January 23, 2017

hey all

funny story to start off haha: we taught a lady named Gloria on friday. when we arrived she was smiling from the porch with a bottle of soap in her hand. she yelled something to us but neither i or E Villacreses heard, and so E Villacreses replied ''do you need help?'' i guess he thought she needed to clean her house or something haha turns out she told us she was going to take a shower really quick haha elder Villacreses was so embarassed haha dang she thought it was too funny, his face was so red haha

all's good in moroni. im more interested to hear whats happening in the US. how's the trump presidency so far? are there any fire memes of donald on twitter right now? haha im sure the internet is going loco. someone lemme know 

so i finally found out why i was a week late to paraguay! apparently the lawyers that the church hired to do all the legal paperwork for missionaries here were doing some pretty illegal and shady bussiness, bribing and stuff to let us all be here, so when they found out they fired them all and it took awhile to set all back in order. i dont know how i even got here haha because right now all the gringo missionaries in the entire mission are illegals haha its a good thing that governmet here does almost nothing or we'd be in big trouble haha

i dont have any pictures for you still.. haha one day i'll get this camera problem sorted out. i take some every week.

if any of you feel like it, i'd love to get pictures from you all, let me know how you're doing and all. advice, anything, i'm here for it. 

hasta la proxima semana 

-Elder Glasgow

January 16, 2017

¡que tal todos!

real quick here's all i got for you this week - 

-we're halfway throught the change already! in 3 weeks i'll be done with my training and enter into the big boy world. Elder Villacreses will more than likely leave Moroni and i'll have to hold down the fort with a new comp. i'm not too worried, he'll probably be older than me. i hope haha

-this friday we had a baptimsal interview in zeballos that went overtime and we couldnt catch a bus back to moroni so we had a sleep over in Elder Hunt and Rafailano's house! and it sucked! haha they only have two beds so they pushed them together and i had to sleep in between them. Never sleeping over again haha

-so the word for nose in spanish is ''nariz'' which is dumb because every time i tell someone i'm from arizona they always say ´´but you dont have a big nose??´´ because they have the humor of my dad and narizona means a person with a big nose. they think they're so funny i just have to pretend to laugh with them and say wow, haven't heard that one before, that was a good one, man.

-we think we have a mouse in our casa. we haven't been able to find him but suddenly all our cockroaches went missing and there was woodchippings on our window sill like someone had been chewing through trying to escape. more to come later

-we visited an hermana a week ago that said she couldn't go to church because of her leg. she showed it to us and all i saw was a pimple. i didn't say anything but all i thought in my head was, no she's just lazy. she said it was susuwah, and had to wait for it to explode. i didnt understand til we came back yesterday. she had a hole in her leg the size of a golfball!! it had been full of puss and had exploded!! gosh dang it was disgusting haha

im sorry to hear about Noel. Brother and Sister Pacheco are so strong in the gospel. i'm sure that the funeral was gorgeous. let them know that i'll be praying for them. they're a strong family, i know that they'll come out stronger for it. you know, as a missionary, we teach every day that families can be forever but i dont think people understand the magnitude of the atonement and resurrection. we can literally, be with our families, physically, be able to hold them and touch them and hug them physically, forever after this life. its a beautiful thing. its a powerful thing. if you see Lizzie tell her i said what's up. 

i'm so proud of myself actually. i write in my journal every other day and havent missed a day yet. i counted out the days i have left in the ccm haha but tbh that was to know how often i should write. i have just enough to fill both journals if i write every other day. i actually have less than 730 days in the mission... i didnt want to tell you but they gave me my release date my first day in the office... my little secret for now haha i dont think im ready for you guys to know. but i keep a count down in my planner. 

we went and had waffles the other day to commemorate mine and elder schmidt's 100th day here. i never thought the best waffles i'd ever eat would be in paraguay but i stand corrected. they're absolutely amazing. i think they're only match is sis romero's waffles (hot dang haha)

one of the families we found is the familia Aguilar. i sound like such a latino saying that haha but its so much easier haha they are great! the dad is very accepting and really has a desire to know more about the prophet joseph smith! im excited because its not often that our investigators actually have desires to know. many times its us putting the words in their mouths. we also have a woman named gloria. she is pureté. she was a reference of a less active man named arturo. i think he wants to marry her haha so he's been coming to church every week now. she cant yet, she was in a moto accident a few months ago and her foot is still recovering.

