Another Week

Well this week was kind of weird but interesting to be honest. My companion had to go to Asuncion everyday for a conference so I went about an hour further east to Esabio Ayala with Elder Carter who came to the mission in the same group as me so that was kinda cool. Anyways I was like 40 minutes from Caacupe and probably the closest to Ciudad del Este I will ever be on my mission. FYI Ciudad del Este is the biggest black market city in the world. I believe it might just be for South America, but the world sounds cooler! (I –(as in Carla) looked this city up on Wikipedia just to give you a little info – “Smuggling is a major occupation in the city, with some estimates putting the value of this black market at five times the national economy of Paraguay. With a population est. 320,000. It borders Brazil and Argentina – that is where a lot of the commerce comes from – it is a duty free city one of 3 in the world”)

It was a week full of monkeys and alligators out there in the jungle... no joke. The work was good but it was not my area so nothing really too exciting to report. I guess I will tell you some of the stories that happened out there. Tuesday night I got there and the house smells like an open septic tank -- seriously it smelled like a big dump out there. I was like wow this will be LONG week ha ha. But after being inside the poop smell starts to not stink as bad. Elder Carter is companions with Elder Brown who is from Idaho and is pretty much Christian Radabaugh (famous rodeo rider) So we get along really well talking about AM 690 shooting stuff and listening to Kenny Chesney and “Country Boy Can Survive” by Hank Willaims Jr. (Brian - I think been a little family tradition too remember that in the boat.) Anyways I looked at all his photos and decided I had killed the bigger bull elk!! ha ha. So the next day we went out to a cintimiento – that is what it’s called in Spanish - in English I’m not sure, basically it is the worst slums ever - where people literally live in houses made of garbage sacks - no joke garbage sacks - it’s pretty sad and we went contacting out there. We found some good new investigators.

Friday we went exploring into the jungle and found a spot with 10 or so crocodiles it was way sweet. I decided that I would really like to shoot one and mount it on my wall. Well I couldn’t find anything in the missionary handbook that says you can’t go crocodile hunting… so we did.... just kidding. It’s definitely on my to do list - have a mounted croc from my mission - now that’s sweet.

So then Sunday or yesterday I was back in Caacupe and the electric power to the church was cut, so we didn’t have any power and I thought the world was seriously coming to an end! A little test of faith for the members and they didn’t pass with flying colors. They were freaking out and yelling at each other. I was like only in Paraguay would this happen. Sadly we had investigators there and I was like uh lets go for a walk outside. Then no one prepared the 5th Sunday class so everyone was saying ‘it’s your fault’, ‘no it’s his fault’ etc. That was when I decided to share a scripture and stood up and started to share a scripture to get everybody calmed down. Then the Relief Society President showed up and announces ‘this is my lesson today why are you teaching?’ I was like I am just sharing a scripture until you got here. Then her and the Elders Quorum President got into it. I was thinking long about then - I just miss the States! Well it just kept getting crazier and crazier - I know I think I say this like every Monday but the church is so unorganized down here its nuts. Be grateful for the traditions and culture at home. Anyway, Sunday pretty much was a very crazy. Like I said an interesting week.

Smiley orange surfboard

OK well the internet is being dumb so I guess this one picture will be all sorry!

Love you guys!

Elder Morgan