Cows and Warm Milk...

This week was definitely one for the books, a lot of good stuff happened.

Starting off, I got my first Paraguayan haircut and while the guy was cutting my hair we were talking about everything but he was especially interested in American politics. I find it interesting how many people here are so interested in American politics and other things. Just goes to show that America truly is the best haha. But he also said that I looked like Leonardo DiCaprio so I was absolutely hyped. But then he cut off my DiCaprio hair and later I was told by my family that I looked like an egg, so the haircut really did me wonders. But then some lady still told me it was too long at church haha. Can’t win.

On Tuesday we went to Lucio's house. He was the guy that came to church by walking for an hour. He said we didn't have to come because of how far away he lived. We told him not to worry about it and we would be there. (We imagined it would only be like a 40 minute walk because we walk pretty quick) but turns out it was a solid hour. Way further than we thought, but it's all good because Lucio is a pretty amazing guy. He lives on a farm with 100 head of cattle, more chickens than I care to count, horses, pigs, a whole bunch of orange, mandarine, and mango trees (too bad mangos aren't in season right now) and they also have a Mandioca patch that's about an acre big. We taught him and asked about his life. We then asked if we could be taught how to milk the cows and he said "of course just be here by 6:00am". So naturally on Friday we woke up really early and headed out on our walk to be there by 6.

Once there they taught us how to milk the cows and it was honestly so cool and fun. But there is a definite talent to it. By the time my comp and I finished one cow the dad that lives there and runs everything was done with 3. But I've been told that he is basically a pro and for our first time we killed it haha. I also asked if we could drink milk straight from the cow, Lucio laughed and grabbed a cup, filled it up and handed it over. I kid you not I thought I was drinking cream, once you got past the fact that 2 seconds ago this was in a cow and the fact that it was body temperature warm milk, it was some of the best milk I've ever had. Also, the guy that milks cows way faster than us literally has the most massive forearms I've ever seen, he shook my hand so naturally I squeezed pretty hard to see what he had. I felt like I had a baby hand compared to this guy, he started squeezing harder and so did I. We both started laughing and he said I have strong grip strength so basically that made my whole day.

We also helped out with other things around the farm, feeding the pigs chickens, harvesting some mandioca. While we were working Lucio caught us off guard and says "so what do I need to do to be baptized" we asked him some questions and basically settled on the fact that we just need to teach a couple more things. But other than that he's ready. It was an amazing experience.

As we were walking back to our apartment to get showered me and Stillwell were just talking normally and I stopped him and said "can we just acknowledge what we just did, we're in the middle of South America in Paraguay and we just milked cows and drank their milk" Every once in a while everything down here feels so surreal. Like I'm in Paraguay teaching a bunch of people, and working with them and their cows. Sometimes I just can't believe it, there's no real way to fully explain it.

One of the other things that feels so surreal is the fact that I can speak Spanish. No it's not perfect, far from it actually. But I can communicate with a whole different country, I can talk to people that the majority of the United States can't talk to. It's such a cool feeling to recognize what I'm really doing down here and how much the Lord is blessing me, through the language.

We often meet up with this family (la familia Cuenca) who make up the majority of our ward and they use Guarani a lot especially when they're trying to mess with me and Stillwell. So Stillwell and I just start talking in English and then they get super confused. We tell them that's how we feel when they use guarani and then we all laugh and make jokes about each other. We are teaching them a little bit of english and they are teaching us some guarani and they always make fun of us white boys speaking guarani. We then use this guarani when contacting people and the Paraguayans love it when they see some super American dudes speaking in really bad guarani. It instantly makes for a more comfortable conversation with them because it starts off with both of us laughing so much.

We did some more service this week for the relief society president. She has a garden but has all of these trees that have over grown the garden so that the sun cannot get down to her plants. She wanted us to get rid of the branches that were shadowing her garden. So she handed us two machetes and told us to go for it. I was in heaven chopping down branches and cutting them up for her. It was a nice change of walking everyday. I got to be super sweaty and dirty and I loved every second of it. It was like being home again and working with my family.

We also went back to the other family that lives an hour away (completely different direction than Lucio) and met with them a couple times this week. But because of all the walking we have been doing we found some interesting things to talk about on our long walks. Currently we are going through book series or movie series that are really good and basically retelling the entire story to each other. Elder Stillwell has never seen or read the Lord of the Rings so for one whole day I told him the entire story (as good as I could remember it) and we have done that with a couple other books and movies it's been super fun.

One day we were trying to contact this guy who was contacted previously by other missionaries and when we walked up to him, all he was saying is "give me money, give me money" we told him we didn't have any and he said "I know you're lying how else would you guys fly all the way from America to here with no money". This guy actually lived in a really nice house and drove really nice cars so it was super weird when he told us if we didn't have any money we have no right to be there talking to him and needed to leave.

I love being in Paraguay I love the people here and serving them. My favorite thing is to work side by side with these people and show them what we're all about through our example.

Serving is by far my favorite thing, I'm hoping to get back and milk some more cows and work on this farm because it's such a fun time and great way to teach and talk to Lucio while working.

We did some other service that wasn't as physical. We helped this girl with her math homework. And lemme tell ya if you guys thought common core was confusing, try doing word problems in Spanish and then explaining why we are doing what we are doing in mathematical terms haha. We helped an older girl with her math homework too and this was super fun because it was calculus and both Stillwell and I enjoy doing that kind of math. It was super fun to help her and watch as they were shook that we could do some of these problems in our head.

I love it here, and I love all of you guys

Respond if you want :)

Elder Schofield