We are Reminded Each Week How Personal Our Mission Assignment Is

Although the rest of the world celebrates International Women´s Day on March 8. Here in Paraguay they celebrate a week early on February 24 as Dia de la Mujer Paraguaya by law. The link is in Spanish but it talks about how after most of the men died in the war the women kept Paraguay going. At the church we enjoyed the afternoon with games and sweets, fruit and chipa! 

We also went to a baptism on Saturday. How cool is this balcony to get your baptism picture and help you focus on your next step to the temple. (Ok so there were so many people you can't tell it is the temple behind them.Oops!)

From Thursday to Saturday was the National Tereré Festival. We are not into big crowds but the interns were going so Ken gave them money and instructions and he is officially Paraguayan with his Tereré thermo. It's even monogrammed with ELDER MYERS.

We also have some temple buddies, the Rolóns who invited us, some of the young missionaries, the interns and the young couple that were with us at our personal session last week over for an asada. It was fun and the food was amazing. 

We have mentioned before that we are guinea pigs. Sometimes it takes all the patience we can muster to be our best selves instead of losing our cool. Bureaucracy is painful, but on Monday we were able to complete and get financial funding set up for a project we have been working on since the beginning of December for people who are living without water in drought conditions. And we are hoping that as we drove to the Chaco on Wednesday and followed these big water tanks that they were going to those people. 

After taking care of banking matters, we headed out to the dialysis hostel that we shared some photos of last week. It was so fun to see the people we met last time and share our better but not perfect Guarani they taught us. The cooks were excited with their new stove and fridge that works. The working fans in the bedrooms add to the air conditioners in the halls and make it pleasant. We love Gustavo, he is such a sweet and peaceful man. We will have a formal entrega ceremony when his brother, the Cardinal, returns from Rome. Gustavo was grateful that the two churchs have begun to work together in Paraguay. 

The Paraguayan way is that if you have been given a gift you give a gift back. So the father of one of the girls we met on our first visit took us to the garden out back and helped Ken pull up some mandioca, a staple in the Paraguayan diet. It tastes and cooks up a lot like a potato. But the leaves look like marijuana leaves. 

They gave us limes, pomelo (grapefruit), oranges and guava. Chris peeled and froze some of the mandioca to eat later and as you can see from the bag, they gave us more than we could eat so we shared it with our friends at the office. The next day our friends at the office then made us a traditional dish of mandioca, eggs, and green onions. It was goooooood! Sorry no picture of that dish we didn’t have our cameras. 

Mandioca, cleaned on the left, peeled on the right

Wednesday we, mostly Ken with the help of the interns, completed the Business in a Box kits that Paraguay is piloting and sent them off to be approved. We were happy to learn that we, as Humanitarian missionaries don’t have to be the ones to check up on the participants. We know it would be fun but also a lot of time. We heard the Humanitarian bosses at Salt Lake City are piloting them elsewhere too with a different program. The South America South Area has not gone rogue but we not part of that program. 

We also left Wednesday to travel back up to the Chaco at the invitation of President Alleman the mission president. It was a smooth trip, and we were able to take a standard transmission truck. Along the highways in Paraguay people sell gas in used 3-liter water bottles. As we left Asuncion Chris wondered how they could make a profit and why they sold it and who would buy it. Six hours later, 45 km from our destination in the Chaco our gas light comes on. Ken wasn’t worried, he knew there was a gas station within 13 km but then we understood the gas on the side of the road better. 

This was our nice hotel in Neuland, a Russian Mennonite Colony where Spanish is spoken with a German accent. (Mike Martin, that is chicken curry)

Thursday morning, we were invited to a meeting with many organizations to see what can be done to help the people of Mistolar. It will be interesting to see how things proceed. It was the first time we were bashed by a brother from the Catholic church. It hurt and we were a little stunned, but Ken did a good job in his explanation saying we help everyone, regardless of race or religion and if they want to hear about the church they are invited to listen. We didn’t cower but didn’t contend. Father Miguel tried asking why do others need to be taking care of our members? Someone from another organization said we all help each other. Father Miguel then complained about us using our donations as a proselytizing tool (but 90% of Mistolar are members already) and we are not allowed to proselytize with Humanitarian aid anyway. Then he said something about how the church treats our women. Someone else retorted with how is having men make all the decisions just a “mormones” thing, when the Mennonite and the Catholics are the same (we realize this isn’t true on a General level but it does happen in some areas). How Chris wished she could speak better Spanish to share how she felt! When we spoke about what happened on the ride to the luncheon (which was fabulous) we decided that they needed to know the reason Chris wasn’t speaking was not because women are to be silent but because Chris can’t speak Spanish. At the luncheon Ken asked if anyone spoke English because his wife doesn’t speak a lot of Spanish. No one spoke English but we shared what we were doing in other projects and hearts were softened. After it was all over, we realized that the guy was just scared and threatened and he reacted by putting the Church down. We are grateful we withstood the urge to fight back so we represented the Church as disciples of Christ willing to help all as He did and not take offense. 

(This is a picture of the meeting not the Catholic heckler)

Thursday Night we had dinner with the missionaries, their choice at Döner Kebabs. We laughed at the name and realized no one would think it an odd name for a meat place in Paraguay.

We are so changed each time we visit Mistolar that we will add a second post this week about our trip there and District Conference. Please pray for rain in Mistolar and pray for us that we can help them find a solution to their needs that helps them to be the self reliant people they want to be.

And for a spiritual thought be confident in who God wants YOU to be and what he asks you to do for Him. Don't doubt His will for YOU or compare His will for you with what His will is for others just go forth with faith and look for His goodness. He needs to prepare us all in different ways to meet Him. Take what He gives you as a blessing!