Hey there everybody,
So this week went pretty legit, if I do say so myself. We only had 2 of the 4 baptisms we were planning on, of Liz and Gricelda, but yeah, we’re happy. We’re just working hard like crazy, and the work really paid off this Sunday when the weekly ‘exam’ came: we had 28 people in church, with 5 men and 3 families. So yah, a lot of the families are starting to turn around, and we’re just being blessed with so much success right now, its truly amazing. That 28 in church marks my new record high of church attendance since back in my Salado days when I managed to bring in 16 for a couple of Sundays in a row. But as you stated that spring is in the air, as well I can say, autumn is in the air. Its still hot, but you can feel the cold starting to come. Like last April when I showed up in Paraguay, my first day here I was freezing, even coming from cold Utah. So April is really the start of the cold, but it won’t be until about mid May that it really stays.
Okay, so about the area. First off, none of the actual ‘city’ is in the North Mission. So like, thinking of Columbus, its like the mission has the area above the 270. So my area is actually very tiny, and its a little suburb thats actually pretty urban for Paraguay, with the normal working class people. Its on the Paraguay River, which loops down around the city, and yah, its cool. There’s a ton of people who live there. But its like a part of Asuncion, sort of like a Whitehall to Columbus. The area the Wade’s live in is like the nicest part of Asuncion, with mansions and nice cars and its like stateside houses, just on little stone streets. There are schools everywhere, and most of the kids go to school everyday, but its a very crappy system and most don’t pay attention to the teacher or learn anything. They only go for like 4 hours a day, and there is a huge problem of schools getting filled up and parents not being able to find an available school for some of their children.
But yah, I’ll be here until at least June 10th, because I have to stay in the area because my comp will be leaving. I guess I’m okay with that, but me, I get bored in the same place for too long. Living with military brats for parents didn’t help, and now getting to move every 4 months definitely isn’t helping me for later in life, but you know, I put up with staying put. But yah, the house is really nice, we just need to clean more... :) But as for more native companions, actually its not that likely that I’ll have a latin anymore, because there’s very few of them in leadership positions, and those that are are leaving this change and the next. So more than likely I’ll be training a new zone leader next change, because almost half of the zone leaders are going home. Its a very young mission now, most of the big leaders are going home this change or next, and there’s only 4 of us who are zone leaders (out of 20) who don’t go home in June. So there’s going to be some big changes these next couple transfers. But because I went up so early in my mission, there’s a big possibility that I’ll go down to train or something before I leave, but that all depends on what the mission is like 9-10 months down the road. But yah, that’s the mission right now. If anything is unclear, just hit me up. Oh, and are you still Google Earthing my areas? I still want to see your guesses when I get home haha.
Love ya,
Tuja Dennis
Hesukrísto
Tupao
Marangatukuéra
Arapahapegua
Monday, March 30, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
Mar 23, 2009
How’s it going?
I’m pretty tired…we’re working hard. And we just played a game of futbol with another zone, and the air conditioning in this cyber isn’t working, so I’m not very comfortable at the moment. It’s still busting 90s out here, and I’m still dying. I just want it to be cold again, but that won’t be here until like June, but I’ll still be here in Zeballos then, cause I’m privileged to have the opportunity to kill Elder Perez this change, because we’re sticking together and he’ll be going home in April. But that means that I’ll be sticking here for another change after this at least.
But we’re still working hard and exploding our area. We had 3 more baptisms this week of Marina, Mirna and Graciela, who are all pretty awesome. So yeah, we’re excited. We should have like 3 or 4 baptisms next week too, but all of kids, because their parents can’t get baptized because they’re living in sin (i.e. not married) and the men drink and smoke and don’t want to get married on the off chance that a hot young girl comes along and wants to get with them… Paraguay is a messed up place people, I’m tellin ya.
But I’m glad that Cole is able to enjoy probably the most amazing invention ever made (aka Legos). I totally remember building that ice rink and then using it as a secret base with a slide away door on the right side that leads to HQ for my G.I. Joes. I think that part got destroyed though in combat if I remember correctly (Snake Eye’s forces were pretty tough man, those G.I.s really had to fight for their lives). I hope things are going good at home, tell everyone I say hey.
Love ya lots,
Elder Dennis
I’m pretty tired…we’re working hard. And we just played a game of futbol with another zone, and the air conditioning in this cyber isn’t working, so I’m not very comfortable at the moment. It’s still busting 90s out here, and I’m still dying. I just want it to be cold again, but that won’t be here until like June, but I’ll still be here in Zeballos then, cause I’m privileged to have the opportunity to kill Elder Perez this change, because we’re sticking together and he’ll be going home in April. But that means that I’ll be sticking here for another change after this at least.
