The Dreaded Email #2

¡Hola! I can't believe it's already pday.  So much happened but so little at the same time.

I'll start with a few highlights.  My Spanish is actually insane.  Listening and talking is hard (yes, I know that's basically all of it, but hold on a sec).  I'm able to read the scriptures, or anything else, and understand ALL the grammar.  I know exactly why they say it the way they do, and it's helped a ton.  I do have to have a translator open for the words I don't know, but it's really only been one every few verses.

The reason talking is hard is I'm constantly double-checking my grammar, because I want people to understand.  I end up trying to speak a little faster than I can think and I stumble a bit.  The good thing is, by the time I've finished talking, people actually do understand and my comp says my grammar is correct.  The real problem is listening.  A lot of people around here don't have many teeth left, and no one talks using their lips much.  They keep their mouth just slightly open and talk like a ventriloquist.  All the words are kinda mumbled together and it's a little hard to pick up.  I've been focusing on picking up words as much as I can.  So often, I listen to someone and be able to tell you almost every word in a sentence,  but I'll have no idea what it meant because I was too focused on hearing the words.

They give us a lot food in Paraguay.  Most houses we go to will give us food or at least some water (yes don't worry mom and dad, I put it in my filter first).  There was one house that gave us a bunch of cake and cookies (or at least Paraguay's form of such things) and chocolate milk.  It was an unplanned visit.  It was the house of a member who had gone inactive.  He had a sad falling away story.  He was basically shamed out of his ward for something he did that was actually a huge act of service.  Some people just can't let others be nice for some reason.  When we visited this house, the people who shamed him away were long gone from the ward, so he was ready to go back to church.  He said he had known for a long time that it was time to go back, but he was struggling to find the motivation to go.  He knew God had sent us, and he knew that God knows him personally and sent us to help him return.

Quite the miracle right?  Yeah... I didn't get any of that.  I sat there in my own little world, munching on some great food, wondering why this guy was so nice to us, picking up on the words I could but completely ignoring the meaning, and trying to figure out why he was crying.  I was in complete ignorance of the significance of the situation.  Luckily, I have an amazing comp.  He knows when I can't understand people, so he does all the talking and I just copy his reactions.  It works pretty well.

Also my comp got sick after less than a week with him (sound familiar?).  But that was a great day because I got a lot of study in.

Dang there's sooo much more I wanna say, but I have to keep things short or no one will read it lol.  This is the dreaded second email in the field after all.  This is the last one that everyone actually reads all the way through before I start losing people.  Y'all have probably already skipped out on a couple of the mtc ones (yeah, I know how this works).  Just know I'm doing well.  I'll admit it's hard to leave my family, but everytime I'm struggling I turn to the scriptures and I'm reminded of what an amazing opportunity I have to be here and that I need to be grateful for all that I have.

Talk again soon (to most of you at least),

Élder Blacker

Pics of the very big, very American mall I visited (not in my area, I'm not that fancy, and that's what the building is), also pics of my apartment and food I ate