anyway moroni is great. loving it hear, as always. i have some pics for you all. i'll have more next week, i promise! in the mean time, send me some pics pls love you all talk to you next week

-Elder Glasgow 

Lara's Baptism

Chase study time

January 9, 2017

hi family
before i start, let me tell you that this week was probably one of the strangest weeks i'll have so far on the mission. especailly yesterday. get ready for some stories cuz here they come haha

so they have some sweets here called alfajores. they are heaven sent haha they're like cookies drizzled in something called dulce de leche. sweet milk. they only cost 1.5 guarani, which is like 20 cents in america. i buy about 5 a day, i better clean my act up real soon or i'll come back to the states having added on an extra 150 pounds haha

the culture here in paraguay is so different. we teach alot of lessons to girls that are 17 and already have 2 children. hardly are they ever married. and these little kids absolutely adore their parents and thats great but i dont understand how its possible becasue if they ever do something they shouldnt, out somes a flip flop or belt or wet towel and they get whipped soooo hard. this week a lady used a phone charger. pretty brutal but the kid only cries for two seconds and then loves his mom again. strange right?

so yesterday was a doozy of a day. i kind of hate sunday dinner because the member that feeds us that day is a terrible cook. i know she tries and im greatful for that but she really is terrible. and she fed us flan on sunday. its a dessert here made of dulce de leche, milk, and eggs. its like cinnamon yogurt. sounds great but its the worst thing ive ever eaten. nastyyy 

after lunch we taught these 3 teenagers who contacted us and said they had been members once. that happens all the time but this one was different because one of the girls.... was really a dude. he was wearing make up, had a weave, shaved his legs, pretty sure he was crushing on me super hard too.

so thats how my day went yesterday. haha but this week was pretty amazing, our goal for new investigators is normally 10 every week. this week we found 16! haha we normally fall short about 3 or 4 but i dont know what happened. we had 4 different occasions that people contacted us on the street - THEY contacted US - and asked us for lessons haha how strange right? so we have 6 investigators with dates right now, and they're all looking pretty promising. gabriel is doing good, we found his cousin and a friend as well, her name is Fabiana and the friend is Pamela. they also accepted dates for the 4th of Feb. exciting things to come, i think this week was great. we found 16 new investigators so im really hoping they'll be able to be baptized soon. found some really cool people this week, some really cool families as well. we'll see how it all goes

sounds like the fam vacation was a success haha tell crew to either get a haircut or do something with his hair at least haha speaking of which im just about to get a haircut. im in luque today, to buy a camera and print some pictures. luque is like the black market around here. you can find just about anything. right now im sitting in a cyber to write you. its like a room full of gaming computers that you pay to use. so im surrounded by a bunch of 12 year olds playing call of duty anmd world of warcraft right now haha

man i miss the family dinner mashed potatoes. you sent me some food like that in the christmas package but my house doesnt have any gas to cook... nor glass bowls to warm things in the microwave haha i dont know what im gonna do. i was lucky to find cream cheese in the supermarket last week!! so i've been having bagels the past week. its a lot better than cereal haha

im sorry to hear about grandma. she'll definitely be in my prayers this week. tell her i said hi, and that im thinking of her. 

thanks for the letters.  i sure love you. have a good week, stay safe.

-elder glasgow

January 2, 2017

family,
not much time for this letter but this week was great. had a baptism on thursday that i ended up performing. such a cool experience. i was gonna send pics but i didnt have an opportunity to buy a new camera today. i'll try next week. 

other updates, i found a crepe shop in my area, i'll let you know how it goes after i try it out this week. im going on another division w/ Elder Schmidt tomorrow, so that should be lit. do people say lit anymore? i feel like i've been gone so long.

thanks for the pics its good to see your faces. cannon and annalee didnt want to come with you on vacation? 

man i miss vacations like that haha even if i was home right now, i wouldnt have gone on any or felt the need to. i guess the mission shows you how many things you took granted in your previous life haha be safe, and safe travels

so Lara's baptism was on thursday. that morning we ran to her house to create the agenda, and Elder Villacreses put into her mind that i should baptize her. so thursday night i went swimming in the baptismal font haha it was a great experience. got through the whole thing in spanish without breaking a sweat. the spirit was so strong there. she was different than our other investigators. i knew that even though shes only 9, she really has a desire to follow the commandments and Christ.

