This week was awesome. I've been teaching way more than I ever thought I'd be able to in this small amount of time, but I still have no idea what´s going on most of the time. Right when I first meet anyone in our ward, they always ask if i know Guarani after I couldn´t really talk to them in Spanish, so that´s kinda hard. Whenever i feel like I almost am understanding what's going on, whoever we´re talking to starts to throw in Guarani words too, and then i really get lost. Church is pretty hard to understand, just like the rest of my life right now.
I´m still not that much of a help at all to Elder Hamilton when we try to find people or in lessons. Juan Carlos the new convert has been coming out with us to help us teach, he´s awesome, he always asks if he really has to wait a while to go on his mission, and he´s already helped us out for probably 2 full days in the last week since his baptism. We also taught some.
I ate a lot of giso this last week, I really don´t know how they make it, but its some kind of pasta, and it´s really good. They don´t have ketchup or syrup here, so Elder Hamilton put some sugar and water in a pan and burnt it, and it tasted a lot like syrup. The bananas they sell here are super tiny compared to the ones back home, kinda interesting. They do put eggs on the hamburgers here, and it's really good.
It rained real hard one day this week, and on and off for a couple other days. When it rains here, people stay home from work and just sleep. So that makes it hard to find people. I had my first district meeting on Tuesday, and the district leader has a fake eye that he took out for us, it was pretty cool.
I saw three dead dogs by the road this week, i guess it only makes sense with how many there are running around the streets here.
Limpio has 10 or 15 thousand people in it, someone told me how many i just can't remember where it fell in there.
There are tons of palm trees here, its weird seeing them when they´re not all in straight lines by a street or something like they are back in the states.
We have one of those bidet things that you can use instead of toilet paper, I haven´t used it yet though.
I said last week that there was a lot of garbage, that was a lie, in some places the streets are basically made of garbage there´s so much. Some parts of the area are really pretty.
Elder Bowles
Mom-my comp does have a converter for a sd card, so i will try that out next week and see if that works to send a picture. The toilet is supposed to flush, but we just pour water down it with a bucket to get it to flush because the button doesn´t work. I haven´t heard on the suitcase yet, but I´m gonna be in Salado for 2 whole changes with Elder Hamiton, so that should give them enough time to take care of it. Also zone conference is coming up in the next couple weeks, so I might be able to check up on it then.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Monday, July 23, 2012
Week 11 - Salado - Living in the Mansion, Talking At People, Dogs and Garbage, Using a Machete, My Suitcase had an Issue
Paraguay is awesome! We got here about 12 or 1ish to the office, and President Madariaga is great, his English is pretty good too. We left the MTC the second time at 3am Tuesday morning, and got to Paraguay in the afternoon on Wednesday.
Because of the cancelled flight, they had to rearrange all the travel plans and Elder Harrock was stuck in Buenos Aires until 10 Wednesday night. He's going Lejos, so he has a 10 hour drive from the mission office after that. On the flight from Miami to Buenos Aires, I tried talking to the guy next to me, and that´s when I knew it was going to be a real difficult my first while of the mission. So, yeah.
Elder Dahl got sent to Burubuja, which is in Asuncion, and means passion fruit. Elder Willes got sent to Kennedy, which is 2 hours away from the office in some direction, not sure which. My companion is Elder Hamilton, he´s so good at everything. He speaks English, so thats good. He´s from Colorado.
I'm in the city of Limpio, which is about a 45 minute or hour drive from the office in Asunción. We are in charge of areas Salado A and B until we get more elders in the house with us. Sister Madariaga told us that we had the mansion for our house, which basically means that it´s the nicest house in the mission, but it isn´t a mansion by any means. We have two areas since less of us came in than left this last change, which means the house is all ours. The kitchen has it´s own door on the outside of the building, and the toilet doesn´t flush. It is pretty nice though, Hamilton said that some houses in the mission are only as big as our bedroom.
We had a baptism on Saturday, Juan Carlos. He´s awesome, I wish I could have had a bigger part in teaching him.
Church was yesterday, I really didn´t get that much out of it, since I still can´t understand people that well. I can only talk at people, I can´t really talk to people or have a conversation because I don´t understand what they´re saying that often. I´m sure glad Elder Hamilton is a patient guy. All the really old people only really know Guarani. The younger people know both, but they mostly talk to us in Spanish with some Guarani mixed in. I have become an expert at telling when they are speaking Spanish and when they are speaking Guaraní, but I don´t understand any Guarani and only some Spanish, so that doesn´t really help much.
