From: Elder Joshua Freeman
Subject: ÁFelices Pascuas!
Date: 12 April 2004 10:28:16 AM EDT

ÁHola!

That's how you say Happy Easter (Felices Pascuas), even though Easter is technically called La Pascua de la Resurrecci—n, which means the passover of the resurrection, so technically, that really means Happy Passovers. How about that? 

Before I forget again, like I did last week, the multicourier package sending system has changed (the company that does it, not just the mission). You can't send checks anymore, so now in order to pay for it, you send it to Miami, and then the check that you would have put in the package, you have to send (with my name and the name of the (Paraguay Asunci—n) mission) to:

Zion's First National Bank
International Exchange Agency 157KB
PO BOX 30709
SLC, UT 84130-0709

and that will put the money on my card that I get my money on every month, and then I pay for it with that when it gets here. Oh, plus also, you have to add $5 to whatever the amount of the check is, because there's an automatic fee. So Mom, with the package you just sent, I think you have to cancel the check that you put in the package, and then send it to the address there above. I guess. They kind of sprung this on us by surprise, and they haven't been able to explain too clearly how it's all going to work now, but that's what they've told us as of now. And if that's too much of a hassle, you could just send it through the normal USPS, or UPS or FedEx or whatever. So that's fun.

But yeah, on to the week.

On Monday night, we visited a couple of member families, and the Laneris talked to us about ideas that they have to find people to teach for us. That's pretty nice of them. 

On Tuesday morning, we had Zone Conference, and there's only one bus that goes from here to the office (or close to it), and it's a very rare bus. So after waiting an hour for it, we decided to take a taxi so that we wouldn't be late. I was looking forward to seeing the people from Zona 3, but they changed it now, and we have conference with Zonas 1 and 5. It's because Zonas 3 and 4 are in the same stake, so they want them to be in the same Zone Conference I guess. But oh well, I did get to see other friends that I never see. In conference, Pte. Gavarret talked about the Atonement, and the Asistentes talked about being "good shepherds" and then we did some other stuff, and the Hna. talked about the Restoration, and Pte. talked again, and then we were done. It was a lot shorter than they usually are. Then they made us all leave real fast because the next Zones had their conference right after. Then we went to Pizza Hut with a few other Elders, and then came home. We went out to Carlos' house, and he wasn't home, so then we dropped by the Hna. Irene's house. Then we went and got fallar-ed a few times, and were going to teach charla 2 to F‡tima y Sixto (we taught them charla 1 last Tuesday), but her mom is sick, and she had to go take care of her. And then we went to the plaza and met a few people, and talked to one more of our investigators before coming home and studying.

On Wednesday, we went to check out a reference that Elder Allred gave to us, but she wasn't home. So then, we went and visited a member family, and then spent the rest of the morning clapping. We had lunch with the Flia. Ram’rez, and then we came home and studied. In the afternoon, we went out to Joni's and he had a friend from his church over (it's some Reformed Presbyterian church), so we taught him a charla 1. It went okay. After that, we visited some other investigators, and tried to visit a couple more that weren't home. And then we went by Ediberto and Sandra's. He's a less-active, and she's Catholic. But they're really nice. We'll see what we can do with them. And then we went to Consejo de Rama. We mostly planned an activity for Friday. And that's it.

On Thursday, and Wednesday and Saturday, there was no school, and no work either for most people. Instead of just Friday, they do all three days here. Anyway, we went out and told a couple of people about the activity, and we found out that some inactives moved and talked to the guy that now lives where they did. While we were there, I saw the BIGGEST grasshopper I've ever seen. It was probably almost 6 inches long. It was crazy. After that, we went to Hna. Irene's and tried to fix her pipe again, because part of it had come loose, but due to limited resources, we couldn't do much. And after that we went to lunch. In the afternoon, we took the Hna. Romero to meet Nimia y Noelia, partly just because she's a member, but mostly because her and Nimia are from the same home town. So they talked and we answered some of the questions they had and stuff. Then we went back and taught a charla 1 to that reference from Elder Allred that wasn't home yesterday. It went alright. Then we went and invited more people to the activity on Friday, and talked to a few investigators and that's all.

On Friday, we mostly went to the Branch party. We played a few games, had a few races (3-legged and mashed potato-no hands-eating) and taught them how to play water balloon volleyball and we played normal volleyball and had lunch in the middle, and it was pretty fun. We stayed too long though, and didn't really do anything the rest of the day. Which was too bad.

So on Saturday, I think we got our punishment. We left at 9:30 like normal, and had 6 people to go see for the morning (some were just-in-case extras) and none of them were home. So we went and made a lot of contacts trying to get a charla 1, but nobody wanted one. Finally we sat down for the first time when we went to lunch with the Hna. Romero and her family. Then after studying, we went back out, and visited a lot more people, none of which had time and/or interest, and we buscar-ed more with still no luck. We did sit down for about 45 minutes with one inactive. But that was it. Finally, we came home a little early. I'm pretty sure we walked more than 20 miles on the day.

On Sunday morning, we went out to get F‡tima to take her to church, but she wasn't there. So we went to church like normal and had testimony meeting because in all the changing-president confusion, we didn't do it before General Conference. It was pretty good, and we actually had a couple of investigators there, so that was good. Then we came home and had lunch and studied, and then went out working. Once again, we didn't have to much luck finding the people we were looking for or anyone else that wanted to listen to us right now. So we ended the day going to Kike's house and talking with him, and then coming home and planning and stuff.

So that's all. Today we're not going to do anything, which will be pretty nice. I think that's it. We'll be talking to you next week, pues.

I Love You all!!!

Love,
Josh