From: Elder Joshua Freeman
Subject: Yeah, that's right
Date: 17 November 2003 12:53:31 PM EST

ÁHola!

So, I'm here in Ytororo. It's pretty nice, I guess. As far as food and apartment and stuff go, I was spoiled in Villarrica and didn't even know it. But, my companion Elder Bybee is way cool. He actually only has one more change (a change is 6 weeks) more than me, but so what. He's from Idaho, and he was in the Army reserves before he came on the mission. He was in artillery. Yeah, he's pretty cool. And his step-brother is in Samoa on his mission! The area here is... Well, I don't really have an opinion about it yet. A lot of the roads, though, are sand, some of it gets pretty deep, so that's kind of annoying. But whatever, on to my life.

Wednesday was the last working day of the whole Army exercise, and we only went until 11:00 or so. I was in with the eye doctors. They have a little machine to get the person's prescription, and they were giving people glasses and frames. It's surprising how picky old Paraguayan women can be when they're getting free glasses. But whatever. Also, that morning, Dr. Christensen called me in to the dentists, and I got to take out a couple of teeth. That was the highlight of my day. After we packed up there, we went to the Paraguayan army base in Villarrica, and they did the same type of things with Paraguayan soldiers and their families. Then they took us home. They also gave us some medicine, and cereal, and MREs, so we got pretty well taken care of. After a brief stop at the other Elderes' house, we came home and I started packing. Then we went to say goodbye to a few people. That night, some branch members put together a little goodbye party for me & Elder Adcox, with dinner and a couple of hermanas dumping a mixture of flour, eggs, sugar and water on us. I saw it coming. Anyway, after that, we went by Margarita's house real quick, and then came home.

On Thursday, we would have gone to Oviedo to go to Asunci—n with the rest of the Zone people going, but President Gavarret wanted us to go to the closing ceremonies of the Army thing, so we did. It was mostly giving out thank you/good job speeches and certificates of appreciation to the schools and stuff where we set up. We got certificates too, and we took a bunch of pictures afterwards. Then some people gave us stuff and then we got a ride home. So I gathered up my stuff (forgetting a bag of food and my journal) (I always forget stuff when I go on big trips) and we went to the bus station. Me and Elder Adcox said goodbye and then we were leaving Villarrica, not knowing when we're going to see it again.

We got to Asunci—n just as change meeting was ending, and I saw some people from the MTC and some that were in my Zone before. Then me & Elder Bybee got a taxi and came home. We live in the same apartment building as the 2 other Ytororo Elders, Elder Davis and Elder Madruga (who's from Uruguay). Then we went out and met a few members.

On Friday, we took our laundry out to the lady that does it, and we ate lunch with them tambiŽn. After lunch, we talked with a cool guy who works across the street from our apartment. Then we visited a few more members, and met a new family with one of them, and I met the branch president and his wife. She used to live in Villarrica, so we talked a little about that. That was neat.

On Saturday, we taught a 2ˇ charla, and it was really weird, because neither one of us could think or talk or anything very well. So the guy had to answer a phone call, and when he got back, we just ended real quick and then left. It was weird, let me tell ya. We also met a guy and taught him a 1ˇ charla. At lunch time, we were pretty far away from our house, and Elder Bybee knew of a bus that he thought went close to our house. So we got on, and after 5 or 10 minutes, things weren't looking familiar for him, so we got off, and happened to see 2 other Elders. We actually left not only our area, but our Zone as well, but they told us the bus to take to get home, so it all worked out okay. After lunch, we went and cleaned our capilla with the other Elders. Actually, it's not really a chapel, it's an old mansion that we rent. It's pretty neat. They're supposed to start an actual chapel this month. After that, we went out and gave a first charla to a Jehova's Witness couple that kept contradicting and confusing themselves and didn't want to accept what we were saying. But a couple of times, we just asked them a logical question about how the church of Jesus Christ should be, and they just sat there for about 10 or 15 seconds without answering. But yeah, we left after a while because we were getting nowhere. We taught a 3ˇ charla to a family who should get baptized in December. Then we visited a couple more member families before coming home.

Early Sunday morning, we a had a really be thunder/lightning/rain/wind storm. It was cool. It stopped around 7:30, but there still were only 45 or so people at church, which is low. The schedule here is backwards as far as the order of meetings goes. After church, we had lunch with the Branch President and his family. Then we visited some inactives and met some people and taught a good first charla to a member reference. Then, we came home and had dinner with the other Elders. It started to get a bit windy again, and the lights went out, and so did the water (the water thing actually wasn't related, it's just that the block we live on has an insufficient water supply, so it cuts out all the time), but we still had fun. It was Elder Madruga's birthday too. So that was fun.

Today, we came in to „emby and went to the main capilla to get our mail from the Zone Leaders. Then we had lunch and came here. 

So, that's life so far here in Ytororo. Elder Payne and Elder Stewart from my MTC district are in this Zone too. And, yeah. Things are going pretty well. I do need new shoes though, cobblestone roads are killers. Size 9, 9 1/2, around there. Yeah. And a raincoat (just a raincoat, not like a coat that's warm) would be nice too. It's incredibly humid here! I think that's it. That's cool about Derrick Fringer and BYU basketball, but not so cool about football. Oh well. And an ideal Christmas present would be... I don't know. Something American. Yeah, there's nothing that I urgently need or anything. Just whatever.

Thanks for everything! Have fun with basketball and stuff. We'll talk to you next week!

ÁÁI Love you guys!!

Love, Josh