There are dogs everywhere, one keeps trying to get through our gate when we come home at night. It was pretty cold the first couple of nights here. The humidity fell onto the streets and made them wet, it didn´t even need to rain. The streets here are made of inpiedra, which is kinda like cobblestone except it just looks like someone shoved a bunch of rocks into the dirt road when it was wet or something. Most of our area is just straight out dirt road and there´s garbage everywhere. I guess they just burn their trash instead of having someone come pick it up. There are cows and pigs and chickens all over. We were talking to someone in their yard, when a pig came by and just started eating garbage.
We did service for Hermana Ramoa, which was cutting down bannana trees and pruning the ones that were still giving fruit. That was awesome, because we did it with machetes. Then we helped her make lunch, which was this noodle stuff, it was pretty good. Elder Hamilton said she would find out if he was a good cook or not, and then she said, "si la comida es mal, entonces tu cocinaste, si es buena entonces yo cocine." It was probably the only funny thing that I heard and actually understood. Then he told her it was good, so then she said that she had cooked it. They have what are called empenadas here which are mini calzones they´re good. They make salads at lunch (citas) which are somehow good even without dressing.
It is pretty here, there are a bunch of palm trees and mango trees everywhere that we go, its pretty cool. Hamilton said that when summer rolls around almost every tree we see will have some kind of fruit on it. The lemons here are orange, and the grapefruits here are yellow, but they taste just like they do back in the states.
The collectivos are pretty fun, the drivers are pretty pro. On the first drive into Limpio, the driver went to pass another bus and another bus was coming the otherway, so in between, three wide, like it was no big deal.
One of my suitcases got messed up on the flight here, the handle got pulled up and bent in half, so we emptied it and left it at the office, and president said he´d take it to get it fixed at the airport. We had to take it broken on the collectivo once though. After we were on Elder Hamilton told me the bus driver was telling me not to bring it on the bus, but gave up when I didn´t understand and just went on the bus anyways.
Elder Bowles
Everyone has a hard time pronouncing my name, so pretty soon here everyone´s gonna be pronouncing the e in Bowles cuz they have an easier time with that.
Because of the cancelled flight, they had to rearrange all the travel plans and Elder Harrock was stuck in Buenos Aires until 10 Wednesday night. He's going Lejos, so he has a 10 hour drive from the mission office after that. On the flight from Miami to Buenos Aires, I tried talking to the guy next to me, and that´s when I knew it was going to be a real difficult my first while of the mission. So, yeah.
Elder Dahl got sent to Burubuja, which is in Asuncion, and means passion fruit. Elder Willes got sent to Kennedy, which is 2 hours away from the office in some direction, not sure which. My companion is Elder Hamilton, he´s so good at everything. He speaks English, so thats good. He´s from Colorado.
I'm in the city of Limpio, which is about a 45 minute or hour drive from the office in Asunción. We are in charge of areas Salado A and B until we get more elders in the house with us. Sister Madariaga told us that we had the mansion for our house, which basically means that it´s the nicest house in the mission, but it isn´t a mansion by any means. We have two areas since less of us came in than left this last change, which means the house is all ours. The kitchen has it´s own door on the outside of the building, and the toilet doesn´t flush. It is pretty nice though, Hamilton said that some houses in the mission are only as big as our bedroom.
We had a baptism on Saturday, Juan Carlos. He´s awesome, I wish I could have had a bigger part in teaching him.
Church was yesterday, I really didn´t get that much out of it, since I still can´t understand people that well. I can only talk at people, I can´t really talk to people or have a conversation because I don´t understand what they´re saying that often. I´m sure glad Elder Hamilton is a patient guy. All the really old people only really know Guarani. The younger people know both, but they mostly talk to us in Spanish with some Guarani mixed in. I have become an expert at telling when they are speaking Spanish and when they are speaking Guaraní, but I don´t understand any Guarani and only some Spanish, so that doesn´t really help much.
There are dogs everywhere, one keeps trying to get through our gate when we come home at night. It was pretty cold the first couple of nights here. The humidity fell onto the streets and made them wet, it didn´t even need to rain. The streets here are made of inpiedra, which is kinda like cobblestone except it just looks like someone shoved a bunch of rocks into the dirt road when it was wet or something. Most of our area is just straight out dirt road and there´s garbage everywhere. I guess they just burn their trash instead of having someone come pick it up. There are cows and pigs and chickens all over. We were talking to someone in their yard, when a pig came by and just started eating garbage.
