Volleyball and Grandmas....

This week was super fun, lots of good stuff happened.

Starting off this week I bought a soccer jersey, here in Paraguay there are two big teams: Cerro and Olympia, I bought an Olympia Jersey because it looked super cool. It's white and black and looks pretty clean. I'll have to send a picture of it.

Also, last week we were walking around teaching people here in this neighborhood and we saw this family out shoveling dirt and moving it around their yard by using buckets to transport the dirt. So naturally we asked if we could help. They said no because they didn't want us to get our white shirts and nice clothes dirty. I told them that it doesn't matter and to hand over the shovel. In this life I may not be good at much but I will say that I do know how to use a shovel haha. These guys couldn't stop laughing at this white guy all dressed up getting filthy in some red dirt. We had a lot of fun helping these guys and then shared a little message with them about who we are and our purpose here on earth. It was a pretty special time with these guys.

Also, one day we were a little early to an appointment and because Paraguayans are always running late. If you show up early you really catch them off guard and they don't really like it. So to kill some time we walked a little bit down the street from this guy's house and decided to make some phone calls. While sitting down this lady in a house across the street called us over and started talking to us. We found out that her brother is a member and she really wanted us to come back sometime to answer her questions about what this religion is that her brother joined. It was pretty cool, Elder Stillwell and I talked about it and decided that neither of us felt "prompted" to walk down this street. But it's a testament that when we are doing what we should and living the way God wants us to live he will place us where we need to be in the time we need to be there.

Then Wednesday came around probably my favorite day of this week. And probably one of the best days I've had on the mission so far. It started off by visiting a less active member who said he would come back to church. And then is started raining and I mean RAINING. Stillwell and I looked at each other said "igual no mas" (translates basically to "alright whatever" it's my favorite phrase out here) and continued on because we had people to visit. So we went out into the pouring rain with no rain jackets or umbrellas because it wasn't supposed to rain today. We were absolutely soaked but it was so funny we would show up to people's houses and they would say "Elders it's raining" and we were like " yeah we know haha, but we're still here to visit you". So we had a couple visits just completely soaked it was so cool. After a little bit the rain parted and our last meeting fell through so we were headed to our last one for the night at the Martinez's house.

Along the way we passed this volleyball field where a bunch of kids were playing. Like 14-17 years old. As we walked by they started yelling at us to come and play. Basically saying we wouldn't come and play and challenging us to a game. So of course we went over and played with these kids. It was hilarious they are super funny and they couldn't stop laughing at these two white dudes all dressed up but absolutely destroying them in volleyball. The ground was muddy because of the rain but that didn't stop us from low key diving for the ball to save it. It was awesome while we were playing they were making fun of us and we were making fun of them. They would only refer to me as "Rubio" which means blonde, and would always say "pass it to Rubio, pass it to Rubio" because I could spike it on this net. Let's just say we made some new friends and were going back today to play volleyball with them again.

We left and headed to the Martinez's house to have a lesson with them. We taught about the plan of salvation and what it truly means to us. At the end Jessica and Julia (her sister) had a bunch of questions so we eagerly answered them all and everything seemed to be clicking. But then they asked a weird question, I guess a while back they heard some things that weren't true about the church and that made them not want to be a part of it. But they were really confused because they knew Elder Stillwell and I and knew that the way we lived our lives didn't match up with they had heard. Stillwell and I proceeded to tell them that these things were not true and actually contrary to the plan of God. As we were talking about this the spirit came over us and it was literally the strongest I have ever felt the spirit in my life. It literally felt like a wave of water washed over me. It just goes to show that when we are testifying of truth or denying false doctrine, the spirit will be there to testify and confirm the truthfulness of what we are saying.

This week we also went back to Pilar to have splits again it was super fun to see the Elders over there, they are super funny and we had a blast going around teaching with them and meeting new members all over the place. Stillwell and I found a pizza place while we were there and they make pizza by the meter, so I ate half a meter of pizza that night it was pretty awesome. Good thing that pizza place is a 2 hour drive from San Ignacio because if it wasn't I would be getting super fat.

We caught the midnight bus home again, and honestly I don't think I've ever been so cold. I forgot my jacket because it's been super hot during the days but the nights are now getting super chilly. And I swear this bus was like sitting in a freezer. And it was only worse that it was super humid so everything was damp. Let's just say it was a really long 2 hour ride back haha. But the next day we got up and went to Santa Rosa, the neighboring city to San Ignacio only a 20 min bus ride away. This is where our branch president lives so we usually go there every week to have dinner with him as well as teach people in Santa Rosa. Last week we heard of this lady that lived on the other side of town that was a member but didn't go to church.

We walked ourselves to the opposite side of town and met with this lady. She's turning 79 today actually, but she is the most alive person I've ever met. We sat and talked for over an hour just having regular conversation. Turns out she lived in the US for like 16 years and a lot of her kids live there now. This lady has no signs of slowing down, she said that her 3 uncle's lived to be 118, 115, 111 and she could honestly make it there. We asked her if there is anything we can do for her and she said that she wants to dig up and take out some bad dirt in her backyard and replace it with good dirt so she can grow some flowers. So next Thursday were going to do that. We asked her if she would like to come back to church and she said yes, she would love to she just doesn't have a way to get there. So we arranged for another member to come by with his car and pick her up to take her to church. She was so extremely happy to be at church again. I have dubbed her my Paraguayan grandma.

Also while in Santa Rosa there was this car entirely full of girls that came drove by us, slowed down rolled down there windows all of them said hi and then speeded off, it was so funny. They said they recognized us from somebody's "Story" on snapchat. We were super confused and just continued on with the day. At night back in San Ignacio we met up with Adaliz and Adaluz again. They started laughing as we walked up and we didn't know why. Then they said we were on someone's snapchat story. Again super confused we asked what was going on so they showed us. We took a picture with the kids when we played volleyball with them and I guess they posted it on their story. And now we're famous in this town and the neighboring town for playing volleyball in a white shirts. It was super funny. A couple other people recognized us as we were walking around from this picture too.

To top off the week we met with some less active members. This one family in particular is hilarious they have 4 kids but 2 of their daughters are 13 and 9 and are the funniest people ever. One of them get's super upset whenever we use English so naturally we have to use it a little extra just to drive her crazy. She then threatened to throw her croc at us if we continued using English so of course we had to. We took some shots from her croc and continued on laughing the whole time. This 13 year old then proceeded to boss around her older sisters boyfriend who is like 24 and I've never laughed harder she's hilarious.

This week was amazing. Sometimes the mission is slow but then sometimes I have experiences like these and it makes everything so completely worth it.

I love you all

Elder Schofield