¿Como estamos?
Well, I am writing this on Tuesday because I got transferred! I left my area on Monday and took a bus to a town in between Asunción and Ciudad del Este called Coronel Oviedo. My new companion is Elder Valenzuela. He is from Paraguay, and is one of the most famous Elders in the mission. He is so famous that in every branch that I have served, all the members there know him already. At EFY’s for Paraguay, he was always the person who announces things, was the person who danced the most at the dances, and so on. So, everyone knows Elder Valenzuela, and I am really excited to work with him this transfer. He is my first companion that doesn’t really speak English, so I am looking forward to really testing my Spanish speaking ability. I want to improve my Spanish even more, and I can even start working on learning Guarani now, which will be a nifty little skill to have. Just don’t be surprised if my next weekly is worded very weirdly.
Even with transfer news, Elder Reynolds Myers and I had a good week. We didn’t find out about transfers until Saturday, so for the whole week we were working very hard without paying attention to any potential changes that could happen. But just in case, we did one last set of divisions for the transfer with Elder Vorwaller and Elder Johnson. When we found out on Saturday that I was leaving, we were really sad and planned to say goodbye to all the members on Sunday. Included are some pictures of our farewell to some members. We said goodbye to our convert Laura as well. One of my favorite things about the mission is seeing how people can change their lives. It has been awesome to see how Laura’s life has changed and how she is planning to continually change her life through discipleship. The final goodbye was to the Elders at the bus terminal. It was really sad to say goodbye to the Elders in my district, Elder Vorwaller, Elder Johnson, and Elder Reynolds Myers. They are really good missionaries and we had an awesome time together. It’s always sad to switch areas as a missionary, but luckily we have the hymn, “God be With You Till We Meet Again” to give us solace.
I also said goodbye to Filip, the dog of our landlord. Looking back, I never really told anyone what happened with Filip. Well, he is famous in the neighborhood for being very tough and mean. The first thing that Elder Reynolds Myers told me when we walked into our apartment was to not touch Filip. When he told me that I thought to myself, “Look at me, I have 9 months on the mission, I don’t need to pay attention to that, I’ve seen and pet tons of mean dogs in Paraguay.” So I went ahead and tried to pet Filip. He bit me. Big surprise. He gave me a nice gash on my thumb which needed some superglue and a band-aid to be healed. It took me a few weeks to get comfortable going up and down the stairs of the apartment in case Filip wanted to go for a second serving. But after a few weeks it was all good and we were very good friends. Looks like I’ll have a permanent physical memory of Ciudad del Este now on my thumb.
As I was leaving on the bus I reminisced on my time in Ciudad del Este, and the first encounter with Filip always seemed to come to mind. Not only does it have a temporal significance: don’t touch mean dogs, it also has a spiritual significance. I was warned very clearly by Elder Reynolds Myers not to touch Filip. I was too proud and stubborn to heed to his counsel and thus received a rather gnarly consequence. It is the same in our lives, how many times may the Lord or the Spirit tell us something that we should or should not do, and in our prideful state we go ahead and say, “Nah, I know more than that, I don’t need to listen to that council, I’m better than that”. It made me realize that you always need to have humility and obedience in mind. Too bad it took a dog bite to help me realize it even more. So remember, be humble and obedient to the counsel of the Lord.
I hope you all have a good week!
