first baptisms ... and a Happy New Year

aright, so christmas. wow. snowless. quite odd.

first, tomorrow are changes! I am gonna stay in the same area with an Elder merendez or something like that, I think he is from argentina.

I am listening to alex's solo over and over again in the video mom sent me! voice of an angel that one. We gotta make a barber shop quartet with alex and mckay and mom, you gotta have another kid, we aren't complete yet! and we all know kevin can't sing. he will be the pretty face for the album cover.

for christmas from the mission we got a book of the history of the church in paraguay, I can't wait to read it.

I also got a christmas card from the first presidency. Hah. Eat that.

for christmas we did the normal schedule in the morning, then ate lunch in our house so we had time to open my presents (Herreras haven't come yet, poor guy). Then we called our families! so short. Too short. It was just like saying goodbye again sorta. It was great though.

We also did a choir as our zone and sung christmas songs in a park for a bunch of people. It was fun!

christmas eve was the real party. It was like the whole world was right in the middle of the biggest loudest firework show ever. THings blowing up everywhere. Hardly not of them had lights however. just the noise. all night. They don't sleep the night of christmas eve. almost everyone is drunk however. That must be how santa comes in to give them presents, because they won't remember.

We had special permission to be out til 11 30 christmas eve and new years eve we will be able to as well. super cool. we were and will be in houses of members however.

a few days ago we were in a bus crash! just a nice fender bender, no injuries other than the vehicles. But the poor driver of the bus that wasn't at fault still had to reimberse everyone on the bus for their fare. Poor guy.

OH, my christmas presents were being able to talk to me fam, ipod and speakers!!! pjs which I loved, my evergrowing pez collection, candy, and shoe insoles that will help my feet be more beautiful upon the dirt. Thank you family!

so we were preparing cleto and nelida for their baptism saturday and we thought they needed paperwork that they actually didn't need, but they went in all the way to asuncion and spent almost all their money to be able to get it. We felt horrible!!

Ok so now is their baptism!! They got married and baptized saturday!!

They walked 8 kilometers to get to their baptism. They didn't have enough money to pay the bus ride to get to the church. And we had no idea. They are soooo cool like that.

so before all this we filled the font, but it was super nasty, super yellow. lemonade. We tried to drain it all be the drain didn't work. so we got all the missionaries there to help us bail out this font with trash cans. and poor Elder Horrocks. What a guy. He was filling it and splash!! He falls in!!! soaked head to toe! Good thing he didn't have the phone on him! He stayed in there and helped us out a ton from in there. What a stud! Haha sooo funny.

I was able to baptize cleto and nelida! my firsts ever! It was great. We are going to baptize marcelo next week btw, if yall are keeping up on the whats up.

I also had made some delicious sugar cookies and brownies from my moms recipies! They all loved them, they couldn't stop eating them. They would come back and say, I need 3 cookies one for me, one for my wife, and one for me hahahaha super funny.

Haha hermana nelida told me that I could baptize a hippo hahahahahaha I thought that was sooooo funny even though I assured her that she isn't fat hahahaha.

so I have found out that the mission nurse found my blog! she told me how great my letters were home, how proud she was of me for my good letters! Haha! love her, she's so funny. We are good friends. Her name is Hermana fuller. she's the best! I am not only saying that because she might read this... hahaha

Oh another interesting story, my comp had to get a shot for something, and a member who was trained and fully qualified to do all this was going to give him it. Well halfway through he passed out. I here from the other room, simpson! simpson!! so I run in to see the member amalio holding my Elder Herrera, so I helped him put him in the chair, and thats where he woke up. only like 10 seconds max he was out. He thought he was out for 20 minutes! haha he felt like he was in the spirit world, he said he saw a bunch of youth, and thats it. Haha he was alright, just scared, and the shot was strong. Needless to say we got pills for him instead. 

But the really funny part is that when he fell, he hit his head on the very thick area book, and not the desk corner! I now have a testimony of the area book hahaha!