But we’re still working hard and exploding our area. We had 3 more baptisms this week of Marina, Mirna and Graciela, who are all pretty awesome. So yeah, we’re excited. We should have like 3 or 4 baptisms next week too, but all of kids, because their parents can’t get baptized because they’re living in sin (i.e. not married) and the men drink and smoke and don’t want to get married on the off chance that a hot young girl comes along and wants to get with them… Paraguay is a messed up place people, I’m tellin ya.
But I’m glad that Cole is able to enjoy probably the most amazing invention ever made (aka Legos). I totally remember building that ice rink and then using it as a secret base with a slide away door on the right side that leads to HQ for my G.I. Joes. I think that part got destroyed though in combat if I remember correctly (Snake Eye’s forces were pretty tough man, those G.I.s really had to fight for their lives). I hope things are going good at home, tell everyone I say hey.
Love ya lots,
Elder Dennis
Monday, March 16, 2009
Mar 16, 2009
What’s up my peeps?
So this was a good week. But we still don’t know the changes, as always… But it was still an awesome week. We had the marriage and baptism of Juan and Angelica, who are simply golden, and then of Zunilda and Lidia, who are also awesome people. But by far the coolest thing about the week was on Saturday. We got the call on Friday night at 10.30 that we had to be in the office in suits by 8.00 the next morning, so we did as we were told, and we show up and they caravan all of the zone leaders down to the south mission, where we got to listen to 3 area seventy, Elders Gonzalez, from Uruguay, Da Silva, from Paraguay, who just got called as a mission president in Montevideo, Uruguay, and Diaz, from Argentina. So that was exciting. Then President Wade took us the ZLs out to eat lunch at this super nice restaurant called Paulista, which was super delicious. So that was a good day.
But I got the camera charger, and it works great, thanks a ton! You’re truly a life saver. I can honestly say though that I’ve never had a single problem with any of my packages. Those priority boxes that you use are awesome. Most people don’t use those, but yeah, there are a lot of kids that are having trouble getting packages right now… some are still waiting on packages from Christmas. Haha, but I’m glad Cole finally got that birthday thing. I totally made that at like, Christmas time to send it out to him on time, and then I totally forgot to send it off hahaha. But that’s so crazy that Brenda is engaged! Wow, that proves that I’m getting old… before we know it it’ll be Haley that’s engaged. I don’t know what we’ll do then, all I know is that I swear we’re only like 10 or 11 years old still… we’re not old enough to be getting married! That’s just crazy talk.
Anyways, Dad, thanks for the bracket! It means that I wasn’t one of the disobedient missionaries who went and downloaded it themselves haha I didn’t have to break any rules. But I don’t really have anything interesting to say. I was looking forward to filling ya’ll in on the changes, but nope. So basically, I love you lots, hope you’re doing good, and keeping up the good fight.
Elder Dennis
So this was a good week. But we still don’t know the changes, as always… But it was still an awesome week. We had the marriage and baptism of Juan and Angelica, who are simply golden, and then of Zunilda and Lidia, who are also awesome people. But by far the coolest thing about the week was on Saturday. We got the call on Friday night at 10.30 that we had to be in the office in suits by 8.00 the next morning, so we did as we were told, and we show up and they caravan all of the zone leaders down to the south mission, where we got to listen to 3 area seventy, Elders Gonzalez, from Uruguay, Da Silva, from Paraguay, who just got called as a mission president in Montevideo, Uruguay, and Diaz, from Argentina. So that was exciting. Then President Wade took us the ZLs out to eat lunch at this super nice restaurant called Paulista, which was super delicious. So that was a good day.
But I got the camera charger, and it works great, thanks a ton! You’re truly a life saver. I can honestly say though that I’ve never had a single problem with any of my packages. Those priority boxes that you use are awesome. Most people don’t use those, but yeah, there are a lot of kids that are having trouble getting packages right now… some are still waiting on packages from Christmas. Haha, but I’m glad Cole finally got that birthday thing. I totally made that at like, Christmas time to send it out to him on time, and then I totally forgot to send it off hahaha. But that’s so crazy that Brenda is engaged! Wow, that proves that I’m getting old… before we know it it’ll be Haley that’s engaged. I don’t know what we’ll do then, all I know is that I swear we’re only like 10 or 11 years old still… we’re not old enough to be getting married! That’s just crazy talk.
