Time is Flying By

¡¡¡Hola!!!

Oh goodness, time seems to be flying by! I can´t even handle it, it´s already two weeks into August.  Our zone is working really hard to find families this month.  We are all really excited and we are setting goals to get our numbers up.  I have so much faith that this month is just going to be filled with miracles.

I just got back from cleaning the temple! I love the temple!  As missionaries we don´t get to go very often, but I enjoy the rare occasions when we get to go clean the temple.  This was my second time.  The opportunity is all random, so I guess you could say I´m pretty lucky. 

I celebrated my hump day (half-way) the right way with lomitos arabes. They are meat, and vegetables with a garlic sauce and then they put it in like a tortilla/pita bread type thing and grill it.  They are basically the most delicious things ever.  They are only a night time food here though, there are little places basically on every corner to buy a hamburger or a lomita after 7 o´clock. 

We had two investigators come to church yesterday.  The first was one we´ve been working with for quite awhile.  She´s been to church one time before this, but every time we passed by after that she never answered the door.  Well yesterday we passed by and she didn´t answer, so we decided to go look for someone else, they didn´t answer either so we went to look for Idalicy again.  When we got to her gate, she was outside with her little boy and we were like, ok let´s go, but apparently her sister had just left and had taken the keys with her (they lock their gates so you have to have keys to get in or out).   My companion was determined and so she just walked over to the gate and lifted it off  its hinges to let her out.  Needless to say she came to church and she enjoyed it.

Our other investigator is so cute.  Her name is Gabriela and she is 13.  She has lots of family that are members so she´s got a good support group. She wants to get baptized right away but her mom wants her to wait a bit until she knows more.  So we gave her a list of everything she needs to learn beforehand.  She is awesome; she is already doing her Personal Progress. Her parents are pretty well off and basically their house is like a little zoo.  They have turtle, a dog named Espike, a hamster named ComoVos (Like you), a lorikeet named Tweetie, AND a deer!! named Bambi.  I´ve never seen a deer here, but they have one so that´s kind of cool.

We went to do some service this week.  We went and painted the bars of a window for a woman.  I had about half of it painted and my companion looked over at me with her section less than half finished and told me I was painting really fast.... I guess all those years out at MTI painting sets were good for something, but it was fun to do some service for her.  She is one of my favorite ladies here, she hasn´t been to church in a long time, but she will get there! 

This last Saturday was Kid Day here in Paraguay!  It´s a big deal here.  There are bouncy houses everywhere.  People give their kids presents and they eat cake.  Um, why don´t we have that in the States?!?!  But it was fun wishing all the kids Feliz día.  They also celebrated the anniversary of their flag so there was lots of partying going on during the weekend. 

I did get my package mom, by the way.  Thank you!! The first thing I did was make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  It was sooo good! The Paraguans don´t understand that joy. 

Anyways I love you all so much and hope everything is going well at home! You are always in my prayers!

Rohayhu!

Hermana Amy Lindsay

Half Way!

August 4, 2014

¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I can´t even believe that I´m already at my half way mark!  It´s so crazy.  I only have nine more months left and it´s all going to be downhill from now.  It´s really bitter sweet.  I´m sad because I just love my mission and Paraguay (especially when you´re just walking down the street and see something like a monkey tied up to someone´s fence....), but I´m excited because it means that I´m completing my mission to the Lord.  That´s what President always says anyways. 

Speaking of President we had interviews this past week!! I love interviews.  President is just awesome and he always has lots of good advice, but he likes to keep us on our toes.  I think transfers are probably one of his most favorite things, because he throws teasers and stuff at us to keep us guessing.  He kept talking about all the changes that were going to happen by the end of the year and so the four of us, (my companion and the hermanas that live next door) spent a good time speculating at what he could possible change up. Ha, mission life is weird sometimes, but I just love every minute of it.  

We´ve been working a lot with our new ward missionaries.  They are all so excited to come out with us, it´s really refreshing.  Many of them are planning on serving missions one day, so it´s good for them to get a taste of what it´s like.  We´ve also been really focusing on the family this past week and I think we´ve been finding a few that could progress, they just need to come to church! 

We found one part member family this week.  Actually their story is really sad. This lady is a member of the church and she got married to get baptized, but she and her husband had a falling out and her life kind of went downhill after that.  She has a bit of a drinking problem, which is sad.  She is living with this other guy and he decided he wanted to help her and he saw her baptism photos and came to the church looking for help and normally the church is closed, but he came during our District meeting and we wrote down their information and stopped by their house.  I want to help her get back on her feet so bad! It´s a testament that God knows his children and puts people where they need to be so that we can help one another.  She was so happy to see us, as drunk as she was, and we shared a little with her and she sang, "I am a Child of God" with lots of gusto.  She has a sad story, but she hasn´t made some of the best decisions either.  But that´s why Jesus Christ came, to atone for us, so that we can be clean again because really truly, we can be!!

I was reading a talk from the April 2011 conference the other day and Elder Paul V. Johnson gave a talk on overcoming trials.  He tells a story of a little boy with cancer and as the doctor is telling the family about the procedures he added that many people ask him if they will be the same after it is all over and he replies, "No, you won´t be the same.  You will be so much stronger.  You will be awesome!",  as it is with all trials that we have in this life and all the difficult things we have to go through.  The best part is we have the Lord´s promise that He will help us and that really truly we can be perfect one day like our Savior. We will be awesome!!

Love you all so much!! Thanks for the letters and prayers and the examples that you are for me!

Have a good week!!

Rohayhu!!

Hermana Amy Lindsay

My Gandolf stick to protect me from dogs!