Paraguay: 4 Abril 2016

 

1- A foto at Shopping China, a very nice and large store in Pedro Juan, Paraguay about 1 minute from the border with Brasil.  They even have a large fishing department.

2- Part of the food court at Shopping China.  Burger King is always good but “Quattro D” or 4D ice cream is the very best.   We actually ate Italian pasta today.  Yummy.

3- Walter Arce taking a short break from working on our tree.

4- Cesar Cohene cutting down the trunk of our tree with my machete.  He sharpened it and now I can almost shave with it!

5- Cesar in the tree cutting down the upper branches.  He just climbed the tree with his bare feet and hands.  Amazing.

Hello to everyone:

Well, we made it back from Pedro Juan today in time to write an email to all of you.  We had to take the pickup in for maintenance (every 5,000 kilometros) and we tried to fix the gas gauge.  It still isn’t working, on a brand new Nissan Pickup.  But it is ok, we have figured out how to use the trip odometer to know when to fill up again.  Plus we got to do some shopping at the stores on the border with Brasil.  You know what?  They had Frosted Mini-Wheats!!!!!!!!!  I feel better already. 

Conference weekend was wonderful.  We actually started by watching the General Women’s conference a week ago and it was fun to have some of the sisters there to watch.  The Sister missionaries received permission to stay out late and watch with us.  Then Saturday we watched all three sessions and both sessions on Sunday.  In spite of a few internet problems and ongoing concerns about how much data we had left on our plan, we loved all of the conference.  It is amazing to me how we can receive answers to questions with talks that seem to be prepared just for me…..and then others say the same thing about the same talk.  We were so grateful that Pres Monson was able to speak several times.  I love his talks - even when he has to make them shorter now.  The sister missionaries had an investigator family show up at the Sunday pm session of conference - and the sisters didn’t know they were coming.  There were 6 of them and it took two scooters to get them all there.  We were also blessed to have about 14 of the members from Tacuati come to the Sunday am conference session.  They rented a small bus and it was wonderful to have them here with us all.

Last week we had a wonderful temple trip.  We left here on Monday morning and finally arrived in Asuncion about 8:30 pm.  We stayed at the Temple Hostal and it was WONDERFUL.  Modern, clean, and the hosts were so kind.  Tuesday morning we had a testimony meeting, some training, and then went to the 11:00 am session at the Asuncion temple.  It was wonderful and Cheryl and I were the witness couple.  It was so powerful to be in the temple with so many missionaries - both elders and sisters.  After the session we all had Pizza Hut pizza, and then we got our bus tickets from the office elders for our ride home.  Most of the missionaries left between  5 and 6 pm.  Our bus didn’t leave until 11:15 pm, and we arrived in Horqueta at 4:30 am.   We walked home with the Sister missionaries.  It was really quiet (other than the dogs!).

We had the chance to visit with Alex and Lori this week about what we have learned about clothes for a mission in the tropics (like Paraguay and Panama).  It was so fun to visit and to share also what our office elders told us about the most important things to remember about clothes. We hope it helps Alex prepare for his mission.  We are so proud of him.

This week we had our second monthly visit with the branch mission leaders.  We have interviews with them, review their ward mission plans, and then do some training.  They are growing and learning - but ever so slowly.  As the District Presidency, we are working on resolving many issues that surface in areas like this - such as finance issues, what to do when someone does not sustain the local leaders of the church, how to help build and strengthen the church here, etc.  I enjoy the work but we need to start looking for someone to take my place in the presidency in the next 4-5 months so we can have a smooth transition.

This week we hired two folks from the branch to come and remove a tree that has broken twice due to windstorms and dropped branches on our neighbors house.  Cesar cut down the whole tree with one of our machetes and Walter trimmed up everything and stacked it in the middle of the street for removal.  They worked very hard, it was sooooo hot, I helped as much as I could, and Cheryl made a pancake breakfast for us.  It turned out really well as you can see from the photos. 

Friday night we started our training class to help prepare several of the men in the branch to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood.  We had 4 attend and it went really well.  We will meet every two weeks for 90 minutes.  It is amazing how when given the opportunity these good folks love learning and progressing. 

Thanks to all for your emails, WhatsApp messages, fotos, and kind words.  We just passed the 10 month markd (no we are not trunky) but we are amazed at how quickly the time flies by.

We love you all,

Jerry and Cheryl

ps:  We found a way to ship home two chairs that we want to keep as souvenirs of our time here.  Our branch president is known throughout Paraguay for his chairs and the mission president also ordered two chairs from him.  So we are planning to send our chairs home with the mission president in his shipping container.  We are so excited.