We did service for Hermana Ramoa, which was cutting down bannana trees and pruning the ones that were still giving fruit. That was awesome, because we did it with machetes. Then we helped her make lunch, which was this noodle stuff, it was pretty good. Elder Hamilton said she would find out if he was a good cook or not, and then she said, "si la comida es mal, entonces tu cocinaste, si es buena entonces yo cocine." It was probably the only funny thing that I heard and actually understood. Then he told her it was good, so then she said that she had cooked it. They have what are called empenadas here which are mini calzones they´re good. They make salads at lunch (citas) which are somehow good even without dressing.
It is pretty here, there are a bunch of palm trees and mango trees everywhere that we go, its pretty cool. Hamilton said that when summer rolls around almost every tree we see will have some kind of fruit on it. The lemons here are orange, and the grapefruits here are yellow, but they taste just like they do back in the states.
The collectivos are pretty fun, the drivers are pretty pro. On the first drive into Limpio, the driver went to pass another bus and another bus was coming the otherway, so in between, three wide, like it was no big deal.
One of my suitcases got messed up on the flight here, the handle got pulled up and bent in half, so we emptied it and left it at the office, and president said he´d take it to get it fixed at the airport. We had to take it broken on the collectivo once though. After we were on Elder Hamilton told me the bus driver was telling me not to bring it on the bus, but gave up when I didn´t understand and just went on the bus anyways.
Elder Bowles
Everyone has a hard time pronouncing my name, so pretty soon here everyone´s gonna be pronouncing the e in Bowles cuz they have an easier time with that.
Ivan using a machete to prune and remove banana trees as service for Sister Ramoa in their ward.
Baptism of Juan Carlos on Ivan's first Saturday in Paraguay.
Asuncion Airport when Ivan arrived in Paraguay
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Week 10 - Asuncion - I made it!
I made it, it took 30 hours but I'm here at the mission home. I don't know who my companion is.
It's crazy here in Paraguay, and I'm super tired.
I have to go now because I only have one minute.
Elder Ivan Bowles
It's crazy here in Paraguay, and I'm super tired.
I have to go now because I only have one minute.
Elder Ivan Bowles
Monday, July 16, 2012
Week 10 - Flight cancelled...Back to the MTC!
Ivan was scheduled today to fly to Dallas to Buenos Aires to Paraguay today, but their flight was cancelled. The 7 missionaries spent most of the day at the Salt Lake Airport and then were returned to the MTC. The cause of all these delays? A bird hit the plane before it landed in Salt Lake!
In Ivan's words "I didn't even get on the plane!" and "I never wanted to come back to this place (MTC)."
I was at work anticipating Ivan's call from the Dallas airport. I had planned my lunch for when his layover would occur. Dave sent me a text earlier in the day that Ivan's flight had been cancelled and we just assumed they would put the missionaries on the next flight. Late in the day I get a call and it's from Provo, so I know he is back at the MTC. I answer my phone and Ivan blurts out "Our flight was cancelled, we only have 5 minutes and I used some of that time talking to Dad, he has the flight numbers so don't ask about that. As of right now we have 2 minutes left."
In my mind...I am thinking 'only 2 minutes? What are the most important things I can say?' I told him that I loved him and to be sure and use the filter water bottle we bought so he doesn't get sick.
Tomorrow at 6:00am the Elders will leave Salt Lake for flights to Dallas to Miami to Buenos Aires to Paraguay for a total travel time of 29 hours.
Here's hoping that our phone call tomorrow will work out and be longer than 2 minutes! :)
In Ivan's words "I didn't even get on the plane!" and "I never wanted to come back to this place (MTC)."
I was at work anticipating Ivan's call from the Dallas airport. I had planned my lunch for when his layover would occur. Dave sent me a text earlier in the day that Ivan's flight had been cancelled and we just assumed they would put the missionaries on the next flight. Late in the day I get a call and it's from Provo, so I know he is back at the MTC. I answer my phone and Ivan blurts out "Our flight was cancelled, we only have 5 minutes and I used some of that time talking to Dad, he has the flight numbers so don't ask about that. As of right now we have 2 minutes left."
In my mind...I am thinking 'only 2 minutes? What are the most important things I can say?' I told him that I loved him and to be sure and use the filter water bottle we bought so he doesn't get sick.
Tomorrow at 6:00am the Elders will leave Salt Lake for flights to Dallas to Miami to Buenos Aires to Paraguay for a total travel time of 29 hours.