Anyways, Dad, thanks for the bracket! It means that I wasn’t one of the disobedient missionaries who went and downloaded it themselves haha I didn’t have to break any rules. But I don’t really have anything interesting to say. I was looking forward to filling ya’ll in on the changes, but nope. So basically, I love you lots, hope you’re doing good, and keeping up the good fight.
Elder Dennis
Monday, March 9, 2009
Mar 9, 2009
Hey there folks, how’s life?
So this week went pretty good, but it was still hot. Yesterday it rained though, so today there wasn’t that much humidity, and so I’m doing alright. This week we had one baptism, of Raquel, so that was cool. She’s really smart, and she’s pretty solid. I also baptized a young kid named Alejandro at the same time for some other Elders, because they didn’t want to have to get in the water and change and all that stuff if I was already going to be doing that. But I’m sorry, I don’t have any photos this time, because the computers we’re using don’t except usb connections, cause we’re in Paraguay... But all is going well for the plans for baptisms this week, we have Jaun and Angelica and her sister Lidia, and then a lady named Ramona and her daughter Liz who are all getting ready for their baptisms. We’re praying hard that they all make it. There’s also a lady named Zunilda, but we’re pretty sure she’s lying to us about not having a boyfriend that lives with her, so its still up in the air if she’s going to make it to the water this week. As for Eddy, I got to talk to him over the phone once cause I called up Elder Spencer to see how things were going and he was there helping them do visits, but thats about it, I’m going to be writing him a letter though to send out this week. Apparently he’s just a stud though and just giving references like crazy and helping translate portuguese in the lessons.
We also had zone conference this week, so that was pretty cool too. It was actually an amazing conference, one of the best I’ve been to so far in my mission. Its a little bit different though being there as a zone leader, because we have to help out by doing demonstrations and introducing new topics or ideas in the mission and stuff like that. I also played a special musical number with two other Elders from my zone, Elders Rebilas and Maddux of a song which I’m not sure what its called in English, but in spanish its ‘Accompáñame.’ I played guitar while Elder Rebilas sang and Elder Maddux played the flute. It turned out alright I guess, but definitely wasn’t anything special, so it was in reality just a musical number.
But I liked the time change last Saturday night, I got to sleep an extra hour haha. Sucks to be you! But now we’re on the same time schedule here as Eastern time, so you can look up at the clock at 6.30 and be like ‘Oh, my little Elder Dennis is rolling out of bed right now.’ Exciting stuff right there. But another special thing with the time change: I only have one more time change left in my mission! Wow, that’s a scary thought. To think that one day this amazing adventure ends... right now we just look at it as the goal line, like yes! I made it! But really its quite sad to reach the end, to know that you have to take the plaque off and not be able to put it on again... I’m definitely not looking forward to that. The name on my plaque is starting to turn yellow by the way, does that happen to the Elders up there or is that just because we actually go to work down here? Hahaha Just kidding, I’m sure they work pretty hard every once in awhile. But I ordered a new plaque last week, so it should get here in a week or two, cause I don’t like the rag-tag look some of the Elders go for, I like to be all nice and clean and stuff.
I’m glad it sounds like you guys are having fun and stuff though, with sniff sniff, skiing and snowboarding. Oh man, do I miss that more than just about anything! That and my electric guitar. The accoustic is fun but I’m not gonna lie, it gets boring after awhile if thats all there is to play. I’m definitely feeling the lack of um... good music. But, it’ll be there again before I know it... this week I’m already hitting 13 months in the mission! Wow the time really does fly! As for a care package, some of those sauce packets for marinera (not sure if thats how its spelled, work with me here) sauce. Um, and some Skittles. And maybe if you could include another pair of those Dockers pants, I love my brown ones, size 30x30, but try and compare it to other pants and find one thats like, bigger haha of grey or black or whatever. Oh, and maybe like one of my bottles of Ibuprofin, its kind of hard to come by reliable medicine down here, and its like really expensive. Other than that, I’m good to go. But just remember, Skittles and starburts... not swedish fish. Haha.
