Hermana Meese in Paraguay : My second week in Paraguay!

okay i like wrote notes all week to remember everything! haha so i´ll start with last pday. we spent the day in Luque and went to the grocery store which is soooo different! haha you have to check in your backpack at the front door before you go in and there are guys guarding the doors with guns but then to get anything like hygiene like makeup or toothepaste its all behind a counter and you have to get a number and then you tell the lady what you need and she puts it in a bag that has a lock on it and then you take the bag up to the checkout where they take the lock off when you pay haha also, you can pay like half the payment of the groceries and then come back like a week later and pay off the rest haha i was so confused when they asked me how many checks i wanted but thats what they were asking.
so after we had family night with the ayalas, and since their baptism you can totally feel the spirit in their home! i love them so much! i feel at peace when we are there. we sit on their front porch and hermana norma always makes us this yummy smoothie juice thing haha
so then tuesday, we have district meeting! there are 6 of us all together, 4 elders and us and we have to take the bus to the city of Limpio for it. and at it our district leader teaches us things to help us be better missionaries. this week we learned how to teach catholics about why we cant worship the virgin mary. soooo helpful! everyones catholic here and so we talk about this almost every lesson. also we went out proselyting with Clara a girl from our ward thats 15 and she helped us to get to know our area better. this is the only way to do it because some places its just like a trail through the trees and theres no addresses or street names at all so its like go to the yellow house then turn right and then go far until the big tree and turn left haha
the youth in our ward are so awesome! they are friends with us missionaries and always want to help us out!
so wednesday we had rain and oh my gosh. the thunderstorms here are insane!!!!! the thunder is so loud it honestly makes you vibrate and it makes the windows shake! and it just pours! me and hermana tomco are going to go buy some rainboots today! because when it rains its deep mud. all the roads are like sandy dirt so when it rains theres soooo much mud!
on thurdsay hma. tomco got really sick from something she ate so we had to spend the day at the house. she was too sick to get up but i just scrubbed the house so clean the whole day! haha its so old no matter how much i cleaned anything it still looked dirty but at least now I know its like sanatized haha and then about 3 in the afternoon i remembered it was thanksgiving so i make a cake mix we had and later that night we brought it to the elders!
okay now for friday. highlight of the week! we found this family and they just recently moved here from concepcion but before that they lived in brazil. the mom like speaks a mix of spanish and portuguese so its really hard for me to understand her haha but anyways its a family of 6 with a mom and dad, who are married which is a miracle here! and 4 kids that are 18 16 12 and 1 two boys and two girls and they were so ready to hear our message. right from the beginning they asked us, why are there so many churches and the bible says theres only one god and how are we supposed to know which one is true? and the mom told us about how even though they went to the catholic church she didnt have her children baptized when they were babies because she doesnt think theyve sinned and it should be their decision. (this is by the way one of the hardest things for catholics to get past is that theyve already been baptized) so we explained to her the restoration and she was like si o si, este es verdad. yes this is true, definitely true. we gave her a book of mormon and said she would read and pray and then yesterday the mom and daughter came to church with us!!! the dad and son didint because they were pouring the cement for their driveway. they live in a newer house they built themselves. here they are considered chu chi, which means theyre rich. this is especially true becuase they have a car! first person ive met with one here so far! but the mom loved church and she said the whole family is coming back next week!
so after that we went to coordinacion misional at hermanos flors house and oh my goodness, people live in the most humble places. hno. flor is the ward mission leader, has been a member a year now and lives with his wife and 2 kids that are 2 and 6 months. but theyre house is a lean to kind of thing. it has dirt floor and its made out of pieces of thin wood that look like they came off of some packaging for a fridge or something and there roof is made out of pieces of tin and tarp and they have one bed they all sleep on and the house is so small thats all that fits in it. but we sat there and his wife made us matte dulce. matte is this herb drink they drink here we arent aloud to drink the real thing because it can make us sick because were not used to it but with matte dulce they put coconut shavings in the cup and then pour hot milk on it and you take turns passing around the matte cup drinking it, I think its the coolest thing! haha and its delicious!
so then friday we met a menos activo familia, a family thats less active and the moms name is hermana cabrera, they live out in the middle of nowhwere and they speak more quarani then english but hma. cabrera doesnt know how to read so we are going to teach her so then she can read the book of mormon with her family!
so that was my week! time goes by so fast here! i feel like ive learned so much this week and i wish i could record everything for you like the sounds and smells and the feel of the heat for you guys to experience! i will just have to bring you all back here one day! haha love you all so much! i pray for you everyday! talk to you next week!

love hermana meese