we have some other dates but most of them are really iffy. its really hard to get people to keep commitments. especially church attendance. all of our investigators are in the chacarita. its like a really poor village in the center of asuncion. its probably 5 miles from the church bldg. and there arent any buses that run from the chacarita to the chapel. so its nigh impossible to get attendances. and people are also really lazy. so we have dates for 5 people right now but i think only one of them is really for sure. his name is gabriel, he's my age. we met him a couple weeks ago and we extended the baptismal invitation with a date and he accepted both. but we havent been able to teach him for two weeks now because he's been in concepcion since christmas. but we meet with him on christmas eve and he told us when he came back he would listen to us and then get baptized. he sounded really excited so i think it's for sure.

we have other investigators but no one is progressing. no one follows through with commitments. its not difficult to find people to teach but they never want to actually hear our lesson, they just want to talk to us cuz they're friendly. so we visit people week after week but they just want to talk, not live the gospel that we're teaching. its kind of a bummer but there is always that person we find every once in a while who is just awesome and ready to recieve the gospel. afterwards its just a little hard to find them to teach them again. people are never at their houses, so when we find people to teach, its rarely the person who actually lives there, so its hard to find them there again.

we find a lot of inactives. the church here has about 300 people baptized in our area but only about 70 attend. we try to have lessons with them but they usually go inactive for a reason. they know its true, but they just dont have a desire to follow or they dont want to, and for that all we can do is pray for them.

the members here are so lazy. they never hand out references, our ward mission leader is all talk, too. he's active and tells us he'll go out with us but when we ask he always says he's too busy. i want to give a talk in church so i can drop the cane on everyone.

my first transfer wasnt that big of a deal. i didnt go anywhere neither did my comp. i doubt i'll leave moroni, not for another 3 months at least. i finish my training at the end of this change. we read and do exercises in a book for trainers and trainees. it helps with development of newbies. i think its a bunch of bologna but we do it all the same. i think my spanish is improving. i can go into about any store or building and converse with most people. i'd say i understand about 75 % of lessons. i just talk sooo slow. people here talk a million miles a minute. its so difficult to discern sometimes.

god bless, everyone. hope you had a great new year, hope 2017 is full of success. in the meantime, i'll keep trucking it out here in paraguay. suerte.

-Elder Glasgow

A visitor sent us this picture of Chase at church.  Said he was doing fine.

December 26, 2016

Hi family,
my first change of the mission ends tomorrow! i'm pretty psyched, i'm halfway through my training now. on my way to becoming a big boy.

this week was interesting. Funny story, we contacted a lady named Sonya on Thursday. i don't think she was all the way there... or maybe she was just intoxicated. Either way, we got to conversating. I didn't understand a lot of it, so i was smiling  and nodding and saying "si" a lot, she was talking about my eyes for some reason. after we left my comp asked me if i knew what she had said. Apparently, she had been talking about how her dead Russian husband had the same color eyes as me and that she loved mine and.... wanted more of them haha. She asked if i was single and wanted to marry her!! i didnt know what she was saying, i was just nodding my head and saying "si" so i didnt appear to be stupid!! and i accepted! haha hopefully she won't remember next time we visit. she seemed pretty looney.

so christmas is Paraguay is completely wack. it doesnt exist, really. everyone celebrates on christmas eve, they call it noche buena, and at midnight they eat dinner and drink and drink and drink. so christmas is more like national hangover day than Christmas. and paraguayans dont give presents either. its just an excuse to drink and eat, to be honest. i thought the united states was bad haha

last saturday we had lunch with the familia Paradez. my plate was a bunch of meet so i dug in and it was sooo good. i asked Hermano Paradez what it was and he said something really fast. i told him it didnt matter cuz it tasted great. elder V then told me it was lengua de vaca. cow tongue. hahaha it was a little harder to chew after that

this week will be real good. we have changes tomorrow, which everyone treates here like a ritual or something haha theres definitely buzzing in the air. 

i hope you all had a great christmas and had fun spending time with friends and family. stay safe this week and have a happy new year

-Elder Glasgow

Ward Party BarBQuers

District Elders at the Paraguay Asuncion Temple Grounds

Christmas Call Home from Asuncion

Ramona and Lara

December 19, 2016

quick email for you all this week. So I'll start it off with some funny stories for you all. 

-On Tuesday we went to make brownies with our friend who's not all there. That place is too wild haha everyone there is out of their mind, literally. We made the brownies, shared a spiritual thought, ended with a prayer, and before we knew it all the brownies were gone. Didn't even get a single crumb. It was super depressing, to be honest.

