2/21 questions & answers

Dearest Family,

Here are my Responses.

You said you were expecting the transfer. Why were you expecting to be tranferred? Why did either of you have to get transfered? Because of the members. One in particular needed Elder McShinsky´s help. I wasn´t willing to put up with him. Elder McShinsky is going to do lots of good in the ward. He is trying to make lots of changes to help the members be a stronger ward. They needed him, they definitely didn´t need me. I would just be lost and not know what to do. And also after this change Elder McShinsky was going to have 6 months in one area. I wasn´t ready to be the leader in that area. I haven´t learned how to be a good missionary yet. No offense to Elder McShinsky, but he was a terrible trainer. I learned diddly sqwat from him. I was a miracle that I improved on my Spanish at all.
What do you mean, you picked up your laundry? Where did you pick it up from? Does someone do the laundry for you? Yes we did have a member lady that did it for us. She was our most faithful member. Her husband isn´t a member and none of her kids, besides the youngest two, go to church.  Regardless she would come every sunday. But now I have a Washing Machine!!!
Why do they call Utah "La Fabrica?" Is it cuz there are so many members here or cuz we produce so many missionaries?? Both actually. Utah is where they produce Mormons who later become Missionaries! :D
Have you ever gone on splits with the youth in your ward? No none of them wanted to come with us they were too lazy. We had invited them a bunch of times and we even offered them homemade goods, but they still didn´t want to.
Where exactly in Lucerito. We cannot find it on the map. According to google map, it does not exist. All I know is it is north of Asuncion. Technically it is part of the city I guess it is part of the suburbs of the main city in a way. I don´t know.
How long does it take you to get letters from Dearelder.com?? Do you get them through the mission office or how do they arrive? How often are they sent to you? Dad was thinking that since you don't have much time for emails, that most of us should just write you through dearelder. Dear Elder usually gets to me the tuesday after you send it. If you sent it monday I would probably get it the next day. I realized this when mom tells me stuff then I get a letter where Micah says the same thing. Dear Elder is convenient for me.
Do you get to call home for mothers day? Do you still love your mama? Do you miss her cooking? Do you miss the brownies she made today? Yes I get to call home on Momma´s day. I do still love her. I really miss her cookies and now I really want brownies. I do love mommy more, but right now I´m hungry.
Where is your new companion from in Utah? Yes, in Kurns by west Jordan.
Why did you travel in the middle of the night? That must have been exhausting. Oh, ha ha, it was my neck hurt a ton and I got very little sleep.
Can you now upload your photos to the blogspot or somewhere? The Henricksens said there are 100's of those memory sticks that got ripped out of peoples letters when they were sent through the machines at the post office. If you do send it through the mail, send it in a cardboard envelope and tape it to the cardboard really well. Just send it in something other than an envelope. I have been looking at putting family pictures on gmail. They have a place for photos, then you can access them from any computer, instead of just having all our photos on our home computer. Dai Quai, that means I don´t know. I´ll look into it.
How are your clothes holding up? Good, except my shoes.
Do you make it OK on the budgeted amount of money? Yes, we always manage. We usually have some left at the end of the month too.
Have you ever thought about writing letters during the week and just sending those, since you seem to have soo little time on your p-days? I can only write letters home on P-day. I usually don´t have time anyways. I´m just not going to bother for now. Yes I am lazy. I guess the Paraguayans have really rubbed off on me.
That is all the Answers for now. I will write you in a separate email.
LOVE YOU!

Feb 21

Hello Family,

 

I can´t find the last letter I sent you so I can´t remember where I left off. So I´ll just say this

 

     This week was pretty good. We found 20 new investigators, 3 of which are families so If I baptize them I can go to their temple sealing.

I was in a lesson and there was a dog chasing another dog. The smaller dog barked at the bigger dog. A truck was passing by. The bigger dog jumped backwards and got ran over by the truck and it survived! Somehow it only got run over by the back left tire, so maybe thats why it lived, but thats still pretty amazing. Elder Parker and I were joking about that happening during the week so it was really funny when it happend in real life. Sorry Micah I guess I have more power at telling stories than you.

     It rained really hard on Saturday. We were out doing contacts and it suddenly just started pouring down buckets! We had our umbrellas, but regardless after walking for only two blocks we were soaked from the waist down. We managed to get under the roof of a little store and we were waiting for it to calm down. The road quickly turned into a river. There was a car driving up stream and it got stuck in the mud. So Elder Parker and I ditched all our stuff (so it could stay dry) and we went to help it. After 10 minutes of trying to get this thing unstuck. A ton of drunk guys came to help us. We all managed to get the car out. Miraculously we didn´t get muddy. We only got water in our shoes and up to our ankels got water wet. We didn´t get any contacts out of them though.

