Monday, April 12, 2010

"I SERIOUSLY FELT JOY!"

"We just got back into our area from a zone activity this morning. It was nothing special, but fun. All of us at the church...studied together, some played football, ate ice cream, hung out, the usual. always fun to be around other missionaries."

"This past week has been really good! It started off Tuesday with an awesome zone conference. President Callan seemed to lay down the law a little more than usual. He talked alot about obedience and how to bring others up. We need to be on a higher ground. He had a slideshow of pictures from the 2004 tsunami that hit Indonesia...pictures of people by the shore watching the wave come in...thinking they could run away last minute. Unfortunately, we know that wasn´t the case. He then compared this situation to us. Are we walking along the shore watching the wave of tempation and wickedness approach us? Or are we doing everything possible to flee to the highest ground with everyone we can? To say the least, it was a really good conference. Learned a lot. I´m pretty sure all of us missionaries walked out with a list of goals and things we can do better."


"Things in my are area are good. I continue to enjoy working with Hermana Jara. The Lord has blessed us by leading us to some golden investigators this past week. On Tuesday we knocked at the door of the familia Pareres. It's a husband, his blind wife, and their 32 year old daughter and also the brother of the wife who is also blind. They are awesome! Such sweet, kind people. The blind brother is very talented with music...he can play the piano, guitar, harmonica, flute...and.....the accordion! I loved listening to it all."

"Yesterday. Sunday, was basically awesome! The day started off good when at 630 in the morning we received a text from this family that they were going to attend our church. When Hna Jara read the text out loud I seriously started jumping up and down I was so excited. We saw them at the chapel and also Gilberto Cabellero and his 2 oldest kids came to our ward...its been almost a month since I´ve seen them since they moved and when I saw little Pequeno...guarani Kaleb...I just about cried! In our Gospel Principles class we had 14 of scrunched into a little classroom...lots of investigators and recent converts! It was great! Sacrament meeting was so uplifting...it was our fast and testimony meeting and one by one so many of the new converts and inactives who we have visited went up and shared their testimonies. It was really powerful and the Spirit was really strong. After church the Bishop called us into his office and said he was very happy to see so many recent converts share their testimonies. I was really suprised he took the time to tell us that because our Bishop doesn´t talk very much. Very serious...a little hard. But ya, I seriously think I had a perm a grin at church yesterday. I can´t describe it, and I don´t know why yesterday was so different than other Sundays, but I seriously felt joy. More than just like happiness. I think I´ve only felt that a handful of times in my life. It was almost an overwhelming feeling. I really just feel so incredibly grateful to my Father in Heaven for so many things."

"So Paraguay changed our time this past weekend. It's just about 2pm right now....so I think we´re only 3 hours ahead of AZ now! As a mission we changed our schedule a bit as well. We now wake up at 6am instead of 630. We need to be in our apartments between 830 and 9pm and not 9 to 930pm. And we go to bed at 10pm now. Basically, the same schedule....just everything a half hour earlier. It's starting to be winter here and for instance, it was dark by 530 yesterday. Ugh, no me gusta! I´m really grateful I have only one winter here....I don´t care about the heat...I like the sun!"

"Okay, funny story. I got chased by a cow the other day. Only for like 10 seconds, but still. I´m not even sure exactly what happened but we were walking along this little path, I was in front, and all the sudden this cow that was about 5 ft away from me starts moving quick in my direction. I didn´t know cows could move quick! I started to run until I looked back and saw the cow be jerked back because it had a rope tied around its neck and was tied onto a tree or something. ! Que suerte! It made for a good laugh!"

"Transfers are next Wednesday, the 21st. Eek! I really don´t know what to expect. Could very well be staying...or going. I really want to stay. I am really enjoying working with Hna Jara and I just love the people here so much. It's going to break my heart to leave them if I have to! But...I´ll let you all know what happens next Thursday when our next pday is!"

"Well, all is good down here in Paraguay!! This week should be pretty normal. District meeting tomorrow and work work work to find those who are prepared."

No comments:

Post a Comment