Hermana Quincee Carter Paraguay Asuncion North: Quincee Writes Her First Letter From Paraguay

What’s Up My Family and Friends-

This past few weeks have been extremely busy. So to answer the big question… Yes! Yes I beat my dad in our NCAA March Madness bracket! And yes- I also made it to Paraguay!!! Shortly after sending my email three weeks ago I received word I would be leaving the country on Saturday morning April 3rd. I left Loomis then flew from Sacramento to LAX to Panama to Asuncion Paraguay. I arrived in Asunción with 13 other missionaries from the United States on Easter Sunday at 11 PM. It was a long two days of travel, but I was just so grateful to be in Paraguay after months of uncertainty.

I spent two nights at the temple hostel. Monday was spent training and learning about the mission and half of Tuesday was spent doing immigration paperwork and such. After lunch we met our companions. I was “born” into a trio. I have two Paraguayan companions who don’t speak even the slightest bit of English. Introducing Hermana Soria and Hermana Gill. Our area is called Loma Pyta, which is about 30 minutes from the capital city Asunción.

Paraguay is awesome and I’m so happy to be here, but I’m not going to sugarcoat it – the first week was HARD. Really hard. Not being able to speak the language I couldn’t understand my comps and I was missing my family so it made for some hard adjustments. But I can confidently say it gets better. Every day I feel like I’m improving. This week has been so much better and, dare I say it, even awesome.

We’ve been teaching a ton, walking a whole bunch, and laughing a lot. There might be a bit of a language barrier but I sure do love my companions. We have so much fun together. The people here are awesome! They have so much love for everyone they meet. One of the ways they show their love is through food. These people can eat!

The custom here is to have a large lunch and a late small dinner. We always have our lunches with members and holy cow (literally) the portions are huge and always they always serve meat- specifically beef. I am 100% confident that vegetarians wouldn’t survive here. The members want you to eat so much! I’ll be a quarter of the way through my portion and my Paraguayan comps will be on their third plate of food. Ha ha! Most days I only eat lunch. My comps have a fun time calling me a gringa and making fun of how little I eat. They have a good time making fun of me in general.

Spanish has been hard but I am learning more every day. As well as learning Spanish, I’ve been learning Guarani. This is the native language here and everyone I’ve met thus far speaks it. A plus of having native comps is they speak to me in both Spanish and Guarani. They’ve taught me important things like “How are you”= Mbaieichapa , “Look out”= Hake , “What’s your name?”= Mbaiecha nde rera. And in return I’ve taught them some important words in English like whale, liar, and stoked.

I’m sorry I’ve been bad at writing letters- I’m going to do better! Really so much has happened and I would love to write all about it but to save you and me some time here are the highlights:

-I got to go to the temple in Paraguay.

- I saw a guy who looked exactly like Esqueleto from Nacho Libre.

-The buses here are insane! They start moving before you’re even on the bus fully. I love riding them, it’s like Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland.

- A little girl dream drew a picture of me and it was adorable.

- I set my first baptismal date with the sweetest little girl Abby. She’s 10 years old.

- My comps and I had a race around the church and I am the fastest.

-We found six new investigators this week alone.

- I finally found peanut butter at the store and I’m stoked. They sell it in a bag and it’s expensive. #worthit

-My companions are the sister training leaders so they teach other companionship‘s. Tonight we are taking a six hour bus ride to Conception to train some Hermana‘s.

-My mom hid letters throughout my luggage from friends and family and it seriously makes my week reading them. It’s been fun to keep finding them in different places.

I’m alive, I’m a missionary, and I am in Paraguay and loving life. I know this is exactly where I’m supposed to be!

So much love for all of you.

Keep in touch- Send an email- quincee.carter@missionary.org

Te Amo,

Hermana Carter