Found home in Natalio Paraguay

Dylan arrived in Paraguay on Tuesday September 18, exactly two months after leaving Salt Lake City.  Upon arrival he was greeted with a major wind storm that knocked out the power of the entire country.  Power returned and he was assigned to Natalio a small farming community 190 miles from Asuncion.  The Capital of Soy and on the boarder of Argentina.  He has found Guarani to be the only language spoken, enjoy his comments.  


First week in Paraguay......AWESOME!!! Empidrada, the rocky roads, so much worse than people describe haha. It's a good time though. There's tons of chickens here. I'm in a town called Natalio, it's really far South/East. I can see Argentina from my front porch. Everyone speaks Guarani haha. We've met some families that only speak Guarani, which makes it really tough to teach them. In church yesterday, the bishop stood up to talk and he talked for a while in spanish then said 'sorry elders, I'm now going to speak in Guarani.' haha. After that the whole sacrament meeting was in Guarani.

So there are a ton of members here. But most are inactive, apparently that's how all of Paraguay is. But the people who stay active are amazing. Everyone here is super nice. They're always trying to help me and are already trying to get me to speak Guarani. We have some pretty solid investigators too. We just can't baptize them either because they don't have church attendance, or they only have church attendance and they don't have the lessons. A lot of the investigators are young too so they have to get permission from parents which is pretty tough. It's hard to teach people sometimes because;they are working literally like all day, every day.

So my trainer is from Colorado. His name is Elder Omanson. He has 13 months in his mission. He's way chill and a great help. I'm the 3rd person he's trained so he's super good at it. It's cold in the morning here and then it gets pretty hot and cools back down at night. Surprisingly though, there's less mosquitoes here than Argentina. There's loads of small flies and what not, but I haven't seen any mosquitoes and I only have one bite. So yeah, the language is good. Everyone thinks I'm Paraguayo haha. So yeah talk to you guys soon.

Arrival in Paraguay via Brazil

Emailed 9-17-12

Dylan, we think, headed for Paraguay on a local flight that traveled through San Paulo, Brazil.  His final comment warmed my heart, glad to hear he arrived safely.

So this past week was pretty good. Finished with the CCM y’know. I’m like excited to go but not. I’m gonna miss all my buddies here. I’ve made so many great friends here, some I won’t see ever again, it sucks bro. But I’m pretty stoked to leave for Paraguay tomorrow. My flight is at 6 AM, so 3 AM your time. It’s gonna be killer but hey! It’s better than the flight to Uruguay at 4 AM. Proselitismo was a downer on Saturday. Literally like no one would talk to us, we only gave 2 pamphlets out and I had to practically shove the pamphlet into their hands. Oh and a bird pooped on my head during proselitismo. It sucked but it was pretty dang funny I must admit haha. I was reaching in my backpack to grab some more pamphlets and the bird side-skirted my head haha. And to go with the poop, I got like 15 new mosquito bites haha. I’m getting straight eaten alive by those blood suckers. I got to be more careful, ‘cause I heard the mosquitos in Paraguay are super gnarly compared to the ones here in Argentina. I’m also kind of sick which sucks. Just a cough and a stuffy nose but I think it’s getting better. So past all that, my last Sunday here was pretty great. We talked about the priesthood power to heal. Some scriptures for yeah to read are DyC 42:43 and Mark chapters 5-6. Some really great stories of healing by the priesthood. So yeah then there’s today we have orientation, literamente all day. But yeah tomorrow will be tight. I’ll finally be in Paraguay. Can’t wait to tell you about my first week there. ¡Chau Ché!

12:30pm Tuesday September 18, 2012; So I'm in Paraguay now. I get my companion tomorrow morning and I'm having a great time here.