When the Tin Roof Gets to Talkin'....That's the Worst Sleep We Had...

How's it going everyone? This week was pretty sweet a lot of cool stuff happened for sure.

Just starting off I'll address the title, this week we had some serious rain storms like it was pretty ridiculous. And all the roofs around here are either tile or tin and lucky us, ours is tin. So when it rains really hard it is SUPER loud almost to the point where I have to yell to talk to my comp. So sleeping during those storms is definitely a treat haha. But it's all good because the rain is awesome. I love walking around in it.

One night was so bad that when we woke up in the morning we didn't have power or water. The storm knocked down a bunch of power lines and some how stopped the water from working too. So it was kinda a bummer to wake up and not be able to shower or see. We did all our studies and left the house smelling not great haha. And it turns out that it basically the entire city was without power and water as well. When we came back that evening for lunch we had power back but no water yet. By the end of lunch, water came back but at about 1/10 of the pressure we used to have. But we wanted to shower so bad that we just sent it. I'll tell you what showering in a stream of water droplets is not the way to go but it works ... over time. Definitely interesting trying to wash my hair in that, but it all worked out in the end haha.

Last Monday we had district activity but only one other companionship showed up so it was just 4 of us but it was still super fun, and of course what did we do? We went to grandma's house. She insisted that we come over with the other Elders because she wanted to cook for us. It was a blast cooking with her and spending time with the other Elders. She taught us all how to make cocido which is basically yerba mate with carmelized sugar, its basically these people's hot chocolate. Everyone drinks it all the time especially when it cold.

Also I finally learned what Maté is. Basically there's this tree that they take all the leaves and branches and dry them out over a fire. And then grind them all up, branches included. So basically this whole country is crazy about sawdust water? Need to do more investigation but so far that's my conclusion.

We met with this one lady named Neomi and she was really fun let's say. She asked me how many kids I wanted and I said "I don't know like 4, haven't really thought about it much" she scoffed and then preceded to tell me that I was going to have at least 17 kids. I almost choked on my water. I told her there's no way. But she was 100% convinced it was going to be that way and that I needed to follow her on Facebook so that when I do have my 17 kids she will know that she was right. I guess we'll just have to see if I found a Paraguayan fortune teller or just a crazy lady.

This week has also been super cold, like 1-5 degrees Celsius I have no clue what that is in Fahrenheit but all I know is it's cold. Especially with humidity added into that. You guys will probably google that and find out than in Fahrenheit that's not even that cold but I promise I'm not a wimp! Just close up my Armpit zippers and I'm good to go! But the Paraguayans think that we have hit absolute zero. Everyone is pulling out MASSIVE winter coats and beanies and gloves and then nobody wants to talk to us because it's "too cold".

One night however it was really cold and we were leaving a visit and had one more to go to that night. We were kinda bummed out because most of our appointments fell through and we thought there was no way this guy would want to visit with us because it was too cold. We realized that that was the adversary putting those thoughts in our mind to just go home and call it for the night. Luckily we kicked the adversary out and went to this appointment. It was actually a really great visit and we met 3 new people who are friends with this guy all of them were interested and said that they would try to get to church so I guess we'll find out what happens.

On a different note my companion told me this week that he hates our study room because the lighting in there is terrible. Which it is. There's only one light on one of the walls and I haven't really noticed how bad the lighting was because my desk is on the side with the light. I have no clue why it took him so long to tell me, but that same day while we were out walking around I stopped into a store and asked if they had any electrical tape. My comp was confused and asked what I was doing. I told him there was a stub for another light in that room and all I need is some electrical tape and I can wire up a new light. The look on his face was priceless and he thought I was nuts. But later that night when I pulled out my handy leatherman and wired him a new light he was extremely happy.

We also met with Jessica Martinez again this week. The previous time we were at her house she told us that she was going to teach the next lesson that we had. And that we wouldn't know the answers to her questions or know the story she would share from the Book of Mormon. So we showed up extremely excited. She shared about the story of Abinadi and we acted like we didn't know much about it. It was an extremely cool experience, we basically had a scripture study with her and her family and you could tell that she actually put effort into reading and understanding the backstory of King Noah and what was happening. I love visiting that family. The Spirit is always so strong.

We also met with some inactive members who are really amazing. The wife said that we could come over anytime for dinner whenever we wanted and that she was going to call around the ward and make people feed us. Which I'm super grateful about. This family is super amazing and all they needed was a little push and they showed up to church this past Sunday. We were super excited to see them come to church and participate. It's definitely a sacrifice to go because the wife works from 9pm -6 am every night so she couldn't really sleep by the time church came around. But she was very happy to be there.

Overall it was a fantastic week, lots of fun in the rain and I was very happy to finally see the cloud part for the first time in like 2 week (I think there's a picture about that)

I love all you guys

Respond if you want :)

Elder Schofield