Easter Week

April 14, 2014

¡Hola!

So this week was maybe not the most successful week number wise, but we learned a lot.  Mostly I´m learning that my idea of how things should be done is usually not the way the Lord wants them done. I have to remind myself of that a lot, but I know the Lord has plans for the people of Paraguay, I´ve just got to give up my ways and let the Lord do what needs to be done through me. Easier said than done, but that´s what the Atonement is for right?

This week is the Semana Santa. The Catholics here celebrate, basically all week long.  It´s kind of cool actually. They were selling cool braided reed things in the streets for Palm Sunday.  A lady told us yesterday that a Priest blesses them and then they keep them in their home all week.  They are kind of cool, but they look like a lot of work.  Wednesday everyone stops working and goes traveling.  I´m thinking it´s kind of like our equivalent of Thanksgiving weekend.  It´s really cool how Christ centered this week really is here. It´s actually easy to teach people because their faith in Christ here is already established.

I´ve seen some pretty awesome thunderstorms this week.  The lightening gets so close.  We had a lighting strike super close to our apartment the other night and it woke us both up.  It also cooled down a lot yesterday... we were actually really cold and this morning too, all the cool air got trapped into our room, but it´s better now that the sun came out again.  I decided I´m kind of wimp when it comes to the cold.  

This week I´m was thinking about obedience and agency. It´s frustrating to accept others agency sometimes. In Preach my Gospel it says that God gives us commandments for our benefit so that we can be happy and if we are obedient we show Heavenly Father that we love him and Jesus Christ. Obedience always brings blessings, no matter how small the rule or commandment may be because God says, "I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise."  I know that´s true!  I think of Elder Hales´ talk from conference and basically, when we choose to be disobedient we love Satan more than we love God.  Harsh words but true.  As a missionary it´s easy to see rules and be obedient, but I think the real challenge is being obedient in life outside of the mission. 

Anyways that´s all from me! 

Rohayhu!

Hermana Lindsay

Slight fear of dogs now

April 7, 2014

¡¡Hola!!

Ahh!! Wasn´t General Conference awesome!  I loved every second of it.  The North Americans in my zone all got to watch it in English, but it had some technical difficulties so we had to watch the first two talks in Spanish. We were really bummed we didn´t get to hear Elder Holland´s voice.  He is so powerful when he talks and it just isn´t the same with a translator. Anyways, I´m sad it´s over but I´m glad I get six more months to work on becoming more like the savior and being more grateful like in Elder Uchtdorf´s talk.  I´m so grateful to be serving a mission in Paraguay, even with all of the hard things that get thrown my way, but really it´s the load that gives us the spiritual traction we need to press forward, like Elder Bednar taught us.  One of my favorite talks was by Elder Ballard about missionary work and Preach My Gospel.  It´s true, Preach My Gospel is for everyone to study and use.  It has been a huge testimony builder for me, and so I want to share a quote from it that I like about missionary work,  

"What does the Atonement have to do with missionary work? Any time we experience the blessings of the Atonement in our lives, we cannot help but have a concern for the welfare of others... A great indicator of one´s personal conversion is the desire to share the gospel with others." - President Howard W. Hunter.

I know that´s true. If we are truly converted we are going to naturally want to share the joy of the gospel with those we love and President Monson says that should be everyone!! 

I don´t really have a lot else to say, expect we had a district activity Monday which was pretty fun.  We went around and took pictures, (speaking of that I´m hoping I didn´t lose my camera, I had it at conference yesterday and now I can´t find it, but we are going to check the church today for it), and then got ice cream at Amandau (which is Guarani for Hail). Oh ya, and I have a slight fear of dogs now, mostly just the little barking ones that belong to people, we´ve had two come after us.  Luckily my bag is pretty heavy and I´m ready to knock them to the moon if they even think about biting me!  

Also, I´m not sure if I just give really long boring prayers or my companion was just tired, because she totally fell asleep one day.  I ended the prayer and waited for her to say amen and she never did.  We laughed pretty hard about that. 

Anyways hope everyone has a great week, 

Rohayhu!