     We tought a two couples of young married people who live in the same house yesterday. They really liked our message, but they told us that they heard something similar from another church. There is this guy who said that he got called by God to be a ¨Prophet¨. Basically this guy totally stole the Joseph Smith story and made a few minor adjustments to make it fit him. It was ridiculous. When he got baptized they said that Jesus´s face appeared in a cloud and said ´I have called this man to be like John my Beloved Prophet¨ They had a picture of the cloud and it just looked like a normal cloud. Supposedly he was really popular in the sixties, but now only Paraguayans are gullible enough to believe him. Don´t worry the couples didn´t like him. He is sexist.

 

Anyways thats my short little E-mail now I´ve got to answer all your questions

Love,

Elder Zachary James Singson

Valtentines Day, 2/14/11

Dear Sing a song of six pence Family,

     Last Wednesday were the changes. And I got changed! So I was in district meeting (this was tuesday by the way) and when I received my change I wasn´t surprised at all. Really I was kinda planning on it. I knew that Presidente Franco needed Elder McShinsky more than me. Because it was my last day I bought a new bag, because the one I was using was Elder McShinsky´s, and ate with my district for the last time. It was fun while it lasted I guess. Too bad I got changed, because I was going to buy you guys fake rolex watches, Gucci bags, Oakley glasses, and other things that only costs 5 bucks at the black market, but now I can´t. Sorry about that. Maybe thats why I got changed, ha ha.

     So the rest of the day kinda sucked. It rained so nobody was home and I didn´t get to visit all the members that I actually like. I´m not good as goodbye. The people I did say goodbye to, I just said "I'm leaving, can I take a picture with you? Let me share one last scripture" and that was it. The rest of the half hour I was there was just awkward silence. Got wet and muddy, but I was lucky cuz I was able to catch the bishop to take a picture with him. He was just passing by, but normally he would have been at work. I picked up my laundry and said goodbye to our faithful Hermana Espinola and then went to the Gomez Family.

     I really like the Gomez family and we are pretty good friends, so I saved the best visit for last. They fed us salami sandwiches and juice and we talked and laughed and they were sad that I was leaving. It was great. My best friend Mitchell was sleeping though (Their two year old kid), so I didn't get to say goodbye to him. Went home, packed withing 30 min. Took a hour and a half nap and then went to the bus terminal. We got there at 11:00ish so we waited a full hour before the rest of the missionaries got there. Then we talked with everyone and said our goodbyes then waited for the bus to leave at 1:00am.

     I talked with an Elder about Star Wars for about 30min, but then I slept the other 5 hours. It killed my neck. The busses are really nice, but it's never comfortable to sleep on a bus. Anyways got to the Terminal in Asunción at 5:30am, but then I waited until 8:30am until my companion came to pick me up. Oh well, at least I got to talk to some of my MTC group. Elder Love was there and his Spanish wasn't any better. That's funny cuz he had a Latin companion. Elder King was there and Elder Chatterley came with me, they both improved a little. Then I said hi really quick to Elder Butler because he arrived just as I was leaving.

     Something I noticed is that my Spanish has miraculously gotten better. I don't know how, because Elder McShinsky would only speak English to me and he always dominated the lessons (and would take forever, basically he wouldn't shut up). So I guess I've only improved because I listen a lot, but usually practice is what makes you better. I guess the Lord has blessed me in that way. Now, in my new area with Elder Parker, I talk a lot and I'm getting even better. Yay!

     Elder Parker is really quiet. When I first met him he didn't talk a lot, he seemed really timid. Well he's not. He makes jokes and laughs and talkes about movies and his past life and stuff. He did choir and so he sings a lot. He just doesn't speak loud. He's got a year and 4 months, and unlike Elder McShinsky he follows the rules. I think this is the Change that I needed.

     I share a house with two other Elders. Elder Bigham and Elder Hernandez. Elder Bigham is a farmboy/pilot/athletic and Elder Hernandez is a Latin who knows English pretty well. Our house is big, but there is a lot of the owners junk in a bunch of rooms, so we don't use all of it. My area is small compared to Pdte.Franco. We went around the Entire area in one day. Border to border. We are actually really close to the North mission. We share a street with them.

Well, I'm out of time, so To Be Continued...