Haha well thats all, I wish you all a happy new year! crazy week this week.

mom, I enjoy reading the clips of grandpas mission journal! keep sending those.

love you all, happy 2014!

love elder jake simpson

Yesterday already passed, tomorrow will never arrive. Our life is full of TODAYs, so live each day alive!

quote from me

These are Nelida and cleto. This is their wedding!

 

 This is their baptism! I got to do it! my first and hopefully not last! Haha

 she's wet

 he's wet too

 

 Poor Elder Horrocks. What a trooper. He fell in helping bail out the font when the drain failed.

  

Us bailing out the font.

 

me and my presents by the tree!

 Us with our stockings!

 (we sent a stocking to Elder Herrera as well)

 This is a sick dragon someone made out of a bunch of tires. and yes that is my elbow. don't ask me how it got in the picture.

 This is the basic nativity scene. This one is pretty big. I saw bigger. But everyone at least has one.

Feliz Navidad

Skyping with Jake on Christmas Day!

2013 - 1st Christmas in Paraguay

Family Time - Priceless!

Dish soap? Shampoo? Whatever!!!

Ok so I forgot my book that I write everything down to write to yall, so I will try to remember everything.

I am very excited to talk to my family on wednesday! I got my skype account set up before I saw the email from mom and lauren, dad has it. so no worries.

I will call about 10 in the morning your time.

Yeah kevin told me he was going to korea! super cool.

I love all the pics of snow. looks so fun!! cool sculptures as well!

I was emailed by shannons girls this week! Thanks to all them who wrote me! I loved the letters!

I got a few letters this week. One from a little girl in our ward who I honestly didn't even know! IT was fun. One from my best sister ever, the most faithful in handwritten letters than any other sister before! love those. One from rachel Uryan! cool to hear from her, laurie, you will have to get me her email.

Thanks to grandma and grandpa simpson for the money for christmas! It will also go towards my super cool scripture cases I am getting, I can't wait to show you all.

Thanks to alex for putting in my bowl game guesses, lemme know when I win.

mom, don't worry, I will hog the airheads.

To answer a question, yes we eat food off the street a lot, an empanada is super cheap, like 75 cents. maybe a mayanesa sandwich, which is like a thin fried chicken breast. I have eaten burger king a time or two, haven't gotten to the pizza hut yet.

I held a baby duck. It was cute.

there is a gatorade here that is apple flavored. Its actually pretty good.

I did a division for a day with the zone leader elder phippen and it was great, it really strengthened my confidence in my ability as a missionary.

We ran out of dish soap, so we used shampoo. It worked just fine! Hahaha

I tried to make frosting, but I don't have shortning, it doesn't exist here, so it wasn't very good. send me a nice big can of shortning will ya? never thought I would be asking for that...

I saw the christmas devotional in spanish yesterday, super cool! reminded me of last year when I was actually there with laurie! Good times...

so with the couple who was going to get married, they weren't quite ready but it for sure will happen this saturday! and marcelo came to church again and brought his little brother bruno, so we are planning to baptize marcelo saturday too! 3 in one day! and we have a bunch more that are progressing for the following weeks. Its super exciting to see the fruits of these last two months! Glad to see these people finally taking that first step.

Well I don't remember any more. But hey, I love you all, have a very merry christmas. Remember, don't be one of the "inn" crowd, but be one of the "stable" few!

can't wait to talk to my family! for everyone else, enjoy it! I hope it snows a boatload.

love you all, remember the ultimate gift of christmas, that God gave His own Son so that we all can live together for eternity, with inexplicable happiness with no end. What better gift could you ask this christmas?

love you all, thank you for all your support as always.

Your less than freezing missionary, Elder jake

 

 Our Christmas lights - they are purple.

 This is exactly what my mom wanted to see. This little guy that has been living with us. a good 2 inch long cockroach! We found it after we sprayed down our stuff good with the crazy bug killing stuff. It works good.

