Today is my Birthday!

¡Hola!

So today is my birthday!! Whooo! I´m  22 which is so weird, I barely feel like I was 21, but that´s because I´ve spent most of it on my mission, but thanks for the birthday wishes.  I´m sure Hermana Thacker, the Hermanas, and I will do something to celebrate, I´m not sure just what yet. 

Juan got confirmed!!!! Our ward mission leader went by their house at like 7 in the morning to get them all and bring them to church.  We brought him with us the night before to verify and they all committed to come.  His mom was a little drunk that night, but the next day she was better and came to church! Afterward all the kids were raving and ranting at how much they loved church and the parents were saying they were going to come next week too.  I really hope they do!  They need the gospel in their lives right now.  Their change is a slow process, but I can see it happening, and it´s so exciting!  I just want them to be able to feel the spirit.  I know that they can change through the Atonement and they can be a happy eternal family.  It´s going to take a little bit of work, but it´s completely possible. 

I was really impressed though.  A family that we eat lunch with, has a little girl who is 6.  Both of her parents are return missionaries, and her mom was a convert at age 18.  Her story is really cool, she is just this power house mom.  Anyways, Constanza is the name of the little girl and after sacrament meeting she came up to the kids that were with us and asked them how old they were, took them by the hand, and took them all to their classes.  It was cute and I was so impressed!! It just shows that anyone of any age can do missionary work.  That´s what every investigator or less active needs, just someone to take their hand and make them feel comfortable, guide them to where they need to go, or invite them to sit with you.  It makes a difference, because the missionaries can do all that, but then they leave, the members are the ones that stay.  Anyways, sorry if I sound like I´m lecturing on missionary work, I´m just realizing how important it is on my mission to work with the members and afterwards I want to be the type of member that we always wanted to help us.  It´s really cool what I´ve been learning about the church and especially about myself though serving a mission.

We´ve found some really cool people that we´ve been teaching, they just have to come to church in order to progress, so we´ll see.  I´m sure I´ll have more to say the next week.  But all is well and I´m pretty content!

Have a great week!

Rohayhu!!

Hermana Amy Lindsay

September Already

September 1, 2014

¡Hola !

What happened with the month of August?  I can´t believe it´s already September, but Happy Labor Day!! I have lots of stories to tell you guys. So transfers were this week and Hermana Rios left.  We were sad to see her go but excited to welcome a new hermana to Ñemby.  Hermana Flores is the new companion of Hna Walker.  She is from Bolivia, which is good because now we are all forced to talk in Spanish to each other.  She is the sweetest thing.  We call her Sister Flowers and she calls us her Gringas.  Ha ha, not sure if we should be offended at that or not, but she is just super loving and is always giving us hugs. 

My biggest story for the week was Juan or Paupi, is what the neighbored calls him...not exactly sure why.  Anyway,  I don´t know if you remember, but a little while back we found a less active family and the mom was just super drunk.  She still has a lot to work on, but her kids are just the sweetest little things, including Juan.  We passed by Monday and his sister told us it was his birthday on Tuesday and that he wanted to get baptized for his birthday.  So, we brought him brownies the next day and asked if that was something he wanted and he did, so we called our district leader and had him come do the interview.  We left for a second to go find the elders and we came back and Juan was gone.  He had run to a friend’s house, so we had his older sister go find him.  He came back and Elder Macias was ready to talk to him when he took off running again!  So this time Hna Thacker and I went to go find him, and he did not want to come back with us.  Turns out he was afraid of the elders.  We convinced him to come back again, but he went straight into the house and wouldn´t come out to talk to us and as we went in to find him again he was sneaking out the window and took off down the street and hopped over a fence and was gone! 

So we passed by the next day and he was a little reluctant to talk with us because he thought maybe we were going to trick him and bring the elders back again, but we finally convinced him that they were not with us.  He told us he really did want to get baptized.  Luckily the Zone leaders share a ward with us so we talked up Elder Lyon quite a bit so he wouldn´t be as scared.  We even showed him a picture.  So he agreed to let Elder Lyon do the interview and baptize him, so we scheduled the baptism for the next day.  We brought everyone to the church and the interview went smoothly, and he got changed, and we started the service. 

It was all going extremely well, but then the time came for him to get baptized and he flat out refused to get in the water and just started crying, but we knew he wanted to do it because his siblings told us he had been practicing putting his head in the water all day long.  Anyways, it was a good chunk of time trying to convince him to get in, he even got out at one point and was about to change, but turned to his mom shaking (because the water was cold) and crying and sweetly told her that he wanted to get baptized so back into the water they went.  So after about 1 hour in the water and 4 prayers later he was finally baptized!! The poor little guy, but he wanted to do it so bad.  Everyone in the room I´m sure was saying silent prayers to help him get over his fears.

Afterwards we had cake and he was all smiles!  Elder Lyon said afterwards that he was reminded of a talk by Elder Holland where he says, the only physical risk missionaries should have is pneumonia because they are in the water baptizing so much.  Ha ha, I´m positive Elder Holland didn´t mean it like that.  Anyways, after all that, he still isn´t confirmed, they left for the interior and weren´t there on Sunday, so next week.

Anyways, So I´m sending some pictures, of the baptism and of our investigators bird Tweetie!

That´s about all from me! Rohayhu!

Hermana Amy Lindsay

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!

Pray Always

July 28, 2014

My week was pretty busy . As a zone we made a goal that we want each companionship to baptize a family in the month of August, so we´ve be working really hard to find families that we can teach.  It´s a lot easier to just teach people one on one, but I know that this is the work of the Lord and the family is so important to Him.  He wants us to be together forever, for the eternities.  I´m blessed to have that knowledge and reality in my life and I want to share that with others, that´s really why we are.  We don´t just go on missions to learn a new language or to visit other countries, but really to bless other people’s lives.  We leave our families for a year and a half so that other´s can live with their family forever.  I know that´s the Lord´s goal too and we are finding some really cool families that we are going to start working with so I´m pretty excited about that.

We´ve been working a lot more with the members here lately too.  Yesterday they just called a bunch of ward missionaries so we are really excited to start with working with them and I think they are all really excited too.  Honestly the members our awesome here, they are all so willing to help us, they just don´t really know how, so it requires a little more work on our part but it´s so worth it. 

It´s been getting kind of cold here lately too.  This is going to sound crazy, but I love the hot summer here better than the cold.  It´s harder to escape the cold here because the houses are actually built to retain cool air and keep out the hot, so we use lots of heaters and layers, but it comes and goes so that´s nice.  I might eat my words when it gets to be hot again, but we´ll see. 

I don´t really have much else to report, but I do want to share my testimony that I know that God answers prayers.  He is listening and he will always answer.  It may not be when or in the way we want, but he will always, always answer. I love the scripture in Alma 37:37 that says, "Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea,when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day."  Really that´s an awesome promise, so don´t forget your morning and evening prayers!! Because when we don´t pray, then we don´t have that promise, because it´s really the devil that teaches us not to pray.  God wants to pray always! (2 Nephi 32, 8 & 9)  So always have a prayer in your heart and you will have a good week!!

Rohayhu!!

Hermana Amy Lindsay