Ya I´m cold

Dear Family,

The story about my Ankle..  Well it goes something like this...  A long time ago in a place not so far away (About 2 weeks ago in the church), a great leader of the Army of God (Zone leader) set forth a way to discover the strength of the mighty army under his command.  The way... Football (Soccer)... The valiant warriors (Missionaries) all agreed to this proposition and set forth from their domains (Houses, which are all nice and clean as well...) early one morning to enter this great competition.


Arriving at the field of battle they set themselves in order.  Companion against companion, and district against district.  Hence began the battle.  And then in the heat of the battle one strong, valiant, Kight of God (and handsome.. Elder McShinsky) set forth to destroy the enemy's defense with his incredible skills...  And in this attempt found much success when his weapon (Soccer ball) met its target.  But in an unforgettable sacrifice, he gave himself over to the enemy to defeat them in the end. And thus fell, and twisted his ankle.
 
That's the basics of what happened with my ankle.  But its doing good.  All the color is gone now and most of the swelling as well.  What I´m doing right now is exercising it to get its' strength back.

Soccer isn´t just the big talk down here, it's life!  When Paraguay is playing, the streets are completely dead.  No people, no cars, no buses, not even dogs.  The entire country is watching the TV.  And we hear it all as well, because its blaring out all the windows of their houses :) Its a lot of fun.


Oh and now I have a little bit of bad news... One day in Paraguay a pair of missionaries (my companion and I) were walking around in their area, when the sky got mad and tuned BLACK, and then decided to drop buckets of water on this poor companionship.  They quickly hurried to the nearest shelter, but found out that it was too late... They were totally soaked, as well as their bags and to a very sad Elder, his camera.  After an extensive surgery, the camera gave up the ghost and died.

The End

By Elder McShinsky

To My Family

Dear Family,

This week we had our Stake Conference.  It was really good.  There were two General Authorities there and we really learned quite a bit.  The second talk was by Elder Adikidies.  He talked about tithing, and the first thing that he said is, "I have absolutely no shame talking about this subject, because its one of gods' laws".  I really liked that, because a lot of the time in life we don't like to talk about certain subjects because we think it might offend someone, or that it isn't the right moment to share, or whatever.  But the truth is that we should all be more like Elder Adikidies and not have any shame of the gospel.

As well as that all the Paraguayos had a big temptation this Sunday, because the national team was playing at the same time as the conference, but it was really cool to see how so many of them could overcome a temptation that big.  It was also funny to see a whole bunch of people walk in halfway through the confrrence just after the game ended :)

As well as that the only other news I have is that I twisted my ankle pretty good :)

And a couple of photos as well.

Elder McShinsky

I Think I See Some Sunshine!

Dear Family,

This week starts the world cup or in Spanish.. Mundial.  Which this means for us
is that the entire country of Paraguay is shut up in their houses watching
football all day :)  It also means that we get to walk around and randomly
hear people scream GOOOOOOOOOAAAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. (Thats one of
the things thats interesting about football down here, is that I think one
of the qualifications to be a sports anouncer is the ability to scream Goal
for at least 2-3 miniutes.)

That's great that everyone is getting back into dance.  Speaking of dance... I
have next to no pictures of nationals??????

This past week we had our Ward Conference.  It was really good.  Our bishop has
been really sick and so he had the First Counselor read a letter to the
congregation.  It was really nice.  He thanked a ton of members for coming to
visit him and mentioned little acts of service that they had all done for
him.  It led me to think about how we should really be grateful for all the
little acts of service that are performed for us every day.  And when we
think of one how we should express our gratitude to that person.  Really if
we will all do this then in every relationship that we have we will grow
stronger.

Elder McShinsky

It's A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

Dear Family,

Sounds like Mike had a lot of fun at Blackpool.  Tell him that he needs to look up his exact position in the rounds as well.  Oh and how did the Tour team do as well? 


Ya, it is getting a little colder for us down here...  The hardest part is getting up in the morning, because you know that on the other side of you blanket is cold, and if go to the shower first, the water is really cold (at first, then it gets really hot!)  Or you can run over and sit by the heater and read your scriptures while you companion gets to start out with the cold water in the shower... ;)


But is all good, all day we´re outside walking around, and when your walking the blood is moving and there is no problem. 


¿¿¿Only 2 loads to the dump???  With the idea of cleaning out the shop in mind, I starting to think that its a blessing that your moving durring my mission...  Por lo menos no necisito trabajar asi ahora mismo. ;)


That's great that your trying to find new ways to study the scriptures, the truth is that we should always be looking for ways to change, even if its just a little bit.  Because with the change we will find more insights in the passages that we are reading.  And every time that that happens, our testimony has another opportunity to grow just a little.

Elder McShinsky

Are You On My Naughty List?

Dear Family,

No, I´m not on your naughty list.  This week is a transfer week, and when we have a transfer week our P-day is on Thursday instead of Monday.  For that reason I´m writing today.  And yes, I´m still in Sajonia.  It´s a nice area but sometimes it is a little hard to find people to teach.  There is always a bunch of people in the street but everyone we talk to is from some place outside of our area, and when we clap houses nobody's home, because they're all working somewhere outside of our area :)  But we´re working hard and finding more blessings of the Lord everyday.

Cutting down trees and mowing lawns... sounds like a bunch of fun.  The other day we cut down a tree as well (but we used a mechetti instead of a chainsaw...) (A lot of fun...)  I was thinking about the wonderful idea that you have of building a dance floor at the new house!  And I was thinking that instead of the shop outside of the kitchen to build it, it might be better to have it downstairs in Grampa's cave.  The room at the end of the side walk.  I´m thinking there because I think it's more soundproof.  I´m pretty sure it bigger.  It's easier to get to for partners, and I don´t think you have to take any walls out in order to build it.  That's my thoughts on the subject.

Work hard.  Have fun.

Elder McShinsky