Week 17- Kokuere

Hello everyone!

Another week in Paraguay! Well, this week I have an interesting story to tell, as usual. A few nights ago, I woke up to the sound of a plastic bag being moved around and I thought I was going crazy. I fell back asleep and an hour later at 4 AM I woke up again and woke up my companion as well. We were sure there was a rat in our room! We decided to find the little rascal and a full blown search commenced, looking in every drawer, nook and cranny in our closet. An hour and a half later and we still had not found it. Of course, we didn’t really want to find it because that would mean we would have to figure out what to do with it but we needed to find it. The next night, we hear it again but go back to sleep and decide to buy some rat poison. So we buy it and leave it out, with our new slogan being “kill the beast!” We didn’t think anymore of it until my companion was talking on the phone in Spanish to a member, getting ready to leave and she screamed in ENGLISH while on the phone, “Oh my gosh Hermana! There’s a rat in our house!!” We trapped the beast in the kitchen by closing the door and then stood on the countertops while it ran around (what would you have done?). It was living behind our fridge and stove. We tried hitting it with a broom, chasing it and doing all manner of things to it, all the while filming it on our cameras. It was pretty entertaining. Too bad I can’t put it on youtube for 16 more months. Anyhow, we had to go to an appt. and so we decided to leave it in the kitchen and let it eat the poison and die. Great plan, right? Yes, except we found it’s droppings all over our counters. So today for Pday we deep cleaned our house and we were sure we would find it’s dead little body somewhere. Unfortunately, it is still nowhere to be found. So we are just waiting for it’s carcass to start stinking in the next couple of days so we can follow the stench to it’s dead body. Living in Paraguay is such an adventure, right? All of the elders have rats living in their houses too, and there is a little mouse living under the sacrament table in the chapel as well.

That was our excitement for the week and we hope to have no more like it! I was thinking, I am sure you are all curious about Paraguayan cuisine so I thought I would give you a quick lesson:
1. Deep fry it in lots of sunflower oil.
2. Serve with mandioca (it’s like eating a baked potato) or pan (bread).

That’s all. Every lunch appointment we have, we eat noodles cooked in oil, some type of meat mixed in and sauce with mandioca or bread. For this reason, I think I have gained 10 lbs. Paraguayans are really blunt and so they haven’t been shy about telling my companion and I that we are both getting a pansa (stomach) that wasn’t there before. So my companion and I have begun to speed walk everywhere we go in hopes of burning some extra calories. It’s pretty entertaining to see how fast we can get places, all the while counting how many times we get snaked.

The work is good and I am glad to be doing it. We had one of the inactive boys, Jose, (he’s 15) pass the sacrament on Sunday which was really cool. He has just come back to church. He didn’t come before because he didn’t have shoes to wear to church and he was just lazy (he told us this). When I think about the sacrifices that people have to make to come to church here, it really makes me admire them. This kid had to wash his church clothes by hand in a tire with some soap, hang them on the clothes line and then iron them. Then wake up at 6 AM while the rest of his family slept and his friends of course, were sleeping in and catch a collectivo at 7 AM to get to the chapel by 8 AM. He had to quietly leave his one room house made out of sticks and cardboard, so that he wouldn’t wake up his family. It wasn’t easy or convenient for him. But it was the right thing to do. Because of his faith and his determination to do what is right, he will be blessed. While his friends are out doing whatever, he is at church. He is making good choices, preparing to go on a mission and to the temple. That is the kind of faith that moves mountains, changes lives and makes a difference in the world. He is a great example to me and I hope that I can have that kind of faith: to always do what is right, even when it isn’t convenient, popular or fun. I know that when we obey God’s commandments we are blessed, even when it’s not what everyone else it doing. I know that God loves all of his children and wishes to bless them. So keep the commandments!

Love,
Hermana Brittner