Hermana Lindsay

When it rains it pours

March 31, 2014

Hola! 

I´ve never seen rain before like it rains here.  The streets literally flood.  We got caught in the rain a couple of times.  Paraguayans think they are allergic to the rain... not really, but it seems like that.  They don´t want to do anything in the rain so it gets hard to have lessons.  Our district leader said they think they’re made out of sugar!  Although, a lot of houses are half outside, like they only have two or three walls and a roof.  But the good news is it cooled down a lot!! I even had to pull out some of my sweaters this week.  And my blanket too!  

We had a conference with half the mission this week with Elder Viñas of the 70.  It was really good.  He talked a lot about the Atonement and how it applies to missionary work.  I´ve been thinking a lot about the atonement lately too, and it´s something that I want to bring to my investigators, the joy of the atonement.  It really is important to use it every day.  Even the little things we have to repent of, because we want to become perfect like Christ and our Father in Heaven and we can´t do that if we aren´t completely clean of every little thing.   Christ paid the price so we don´t have too, the atonement is free, we just need a willing heart and the desire to change and become better people.  I love my Savior for giving me that ability! 

Our investigator Yessica is cute.  She´s only been to church once, but we´ve had three lessons with her.  At the end the second lesson we asked her if she had any questions for us and she said, "Ya, what do I need to bring for my baptism?"  I think she´s a little anxious.  Her date is 12 Abril and we are excited for her, she is so prepared for the gospel! We are having to work a little harder with some of our other investigators, but I love it when I can see the spirit working in their lives.  

We had interviews with President Agazzani, he´s pretty awesome.  He told me my Spanish was much better and he shared with me a talk by Elder Bednar that I really needed to hear.  He told both me and Hermana Casey to enjoy this transfer because it´s not likely we will spend another transfer together.  I think mission life will really hit me once I get a new companion or I´m in a different area because I´m pretty comfortable at the moment. 

This gospel truly is a message of hope and happiness! I know I´m a better person because of it, and I love seeing the changes people make in their lives as they draw closer to the Savior. I´m only now starting to realize how big this world really is and how many people there are! And each one of them is a son or daughter of God! And he knows them and loves them sooo perfectly!  And He loves us so much that he has called a prophet and apostles to guide and direct us in the path we need to go.  How great an opportunity we have to listen to them this weekend!  I´ve been so excited, I´ve literally been counting the days for about 2 months! 

I hope everything is well in the states! 

Rohayhu! 

Hermana Lindsay

Joy Through Service

March 14, 2014

¡Hola!

Happy St. Patrick´s Day, I´m wearing green in honor of the holiday even though hey don´t celebrate it.  I´m still with Hermana Casey in Pinozá,  which everyone has told us is really rare because usually you´re only with your trainer for two transfers and then you get a new companion.  I think it´s just a testament that we have work here to do in this area! But we are both grateful for the opportunity to have another transfer together.  We have a couple of people progressing in the gospel and besides that, we just really get along, there is a lot of laughing some days!  Since I´m a normal missionary now (no longer training) we leave to work at 10:30!  But this last week was far from normal. 

We had a service project with Operation Smile here in Paraguay.  I believe they do surgeries for kids who have cleft palates. Thursday they had a huge truck full of supplies for surgeries and clothes and toys and whatever other stuff.  So we helped unload the truck, which ended up being a lot of work.  There were lots of heavy boxes and we had to take it up to the second floor and to the other side of the hospital.  It took about 3 hours to do.  Our arms were super sore the next day, but it was so fun and so worth it.  Really the true way to find joy in this life is through service to others. Also, we went to McDonalds afterward to reward ourselves.  Not as good as in the states, and not as many options, but really it was fun. 

Also, I had to go to the mission office this week to sign migration papers, and so I got to see a lot of the people who I was in the CCM with so that was fun to see and hear how they are doing. One random thing, our investigator Patricia(who gave us the milk) hasn´t been home forever and we were getting kind of discouraged, but Elder Walsh who was in our district this last transfer is now companions with Elder Petersen who I know from the CCM.  Anyways, we saw them, and the first thing elder Walsh says to us was, "We found Patricia!"  Apparently she is living with her Dad right now for health reasons, but they are giving her the discussions so I´m relieved that she´s taken care of.  We have a conference with half the mission this Wednesday so hopefully we can ask them how she is doing and progressing! 