This is us and a member on the left, Hma fatima, and two investigators, Hma adelaida and carina. We discovered carina when she came home from argentina, she is the sister of marcelo, lujan, and bruno. she is super interested. This is after the christmas devotional.

 

 

We thought this was cool.

Merry Christmas!

Dreaming of a white Christmas!

I'm dreaming of a white christmas, just like the ones I used to know. Please send snow, and investigators, and presents under the treeeeeee.

Haha hey everyone! sup?

Ok I am gonna tell you all about my week, REady??

I was sick.

and that's all.

I really was sick all week, I got a stomach flu that has been going around I suppose, so I came to know the bathroom wall and the ceiling above my bed quite well. We are now good friends.

I am getting better now. No worries. It's quite ironic, we had the most investigators in church that we have ever had, 4! and the highest attendance, 104! and a bunch of less actives. super ironic that the week we don't work we have the most success....

The family alvarenga, (the family of marcelo) I don't know what happened. They haven't been to church in weeks. They were soo good!! We gotta get marcelo baptized, then his siblings, then their mom. just one more attendance for marcelo!!

Our 4 investigators that did come are cleto and his wife nelida, a couple about 45 years old, their 16 year old son and his cousin. The couple have 3 attendances, and they are incredible. We are going to teach them every day this week, get them married on saturday and baptize them right after. They are great. We have hardly taught them anything, because of being sick and such, so we go work to do with them! But they are solid. Reference from a less active brother we are working with, hopefully they can boost each other and both get to the temple! solid!!

Skype this christmas!! I am pretty sure we are going to call on christmas day, but I am not sure what time yet. so email me what skype account or whatever I need to do to be able to call for christmas. Thanks, can't wait! Btw, I sent a letter home for christmas, I hope you all will get it by then.

Ok, so I realize that the bowl games are coming up soon, so here are my picks.

for me, pick the team whose campus is the closest to the location of the actual bowl game. But all teams from utah trump, I vote for Utah, Byu, utah state, and team from utah who makes it.

Thank you.

Ok so here are my guesses for what my presents are based on the scriptures that I was given as a hint.

matt 4 19 swedish fish

2 ne 17 20 razor

d and c 1 38 new era

d and c 29 39 candy

d and c 82 14 through 15 duct tape

dand c 84 109 slippers or socks

matt 25 35 food or candy

2 ne 13 6 clothes

That is all. Wow I am done early this week... I didn't have very much to write I suppose. 

I am emailing matt fletcher! I guess he is getting rained on and doesn't speak laotian very much. shame. my homecoming testimony is gonna sound cooler than his!! haha just kidding, but serious, I want to be able to bear my testimony in Guarani. and pray at least. That would be the bees knees.

Next transfer will be in 2 weeks, and I most likely will get a new companion. I might even have to train, which will be scary if that happens! But hey, I decided that if I train I am gonna great my kid (missionary I will train) and convince him that I am from scotland. I just wanna convince someone that I am from scotland. What's the capital of scotland? I gotta know these facts to pull it off. I can't just keep saying homeland. But yeah, maybe I will just only speak in a scottish accent whenever I speak in English from now on. That'd be fun. We'll see.

Well yall are just great, thanks for all your support! love you all!

Until next time, christmas eves eve. I hope it snows enough for you all to make a snowmissionary. just an idea kevin, mckay, and alex.

love elder jake

 

Jake is in the upper left corner of these photo's

 

 

100 days and counting!

Wow I have been out here for longer than I thought. It goes fast.

mom, that's soo funny that you have been stalking Hermana Hunt, what does she say thats more descriptive? Y'all know that I ain't no good talker of this here language merican.

alex. I would like rachel sandorfs email please. Thank you.

We got a little christmas tree and lights and stuff! We also got a ceiling fan in our room. The little things that makes life so wonderful.

mom, I took out about 20 bucks today from the christmas gift of grandma, I am gonna buy some sweet scripture covers. Thanks Grandma k!

my belt started to break the other day, so I bought electric tape and wrapped it completely. super cool, and pretty resourceful I thought.

