¡Qué Pucha!

Hey everyone!  Hope you are well!

First I want to explain the title.  Qué is kinda like how, like if I were to say, "How cool!"  Pucha is roughly translated to "the pits."  That's where we were this week... the pits. At least for my comp anyway.  I'm doing totally fine, but Elder Park got real sick this week.  

We think he has dengue.  It's been going around here a lot.  It's symptoms are bad headaches, body aches, and overall just feeling really weak and tired.  So Élder Park has been sick like this since Thursday, and we haven't been able to do much since.  The good news... I've slept a lot.  And even better I've studied a lot.  We've been having a surprisingly good time while Elder Park is sick.  We've tried to keep our missionary purpose in mind and honestly I've had some of the best days on my mission recently.

Everyday since Elder Park got real sick, I'll get tired of studying in spanish after a few hours and I'll switch to English to change things up.  My studies get so much deeper and have more meaning because it takes less effort to understand.  Then usually Elder Park and I will quit studying at about 6 pm and we'll just talk and play games or something for a couple hours and go to bed.  That's been every day recently.  It's not quite the missionary life that I was hoping, but really it hasn't bothered me to really focus on my personal conversion for a few days.  I've had a lot of time to study recently and I've really enjoyed it.

I sadly don't have much more to share about this week, but I'll add something interesting about Paraguay.  They don't sell anything in bulk.  Like they barely ever sell more than one item at a time, ever.  You never, I mean never, buy a pack of pens.  You buy one pen.  When this pen runs out or you lose it, you buy one more pen.  I can't explain it.  It just seems like a waste of time.  But that's the way of life here.  The people buy groceries everyday.  They buy what they need for the day and nothing else.  You'll never find someone with an extra light bulb or extra batteries lying around the house. Everyone has enough forks and knives to have a meal with their family and maybe a couple extra for guests, but no extra.  It's interesting to me.  It's just slightly different culture, but it doesn't make sense.

So that's my weekly update.  Not too much, but I'm doing great.  I have had some extra time to think about why I'm here, and I know it's for good reason.  If I start to miss home, I read the scriptures and it quickly reminds me of where I want to be for these two years.  Hope yall are doing well.  Have a good week!

Élder Blacker

I think just this picture sums up my week nicely.  It shows my time spent on gospel library.  Gotta love it!