20 June 2016

Fotos:

1- Home Evening with the Martinez family and members of the branch

2- What missionaries do with bugs they find in their houses.

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Hello to all:

We have had a wonderful week here in the mission in Paraguay.  We love being remote in the Northern part of the country where life is simpler, traffic is not a problem, and people are so wonderful.  We love our mission, we love the Horqueta Branch, we love the missionaries with whom we serve, and most of all we love our family for their support during these 18 months of missionary service. 

Early in the week we had the assignment to drive to Yby Yau, Santa Rosa, and Santani to install smoke / carbon monoxide detectors in the houses of all missionaries.  We love seeing and visiting with all of the missionaries and helping keep them safe.  We had lunch with the Guterres, the other couple from Brasil serving in Santani.  We love them and even though Hermana Cranney and Hermana Guterres don’t speak the same languages, they get along great.  We had a funny experience in Yby Yau where in the morning we installed their detector, and when we were ready to pass by in the afternoon to drop off a treat we were told that they were leaving that evening to work in another area….so we stopped by and removed the detector!

We have been working with members in Horqueta, Tacuati, and a little in Concepcion to help the members plant gardens.  Most Paraguayans here eat meat, mandioca, rice, and noodles.  Not many eat vegetables because they are so expensive.  So we have provided vegetable seeds to all of the folks who wanted to plant a garden.  We heard the other day that many of the Tacuati members are already eating produce from their gardens!  Other areas are a little later getting started. We also helped our friend and neighbor Magdalena plant a small garden in her yard and we seeds are starting to sprout.  We are excited to help her as she is a single mom with 2 children.  She cuts and colors our hair (you can figure out who does what 😊.   She is a great neighbor and friend.

Last evening we had a Noche do Hogar Guazu - or Big Home Evening at the home of the Martinez family (see photo).  We had many of the youth of the branch attend, and the missionaries lead the group in studying the Book of Mormon.  We also discuss what it says, as many of the members here can read Spanish but don’t understand it well.  It was a nice evening even though it was raining and we all had to huddle under the covered patio for the meeting.

We had planned to go to Tacuati yesterday for Sunday meetings, but Pedro Garcia the group leader called me and said that the elections for one of the political parties (Colorados) was yesterday and it probably would not be very safe for us to be there, and next week is the election for the Liberales so we probably won’t be visiting for a couple of weeks.  We are so grateful for good members and friends who help watch over us and keep us safe here in the backwoods of Paraguay.

Last Thursday morning at 635 am I received a call from our branch president informing me that the previous evening there had been a big gunfight / drug war in Pedro Juan Caballero, about 2 hours from here.  We have 4 sets of missionaries in Pedro Juan and he was very concerned for their safety.  It appears that the Brasilian drug lords murdered the head of the Paraguayan drug business while he was driving his armored Hummer with 3 cars of bodyguards following him.  They Brasilians used a 50 caliber machine gun to pierce the armored Hummer and murder him.  The gunfight that followed lasted at least 30 minutes with thousands of rounds of ammunition fired.  All of the missionaries are safe and have been allowed to leave their houses only during daylight hours.  Several of the business owned by the drug lord in Pedro Juan have also been burned and 3 more people were murdered last night.  In our recent Zone conference, President McMullin shared the following story.   He described briefly what had happened and reminded us that 2 sets of missionaries live just 2 blocks from the shooting location.  He said that the sister missionaries were walking home when the shooting started.  At first they thought it was fireworks, but then realized it was gunfire.  Just at that moment, the branch president passed by in his pickup and said, “hermanas, hurry and get in and we will take to you a chapel on the other side of town”.  What is the probability that the President would pass by the hermanas at that very moment and rescue them from a really bad situation?   Pretty likely for missionaries who have angels watching over them.   We have all been truly blessed with protection during our entire mission. 

We hope everyone had a wonderful fathers day, and that everyone is healthy.   We love hearing from you and we love using WhatsApp which allows us to text and send photos back and forth.   We use it for family and even missionaries from Latin America who have returned home.  We had a good discussion last night with Elder Simao from Brasil. 

Time to go….we are making empanadas with the two sister missionaries from Argentina.   We plan to have a good meal but also take empanadas to the RS president who recently has surgery.

We love and appreciate you all. 

Jerry and Cheryl.