This past week brought four new hermana missionaries to the mission and took away three of the "old elders" that have completed their time here in Paraguay. For that reason it was a little weird; no sister missionaries left, and not a single new elder came. We picked all four new "misioneras" in the airport at 7:00 in the morning on Tuesday with the four sister training leaders (because President figured that the new hermanas would appreciate being welcomed to the mission by the four fantastic hermana leaders we have in the mission more than by the awkward assistants), and from there we introduced them to their first day in Paraguay. The first fun thing we did with them all was take them back to my old area, Moroni, to visit the temple. It's always awesome going there and hearing President introduce Paraguay to all the new missionaries. After that little window, Elder Villacreses and I did a training on family history in the family history center of the Moroni chapel. President wants us misionaries to become more familiar with FamilySearch to work with recent converts and help them get their families' names to the temple. Elder Villacreseds and I have already had some great experiences working with our recent convert, N to get her set up with her own family history. It's been really fun, and I know that focusing more on family history will really bless the mission!
On Wednesday morning, as goes tradition, Elder Villacreses and I headed out to do "loops" and take this missions' missionaries all over Paraguay to get to their new areas, but this time was different because we hit the roads with the power of preparation! Normally, planning loops, there isn't a whole lot of coordination. We each have our own "loop" and plan where and when we pick people up. The problem is, in one chapel, our loops cross, and we waste a lot of time waiting there to pick up missionaries coming into our loop from the other loop. Make any sense? Anyways, this time, instead of planning our loops separately per custom, Elder Villacreses and I put our heads together and found what probably was the most effective way to cross our loops and cut out all the usual waiting time. I got done with loops 2 and a half hours earlier than usual, thanks to our planning, without a single hiccup. It was a great morning ringing with the sound of flawless execution.
Another awesome experience was watching President Evans fulfill his promise to challenge Elder Parada (my ex-comp) to a chocolate pudding eating contest. At the end of each change, President takes all the missionaries that are finishing their missions (and all the office elderes, of course) to a really fancy, Brazilian-style buffet to eat their last meal. Elder Parada was an office elder for many months, so he ate there many times and told President that they'd have to have a pudding-eating contest with the little shot-sized pudding cups on the dessert table during his "last supper" in Paraguay. Well... Elder Parada ate at Paulista's (the restaurant) for the last time on Thursday, and that's when the competition went down. Elder Parada's previous record was 8, but when he and president started downing the chocolate, they kept going! Elder Parada ate 13 before finally calling it quits. I have no idea how, but President easily downed his 14th and beat Elder Parada (which is absolutely outstanding because Elder Parada refuses to lose competitions. Like seriously, he goes hard). And you guys need to understand, these aren't your regular chocolate pudding shots, they are ridiculously rich pudding shots. After eating one you feel full. And I watched President -- my mission president -- eat fourteen of them. The best part? After eating thirteen, Elder Parada had to sprint to the bathroom because he couldn't keep it down. President handled it like a champ and kept all the chocolate pudding and his dinner down like it was nothing. So basically, this last Thursday night I learned that when it comes down to it, President Evans really is the most worthy to preside over this mission.
After wrapping up all the fun going-ons of change week, Elder Villacreses and I made it back to our area to give it some good tender loving care after a week of neglect. We had some great visits with some less-actives, like for example A, a returned missionary who came home and served in a stake calling until the death of his girlfriend left him depressed and he fell into inactivity; N, our recent convert, who we taught about family history; and Hermano A, a less active who verbally annihilated his neighbor, who got mad when Hermana A (Hermano A's wife) brought us over to his (the neighbor's house) to meet her sister-in-law there... That was a fun visit. So yeah, it's been great to get back to work after a week of office craziness.
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| Elder Parada & President Evans (photo cred: The Evanses' blog) |
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| (Photo cred: The Evanses' blog) |
One last thing I'd like to share is how on Sunday, yesterday, I took some personal steps to self-improvement. I've noticed that I have a pretty bad habit of kind of zoning out during the regular meetings in church on sunday. It's not because I don't want to pay attention, my mind always just kind of starts wandering... but it's something that needed to change. The point of going to church isn't just to go to say that I did, it's to go to actually pay attention and learn things! So this week, I re-established an old habit I had before the mission: Note-taking. For all three hour-blocks this Sunday, I took notes of the scriptures the teachers cited, the things I liked about what they taught, and how I could change my life as a result of what they taught, adn it was fantastic! I learned so many things, came up with a list of 3 or 4 small personal goals of things I need to do better to have the Spirit with me more regularly, and came up with a list of about 5 chapters of scripture (scattered throughout the LDS canon) that I want to study more in.depth on my own to understand them better. Taking notes completely turned the regular Sunday reunions around into spiritually edifying lessons. It was an awesome Sunday!
The best part of the whole week? Today I had to cut out a little bit of my p-day schedule to go to the migrations office here in downtown Asuncion. Yeah, that place where they told me every week for two months that I'd be legal "next week." Well, "next week" finally came, because today I received my official Paraguayan document card! I'm officially legal in Paraguay!
So that's my short update for all of you. I hope you guys all had a great week, and know that I love you guys and truly appreciate all you do for me: the prayers, the emails, the thoughts, the pictures, all of it. Thanks for everything!
Love,
Love,
Elder Fairbanks
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