Love you lots,
Elder Dennis
So this week went pretty good, but it was still hot. Yesterday it rained though, so today there wasn’t that much humidity, and so I’m doing alright. This week we had one baptism, of Raquel, so that was cool. She’s really smart, and she’s pretty solid. I also baptized a young kid named Alejandro at the same time for some other Elders, because they didn’t want to have to get in the water and change and all that stuff if I was already going to be doing that. But I’m sorry, I don’t have any photos this time, because the computers we’re using don’t except usb connections, cause we’re in Paraguay... But all is going well for the plans for baptisms this week, we have Jaun and Angelica and her sister Lidia, and then a lady named Ramona and her daughter Liz who are all getting ready for their baptisms. We’re praying hard that they all make it. There’s also a lady named Zunilda, but we’re pretty sure she’s lying to us about not having a boyfriend that lives with her, so its still up in the air if she’s going to make it to the water this week. As for Eddy, I got to talk to him over the phone once cause I called up Elder Spencer to see how things were going and he was there helping them do visits, but thats about it, I’m going to be writing him a letter though to send out this week. Apparently he’s just a stud though and just giving references like crazy and helping translate portuguese in the lessons.
We also had zone conference this week, so that was pretty cool too. It was actually an amazing conference, one of the best I’ve been to so far in my mission. Its a little bit different though being there as a zone leader, because we have to help out by doing demonstrations and introducing new topics or ideas in the mission and stuff like that. I also played a special musical number with two other Elders from my zone, Elders Rebilas and Maddux of a song which I’m not sure what its called in English, but in spanish its ‘Accompáñame.’ I played guitar while Elder Rebilas sang and Elder Maddux played the flute. It turned out alright I guess, but definitely wasn’t anything special, so it was in reality just a musical number.
But I liked the time change last Saturday night, I got to sleep an extra hour haha. Sucks to be you! But now we’re on the same time schedule here as Eastern time, so you can look up at the clock at 6.30 and be like ‘Oh, my little Elder Dennis is rolling out of bed right now.’ Exciting stuff right there. But another special thing with the time change: I only have one more time change left in my mission! Wow, that’s a scary thought. To think that one day this amazing adventure ends... right now we just look at it as the goal line, like yes! I made it! But really its quite sad to reach the end, to know that you have to take the plaque off and not be able to put it on again... I’m definitely not looking forward to that. The name on my plaque is starting to turn yellow by the way, does that happen to the Elders up there or is that just because we actually go to work down here? Hahaha Just kidding, I’m sure they work pretty hard every once in awhile. But I ordered a new plaque last week, so it should get here in a week or two, cause I don’t like the rag-tag look some of the Elders go for, I like to be all nice and clean and stuff.
I’m glad it sounds like you guys are having fun and stuff though, with sniff sniff, skiing and snowboarding. Oh man, do I miss that more than just about anything! That and my electric guitar. The accoustic is fun but I’m not gonna lie, it gets boring after awhile if thats all there is to play. I’m definitely feeling the lack of um... good music. But, it’ll be there again before I know it... this week I’m already hitting 13 months in the mission! Wow the time really does fly! As for a care package, some of those sauce packets for marinera (not sure if thats how its spelled, work with me here) sauce. Um, and some Skittles. And maybe if you could include another pair of those Dockers pants, I love my brown ones, size 30x30, but try and compare it to other pants and find one thats like, bigger haha of grey or black or whatever. Oh, and maybe like one of my bottles of Ibuprofin, its kind of hard to come by reliable medicine down here, and its like really expensive. Other than that, I’m good to go. But just remember, Skittles and starburts... not swedish fish. Haha.
Love you lots,
Elder Dennis
Monday, March 2, 2009
Mar 2, 2009
And the weeks keep moving on…
So yeah, I’m still here, and it’s still hotter than jalopeños frying in a pan. I don’t know, that’s what popped into my head. All I know is that it’s still hitting over a hundred everyday. And dad, its not dry Arizona heat, its New York humid heat… it sucks. Yesterday was like the worst day of my life, I was literally dying. This weekend something messed up my stomach. I didn’t have the runs but man it was not happy, so that definitely didn’t help. But our count of investigators just continues to grow. Right now we have 15 people, with 2 families with a baptismal date. This week I helped the Hermanas Smith and Arce out and baptized one of their men for them. It was cool, we had to go do the interview and then we were asking who he wanted to baptize him, talking about different men in the ward, but he wanted me to do it. So I kindly obliged. This week we don’t have too many baptisms, we’re planning on two, but then for the eleventh, we have a ton of people, with one family that’s just absolutely incredible. I think I mentioned them last time, Juan and Angelica. We found them through service and they’re about as golden as they come, so me and my comp are pretty stoked right now just because of them.