Here's hoping that our phone call tomorrow will work out and be longer than 2 minutes! :)
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Week 9 - MTC- In Field Orientation, Guarani Books of Mormon, Laughed at for their Spanish, Mission President not good at English
I leave on Monday! In field orientation was really long,it was from
8:15 in the morning until 9ish in the evening. it was basically a bunch
of workshops with 'fun' activities during the whole thing. It
was pretty much a review of everything we had already learned in the
MTC. Some people really liked it.
Did my last laundry in the MTC, so
that was ok. I've been packing today, so there went a bunch of my p-day. I also got a haircut today. It's raining
right now which is really nice.
President Brown said that in August there will be 2900 missionaries in
the MTC. It's crowded enough already, so I'm glad that I'm leaving on Monday.
Basically I leave the MTC at around 8 am on Monday, and get to Paraguay Asuncion airport at 11:20 am the next day, in Utah time. There
are 7 of us all going to Paraguay together, I think all our travel plans
are exactly the same. By the way, once we leave there won't be any
missionaries training in the MTC to go to our mission. I can't wait to
go to Paraguay and go to work.
Elder Willes's mom sent all of us Guarani
Books of Mormon, and they look more like Tongan than anything else I've
ever seen. The words are super long, and I guess there wasn't even
Guarani Books of Mormon until 2010, so that's kinda cool. The Elders
going to Texas in my district don't leave till wednesday. We got new
missionaries two weeks in a row in our zone, which doesn't usually
happen, so that was exciting.
On Thursday we were doing a practice
knocking doors, and while Elder Thomson and Elder Brasher were doing it a
bunch of native spanish speakers were in the hall and started laughing
at them. So that was funny, and now I know how I'm gonna feel in
Paraguay when I get there.
I also have heard that President Madriaga's
English isn't that great. Hopefully his English is better than my Spanish, but maybe that will be for the better that he speaks mostly Spanish. I guess I'll let you know on my next P-day, whenever that's
gonna be, as well as about all of Paraguay, I am super excited.
Love,
Elder Ivan Bowles
Mom-
one of my companions has flown several times and the other has flown
once, to California and back to Utah. They put one of the other Elders
going to Paraguay as the travel leader, whatever that means. I think he
just has to call the Church if something goes wrong. Your plan sounds
great as far as the phone calls go.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Week 8 - MTC - Surprise!
I got my travel plans yesterday after dinner, I go from SLC to Texas to Buenos Aires to Asuncion, but I will mail you the details on paper, basically the whole trip will take me more than 24 hours.
I will send you the times and everything! 9 more days here!
Love,
Ivan
Note from Laurie: We usually only hear from Ivan on Fridays around 10AM. I was very surprised to receive this message on Saturday. Since Ivan had typed "surprise" in the regarding line...it made it even better for me.
I will send you the times and everything! 9 more days here!
Love,
Ivan
Note from Laurie: We usually only hear from Ivan on Fridays around 10AM. I was very surprised to receive this message on Saturday. Since Ivan had typed "surprise" in the regarding line...it made it even better for me.
Ivan's travel plans
Friday, July 6, 2012
Week 8 - MTC - July 4th Missionary Style, Washing Doorknobs, Failing Clean Check
No travel plans yet, hopefully they´ll come today sometime.
We get to clean the temple today at twelve fifteen, so that´s gonna be awesome.
During our last lesson to our "investigator," I accidentally said that there were usually "desiertos" after baptisms, but it really means wildernesses, so that wasn't too great.
We finally were able to find the Paraguayan teacher and learn a couple Guaraní words yesterday, so that was awesome. I might get to use a machete when I'm down there, so if that happens it'll be amazing.
We had a fourth of July thing here in the MTC, where there was a devotional thing and afterwards we got ice cream and got to watch the fireworks, so that was awesome. Some of the fireworks were behind the trees though, so that was too bad. When the devotional was over, the mission pres counselor told us to please not return to the residences until the fireworks were over, so that was cool, since it was 10ish when he said that.
We did service today, and I cleaned all the doorknobs in a building and I kept forgetting that there were people in the classrooms, and they would keep opening the doors to see what was going on. Oh well. When I was cleaning though, there was one missionary who was going to Mongolia, who had been here for 14 weeks ,two more than normal for someone going there, since his visa hadn´t come through. But there was someone else who got here the same day I did who was supposed to go to Germany but tore his ACL or something, and has to be here for another 2 months. I can´t even imagine having to be here that much longer, a week and a half seems like a long time to me right now.