I bought "horse carrots" and thought of my fam, cuz there aren't baby carrots here. but no worries, they taste the same haha

some guy told me to say hi to obama. so when yall see him, give him my best regards.

I got my christmas packages! I look forward to opening my presents and guessing with the scriptures on them!

THank you for the tree, I have a pic that yall need to see on the blog of it. It made me quite a happy missionary.

Thank you for pictures, I always love pictures!

Pretzals were deliciously salty, and the chocolate pretzals equally sublime.

my comp says thanks for the stocking for him too!

thanks for the recipies, I am gonna make cookies someday if I ever have time.

I loved the gingerbread ornament, it really did smell and remind me of home.

Thank you to everyone for the letters as well, its amazing how much more it touches me out here to get a letter from my grandma or sister or cousins. Thank you all, I cherish every one.

mom, yes we got a conference liahona in English to read.

you bet I popped all the bubble wrap in my package.

Weird tradition here, everyone for a few days walk to this city a ways away. like overnight many of them. hoard the street. They walk for the cause to help heal someone or something of that effect. I respect their faith, even if it isn't in the right Person.

Incredible experience the other day. We were gonna go build a house of this lady. There was a big storm and this poor lady basically had her house collapse on her. she has to be 70 or 80. anyways she is living with neighbors and is ok, just mentally scarred a little. But we had this planned activity to go and do this project. so that morning we woke up early and I had a terrible feeling about it. I couldn't explain it. I expressed my concern with my comp who did not feel the same way. so we called president to ask what to do, because I could see no logical reason not to go. It was going to help immensely. He basically told us to pray together and figure it out. we decided after prayer to go, and just be cautious. We get there and get a phone call from President, he says, are you guys building? I told him yes, he said, good, I know why you felt to call me this morning. I have been wanting to do service with my family, can we come and help for a few hours?

Now you have to understand, being a president of over 400 missionaries, as well as an hour and a half distance between us and his family, this is quite a unique circumstance. His whole family came, I got to know them better which was great. To be honest we probably didn't help the guy who was building the house too much because of our inexperience, but it was nice to be a part of it.

after however, we invited them to meet a family that we had just activated, the familia acosta. The hermano acosta had written a letter for the president about a week before telling him how the missionaries had helped him and his family and President had read this letter to every one of the missionaries in the mission, to help boost them to work with inactive and less active members. so of course he said yes, and we went with president and his family all of us in work clothes to meet them. You should have seen their faces. It helped strengthen them soo much. Ever since this family has been so much more spiritually inclined before temporally. They only had great things to say about us as their missionaries (thank goodness) and it was an incredible visit. It's incredible how God can link all these things together and make things work out how they need to.

Well I love you all, especially my family. I have realized the incredible love I have for my family. I apologize to the rest of my friends who read this, yall are great and I love you all very much and appreciate your support, but I have realized how important the family is. I love you all. let me leave you with this quote.

You can count the seeds in a single apple, but you can't count the apples in a single seed.

This is soo true of missionary work.

I love you all, tune in next week.

from your ever sweating elder, Elder jake simpson

 

 This is what our bedroom looks like! and that fan is all we had to keep cool at night until we got got an overhead fan this week! some missionaries have air conditioning. we have mosquitoes and  hot air blowing around. living the life!

 This is what our kitchen/study room looks like!

 me and my sweet olimpia shirt!! and new watch! side note, sorry that I didn't make my bed mom...

 This is my wall, lots of quotes, and not in this picture now includes more quotes and christmas cards from fam and cousins! If you look close at the map in the middle far right of the pic, its upside down. don't ask my why he did it that way

 These things are everywhere and as big as a softball

This is our little christmas tree, this was before I got the object in the next photo...

The christmas tree my fam sent!! Thank you mom for being so creative.

