It Was the Best of Times. It was the Worst of Times

 

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

-Charles Dickens

That about sums this week up, no one escapes disappointment, and there may have been a few moments that if given a free ticket home, Chris would have been on that plane, but she knew it would get better and it would be worth it. There are always moments, days and weeks that make it worth it and this week when taken in total was worth it.

We don't get to do a lot of gospel sharing in the way the young missionaries do but over the last weekend we got to share the great self reliance classes that the church has created with the Pastoral Social which is the Catholic Charity here in Paraguay.

Saturday we were busy on our preparation day with the service project to make mammography capes for one of the hospitals we are giving digitilization equipment for their mammography machines. We can't wait to share these with the hospital.

Saturday evening we participated in a very special baptism. There was a wonderful spirit there and Edgar was sooo happy to have been baptized.  Another friend who isn't a member (yet) played a musical number on the harp for us and then the closing hymn. Another first to sing accompanied by a harp. (Harps are an important instrument in Paraguay, and part of their cultural music.) Here are two more that he played while the participants were getting dressed.

We are not to take pictures during ordinances such as baptisms. This photo shows the excitement of the two sister missionaries getting ready to watch the baptism from the font entry door. The baptism hadn't started yet so we were in compliance with the rules in not taking pictures during ordinances. They are so cute and exude so much enthusiasm and energy.

Pizza Metro afterparty- Pizza by the meter

Happy notes of the week besides the baptism and the service project were that a few more projects moved forward. One was from a sweet woman in our ward who works at a school for special needs kids. It is an exciting project to help furnish a class with actual household appliances to learn life skills and become more independent. Right now although the Ministry of Educations supports schools like this a little it is a great place for LDS Charities to help.

Banco de Ojos is the project that was resurrected around March and has finally proceeded to the purchasing stage. We aren't supposed to get emotionally attached to projects but we are attached to Laura and Osvaldo who were so patient as they endured a second round of approval after slipping through the cracks the first time. They will be using this machine for a specialized retna surgery. Tuesday when they signed the agreement was a great morning!

Soledad(Church legal) and Osvaldo(king of patience)

Dr. Laura(queen of patience) and another Dr on the left.

The hard thing this week and every week is, there is a lot of "do this" without direction of what this is. Then after taking steps to do this we are told that this isn't this but that. Ken keeps reminding Chris we are all learning but it still is a crazy maker for Chris. Either give good directions or at least be compassionate with delivering judgment. Chris may have gone to the bathroom or shut off her camera on  TEAMS calls to cry a few times this week. 

Temple day couldn't have come soon enough. Reminders that our family is our most important subset of God's family, strengthening our hope that we can be like Him. In the temple we feel "enough" and are literally drawn in and gathered with the hope of all being in the family of God.

Thursday began with a little miscommunication about when the car needed to be ready for us so we were 45 minutes late getting started, but picked up the Allens for their first trip out of Asuncion. We invited them with us to see, it turns out, the city they were initially assigned as MLS missionaries (Member and Leader Support). They are now serving in the office but received permission to come with us. We hope that they can come with us a few more times.

First stop was a Centro de Salud health center in Nueva Italia. The town is a picture postcard setting! And guess what coincidence happened at the Centro? Anna, from Iowa, came to Paraguay 40ish years ago with the Peace Corp and then returned to Paraguay, fell in love and stayed. She helps on the committee that administers the Centro.

This is one of the best Centros we have seen as far as upkeep. They are remodeling a few rooms. Although everything is neat and tidy, they could use some updated equipment that isn't kept together with duct tape or held up with a chair. Haha from what we've experienced, chairs seem to be the duct tape of Paraguay.

We stayed so long at the Centro that it was lunch by the time we were ready to visit the school so the Dr. sent us to his aunt's place in town. to eat. We learned on this trip that Ña means aunt in Guarani. We didn't take pictures but it was authentic, delicious, and filling food. 

While visiting the Escuela Básica (Elementary school) some of the children came right up to us and shook our hands and asked us questions. Two little five year old girls (Brianna and Patricia) stole Ken's heart with their dark little eyes and beautiful smiles. The school administrator spoke with us for a few minutes in her office and then we visited several of the classrooms. The children all stood up and very respectfully greeted us as their guests. It is so welcoming and heart-warming. We mentioned the importance of dreaming big and following their dreams and working hard to achieve their goals.

