¡Toilets Are Weird!

Hello everyone!


Whoops!  Totally forgot to send an email last week.  My bad.


I'm still doing pretty awesome though!  The missionary work here is crazy!  We have 5 people with baptism dates, none of them related or anything.  Crazy!  The work here is completely different than other places.  A lot of missionaries struggle with finding people to teach, no one accepts their message, and they get tired of not accomplishing much.  For us, the people are flocking to us and we just can't teach enough.  The problem is that everyone is interested about the gospel, but nobody actually wants to put forth effort to go to church or read the scriptures.  All 5 of our baptismal dates know the Church is true, they just never attend the meetings.  But we're working on it.


I think a lot more of the challenges that we get in Paraguay are physical (that word took me so long to figure out how to spell in english, haha).  It's 115 outside every day.  We walk non-stop and half of Paraguay is always sick.  Every summer they have sicknesses get passed around like crazy and I hear they are really bad.  We've had 3 missionaries in our district get sick and one of them could do anything for a week.  I'm doing great though, no health problems yet.


One thing I've learned here in Paraguay as a missionary... fasting is a lot easier.  The biggest meal here is lunch, so we have a huge meal at about 12, and then nobody eats anything else until 9 at the earliest.  Sometimes we get too busy and barely eat, or don't eat dinner at all.  Also as a missionary, my breakfasts have gotten tiny.  I don't leave the house til 10:30am and that means I really only need food to last me an hour out in the heat.  As a result, somedays I eat lunch, and the next meal I eat is lunch again.  There are other days where I'm eating all day any never get a break.  Its really weird but I can't really tell a difference in my energy or anything whether I'm eating or not.  


The point is though,  fasting is easier because I do it all the time on accident.  Plus, when walking around all day in the heat, its insensible to fast from too much water.  And also, we are told not to reject food if its given to us (unless it'll make us sick), even if fasting.  So... i kinda ate more food yesterday than most days.  Disclamer... Fasting is very important.  I understand the significance and we did try out best to have a meaningful fast.  We tried to make sure that even if our physical fast was minimal, we had a huge spiritual feast!  I encourage yall to do this.  Make your fasts a spiritual feast!  It makes a difference!


Also one more thing that i've found here... the toilets are weird!  Not in the way yall are thinking.  They all have water and they flush and everything.  They're basically american toilets (except the part where the water swirls the other direction).  The weird thing is they are all different colors!  I've seen a red one, a green one, a dark blue one, a light blue one, and a dark gray one (they still have the classic white ones, but those are only in public restrooms.).  The weirdest part is... I haven't seen two of the same color!  Why would you make every toilet different?  And why choose such weird colors?


But yeah... thats my update this week.  My Spanish is coming along steadily and noticeably.  Every time we visit anybody, i notice how much easier it is to understand them than the last time.  Its pretty cool!  I know it's a gift from God to learn so quickly!


Hope yall are doing well!  I love to hear from you!


Élder Blacker


Pics include... 
Burgers i made (they were amazing, thanks innout training!)

Pizza from dominos (stuffed crust is way better here, they use better cheese)

New years eve with my comp

One of the nicer streets of Paraguay (my street isn't quite so nice)

Some food I had for new years (I also tried cow tongue!  It just tastes like the rest of the cow... so pretty good)




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