-Later in the week we were in a really poor area of the city and we contacted a man  and were teaching him. When we finished the lesson, his 3 year old son walked up to him and put something into his hand. i don't think Elder Villacreses saw it but it was drug related. the guy hid it behind his back real quick haha sounds like we know what our next lesson needs to be on

-I participated in a choral program on saturday night. it was so bad haha Paraguayans have absolutely no ear for music. but i think the people enjoyed it because they couldn't tell how off tune it was either haha

other stuff that happened this week was i found out i'm allergic to mangos! we had mangos for dessert on thursday and my face has been enourmous and red and swelled up ever since haha which really is too bad because mangos are the only things any one ever eats around here. Dang.

and this saturday i went on a division w/ Elder Schmidt. he's a greenie too so it was super stressful because we both are terrible at spanish!  it didn't end up too bad though, we actually made some pretty good contacts and we also went to the mcdonalds in his super chuchi area and got kit kat mcflurry's so that was nice.

i realize more and more how much im growing up out here. last night i was feeling pretty sick so i went into our bathroom and stuck my finger down my throat and forced myself to vomit. i think a dessert i had for lunch made me sick. they drizzle condensed milk on fruit here for dessert. even thinking about it makes me want to hurl again. but anyway, before the mission i would probably have gone into your room to wake up you haha. now, it still sucks, but it's more just annoying than terrifying. i don't know if that's a part of becoming an adult or not. but if i keep talking about it i'll throw up again so i'll change the subject haha

thanks for the emails. cant wait to talk on sunday, love you. Merry Christmas

-Elder Glasgow

December 12, 2016

dear family,
another great week in paraguay. my companion reminded me this week that the chapel we attend sacrament meeting is the same chapel they dedicated the temple in and that gordon b hickley was there when it happened. i've sat in the same place gordon b hinckley sat. pretty cool haha

well i still can't speak spanish. people talk and talk and talk in our lessons and then just look at me like they need help and i just have to shrug and look at my companion... it stinks. but i get better every day. i'm definitely learning a lot, and i improve daily. 

this last week we met some interesting people. we taught a woman named antonia yesterday. she's 85 years old. and she has a glass eyeball. creepiest thing ever. she can't close that eye when she blinks so it's always staring at you, and it's an off shade so it doesn't match the other eye. creepy. we went and saw that schizophrenic lady again. she's super nice haha we're making brownies with her tomorrow!

on wednesday we're starting to teach english classes at the chapel in the night time. we run into a lot of people who want to learn english so starting now once a week, they'll feel like the stupid ones and i'll be the ones laughing at them for a change haha

not much else to talk about. we went to a restaraunt for lunch today called Paulista's. fanciest place i will ever be in. and it cost about 100,000 guaranies. thats like $20 american dollars. they have salad, pasta, and dessert buffets with personal chefs at each table, and waiters walk around with giant sticks of meat that they slice out for you. super chuchi haha i've never been so full. we're really lucky because it's in our zone so we don't have to ask for permission to go there for lunch on p days.

we have a baptism date on the 27th of december, if our investigator comes to church the next two weeks. i hope she does. her name is lara and she's 9. she really wants to be baptized but her mom is sooo lazy haha. we'll help her out this week.

we taught a lady the other day with a 5 yr old daughter who was super hyper. worse than avery or wake haha she was wack. no one was paying attention to her when we were teaching and she threw a tantrum. she walked up to the front door of the house, squatted down and pooped on the floor. hahaha her mom was soooo angry ha

i'll be skyping on christmas from the bishops house. i think we're 4 hours ahead here. and we have church from 9 to 12. and it takes forever to walk everywhere here so i told mom anywhere from 2 to 6. i only have an hour. i think i'll be fine. it'll be weird but it'll be good too.

oh yeah, mom was gonna send a package this week i think. if you don't want anything to be stolen tape it like crazy and put some pictures of the virgin mary on it for good measure. the latinos shouldn't touch it if they see it like that ha

we invited this kid gabriel to be baptized with a date on his first lesson last week. he's 19 and he's really cool. but we havent been able to find him since. and there are these less active kids Lilly and Kevin. they really don't care for the church that much anymore. they were baptized about a year ago but stopped coming to church after a few months. when we met them this week i felt like they were important. that we need them to come back. especially Lilly. theyre both 15. we'll see what happens. if i could speak spanish i would have rebuked them right there. ha

thanks for all the emails love you all! talk to you next week. god bless

-elder glasgow