Other than that we´ve just tried to put some time into finding more and more people to teach, I know there are people here prepared for the gospel, we just have to find them and work with them. 

And no, I´ve never gotten sick from the food or water...yet, but besides that all is well! 

Rohayhu!

Hermana Lindsay

Critters in Paraguay

March 10, 2014

¡Hola!

  

I was thinking of things to write about Paraguay all this week, and as I´m sitting here typing this a little cockroach crawled onto my computer... gross right? This is not the most chuchi cyber ever..., but I did come up with a few fun things to write up. (I´m starting to take a lot of this stuff for granted).  

One thing that is kind of cool here are the parrots.  Actually, they are probably lorikeets, but there are flocks of them here, like there would be flocks of geese or something in the States. They are really loud too. Speaking of critters, some places are infested with mice; our church is invested by bats.  Actually, I feel bad for them because I think they fly in and can´t find their way back out so they have nothing to eat so we usually find them dead.  The other night there was one alive flying around the roof while we were having our activity.   Also, most people have walls and gates around their property.  If they have money there is barbed wire or an electric fence around the top too, but if they don´t then they use broken glass bottles and attach them to the top of their walls. 

My companion and I had a laugh this week. The other day we were with one of our investigators and she told use she had something to give us.  We got excited, because who doesn´t love gifts? She brought out this sliver package and still we were like, Oh boy what could it be? and then she handed it to us and said, "It´s milk." She gave us a package of powdered milk.  I guess it´s from Argentina, but we thought it was fun.  Not sure what we are going to do with it yet. 

On Friday we had divisions, and so I went to the area of Fernando de Amor with a sister from Bolivia.  She is super sweet and it was good for me not to speak English the entire day.  There is still a lot I can´t say, but there is more that I CAN say and that´s a blessing. They have a ward there and it´s super established. They have lots of youth and lots of members, which is something our Branch lacks...well we have members but they are inactive. 

Also, yesterday was my last day of training!! Wooo!! No more extra hours of studying for me...that is until I end up training someone else, which could very well happen in two days, because that´s when changes are. Because my companion and I got here at the same time, it´s really a toss up as to who will leave first.  I´m nervous, but I´m excited too. I´m nervous because we are starting to see miracles here in Pinoza, so I have to keep telling myself that this is the Lord´s mission not mine. How you take things in life is really all about your attitude. 

Yesterday we had ward conference, and we sang with the choir. We sang, I Believe in Christ and I Know That My Redeemer Lives.  I think those are the members favorite hymns.  

The stake president gave a really spiritual Sunday school lesson, which I was grateful for because we had TWO investigators at church!  This was Fernando´s third attendance and so he can get baptized really soon, he just hasn´t received an answer yet.  I know he is feeling something though, because he keeps coming to church and does exactly what we commit him too.  We also have our other investigator I´m really excited about, her name is Alma.  She is the daughter of one of the members.  She has three kids, she recently had her third a month ago! Her daughter Helen goes to church every week with her Grandma and wants to be baptized when she turns 8, but Alma never wanted to join the church because she isn´t married to her "spouse" and she didn´t want to get married.  Well my companion had a lesson with her during divisions and I guess something touched her heart because now she had a date to get married and be baptized!! 

I´m so excited for both of these people, and I realize that this letter is a little longer then usual, I guess it was a pretty good week then.  

I got about 6 new bug bites, so either the bugs just came back from vacation or you all stopped praying for me ;)  Nah just kidding, I think I just got a little lazy with the bug spray because I wasn´t having any bites, but I did visit a new area so that could have been it too... I don´t know. 

But either way I love this work.  I´m grateful for every day because it´s already 4 months! Where did that time go? It feels like I just left yesterday,

Have a wonderful week! 

Hermana Lindsay