the local economy here - there is no construction
going on, no brickmaking, not much farming, etc. So no one has cash and
no one is shopping at the local grocery stores. Kind of a downward
spiral. They all blame the rain on el Nino - (which translated is “the
nino”).
Yesterday was a very good day for us. We awoke to a
light rain and thought “oh no, no one will come to church today”. But
in the end we had 35 people in attendance (and one small dog). It was
testimony meeting and there were so many strong and sincere testimonies
shared. We really enjoyed the ones in Spanish since we can only
partially understand the ones in Guarani. We are so grateful for those
faithful members who come to church, come rain or shine.
This
week we also had instruction and interviews with President McMullin. He
taught all of the missionaries the importance of being obedient, and
that there really are no excuses for not being obedient. As a result of
his instruction, we chose to not participate in an outing to a famous
hill about 2 hours away - a wonderful place for pictures. It is out of
our zone and thus not appropriate for us to travel there. He is a great
President and we have grown to love him and his family very much. He
brought a small cooler full of goodies for Cheryl. Sis McMullin called
from the Super Seis Supermarket about 10 days ago and said that she
found some chocolate chips - real ones. So Cheryl ordered several bags
of chips, two bags of marshmallows, 2 brownie mixes, and 3 containers of
Hersheys cocoa. What a find. We can make all kinds of treats for
Christmas.
We went to Concepcion for Presidency meeting on
Thursday, but we left early and visited for an hour or so with Alex and
Hilda - some of our favorites. They sell imported goods, but they also
make all kinds of good and interesting foods and share recipes. Alex
also has a small garden and he started a few plants for us. They are a
Brazilian plant with very large leaves. You can eat it in a salad or in
a smoothie. They are great folks and we really enjoy visiting them.
Hilda also gave us a recipe for pineapple upside down cake as the season
for fresh pineapple is here. The pineapple are small, but they are
sweet!
We had two Family Home Evening appointments this week.
One is with three youth who joined the church without any family
support. Their mom is living and working in Spain (8 years now) and the
dad is never around. They need a fair amount of support from the
branch to stay on track. The second was with a great family who,
according to the dad, is 100% on everything about the church… except
they don’t come to church each Sunday. We are working to help correct
this incorrect assumption. You can't be 100% if you don't attend church
and partake of the Sacrament.
We are working with the
District and Branch leaders to be more effective, and hopefully
committed to their callings. We have started using agendas for
meetings, plan our Sacrament meetings more than 1 hour before they
start, and are having Presidency and Branch Council meetings. A long
way to go, but we are starting.
We now have a 2nd counselor
in the District Presidency. He is Elder Guterres and he and his wife
are the only other couple missionaries in our mission. They are from
Brasil and he speaks pretty good Spanish. The Hermana Guterres speaks
mostly Portugues. She and Sister Cranney get along pretty well. Our
District President is from Paraguay, I am from the US, and Elder
Guterres is from Brasil. Pretty fun to work with them.
We
are relatively healthy and enjoying the work. We have been blessed thus
far with no major sicknesses, just the normal kind of stuff you get in
South America.
Thanks again for everything. Love you all.
Jerry and Cheryl
1 - Our favorite hamburgers at Lometeria
San Lucas. You can see they wrote their name on the top of the burger
in garlic sauce.
2- A goat resting.
3- A nursery (Vivero) near our house named Achu. Especially relevant for those who have allergies or hay fever.
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