Haupei familia,
That's guarani for whats up family! Gosh this week has been awesome! Before I forget I did receive my package. They gave it to me on the second day I was here and everyone was jealous that I already got a package. As of right now I can't really think of anything I need other than just like American snacks (they have none of that here). So it has been pretty hot here, but I honestly don't mind it really. Today we played soccer again and this time I actually scored a couple of goals, but my companion started messing with me and faking me out. But then we played a little basketball and I took him to town! It helped that it was like his second time ever playing basketball. But other than doing that this morning I haven't really minded the heat. The food here is great. I love empanadas soooooo much.There are a couple of empenada shops around my house so sometimes after working we stop by and grab a couple. Another really popular food here is called malonesa. I think it's some kind of chicken (but you never actually know what's in the meat). But whatever it is it's deep-fried so I'm not complaining. The members for some reason think I'm always starving so no matter what I say they always give me more food. The other Elders always say they're full and it's tranquilo, but they never believe me when I say it, but its all good. I haven't been too sick, just a little. Also we can't take our cameras out tracting with us, but I have some other pics I'm sending home. On the streets where we work there are like a million cows tied up, it's funny. And there are so many dogs here. I saw a couple of them fighting the other day, pretty crazy. The ward here has about a hundred people, but only about 60 of them are active I think. This Sunday we had a crazy rain storm so not a lot of people made it to church because paraguayans are afraid of the rain. But my bishop is awesome. He sells a ton of cool paraguayan stuff and he's giving us missionaries a huge discount. I liked this hat that was way cool, but the curse of the maddox head struck again and it didn´t fit, blast. Also there is always music playing here. a lot of it is american music that nobody knows the words. Regaton is muy popular and there is a cool genre called Cumbia paraguaya that is pretty good.
So we keep finding the wierdest people that just want to Bible bash (and its really funny hearing people do this all in Spanish) but we've found some dang good investigators through of all of this so it's all good. A couple of funny stories from the week. One day we were at a members house and they were feeding us this amazing something (it's some kind of dessert). And I look over and there's a balding parrot, turns out it had cancer. It was pretty funny looking. Another one was we were walking down the street and this group of little girls started pointing at me and calling me Kevin Mcalister from home alone, my comp thought that was hilarious. One of the funniest things though was the other day this peruvian lady came over (she works for the church so our president told us it's okay). She came to help us clean the pench, gosh it was so funny. For the first little while she was having us through rags at the ceiling (this went on for like 2 hours). Then she made all of us change our sheets and she kept telling us all of these weird things to do after that. But the best was when we were cleaning the kitchen she cleaned us out of food. She just took a ton of it and said she was going to use it and give it away to people who needed it (it was cool because it was pretty much all leftover from the hermanas that lived here before). But it was quite the morning.
So I think the hardest thing for me at first was ordering food at restaurants. I never knew what to say and I never had any idea what they were saying to me, but today I went to a restaurant and I could order exactly what I wanted and I understood exactly what the lady was telling me. I can pretty much understand everything that happens in the lessons, I just still have a hard time with some peoples accents (mostly old people, they also use a ton of guarani in their Spanish), but I'm learning a ton. My companion said that my spanish is better than a few of the missionaries that are leaving in the next couple of weeks and he said that he thinks that I'll have no problems. He's still diligently learning english. I was teasing one of the other elders in our pench the other day and he told me "Hulsey when was the last time you got round house kicked in the face?" My companion thought that was the funniest thing he had ever heard. Hes always telling me "When was the last... no recuerdo". It looses it's affect but it's funny none the less. We have a few really solid investigators and we are planning on baptizing them within the next couple of weeks (it depends on a few things but they do have dates to be baptized). One is named Celsa and after her we're hoping to baptize her husband Eduardo. The other is this family named Olvera. They're awesome and we just have to teach them the commandments and they're set. Then we have this girl named Caren and she is super awesome! She is super faithful and we're hoping to set a date with her the next visit. The way we contact is fun. We walk around then we stand outside peoples gates (because EVERYONE has a gate in front of their house, even if they don't have a fence) and then we clap. Somehow they always here us. We were doing this the other day and this lady let us in named Laura. She has a two year old son named Elias, I told her my brothers name is Elias and he's two (I didn´t feel like explaining the english name because here I think it's a girls name). But it was a cool reminder of why I'm here, to bring the gospel to people so they can have real joy on earth and be together forever in the eternities. My Personal studies have been super great, I'm learning so much from the Book of Mormon everyday and from different talks by different people. I love working hard because if you don't work hard then you feel really bad (because you're waisting the Lords time). I know that this is the Lords work and that I'm doing exactly what I need to be doing. I know for sure that the Lord calls us and then as we work hard then he qualifies us. Often times as soon as we get things figured out then things change, but this just allows us to grow more. I love you guys so much and I pray for you every day. Keep being an amazing family and keep living right.
Con Amor,
Elder Hulsey
ps. I can´t figure out how to send pictures because it's in Spanish, I´ll have my companion show me next week
