Dear Friends and Family,
This tuesday morning I got news that no missionary with only a week in his new area would want to hear. It wasn't completely un-expected, but it was a surprise. We learned at the start of the week that the missionaries who's visas were delayed have finally gotten the green light to come down to Paraguay, and that we'd be called with the changes shortly afterwards... and when the call came from the assistants, tuesday in the morning, Elder Villacreses picked up. I strained as best as I could to catch what was said and heard "Elder Fairbanks se va" (or Elder Fairbanks is leaving). That brief call condemned me to the stressful process of re-packing my freshly unpacked bags and the anxiety of awaiting my new asignment. Again.
The surprise? When Elder Villacreses and I got to the mission office (for district meeting), one of the assistants walked up to me and handed me keys and a cellphone. The cellphone had the name "Moroni B" taped to the back. And then it made sense. President Evans separated us to re-open the recently closed area "Moroni B." That realization took away the bulk of the sting of the surprise changes, but I was still left with the dreaded chore of packing to move into my new house. We were told that I needed to move to the new house on thursday morning and then I'd have to go to the office to receive my new comp.
After finally having all that information sorted out, Elder Villacreses and I started the process of speculation and guessing games. Who are our new companions going to be? Are we both going to train? No probably not: Moroni is a more "difficult" area; president wouldn't send new missionaries there. But wouldn't it be nice to train? To be able to guide the work without worrying about the commitment of your comp? Nah. It would be better to receive an experienced missionary, etc... In the end, I think we were both kind of crossing our fingers to receive some of the newbies but... neither of us wanted to say it openly because if not, we'd be disappointed. We were only left to wait until thursday...
Well. Thursday morning Elder Villacreses and I moved me to my new house. We found it easily enough, found the right door, opened it with the key, put everything inside, but when the time to leave came, the key wouldn't come out of the door! We pulled it, twisted it, almost broke it, prayed, and everything else we could think of, but the key would not come out, and our time to be in the office was running short so... we left it there. We left my new house open with all the things I own waiting inside to be picked up by any passing visitor... With that stressful situation weighing on my shoulders, we hopped on the taxin and made our way to the office.
In the office, they quickly ushered us to the cultural hall where tables for all the new missionaries and their trainers were set up. Elder Villacreses and I walked around and quickly found our names placed on one of the tables of the trainers. After that, the new missionaries filed in, we listened to president speak, listened to the assistants, watched videos about the mission, and finally recieved our new comps. My new comp is Elder Schmidt. He's from South Jordan Utah, is 19 years old, and recently graduated Highschool (and his birthday is the 6th of July).
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| President & Sister Evans and Elders Schmidt & Fairbanks |
As should be expected, I was very eager to get home as soon as possible to check the conditions of our opened apartment (with the keys still in the lock). Luckily, we caught a ride with Elder Bickley, an assitant who was on an errand with the mailman of the mission, Elder Ticeran. It was a miracle that we went with him because when we got to the house (which is actually just one portion of a small complex of rental housing units with a gated front), the front gate was locked. And our keys were on the other side of the gate, still stuck in our door. If we had just taken a taxi, I don't know what we would have done, but Elder Bickley was with us and volunteered to hop the high gate (using the hand-stirrup method -- I was the hand-stirrup) to retrieve our keys to open the gate to let us into our house. In the end, he had to cut the keychain -- because not even he could unstick the house key from the lock -- to get the gate key. After that, we got in, saw that none of my posessions had been disturbed, disected the lock to get the key out, and started the unpacking process again before planning and heading out to work.
Moroni B is a very unique area in Paraguay. It's even more wealthy than Moroni "A" where I was working with Elder Villacreses, has pizza hut, a nike store, the temple, skyscrapers, postors advertising all the new, tempting movies coming out soon (like a new starwars movie, a harry potter spin-off, doctor strange, and other movies I'm sure you'll all be enjoying at home), tons of restaurants, and a university. With those "perks," Moroni "B" also offers a pretty unique set of challenges: The people here are a lot less receptive and as a result, it's been very difficult to enter into lessons, and on top of that, Elder Schmidt and I are doing what's known as a "whitewash" here in the mission, which means that we both got to the area not knowing the area, the people, or really anything at all. The hermanas who were here before us made us a great map with the names of some of the people they visited, but even with that help, it's been incredibly difficult to enter into lessons to teach. On top of all that, within the next 2 weeks, we're going to have to move again because our house contract is expiring and our owner doesnt want to renew it (which is almost a good thing because our house is kind of small and dirty) which means that once again, I'll be house hunting! Elder Schmidt and I have a lot on our plate!
We've seen some miracles already though. Our first day, we were just walking down the street, and we felt the need to stop and talk to a woman paused on the streetcorner. At first, she, like most people, seemed sort of reluctant to talk to us, but after talking for a while, she opened up. After conversing for a while, she asked us where we live, mentioning that she has an apartment above her house that she's looking to rent out. We ended up passing by later to check up on the house and, while it's not big enough for our needs as missionaries, she graciously invited us to share with her a little bit of our message. Seeing some (very old) family photos of hers on the walls, we started chatting about her ancestors and the church's family history programs. She's a very busy woman, but she's interested, so we'll definitely be stopping by to see if she'll progress as an investigator.
Another day (Saturday) after spending the whole afternoon walking around trying time after time to get in to houses to visit them, we contacted an older woman named A.S. She told us that it was her birthday and that she has some serious health problems right now, but listened attentively as we talked about Christ and how he can heal us physically but also (and more importantly) how he can heal us spiritually. We've got a visit set up for this next week with her, so we'll see if she's willing to progress as well.
In summary, It's been a pretty crazy week adn Elder Schmidt and I both have a lot of new, big opportunities and responsibilities weighing on us. More than any other part of my mission we're going to have to be completely reliant on the Holy Ghost and following the Lord. We need to find a house withing two weeks, we need to be guided to the few chosen people that we've been promised the Lord is preparing hear, and we especially need to be guided to know what to say to help them open up to our message. We're really going to have to practice "Trust[ing] in the Lord with all [our] heart[s]; and lean[ing] not unto [our] own understanding." I believe that if we do that God will keep his promise to "direct [our] paths." to the people and places he's preparing for us. (proverbs 3:5-6) Moroni isn't a hard area, it's just a different one that will require us to be a lot more spiritually sensative than the typical paraguayan city.
Love you all. Thanks so much for your support and emails. Until next week!
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