Renlund y Locura...

November 13, 2022

This week was unlike any other week in my mission. First and foremost we had Elder Renlund come to the mission. So we had a giant conference with the 2 missions here in Asuncion. Literally every missionary in the whole country was there.

But they probably chose the worst week to come to Paraguay haha. So we had the conference on Thursday but the day before, or Wednesday just happened to be the Census here in Paraguay. And because Paraguay likes to do it the old fashioned way, between 6am and 6pm nobody could leave their house. And people came by to count you and so on.

The bad part about this is that we have missionaries that live 7 hours away and they needed to be here for the conference with Elder Renlund on Thursday. So we waited until the census ended at 6pm, got everyone to the bus terminal, where we had rented ginormous buses to get 68 missionaries here to Asuncion. They got here at 2am and we had to find them all somewhere to sleep. We originally were going to get some hotel rooms but this weekend was also the concert for some dude named Bad Bunny who is probably one of the biggest most listened to artists in Latin America. So every hotel was sold out. So we scratched that idea and found 68 beds for all these missionaries. We were stuffing mattresses in every place we could find. But when they got here at 2 am we had to drive a couple of them to the next closest apartment of elders to sleep so by the time that was all done I went to bed around 3:30. Then got up at 5:30 to get everyone ready and out of the office as soon as possible because Elder Renlund used our office as a break room kind of deal to rest up before the conference.

The funniest thing about all of this is that the general church offices here in Paraguay were peeing their pants as I like to say. On Tuesday of this week a literal army came to the office. Every little tiny detail that was out of place they fixed on the instant. They told me to walk around and point out defects in the office and church and within 2 minutes it was already fixed. All of the sudden our power was cut and I thought it was just classic Paraguay but I went outside to see a massive crane dropping in a generator bigger than a car out behind the church. I'm here to tell you when an Apostle of the Lord comes to a place the church does not mess around. They rented a generator so that we wouldn't have any power disruptions during the conference.

I kind of felt uneasy the whole time, I understand that he is an Apostle and a very important person on this Earth but at the same time we should always be giving these church buildings the best that we can and keeping them the cleanest that we can. Not just for when an Apostle comes. Which is why I especially loved one of the first things that Elder Renlund said when he said, " I am extraordinarily normal, I'm not special at all, but Him who´s apostle I am is very special." It was really nice because he put it all into perspective.

The conference was really cool, and simple to be honest. He got up there and basically said, Quit thinking that you're not good enough to be here, quit thinking that you're not fit to be a missionary, God called you and God qualifies you. It was a very good conference and I'm super grateful to be able to go and listen to an Apostle of the Lord speak to us.

After the conference, he left and we handed out some lunch, sent everyone home minus the 68 they were going to stay and go home in the morning. The buses came back in the morning at 7:00 and we got all of them loaded up and out of here.

On Friday we had a really cool day. We were able to put 2 more of our friends on date for baptism. Which was incredible, and have a bunch of lessons with members present, it was super cool to see how the members are willing to help us out. We have some that are going to pick up our friends in their cars and bring them church, they are already such great friends with them that it works so well.

Also something super wack happened this week. We left a lesson that we had and were walking to the next one and I got a random phone call from a number that I didn't recognize, which happens all the time and it's generally people from the ward or people trying to contact the mission. But this time it was some old dude that asked me if we were at Adelaida's house. Adelaida is a person we are teaching and have been teaching for a while now. I said that we weren't and asked who he was. He was very reluctant to tell me that he is Adelaida's boyfriend, but he was very upset with us that we were going to visit her and teach her. I mean I guess he's got a point, two cool American dudes visiting his girlfriend. Who wouldn't be worried? But please keep in mind that Adeliada is a 59 year old woman. But this old dude on the phone was pretty upset he low key threatened us, he told me that he took pictures of the text messages that we have with Adelaida. And was especially upset when we sent her an address with a message saying that "we will see you there at 9:00" I guess it's illegal to invite people to church and send them the address so they know where the church is at. It was definitely the most interesting phone call that I've ever been a part of.

I love you guys and hope that you're all doing great.

Easton