Lights Out

HAPPY 16th BIRTHDAY NATE!!!

         I love winter here! The trees are blooming with the beautiful purple flowers from last year.  

          We are in Asuncion, back to the city.  Saturday about midday we were emptying the baptismal font to prepare our third baptism in Horqueta when BOOM, lights out.  Water... gone.  Word on the street is, it´s the EPP and they blew two or three electrical towers and all north of Paraguay lost water and light.  I wish I had my camera so bad.  You need to see what we showered with.  President Duarte (previous press)- who by the way is best friends with Pte. Sparks (good friends of our who was Pte in Paraguay in '99-02)- has a well and we drew three huge buckets of well water to supply us for two days.  We used it to shower and clean etc.  It was FREEZING.  We lived by candle light day and night and my handy dandy head lamp because a rainstorm rolled in and it was especially dark.  

          

          The chapel on Sunday was an adventure because it was so dim.  But it was a BEAUTIFUL meeting.  Hermana Amado and I sang a special arrangement of Teach Me to Walk in the Light with a mix of Guarani, English, and Spanish.  It was so fun.  Their faces light up when we start singing in Guarani.  Bearing of testimonies was great but my favorite part of Sunday was afterward.  We got the youth to practice an arrangement of I Am A Child of God in Guarani Spanish and English as well :)  President is coming Saturday with a Seventy to have a Concilio so that´s why we wanted to prepare a musical number.  I bribed ´em with Sour Patch Kids (gave em all a few at the end) Thanks James and Kristen! LOVED the package!  Everyone loves the chocolates and candies :)   Anyway, we went to practice in a small room in the chapel.  I kind of directed and we told them to sing really loud, with all their hearts.  You wouldn´t believe the spirit that instantly FILLED the room and my heart.  I closed my eyes and imagined them and I on the Mesa Arts Center Stage like EVMCO and I couldn´t contain my smile. It was a choir of angels. They sang beautifully and you could understand every word in English.  I almost started to cry.

         Oh we have so many bugs in our house!  It was an adventure this week.  We have found about two huge cocroaches everyday.  Thursday night we were hopping into bed when Hna Amado pulled her blanket up that was sitting by the wall and holy batwoman a TARANTULA(no idea how to spell that) or Brown Recluse.  We put him in a jar and I have an awesome pic but will have to send next week.  Also giant centipede type bugs keep crawling out of our tiles. Bleh!

         So the baptism will happen in two weeks from now.  Lights are back in Horqueta we here and oh I am so pumped from the conference we had with President today.  Elder Gunther composed a song for our mission (making mission history!) and we recorded it today. The song is so awesome.  OH I love this work so so much.  Love you all with all my heart. xoxox

Con Cariño,

Hermana Owen

YBY YAU