Hermana Jenny Ball: LLUVEIA!!!!!!! (rain)

This week was all about rain, rain, rain. Seriously, it was the greatest thing ever. It never rains this much in the middle of summer. It’s great because it gets so, so, so hot and then it just dumps buckets and buckets of rain. People always feel bad for us out in the rain, so we get lots of lessons.... and it’s just so nice when it’s raining. After it rains is the worst. It gets so, so, so hot, so we pray that it will keep raining till the sun goes down. ha One night, I think it was New Year’s -ya it was because we had to be home early, a huge storm came out of nowhere and there was huge winds and rain pounding down. Luckily we were at a member’s house and when we went home it was so calm and nice outside. It’s so weird, aha, one of the best parts of the rain is the rainbows!!! I saw the biggest rainbow yesterday. It was a double rainbow. I took some pictures, but it doesn’t do it justice. It was so beautiful. Ok, sorry Nan, haha. You said Blake’s letters were just weather reports, but the weather this week has just been AMAZING for the middle of summer. When it wasn’t raining, though, it was really, really, really hot. I always think it can’t get hotter than this - and it does. The amazing thing is when you are in the shade it’s really not that bad. It’s just the sun that kills you. It beats down so hard, and almost everyone’s home is completely shaded. When we are really hot it just motivates us to find someone to teach so we can sit down and get some water and be in the shade.

I am going to start with the funny thing that happened because it was so awful and funny at the same time. My stomach was hurting because I ate too much at a member’s house and it was really, really hot so I asked Hermana Escobar if we could take a little break. She was like, where? We were on a dirt road with no benches or anything. I saw this old well a little off the road so I start trekking through this marshland over to it. As I sit down in an exhausted huff, I start to feel fire and warmth consuming my foot. As I look down, I realize I have literally stepped on a huge ant hill and my whole foot was completely covered in ants biting me. I started screaming and running around and splashing in the water. There was nothing you could do. If you wipe it with your hand they are on your hand. Hermana Escobar was yelling “What’s the matter with you???” When she realized, because they were biting her too, she started saying “take off your shoes”. So I did and I am running all over trying to get these stupid little satans off me. Aw, it was terrible. Needless to say, I guess that’s what I get for being lazy. I wish I could send you the pic of my legs after that they were covered in little red dots. It’s a mission rule that we can’t send wound pictures home. They don’t want you to worry. It’s really not bad now. They just itch like a mosquito bite, but really, it was just so embarrassing because the family we had just been visiting saw the whole thing and were laughing from the house. Well, I am not sure if they were laughing, I think they were generally concerned, but when we told them later what happened they were laughing pretty hard.

This week was kind of difficult because, I don’t know about you guys, but the New Year here is kind of about getting drunk and blasting Michael Jackson, haahaha. If the people weren’t drunk they weren’t home. We made great plans this week to visit people with members and at every appointment the people weren’t home. It was so hard. The worst one was Justina, our golden investigator. We have to have a member because, like I told you, she has been accepting the missionaries for a few months now and has been taught everything, but we recently discovered she doesn’t know very much Spanish. haha She is so funny. So we trekked through the rain to her far-away house twice this week, both with members, and the first time she wasn’t home. The second the member bailed on us. The picture of me in the huge puddle is right outside her house. It was the only way to get to her so we took off our shoes and trekked it. This time she was home, but we didn’t have a member, so it was a long 30 min of confusion and constantly us and her saying ¿¿¿¿ENTIENDE???? (understand). haha But I think she felt the spirit and she kissed us before we left and we arranged to pick her up the next day for church.

This gets us to miracle number one of the week, well number one that I am sharing. We have millions every day. Anyway, we were supposed to be at Roma 1 at 6 because the elders had a baptism. This is way far away because our building is under construction, we were already far away because we were at Justina’s house. So we make it to our building and we go about two more blocks and we are still probably 30 min from the chapel by foot and we see the president’s son driving by. I practically jumped on the hood. haha He happened to be caring the guest of honor and the whole family, including his grandma. So we were able to get in and get a ride. I was practically crying. I was so happy, it was one of the hottest days.

This was my first baptism in the mission. I know we didn’t convert him but it still was great. I think of our district like a little team, so when he entered the water, he is like 10, I was crying so bad. He was so tiny and cute and excited and it reminded me I hadn’t been to a baptism in a long time. I kept thinking the last baptism I was at was Ethan’s, which made me cry and miss him. But as I am writing this, I realized I went to Sadie’s baptism, my cousin on Charlsie’s side, but oh well. It still had been a long time. It was beautiful and it reminded me why I am here.

So this gets us to Domingo (Sunday). Oh man, it was so tough. The president’s son was supposed to take us to get Justina, but I guess he slept in. So we were frantically trying to get someone to take us, but it’s hard because no one knows where she lives. So we have to go with them and most people don’t have a car, they only have a moto. We aren’t allowed to ride them. So all through church I just felt sick because I knew Justina was just sitting at home wondering why we didn’t come. All through lunch I kept thinking - we should go see her. But we don’t have a lot of time on Sunday and her house is about a 40 min walk from our house. So we decided to visit her son who lives just two streets over from where we ate lunch and guess who was visiting her son, JUSTINA!!! Miracle number 2000000000000. ah We were so happy, but also felt terrible because the first thing she said was “Why didn’t you come?”!!! “I was all ready to go”. She said she didn’t believe that we wouldn’t come, so she asked her neighbor if she had missed us. I wanted to curl up and die. I felt so bad. We kept apologizing and telling her we felt so bad, but there was little we could do. We don’t have a car and she is too old to walk it all herself. But we had a great lesson and I took a pic with her for you guys to see. She is so sweet. She is like my grandma, haha, even if she doesn’t know what I am saying. We were teaching her about the Holy Ghost. I told her sometimes I feel bad and the Holy Ghost helps me feel better. She started laughing and said you feel bad because you don’t know anything. haha Then Hermana Escobar felt bad she was making fun of me, so she said “No, like if you do bad on a test or have family problems, sometimes you feel bad.” She was like “What, you had an exam yesterday and you did bad. What’s going on with your family?” ugh We really need a member when we teach her, haha. Also her son, we taught her son’s wife a week ago and then we visited Justina. Her son’s wife, Nina, told Justina that we believe God is living in America right now.... we were like WHAT!! We clarified it all to Justina, but we still haven’t found Nina to explain that to her. hahah Miscommunication happens when you don’t speak Guadani, shoot!! But one of our New Year’s goals is to learn a prayer in Guadani for Justina so please pray for me because, seriously, that language is psycho.

Lots of love from Paraguay!!!!!!!!!!!
Hermana Ball