Email: Week#24 in Paraguay

Hi,

Everything is going good doing everything by myself now. There really hasn't been too many problems. Also, my spanish is getting way good that some latinos are surprised to hear I am an American when they talk to me on the phone haha, it is super neat. Ah, so my new companion is Elder Salazar, he knows absolutely no English, so I am teaching him some and we are practicing by reading the Book of Mormon. My old companion was Elder Hatfield, he was the old mailman and was teaching me everything to do for the first change. Something cool I found out is that he is my 3rd cousin, his moms maiden name is Crandall, so we looked it up one day on family search. It is really awesome. I don't mind working in the office, it is something totally different, though.

So today was a SSUUUUPPPERRR awesome day because I went to the temple with a family we helped get sealed. It was the best experience ever, we did a session and then had the sealing. It was the best thing ever, first off because I got to see a family from my old area again and then we had the best experience ever there. It was super awesome because they were so happy about it.

There are changes this week, so we have just been so busy planning for those that we haven't had like any time to get out and tract or do anything, but we are stuck in the office a lot! So that is really what has been happening. But we finally got everything settled and all is good.

Love,

Elder Crandall

Email: Week#23 in Paraguay

Hi,

Everything is super good. Today for Pday we went to the famous botanico garden to mess around for a bit. They have a museum and a huge park field. It was super fun, we played some rugby and frisbee and then check out this super strange museum. it was just full of animals, it had some weird things like fetuses of animals and all types of insects and such. It was a good time.

I will just do a weekly recap, because that makes it easier of what to say... haha. On Sunday, we visited Hermana Vicenta and did a few contacts. After that, we had another ward activity where we had some food and everyone was together, that was super cool.

On Monday, we visited Marcelo. We still haven't set up the appointment with his mom and him yet, but we have a big goal to do so. He is only 17, so we have to wait until january when he turns 18 so that he can be baptized himself, but we want the mom to get to know us better. We recently just did a fast to try to help him, that was neat. Then, we visited the family Romero and shared with them. Also, we visited the family Gaette,  and they always just load us with food to eat at night.

On Tuesday, we had Zone Conference. There, we had a scripture challenge game. There was a scripture on the powerpoint and we had to say where the scripture was found. It was a competition of companionships. So I basically ended up answering all the questions because my comp. didn't remember any haha, but I won! It was super cool. I am living up to my goal of being a scriptorian haha.

On Wednesday, we didn't really do much, because... my companion is leaving! We have changes, and my companion is going off to Salado B. That makes me solo on being the Cartero. Now my companion is Elder Salazar from Ecuador (see that pic below! ;) ), he is super awesome. I am staying in my ward of Mburucuya, though. My companion spent the night packing, so I just did some studies because i wasn't able to do so in the morning.

On Thursday, Elder Hatfield, my old comp left for his new area. Then after the day, Elder Salazar and I went out to work. We visited Hermana Diago and Hermana Rios and shared with them. Then, we headed off to a ward activity we organized. We played some games together and then had some food. It was sure a lot of fun!

On Friday, we had some trouble getting an appointment for some time! But eventually we were able to share with Adrian and then we found Gorge Olmedo. He is an RM and he is raelly a super cool guy.

Okay, well thats what has been happening! 

Love,

Elder Crandall

This is what the office looks like that Elder Crandall works in. 

 Elder Crandall says someone said a really funny joke before snapping the picture below.

Email: Week#22 in Paraguay

Hi,

In my job, I am in charge of the mail, packages, inventory, plaques, books, and pamphlets. So I basically go to the post office,  take inventory, restock stuff, order materials, make maps, and do some other random stuff. But basically I am kept busy the whole day, but it is a bit hard to describe how haha. Like sometimes he wants like a computer project, so he asks me haha, but other times he needs us to make like binders for each district, so we do that. Mondays are the craziest, it is when the other missionaries have Pdays. We are usually super busy, well at least the guy in charge of finances and me. I get everyone their packages, pamphlets and copies of the book of mormon to teach.

My new area is super chuchi (fancy). The houses here are way better than some over there. Sometimes we talk over the speaker to the people, so we don't get much success with them... but we got some good people to teach now. We are working with Miguel recently, he has been paying a lot of attention to our lessons and he has asked some super good questions. He has super good potential to progress in the gospel, the first lesson really made him think, that there could be religious people in the Americas in christ time. So that is super neat that he is thinking about it. So also, we have Marcelo, our investigator with the crazy situation. We still dont have permission from his mom to sign, so we are giong to have a Noche de hogar (FHE) with her in his house to try to atleast gain some confidence in her. Ah, so we also met this super crazy lady. She is a menos activa (less active member). We visited her and she is just a chatterbox! She talked so much, but said the weirdest things and started crying a lot when talking about that Brasil lost in the world cup.

We don't have the best attendance here in Mburucuya, so we are planning a super activity with the ward, a ward night. We are hoping to get a lot of people to come in here, because we think it iwll help a lot.

But anyway, that is really all that has happened, so I hope all is well, talk to you later.

Love,

Elder Crandall.

PS (I sent a picture, that is everyone in the office now)

Email: Week#21 in Paraguay

Hello,

My week was super good, it went by super fast. That sounds like a lot of fun of what you guys are doing. We in the office celebrated 4th of July with the office, they all went to McDonalds and then bought us a shake, it was cool. 

So this week I have just been mastering the Cartero life, like learning how to do everything. I am getting better at driving stick shift, it just takes a lot of practice is all, I am makin progress.  I have been pretty busy lately trying to get everything ready for everyone.

We have been getting to know all the ward now. We are visiting all the members and the less actives. We got put into a new area that neither my comp nor I know so we are getting to know the area, where everything is, and everyone. So that is what we have been doing the last few weeks. We finally are just about finished. There are some super awesome families here in this area, it is really cool. I've noticed that as the missino goes along missionaries tend not to write as much, and it seems to be happening today haha. We don't have too many investigators at the moment, but we are working on strengthing the ward first, meeting all the menos activos and such. But things are super good in the office. We got a lot of work, and sometimes we don't have very much time to go proselyting in the days. But, all is good. We are doing good here and that is what matters.

Well, that is really all. 

Love, Elder Crandall