La Lucha Con La Ducha...

How's it been everyone? It's been another wild week down here in Paraguay. Once again I'll address the title, it translates to "the fight with the shower" but it rhymes in Spanish so I had to do it. Last Monday our shower decided to no longer heat any water. Which is awesome especially considering that it's freezing outside and that was generally the way we warmed up in the morning haha. So for this week I've been heating up water in pots and combined with a really handy plastic cup I've been using that to shower in, it's been quite a blast actually couldn't complain. I have no clue what's wrong with it but were trying to get it fixed. I've taken it all apart and everything is hooked up the way it should be and I even replaced the heated element that usually goes bad but that didn't fix it either, we have someone coming to look at it though so that'll be good.

Also this week is transfers! And the big news drum roll please.... I'm staying is San Ignacio for another 6 weeks. Which will be good, it will definitely be hard to leave these people eventually. There are a couple families that are amazing and I feel like we are best friends so I'm glad I get to stay and see their progression in the Gospel. But, because of transfers everything is getting a little shaken up. The new Americans are arriving next week and one of the Elders in our district will be training one of them, so while he's waiting for his new comp to get here we will be in a trio with him. Which I'm super excited about, Elder Johnson is a super funny and hard working guy so it'll be good to work with him for a week.

We also got our new mission president this week, I'm hoping that we'll actually be able to go up to Asuncion to meet him in person, fingers crossed. Presidente y Hermana Hansen flew home this Saturday, and were very sad to leave, they were really good people. But I'm excited to meet my new mission president and see how the mission works under his direction.

This week we found a decently sized store and I wanted to buy some gloves because it's pretty chilly and my fingers get cold. So we go into this store and it was honestly like Marshalls from home. At least that's what it reminded me of. Turns out they only carry girls clothing and didn't have gloves so that was kind of a bummer. But they did have a big toy section and I found a enormous Anna (from frozen) doll I don't know why but I had to get a picture with it. The ladies that worked there thought it was really funny when I took a selfie with this doll. But hey, they talked to us afterwards so a contact is a contact haha. I also did end up finding gloves which was really nice.

We also came up with a new plan for contacting people, we call it the alfajor plan. Alfajors are these chocolate wafer cookie things and they are absolutely delicious, if I get fat it will definitely be because of these bad boys. But the main people that sell them are "Dispensas" which are these little tiny corner stores all over the place literally on every corner. We go in there and ask them for an alfajor and explain to them that we can't find them in the United states. Then the people ask what were doing here from the United states and boom all the sudden were teaching them. It's honestly a great strat, although not great on my bank account, and it worked really well because we found this new girl who is 19 and we have taught her a couple times and she seems very interested so the strategy definitely paid off.

This Sunday was also 4th of July and lemme tell ya I think I cried myself to sleep because I didn't get to really celebrate one of the best holidays. For some reason Paraguay doesn't think they should send off fireworks for the United States' birthday. I can't imagine why not but I guess they just don't do that here. Oh well...

We went to Santa Rosa again this week and had lunch with our branch president. He usually gives us a ride back to San Ignacio but this week he had to leave right after lunch with his family to go do something so he couldn't give us a ride, which was fine we just decided we were going to catch the bus at 5:30 to get back home. As we were visiting people in Santa Rosa we got a call from our Grandma who said we need to come over for dinner at 5:00. We said okay and imagined that we could eat dinner with her and still catch our bus on time. Little did we know she hadn't started cooking anything by the time we showed up. She was so excited that we came and that we could talk with her and eat dinner with her. So there was absolutely no way we were going to say we couldn't eat with her in order to catch our bus because she was too excited for us to be there. So knowing all too well that we would miss our bus we helped cook and clean and we talked with her for a while.

We then left at about 6:20 and knew that we had to way to get back home, because the last bus is at 5:30 so we decided to do the only thing we could. We walked. Santa Rosa is about 20 kilometers from San Ignacio so it would take us about 3 and a half basically 4 hours to walk to the whole way but it was we either walked or sleep on the street. We said a prayer hoping that someone would pick us up and then set out on the highway, trying to hitchhike our way home. I don't know if hitchhiking is a thing here because nobody wanted to stop and pick us up even with our thumbs fully extended asking them to haha.

About 2 hours in we were at this part on the road that was super dark. Like I mean darker than dark, the moon hadn't risen yet either so I was extremely grateful for my flash light. But what was really cool is how absolutely stunning the stars were. I could see the Milkyway better than I have ever seen it in my entire life. No picture would do a justice but there's no way I will ever forget how amazing the stars were that night. We continued walking, passing the time by talking about movies that the other hasn't seen. Elder Stillwell hasn't seen Stardust a movie that I was only reminded about because of the stars. So I spent the next hour describing this movie as best as I could. It was super fun and we had a great time. At about 9:10 a car pulled over off the road and yelled "Mormones" we ran up excited to get a lift for the last hour of our walk.

Turns out it was our branch president coming back from his appointment, he passed us as he was returning to Santa Rosa and flipped a U turn to pick us up. We were so excited that he was there. And him and his wife could not stop laughing at the fact that we were walking all the way back home. Definitely an experience I won't forget. And walking all the way was definitely worth the time we spent with Grandma, her testimony is so strong and being with her definitely strengthens mine. If I had to make that walk every week just to visit with her we would do it without a doubt.

We went and visited Gustavo again and this time was pretty special, we watched the first BOM video with him and asked him what he thought. He said that he really likes the example of Nephi because when Lehi is saying all of this crazy stuff Nephi just goes directly to the source and asks Heavenly Father if it's true. So we asked if he has prayed about what we have shared with him and he said yes. And everytime he does he gets goosebumps and has absolutely no doubt in his mind that these things are true because it has happened multiple times and is not just a coincidence. It was amazing to see how Heavenly Father has answered his prayers and to hear his side of the story.

I love all of you guys so much and I know that the Lord is always here to help and answer our prayers. I love how often I get to study the scriptures and how much we can truly learn from them. I have no doubt that this church is true and that the Book of Mormon is true as well.

Love you all

Elder Schofield