Week 102

The last photos with Elder Baskin

Week 101

Mom!

Sealy!

Map of the Ciudad Del Este 6th Branch

Me, Elder Pettit, Sister Rigtrup and Quintanilla at leadership council.

They were great sisters to have in the zone.

President LaPierre with all the sisters in his last consejo.

I was very lucky to see Elder Baskin every month.

This is your average Paraguayan bus. Yes, those are wooden floors. Most of the time, you could see through the cracks or holes onto the pavement beneath.

Me and Elder Bezzant

We went to the temple for tramites.

Elder Pettit made a killer apple pie.

Maple syrup is a rarity in South America, so we were VERY happy to have some.

The last time I would be seeing President and Sister LaPierre in the mission. This happened at my last zone conference.

First time meeting President and Sister Svec, from Rancagua, Chile.

It was my birthday, and the missionaries made me banana bread, and deep fried oreos. Great!

Me and my old companion, Elder Diaz.

We went to the baptism of this man's family in Hernandarias.

Our first time to Itaipu, and it was packed!

No other dam produces more energy than this one! "The rock that makes sound." Itaipu.

I love Shawarma.

This was in a super cramped alleyway where everyone sells just about everything you can think of.

The chapel in Hernandarias.

The photo of their district. It was kind of candid, and it makes me laugh how unhappy everyone looks haha. We were happy, trust me.

Our landlord had a big German Shepard named Felipe. He was very well behaved and he rocked.

We had divisions with the Elders of CDE 4. Elder Gardiner had a very bad lung infection and had to do this therapy every couple of days for a few weeks. What a great guy. One of the funniest missionaries ever.

Ciudad del Este downtown, from our apartment.

Downtown Foz do Iguacu, Brazil, from our apartment

The sign for this car wash had a CX7.

Family Dure. They are great.

Typical Rice and beans from Brazil. Along with some random stir fry.

Elder Britez. We came to the mission together.

We went on a technical tour of Itaipu. Best decision of my life.

Looking into the twin cities. Ciudad del Este and Foz do Iguacu.

A look into the bowels of Itaipu.

We made a lot of dam jokes and Star Wars references.

Beautiful view of the Itaipu reservoir from the dam.

Downtown Ciudad del Este. Not the cleanest city!

You can't serve God and the Papaya (Papaya is called Mammon in Paraguay)

Rice with a meat sauce. Made this a lot.

Me and Hernan Castellano with the bridge of friendship in the background. To cross into Brazil, they don't even check for a passport, you don't have to stop.

Hernan went on splits with us a lot. We treated him to some street food every now and then.

Oh, Foz, oh, Foz! Cuantas ves os hubiera juntado como la gallina junta sus polluelos, y no quisisteis!

Monday Falls.

Monday. Pronounced "mon- da- uh"

Elder Baskin with me at my last consejo.

Sister Barragan from Colombia was great, and so were Elder Hidalgo from Argentina and Sister Santos from Brazil. Me and sister Santos were born on the same day.

Me, sister Cannon, and Sister Johnson all were going to go home together.

I invested $10 in a pair of knock off Nike cleats, and Elder Pettit would go with me to the local soccer field where I would run sprints.

Hammocks were very popular amongst the Paraguayans.

Typical spread for lunch. They love fresh juice in Paraguay.

3rd Branch chapel.

Food you'd find in our fridge. Look how clean we kept it!

Me and Elder Ferner from Brazil and Monday falls again.

Elder Pettit finished a year when he was with me! We burned my grossest shirt.

This was a great moment. The baptism of the Family Roman.

Luis. Elder Baskin found and taught him. He still loved coming to all the branch activities.

We would often find Luis and Ricky reading the Book of Mormon together outside of Luis' house. It was quite a sight to see.

My fondness for dogs grew tenfold with this little guy. He is the only dog that bit me. When I told the nurse she said "If its not dead in 10 days, then you don't have rabies. If it dies within 10 days, then you probably have rabies and we'll take care of it." I never had rabies.

My last time entering the key indicators.

This is the only waffle I ever ate. it was wonderful.

My last district meeting.

This donkey did not look good. Elder Pettit, however, looked very good.

Ricky's house. I just love the placement. I thought it was so cool.

My last time leaving the pension.

My last day, I went on divisions with Elder Baskin and Elder Carson.

This walkway was very long.

Evil Coatis tried to steal all our food. They crawl up your legs and bite and scratch.

Iguazu was so beautiful

Last night in the mission home. As you can tell, I was the tallest one there by a large margin. All of the missionaries going home were gringos. Me, Elder Arevalo from Lindon, President Svec, Then Elder Ah Quin from St George, Elder Johnson from Twin Falls, Idaho. Sister Johnson from Twin Falls, Idaho, Sister Svec, Sister Ehlert from Alpine, and Sister Cannon from Park City.

Selfie with the airplane that took us out of Posadas.

Stadium of the famous soccer team, River Plate.

Buenos Aires Temple is right off the freeway, very close to the airport.

In the airplane. Me, sister Ehlert, and Sister Cannon.

Hello.

Well, as it turns out, ill be going to Iguazu NEXT week.

Yes. The Family Roman finally got baptized. It was a great experience. I won't send pictures, but you can imagine it if you want. Those people are going to do many great things. The Sister`s brother-in-law is a stake president in Asuncion, and gave a talk about Japanese Bamboo. He said that when you plant a seed for Japanese Bamboo, it doesn't sprout upward for 7 years. He said that a farmer has to have an incredible amount of faith to go back often to the same spot of ground and water it and keep it up for 7 years without seeing any signs of growth. But once it does sprout, within a couple of weeks, it can grow 30 meters tall. What does the seed do those 7 years? it just builds roots deep enough to support 30 meters worth of bamboo.

He compared this to the family Roman. The sister was living with her aunt and sisters when they got baptized 41 years ago. She was 12, and never went to church, and never wanted to be baptized. But the family for 41 years kept visiting her and teaching her and her family all this time with the hopes that they would finally sprout upward. Pretty crazy. Everyone was crying. It was a great sight.

After the confirmation, we went and had a lesson with their whole family in their house. Amongst them are 1 stake president, 2 bishops, and a counsellor to the mission Paraguay Asuncion Norte. Man. Talk about intimidating haha We made everyone share about how the preisthood has helped them in thier life.It was super spiritual.

We did divisions in Presidente Franco. I will tell you one story- we were contacting, and we got to this one house, and a guy left, and was pretty nice. He quickly said that he didn't have any time, but he kept talking with us. He was very polite. Well, he asked what church we were from, and we said the Church of Jesus Christ. And he said "oh. I have a client that`s mormon..."+ and he didn't remember his name. He said that he's Indian. There are only 3 indian families here in Ciudad del Este, so I asked "Rakesh?" "no..."  "Vijay?"  "Yes! Vijay."

It kind of stunned me. This guy didn't remember his client's name, but he knew that he was a member of the church. It's a great example to me of being a light on a hill. Living proudly as a member of the Church, so that even if people don't know your name, they know you're a member.

Well... Thats it.

Hey, someone showed us the medal count for the olympics the other day. Looks like the USA is destroying everyone

Elder Emil