Um… I never got around to trying that root beer extract, I just never seem to have time, and I always forget. But seriously, I’m so busy as a zone leader, because we’re expected to get more numbers than everyone else (which we do cause we’re studs) to show the example, plus we don’t have like a single day that’s just like, normal. We always have meetings or interviews to do or we’re on divisions to boost the other elders, its insane! But I love it, I like keeping busy. Unfortunately my journal writing is kind of slacking now, because down time is absolutely zero. But I still try to hit it up 2-3 times a week when I can. This past week for example, I haven’t gotten to write yet about Friday, when at 7 in the morning we had a special meeting with Elders Jensen and Aidukaitis of the 70 with the ZLs of both missions in Paraguay, and then afterwards they met with everyone except zona lejos from our mission. That was just amazing, let me tell you. Blew my mind. Then I went on a division with Elder Agudelo from Colombia, who went on divisions with Elder Nilsen when Nilsen was his zone leader haha, so that’s a cool little reflection. And that night I had to perform the baptism of Virgilio for Hna Smith. So it was crazy. Definitely the craziest day I had last week.
Today we ate at Shangri-la though, which is like amazing all you can eat really fancy Chinese food with 12 of the elders from the zone, and we ate basically for free, because some man paid our billed for us. We went up to pay afterwards, and the cashier was like, He didn’t tell you? He paid your entire bill, except for drinks. So instead of dropping 45 mil I only paid 4 mil… that’s only .80 cents. We were all so surprised, and it was amazing. He paid like 100 dollars for all of us, and down here that’s over 500 mil… which is like, a LOT. We don’t think he was a member or anything either, just someone who came into contact with missionaries before and respected the sacrifice that we make to do what we do, and wanted to treat us. SO that was awesome.
Anyways, sorry if my letter is all over the place, I didn’t make an outline ahead of time like normal this week. Love ya lots,
Elder Dennis
So yeah, I’m still here, and it’s still hotter than jalopeños frying in a pan. I don’t know, that’s what popped into my head. All I know is that it’s still hitting over a hundred everyday. And dad, its not dry Arizona heat, its New York humid heat… it sucks. Yesterday was like the worst day of my life, I was literally dying. This weekend something messed up my stomach. I didn’t have the runs but man it was not happy, so that definitely didn’t help. But our count of investigators just continues to grow. Right now we have 15 people, with 2 families with a baptismal date. This week I helped the Hermanas Smith and Arce out and baptized one of their men for them. It was cool, we had to go do the interview and then we were asking who he wanted to baptize him, talking about different men in the ward, but he wanted me to do it. So I kindly obliged. This week we don’t have too many baptisms, we’re planning on two, but then for the eleventh, we have a ton of people, with one family that’s just absolutely incredible. I think I mentioned them last time, Juan and Angelica. We found them through service and they’re about as golden as they come, so me and my comp are pretty stoked right now just because of them.
Um… I never got around to trying that root beer extract, I just never seem to have time, and I always forget. But seriously, I’m so busy as a zone leader, because we’re expected to get more numbers than everyone else (which we do cause we’re studs) to show the example, plus we don’t have like a single day that’s just like, normal. We always have meetings or interviews to do or we’re on divisions to boost the other elders, its insane! But I love it, I like keeping busy. Unfortunately my journal writing is kind of slacking now, because down time is absolutely zero. But I still try to hit it up 2-3 times a week when I can. This past week for example, I haven’t gotten to write yet about Friday, when at 7 in the morning we had a special meeting with Elders Jensen and Aidukaitis of the 70 with the ZLs of both missions in Paraguay, and then afterwards they met with everyone except zona lejos from our mission. That was just amazing, let me tell you. Blew my mind. Then I went on a division with Elder Agudelo from Colombia, who went on divisions with Elder Nilsen when Nilsen was his zone leader haha, so that’s a cool little reflection. And that night I had to perform the baptism of Virgilio for Hna Smith. So it was crazy. Definitely the craziest day I had last week.
Today we ate at Shangri-la though, which is like amazing all you can eat really fancy Chinese food with 12 of the elders from the zone, and we ate basically for free, because some man paid our billed for us. We went up to pay afterwards, and the cashier was like, He didn’t tell you? He paid your entire bill, except for drinks. So instead of dropping 45 mil I only paid 4 mil… that’s only .80 cents. We were all so surprised, and it was amazing. He paid like 100 dollars for all of us, and down here that’s over 500 mil… which is like, a LOT. We don’t think he was a member or anything either, just someone who came into contact with missionaries before and respected the sacrifice that we make to do what we do, and wanted to treat us. SO that was awesome.
Anyways, sorry if my letter is all over the place, I didn’t make an outline ahead of time like normal this week. Love ya lots,
Elder Dennis
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