Update 3/15/2010 - Soaked to the Bone! (hint - read Mike's first)

Hey Mom!

Yeah - me too! I´m glad to be out here. The language isn´t daunting - it´s just learning to understand how the Paraguayos speak Spanish. All of the Latino missionaries keep telling me not to worry about it. They mix in Guarani here and there. They can understand because they´ve been listening to Spanish their whole lives, so all they have to do is figure out the Guarani parts. ¡Qué suerte! I´m starting to be able to understand more and more... just real slowly. I´ve been told it´ll probably take another week or 2 to start understanding more... and a few months to understand everything. It´s good that I can catch the theme of what´s going on, but my companion is really good at leading me on so I know what to talk about when it´s my turn. He had an American newbie for his last companion, so he´s done this before. I keep writing Guarani phrases in my little blue notebook. One of our investigator families asked me what Guarani I knew, so I rattled of a few phrases out of the notebook and they just started laughing and laughing. My companion says that´s a good thing because it builds a little bit of trust. I´m excited to just be here and going!

Good luck finding a Paraguayan restaurant... I don´t think you´ll be able to find too many. Almost all of the Paraguayans are poor... and it doesn´t help that the economy is all out of whack. I bought food for a week and it was only like 9 American dollars. Pretty insane. Oh man... when it rains here, it pours. We got caught walking to one of our areas called Constitution, which is about a 45/60 minute walk depending on what part. Elder Beramundi and I got soaked to the bone. I think I still might have water in me... haha. We got lucky yesterday, when it started to rain we were near a recent convert´s house and she let us in. When it rains, almost no one will let you in - even if they are members. That´s just how they are. Anyway, when it rains, it kinda messes everything up for us. We can´t teach any of our investigators, and if it rains Saturday night or Sunday morning, nobody comes to church. Nobody. Normally we have about 60 or 70 members come, but only like 25 or so showed up. All the roads in our official area are dirt, so it makes sense to not come to church when your road is a river. We actually live outside our area, about a half an hour walk to actually get there. It makes things interesting... and a lot of walking. I already have a few blisters, but they don´t hurt much so it´s easy to ignore. The heat actually isn´t really hard to work in, it´s just that I have to have my water bottle with me and always be drinking. December and February are the worst months here, so it´ll be hard then. But I´ll have been here for almost a year, so I´ll be ready to handle it. I hope. But it looks like I will be here in Ca´aguazu for at least 4.5 months, 3 as a newbie, and 1.5 to get another missionary known to the area. Lots of walking!! :).

We kind of have to restart our work that we did last week, so we need to work hard in order to catch up. The rain really put us back. But we´ll get to work and start having fun!

Hope things are going great! Take care!!

Con amor

Elder David Watson