December 28, 2015

Hello to all.

We hope and pray that you all had a wonderful Christmas and that you are all ready for another new year.  A few years ago I never would have thought that we would be entering the year 2016, especially in Paraguay!

We already shared some of our wonderful Christmas Eve experiences and we will always cherish the opportunity we had to give something for Christmas that most of these wonderful people had never received - Christmas Carolers.  We visited the house of some members where we had gone caroling and they said that their neighbors asked why we had not visited them also.  What a shame that we could only spend 5 hours out caroling.

On Christmas Day we visited the Cristaldo family, delivered a Christmas cake, and had a short lesson with them including the video “A Savior is Born”.  They really enjoyed it and we invited them to join us for church on Sunday.  Hmo Cristaldo seemed interested in coming back to church but he didn’t seem too sure about when he might return as he has been inactive for several years.  Yesterday morning about 10 minutes after the start of our meetings in walked Hno Cristaldo.  He decided that this was the day he was going to come back to church.  He stayed all three hours and seemed to enjoy seeing all of the members, he participated in the classes, and seemed pleased to be there.  We had an appointment last evening (already scheduled) to visit with the family again and when we got there we asked Bro Cristaldo how it felt to go back to church.  He said “estoy muy contento”, or in other words “I am very happy and content”.  He said it almost felt like he had never left.  We will continue to meet with them because the Hna Cristaldo hasn’t attended yet, but said she would start next year, which we reminded her is this coming Sunday!  It has been a wonderful and sweet experience to get to know and to help this good family.

We continue to have problems with our internet service and company.  A few weeks ago, in anticipation of all of the skyping from us and from the missionaries around Christmas, we doubled our data plan to 60gb…..we thought.  Today we have no internet because we have used up all of our data plan.  But, we didn't use all 60.  We have only used 35 which is what the internet provider set up in error.  So now I am on the phone all day trying to get this resolved.  Cheryl keeps reminding me - “You are in Paraguay”!

We really enjoyed visiting with everyone during the holidays.  It was great to be with family - even if only by phone or by Skype.  We had a chance to meet one our missionary’s family when he skyped with them from our house.  It was fun to meet the Mendoza family from Riverton, UT (formerly from Bolivia). 

We continue an unusually wet and cooler summer here.  Usually by this time we would have temperatures well over 100, sometimes over 115 degrees.  But we rarely have hit 100 and usually in the high 80s or mid 90s.  I have no complaints but things sure are muddy.  We also have to plan carefully when to wash our clothes as our clothesline is not covered and we can only dry clothes on a dry / sunny day. We are truly blessed to have a washing machine - I love it and I have the assignment to do all the laundry.  It is amazing how we are beginning to more fully appreciate some of the small things in life:  clean running water, hot running water,  a clothes dryer,  gasoline/ diesel at less than $4.00 per gallon, good ice cream, pizza hut, internet service that works, a true grocery store, etc.  But we are truly blessed here with all that we really need to eat, work and be safe. 

Thanks to all for your love, prayers, and support.  

Love,
Jerry and Cheryl