July 5th, 2010 Treinta y Tres with Elder Erickson

Hey all,,

Sounds like tons of stuff is going on there as you get more into the summer. We're seeing summer right now. All of a sudden it's been really hot for the last few days. It's really weird. It's nice for getting people to church though. In the evening it's perfect temperature for me and dad. During the day, it's perfect temperature for everyone else in the family, so it's pretty nice. And just as soon as I finally get around to buying my sleeping bag. It was pretty cheap, but it's pretty nice. It was around 20 bucks, and it's perfect. I was bundling up every night and now I don't have to. Last night, it was warm enough, i completely unzipped it and used it as a blanket.

Re: transfers. All probability points to me moving because my comp only has one change left. It seems unlikely they'd move him for one change and then send him home. Who knows though. It'd be nice to see all of the current investigators here progress, but a new area could be nice too. I want to get to know the country a little bit, so it wouldn't be too bad to change. I'll let you know next week.

Re: today. Zone activity. We went to the Rio Olimar again with everyone and had an Asado, or barbecue type thing. It was really good.

Re: World Cup. Uruguay won. It's really exciting, but...it's difficult. We have to plan really really good so we don't waste time during those games. If they win the next game against Holland, we're fried for the next week in church, because the final game will be on Sunday. Fwah. At the same time, I want them to do well. One of their star players is out though because of his ´´Mano santa´´ in the Ghana game. We'll see. After the games, people go absolutely crazy, so it's hard even after. Luckily after the last game, we had a district-wide talent show with a bunch of members, so we still had something to do that wasn't out knocking doors.

Questions:
1. My mission president and wife are nice. I've only talked to them 3 times, so I don't really know them that well. They're paraguayos. In our last meeting, they talked about involving members in our lessons.
2. Our investigators and the changes I see in them. Vanessa. She's quitting smoking right now. She came to church this last week. She keeps telling us that there were a lot of changes she had needed to make in her life but hadn't had the ganas. (not sure how that really translates. We use it like it's english. Erickson says it means ´´willpower´´.)
3. Service? We've done service a few times. We painted the inside of the chapel in a nearby pueblo called Jose Pedro Varela. We moved dirt and took off part of a roof for a guy in our branch who just got a heart transplant. Other than that, not too much. I'm sure we'll have more coming up.

I just read that Elder Gonzalez talk the other day about the Book of Mormon. I read it in spanish, and it was really obvious he wrote it in English and it was translated because he used the term ´bestseller´ and it didn't translate. It was interesting. I haven't really heard much about him down here other than from missionaries who heard about his letter about me after his visit to the eye doctor.

Sounds like is all Just Perfect there at home. Hope it keeps to be that way.

Talk to you next tuesday,
--
Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all. The salutation of Elder Parry with mine own hand, which is the token in every email: so I write. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.