During TRC we taught a 19 year-old who knew English, Spanish and Italian. He moved to Argentina when he was 5 from Italy, and then to the U.S. later, he was pretty cool. For the longest time I thought he was saying that when he returns to the earth, (La tierra), he was gonna go on a mission, but then towards the end I realized he was saying La Argentina, so that made more sense.
Our district failed our clean check pretty bad yesterday for our classroom, since we forgot to clean it cuz of the fireworks and all. I feel bad that someone had to check it in between the fireworks and when we got there in the morning Thursday.
I really just want to leave and go to Paraguay, can´t wait to get down there and really start my mission.
Che Rohaihu Nde (Love you all- i think),
Elder Ivan Bowles
Mom, I will send the stuff when I get it, don´t worry, and I have the phone card, and I will check about the cord thing, but they made it pretty hard to attach things to the email here at the MTC.
Dad, Thanks for lettin me know the situation in Paraguay, my companions had only heard a little bit from someone else, and were both freaking out, which was kinda annoying.
Julia, no I haven´t seen the fire dance here, I think i did a long time ago somewhere else. I don´t remember why, but Elder Fakava did show us the Haka before he left, he said that when when people first came to their island a long time ago they did it to scare them. Then he said that when white people first came to the islands nearer New Zealand the people there did it and then they killed the ones that showed any fear, so I´m glad I´m not going there.
Hailey, I did say I gained 10 pounds, now its 12 but good thing I´m leaving real soon, I have been eating a little less though now. Are you going to work as a social worker or at the waterpark?
Kami, How was trek for you? how do you like your new contacts?
We get to clean the temple today at twelve fifteen, so that´s gonna be awesome.
During our last lesson to our "investigator," I accidentally said that there were usually "desiertos" after baptisms, but it really means wildernesses, so that wasn't too great.
We finally were able to find the Paraguayan teacher and learn a couple Guaraní words yesterday, so that was awesome. I might get to use a machete when I'm down there, so if that happens it'll be amazing.
We had a fourth of July thing here in the MTC, where there was a devotional thing and afterwards we got ice cream and got to watch the fireworks, so that was awesome. Some of the fireworks were behind the trees though, so that was too bad. When the devotional was over, the mission pres counselor told us to please not return to the residences until the fireworks were over, so that was cool, since it was 10ish when he said that.
We did service today, and I cleaned all the doorknobs in a building and I kept forgetting that there were people in the classrooms, and they would keep opening the doors to see what was going on. Oh well. When I was cleaning though, there was one missionary who was going to Mongolia, who had been here for 14 weeks ,two more than normal for someone going there, since his visa hadn´t come through. But there was someone else who got here the same day I did who was supposed to go to Germany but tore his ACL or something, and has to be here for another 2 months. I can´t even imagine having to be here that much longer, a week and a half seems like a long time to me right now.
During TRC we taught a 19 year-old who knew English, Spanish and Italian. He moved to Argentina when he was 5 from Italy, and then to the U.S. later, he was pretty cool. For the longest time I thought he was saying that when he returns to the earth, (La tierra), he was gonna go on a mission, but then towards the end I realized he was saying La Argentina, so that made more sense.
Our district failed our clean check pretty bad yesterday for our classroom, since we forgot to clean it cuz of the fireworks and all. I feel bad that someone had to check it in between the fireworks and when we got there in the morning Thursday.
I really just want to leave and go to Paraguay, can´t wait to get down there and really start my mission.
Che Rohaihu Nde (Love you all- i think),
Elder Ivan Bowles
Mom, I will send the stuff when I get it, don´t worry, and I have the phone card, and I will check about the cord thing, but they made it pretty hard to attach things to the email here at the MTC.
Dad, Thanks for lettin me know the situation in Paraguay, my companions had only heard a little bit from someone else, and were both freaking out, which was kinda annoying.
Julia, no I haven´t seen the fire dance here, I think i did a long time ago somewhere else. I don´t remember why, but Elder Fakava did show us the Haka before he left, he said that when when people first came to their island a long time ago they did it to scare them. Then he said that when white people first came to the islands nearer New Zealand the people there did it and then they killed the ones that showed any fear, so I´m glad I´m not going there.
Hailey, I did say I gained 10 pounds, now its 12 but good thing I´m leaving real soon, I have been eating a little less though now. Are you going to work as a social worker or at the waterpark?
Kami, How was trek for you? how do you like your new contacts?
Missionaries viewing the fireworks from the MTC
An Elder Thompson getting into the spirit of the 4th
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