Love,

Elder Zacarias Santiago Singson

Feb 10 - transfers

Dear Kay to the L to the E to the Y,
Water tastes like water. It doesn´t taste bad at all. In fact it may be better than filtered water except there are always a ton of floaties inside, but that´s ok because I haven´t gotten sick from it yet, so it´s all good.
The Book of Elder Singson
Chapter 1
1 And Elder Singson cursed the flooded basement and said ¨Darn Basement! Stop flooding!¨
2 Then the Lord of Heaven heard his cry and blessed Elder Singson´s family.
3 And then they had cake.
Chaper 2
Too be continued.
Love,
Elder your oldest brother.

Dear Family,
     I got moved from Presidente Franco in Ciudad del Este with Elder McShinsky to, Lucerito near Asuncíon with Elder Parker. I wasn´t suprised that I got move at all, in fact I was kind of expecting it. I don´t have any time left because this new place where I´m at doesn´t have a printer. So I´ll write you all the details on monday. I thought I had more time, but it turns out I only have an hour to write and read emails, write and read Presidente Callan´s emails, and do anything else I may need to do.
     Elder Parker is really quiet, so at first I thought he was timid, but he just doesn´t speak loud, he was in choir at school, so he is a good singer. In the lessons we´ve taught, so far, sometimes we don´t know what to do. Looks like I´m going to have to take some action and start being a leader. He is a good Elder. It´s becaus he is a product of ¨La Fabrica¨ (thats what the members here call Utah).
     I live in a house, and my area is smaller, we have two other Elders in our pension, and I get to start over again. Well... thats how the changes went.
Love Ya´ll,
Elder Zachary James Singson

January 31

     Mommy, I totally understand what you mean about repetetive prayers. Sometimes we are no better than the Catholics the way we say the same prayer every time. If Alma and Amulek were here they´d call us to repentance. You should have said Prayer is talking to Heavenly Father. It can be and is just like talking to our real parents. You´ve got to say what is in your heart. Talk about your day, ask for things you need, thank him for the blessing you have, etc. If you walked up to your dad and said ¨Hi dad, I love you, thank you for food, my car needs gas, goodbye¨ every day eventually he´d stop listening to you.

     No, that is not how prayer works, it should be different every time you pray. Prayers are very personal and I´ve been trying to explain the exact same thing to my investigators, but they just don´t get it. They all want a set thing that they can say and be done with it. They don´t understand that you can pray to seek revelation and thats why it´s so hard to teach people sometimes. For example this week we gave an investigator, Raul, a guideline to pray. This is how we wrote it.

1) Nuestro Padre Celestial,
2) Te doy gracias por...
3) Te pido que bendigas...
4) En el nombre de JesuCristo Amen.

    We explained to him how prayer worked, but in the prayer he only said exactly what we wrote. So we re explained and he tried, but he was having a hard time. The people just don´t get it. They only know how to say the ¨Padre Nuestro que esta en los cielos santificad sea tu nombre... Blah Blah Blah¨. Anyways.

Marcielago. Since you have failed to write me I think that you should get me Rachel´s address. Or at the very least tell me when and where she is going on her mission. ¿She turned in her papers right? I like using the upside down question mark, ha ha. Who is this Dallan kid? I want to know. I feel left out!

     Mykhu. Hi... I don´t have any furniture. We have two beds, two dressers, two tables to study on, and two chairs that the previous Elders stole from the church). I forgot your other question. Something about anything exciting in my life?... Well, sometimes its fun to get harrassed by drunk people. The only words people know how to say in English are ¨Hello, my Brother¨ and ´´I´ll Kill You!´´ So the conversacions we have in English are rather dull. Lots of people think we are spies come to steal their water. Everybody loves to ask us about Joseph Smith to try and prove us wrong or something. They think that we worship him. People are always begging us for money. They think that because we´re American that it makes us rich, but really I´m only living off of $125 a month, thats barely enough to feed me and pay for bus fare, much less give it away to some guy who is just going to use it to buy beer.

     Kool Aid Jammer... You haven´t asked me any more questions so I don´t know what to tell you. All the girls here that are your age look a lot older. There is a 13 year old (But she looks like she is 18) that is already married and is pregnant. Be glad that you aren´t a Latin, the husbands make their wives to everything and they are lazy. Aren´t you glad that you are in HesuKristo Tupau Marangatu-kuera Arapahapegua (Thats Guarani for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints). I would love to be able to speak Guarani for real though. It would open so many doors, the people here would accept you better. Che daiquai Guaran-me, is the only thing I really know how to say. It means ¨I don´t know Guarani¨

Well it was fun, but I gotta go! Love,
Elder Zachary James Singson