Eusebio Ayala

Hello everyone!

Well it´s now the end of January! Gasp! We´re just cruising right on through this Summer heat! Tonight is when we find out changes, so we´ll see what the mission has in store for me now. Sí o Sí one of us is going, so something new and crazy is on it´s way!

Saturday went as planned and we had an awesome baptism of Patrocinia Godoy de Riveros! It was my first baptism in a river which was pretty cool. She got confirmed yesterday and is now part of the grandmas of Eusebio Ayala. We have another baptism coming up in a week which is pretty exciting. I´m glad all our work is finally turning into some saved souls. Yeah! I´d send some pictures of the baptism, but the computers in Eusebio hate my camera so it never works here. Maybe one day you´ll see photo evidence that I´m actually still in Paraguay.

Today for Pday we went to some waterfalls named Chololó and it was pretty cool. Once again, cool photos but I can´t send them. Sorry. Elder Milne got stung by a bee so he´s pleased as punch. Then we drank 7up because it just barely came to Paraguay! Wow!

Missionary life continues as normal. We keep working hard teaching and walking and praying so it´s all good. I´ll let you all know what happens for changes! Eeeek! I love you all!

Elder Morris

Eusebio Ayala

Hello everyone!

Everything is going just swimmingly down here in Paraguay. It´s still hot as death and walking around in it still isn´t fun. It´s starting to get really hard to sleep at night because of the heat. Gah!

Other than that, it´s all good! After a while of nothing, we´re going to have a baptism this Saturday which is coolio! It´s a cool grandma named Patrosinia and she speaks Guaraní! She kind of understands Spanish, but we managed to get through teaching alright. She´s super legit, so I´m happy that I´ll be here for her baptism. We have a few more investigators that are getting ready for baptisms in February, but I probably won´t be here for those. The exciting news is that we had more investigators in church than members. The less active families around here are really struggling to do anything church related so it´s tough. One of the families just put a restraining order against one of their kids so it´s pretty interesting around here. I didn´t even know restraining orders existed here. Crazy!

Changes are in a week, so I´ll probably be heading out of Eusebio Ayala pretty soon, but anything can happen. We´ll just wait and see!

For Pday we didn´t do anything exciting. It´s Elder Milne´s birthday so we made brownies and they were good. Then it rained a little and made things less hot so that was nice. Nothing too crazy happened this week so I don´t think I have anything cool to say. We walked around an asentimiento (which is like a Paraguayan trailer park, but waaaaay more ghetto) during a power cut so it was pitch black. I feared for my life, but we made it out alive. Yeah!

I hope everything is going well up North! I love you all and I hope your week is full of magic!

Love,
Elder Morris

Eusebio Ayala

Oh hey everyone!

Now we´re halfway done with January! I´m glad I missed the winter without snow up there. That´s never any fun! It continues to be really hot down here, but it finally rained after a few weeks of dryness so it cooled down a little bit for a while. It was pretty nice. Working in the rain is pretty tough though because nobody lets us in. They usually don´t have enough room in their houses for us :( Boo!

This Sunday went a lot better than the last one. No more broken keys or any nonsense like that. The key man charged us out of our ears for the repair though. They always take advantage of the Americans. Pfft. We had 3 investigators in church which was nice, and more than one member came so our investigators had some people to enjoy church with this week. :D There are some baptisms in the works for Eusebio after a long hard dry spell. Woo! Hopefully everything keeps going smoothly and everyone stays happy.

For pday today we went to Caacupe and went to the catholic basilica! It´s the biggest catholic "cathedral" thing in Paraguay so it was neato to see. We read the story of how the Virgin of Caacupe came to pass and all sorts of interesting things. I´d send you pictures, but my camera doesn´t get along with paraguayan computers. Maybe in another area I´ll be able to send something. We´ll see.

Barrero continues to be an interesting place to work. Now we´ve got some investigators that are super cool and they come to church and everything is going better. We´re still having some severe issues with the members that are here, but we´ll keep working with them. Whew!

Other than that, it was a good week. We´re working hard, and I think I´ve only got 2 more weeks in Eusebio Ayala! Eeek! I gotta keep on working to find everyone we can for the next missionary that comes. We´re just making this area better, day by day. I love you all!

Love,
Elder Morris

Eusebio Ayala

Hello everyone!

Happy Birthday me!

Nothing too cool happened for my birthday. It was actually sort of an unfortunate day haha. We went to church only to find that the lock is now broken. And in trying to open the door, I broke the key. An investigator came and saw that we, the missionaries, were just outside and we told her to wait, but she just decided to go home, so that was a disaster. Not very patient I guess. We finally pried the door open with a screwdriver and had church with us two missionaries and recent convert Ricardo. :(

All the other members didn´t seem to think that church was important on my birthday! So yeah, we´re having some severe testimony issues with the members here, but that´s kind of what missionaries are for so we´ll keep on working and get them all to build up their faith again.

We did manage to find some sweet brothers on Sunday night. They had already read lots of our brochure things and they really liked it. So they said they´d come to church and do all that good stuff! Our landlords did make us some good lunch for my birthday which was nice. The husband drank himself silly in honor of my 21st year. He´s a lawyer! :D

Other than that, it was a nice pleasant week. Well it´s been super super hot, so not too pleasant but yeah. I got my haircut today :D We played soccer in Caacupe and everything went nicely there.

I´m trying hard to think, but I don´t really have any news. I had my final birthday in Paraguay, so the mysterious 20 year old Elder Morris is gone. We´re working hard and I know that we´ll see results soon. I love you all, and I hope you have a great week!

Love,
Elder Morris

Eusebio Ayala

Happy New Year´s everyone!

Now we´re in 2012! Eeeek! That is just way too exciting. It´s pretty crazy to think that I´ve finished my full year in Paraguay. Where was Elder Morris in 2011? Who knows? :O Now we´re in the year that the world is going to end, which is crazy.

The week was a nice one, but pretty uneventful. For New Year´s eve taught lots of people and then went home and slept. We didn´t get harrassed by any drunks or anything so it was a holiday successfully passed. There were a lot of annoying little fireworks, but luckily those are all gone. It seems the children have used their supplies all up. Today for pday we went with our landlords out to their country house and watched them feed pigs and cows. Pigs really like mangoes as it turnes out. Yeah! They gave us some food too so it was good. They called Elder Milne fat haha.

In church news, the member that said she was never coming back came back so that´s good. She was all sorts of sassy and tried to leave before I taught an awesome class, but we got her to stay. Another investigator came to church today, so we´ve got a couple of people in the works for baptism now. That´s exciting! I´ll let you all know how that goes later. Woo! There are rumors going around about closing the branch here, so we´re doing everything we can to avoid that. We really need to animate the members to help us.

Other than that, nothing too exciting has happened. The mangoes are all ripe and falling from the trees so it´ll start smelling like rotten mango here pretty soon. That´s never a fun time. They grow like weeds here. Weeds! Everything seems to be getting better around here. We´re finally finding some people that actually want to come to church and act on our message so that makes me happy. I just hope they keep on being cool. I hope you all have a great new year, and a good week! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Morris