**comments from Mom - I came across a sister missionary's blog who turned out to be Hermana Hunt who is serving in the same city as Jake. It is fun to read his version of events and then hers. She is in the pink and Jake is behind her. They were in the MTC together. She said, "Elder Simps is a big nerd, but he is cool and watching out for me since we are the only two Americans in our area right now." She said the two of them try to play piano for the branch on Sundays.

 Ultimate Frisbee with District - Photo from Hermana Hunt

Elder Jake, his Companion Elder Herrera and Hermana Hunt with the other sisters from their area. (Itagua) Photo by Hermana Hunt

 

Taylor Swift and Tropical Storms

These Mondays come so fast.

No pics today, bad computer.

A lot of the work right now is with less active and new converts. There are less active members everywhere that havent been to church in years, arent ever sure what church they were baptized into.

People accept us quite easily, anyone in fact. They just say at the end of the lesson, I am Catholic, it's my culture and my family, we respect you but we don't want to join your church. You have your church, we have ours. This is the rejection we get. Super soft. But we have a lot that sincerely want to follow Christ, just most don't want to do anyhting about it. There is some bias against the USA, I had a guy ask me where I was from, and I said US, and he said, Boom boom. Like a bomb. It wasn't me I say. I was also shown a video of a song making fun of the attack of the twin towers. A lot of people down here were quite pleased when that happened aparently. There is a strong bias that the US thinks its better than everyone and goes and starts wars with everyone, and enters any country they want with their stores and stuff. It's hard to defer these biases, but I try to avoid them.

Those are some sweet gingerbread houses, ships, and horses you all made! But I will be quite clear. The Reign of the Gingerbread Castle has not been overthrown.

All the Thanksgiving festivities and such sound so fun! I am sad to have missed them, however I will gladly sacrifice. 

So a little tender mercy this week, we fell upon a nice brownie recipe, and so we made them with members like 3 different times. MMMmmmm good. And no, I did not put too much salt in them this time. 

Here are some more English words that they use here. Super, extra, and one that is quite funny because they think it is Guarani, Grapefruit. Super random.

WEll I did my weigh in that I am gonna do every transfer cycle, and I have now gained 15 lbs since I left. And it has absolutly nothing to do with the following story.

It was Elder Herrera's Birthday yesterday, and he wasn't shy about letting everyone know. So in the last few days I am sure I have eaten half a cake all by myself. They are actually quite good down here.

I would like to announce the End of the 5 day reign of Dirty Socks. I got all my clothes back, although I think I am missing a few pairs of pants, but I am ok for now.

So no, there is no thanksgiving here, however, there is black friday. Super odd.

I have now discovered that the mustache shirts have made it to paraguay. Super funny.

WE finally got 100 people in our sacrament meeting! We are growing!

Funny thing about sacrament meeting here is that the parents let the children roam free. 10 kids running around the aisles, jumping off pews, it's always quite exciting with investigators in church.

So usually when I show people the pictures of all my family and friends, they always pick someone that they are convinced is my girlfriend. Every missionary has a girlfriend I guess to them. So I have come up with a solution. Instead of telling them that I don't have one, I tell them that I do have one, her name is Taylor Swift. The kids laugh cuz they know her, so I tell them that she doesn't know yet. and the adults just believe me. It settles their minds and they don't ask anymore.

So yesterday was a fun storm, reminded me half of the other side of heaven, and half of the windstorm in Bountiful a year or two ago. A bunch of trees down, our power has been off and on, mostly off. Exciting stuff. But the road was full of water, I would have taken pics, but my camera was dead and I couldn't charge it cuz the power was out.

Well that's all I really have for this week. I have been sorta sick, so my comp has been stressed because our numbers aren't good. But I got meds from the nurse, which really just reversed the symptoms for a day then finally got better. I am all good now. Just hot. I pretty much sweat all the time. Super humid. Super hot. But hey, this is Paraguay! 

Love you all, study the scriptures by topics, you can learn soooo much.

From the heat to the snow, Love Elder Jake