All My Memories Come From Busses...

This week was super cool no doubt. First and foremost last Monday I got to go back to Asunción to have a leadership training. So we had to take a bus in order to get there. Well for some reason the bus actually got to Caaguazú early (which never happens. These suckers are always late) and the other Elders on the bus that were from Cuidad del Este called us saying they were already at the station. So we stated sprinting down the road in order to get there before the bus left. It wouldn't be that funny if that was all. But we were wearing our suits because it's way easier to travel in a suit than to pack one. So people already are staring at us because there are 2 white dudes walking down the street with suits on. But then add the fact that we had to sprint like 6 blocks to get to the station. We got some weird looks haha.

But luckily we got there before the bus left and made it to Asunción. It was super fun we got to sleep in the mission office with a whole bunch of other missionaries and hangout and talk. But then in the morning we had our leadership conference and it was super cool because Elder Christianson our Area Seventy joined us via zoom. It was super cool to learn from him. As well as President Faundez the mission president. We learned some really cool stuff, and definitely had a great time. After that we got to go to the mission home where president grilled up soooo much steak and chicken. Man it was delicious.

But we couldn't hangout long because we had to get on a bus headed back home. So us and the Elders and Sister training leaders from Ciudad del Este all hopped on this bus heading back to our areas. It's 4 hours to Caaguazú and 8 to Ciudad Del Este. Buttttttt it's even longer when all of a sudden your bus breaks down. These busses that we're on usually are pretty nice especially when traveling long distances they are pretty nice. But as we were driving our driver went to shift gears and I heard this super load noise and then I didn't hear anything. As we slowly coasted into a gas station I knew we had just broke down. So we all had to unload and wait for a while for another bus to come by and pick us all up.

After that we were driving down the freeway. And there's a lot of construction on this road. It's a freeway where there are 2 lanes going both directions but they were working on one side so they directed traffic all to one side so we only had 1 lane each way. Well, as we got to the part where they directed us over into the other lane there was some signs that clearly said. Use the right-hand lane. But our driver just kept going... in the left hand lane... headed directly for upcoming traffic... on a free way... going 120 km an hour...

Needless to say I was for sure we were going to crash but as soon as a car was coming right at us our bus driver decided that this bus was as off roading vehicle and sent it into this super hard dirt road of the side of the highway. Now as we are off roading in a massive bus, he attempts to turn this bad boy around. Somehow it worked and we got going the right way again but it was absolutely ridiculous and hilarious.

After that we got home safe and sound and started working again in our area until Thursday when we decided to do splits with the Elders down in a city called Villarica about an hour and a half away (by bus again :) ) so we hopped on this bus and got down there without a problem.

We did splits with these Elders I was with Elder Jimenez (he's from Chile) and my comp was with Elder Rassmussen (from Highland he went to Lone Peak). It was a super fun time down there, I had such a great time teaching and learning from Elder Jimenez. We taught some pretty sweet lessons and met some really cool people. Going on splits has always been one of my favorite things and now I get to do it once a week which is super cool definitely going to take advantage of that. Down there in Villarica I also got to see some capibaras which was super cool.

Then we had to leave so we went and hopped on a bus home. This bus goes through a city called Coronel Oviedo, and in Oviedo there's a McDonald's... so when we pulled into the station there you all ready know what we had to do. We got ourselves some McDonald's for lunch and it was ridiculously good. As we get on our bus to go home there is a huge line leading out of the bus. Which we didn't think anything of there's always long lines as people are loading up. But this line seemed extra long. Before we knew it I was standing right next to the driver steaming down the freeway. I was so close to the dude, that I could've drove without moving hardly at all. A couple of times he asked me if there was a car in the lane next to us because he couldn't see out of his mirrors but I could. Eventually they decided they didn't like having people right up where the driver is at so they forced us into the back where everyone else was. All the seats were taken and the aisle was completely full of people standing. Then some lady gets on with her large basket of bread that she is trying to sell and parts the Red Sea of people trying to get us all to buy her bread. We were literally pressed up against random people standing for like an hour. It was quite hilarious but also quite uncomfortable haha.

Enough about busses haha. Back in our area, this week we put 3 people on date to be baptized!! Two of which are kids of a member family that are older than 9. And the other one is a Brazilian guy we found who is living in the house of a member family. We brought another one of our member buddies who served his mission in Brazil and speaks Portuguese with us in order to talk to this guy in Portuguese. Little did we know my man speaks dang good Spanish.

We taught him all about the restoration of the Church and about the Book of Mormon and he ate it all up. We back on other day and he told is that literally every free second he has had he filled it with reading the Book of Mormon. Which is super cool. We asked him if he wanted to get baptized and he told us that without a doubt he does. So that was really cool.

Yesterday (sunday) was voting day here in Paraguay and it has never made me appreciate the United States more. There was a joke that I heard a while back about calling your cédula to a political party. A cédula is an ID. And basically I thought it was just a joke people made to make fun of other people. But no! Literally at the place where you go to vote there are people who will buy your ID and then use it to vote for their parties candidate. These people are selling them for like 200 thousand guarani. (Which sounds like a whole lot but it's only like 30 dollars). And it is no joke some people will proudly tell you that they sold their ID and now are a little bit richer.

Also we heard that you can only serve a 4 year term as the "Governor" of a said department (or state). And so what they do here is they resign after 3 years and 6 months and then re run at the next election 6 months later. And somehow that's all okay haha. Let's just say the government here is ever so slightly corrupt haha.

Anyway, I love all of you and hope you have a great week, write if you want it's always appreciated.

Elder Schofield