These are the afternoon students ready for a short assembly and peptalk.

All the students learn Spanish and Guarani.

Dictionaries were a request

Outdoor learning

After leaving the school, we made the two hour drive to Villarrica. Villarrica is a town in the interior of the country. At one time it served as the capital of the country and is one of the oldest cities in South America. We checked into our hotel and then went for a drive to take in the sights, sounds, and smells of the city. Ken will forever associate the smell of Paraguay as that of meat being grilled over charcoal fires. It is hypnotizing. 

Palace Hotel Villarrica gardens and pool

Dinner at Bar Sandwich of what the menu called tacos (burritos) and salad

Dinner was quite good. We had salads and the "tacos" and the men split a hamburger too. For dessert we had what the menu called Boston Brownie. It was a fudgy brownie with ice cream.

After dinner we learned a new game called Quiddler. It was fun and made better because Chris won and Ken was a close second. It was really a team effort because we were just learning. Sister Allen is really the most skilled and knows a lot of words from the dictionary that we never would have thought of.

Friday morning dawned and we were all disappointmented because the hotel did not have the cheesy kind of chipas at breakfast or Mbeju/Beiju, but Doctor Matto (but probably his beautiful and lovely assistant) came through with some warm fresh chipas at the hospital office, and coffee. Teaching moment with them that we don't do coffee but we ate up the chipas.

Great entrega of equipment to the Hospital Regional de Villarrica. Click here and then scroll to the Facebook post from a radio station. The two people on the left side are Ivan Mercado, a counselor in the Villarrica branch presidency who is 10 month off his youth mission and District President Bianciotto. The rest are hospital and Ministry of Health officials. The hospital staff love all the new equipment that allows them to do their jobs better and help more people.

This is the group of dental workers. They are so grateful to have chairs that work. They are busy every day now. Woohoo! They wanted to visit and thank us so much we lost the rest of the tour.

This is the surgery wing. The Church donated a surgical bed and a cauterizing scalpel. They have had the equipment for 15 working days and have dramatically increased their number of surgeries to 60 already. They used to be able to do a few a month due to safety issues and equipment malfunction. 

After spending lots of time at the hospital we took a tour of the branch building. Villarrica was one of the first places in the interior of Paraguay where the Church was established but the branch here has struggled and been closed and opened a few times. They have a strong youth and young adult presence so we are hoping it will succeed this time and grow. We enjoyed lunch at ÑaChina, but it was paraguayan food not Chinese: milanesa, caldo de poroto, paraguayan tortillas, meat and rice, and mandioca.

Before heading home to Asuncion we stopped in Yataity, the town famous for AO PO'I, embroidery made here in Paraguay for many years. As the name of the embroidery is in Guarani so is the sign in the town. Not sure what it says but we bought shirts and ties. They are exquisite.

A no cart and horse sign and no walking sign for Ruta 2

Also on Friday we received an update on the school kits from the youth service project. Our friends Miguel Del Puerto, secretary of education for Boqueron and the First Lady of Boqueron Ruthie Bergen sent videos and photos of their adventure to share the kits with students in need. Check out the time stamp on their travels. Although this part of the map shows only 285 km(177 miles). They ended up traveling close to 800 km (497 miles). Check out the video below that shows the ruts in the road. This is why they had to wait for the roads to dry. You really can get swallowed up. We are so grateful for them helping us get the kits to the students. That really is more than 1/2 of the work.

A forgotten foto from 19 May lunch date.

Also on the 19th of May on the walk home from church we noticed the street blocked off and then heard the band. We still don't know what they were celebrating but it was probably some feast day for a school/church or some left over Paraguayan Independence day celebrating at a church. We are really not sure what they are carrying in the third picture.

Spiritual Thoughts for the week: 

We are all born with the light of Christ. After we are reborn at baptism, we receive the the gift of the Holy Ghost and then when we enter the temple and keep the covenants there we can receive a fulness of the Holy Ghost. It is interesting that there seems to be three degrees all based on our choices of how we want to live and listen,
Second is that sometimes as Humanitarian missionaries we have to check ourselves. When people call us angels we can't let it puff us up. It is true that we are the Lord's messengers, like angels are, but we can't misunderstand the joy we feel at being His Hands and feeling Him near as our own power. The power and joy comes from working with and for Him.
To come full circle we will share a quote from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,

 Joy is not the absence of pain, but the presence of God

Have a great week.