Fish Fish, got your Wish

Hey hey everybody!

First thing's first, congrats Bryce on your mission call!!  I couldn't be more proud of you bro.  Let me tell you, it's gonna be difficult.  Really difficult, in ways I can't even explain.  But it's so, so worth it.  So worth it.  The blessings outweigh the downfalls by 1000 times.  You will learn so much - about the Gospel, about other people, and about yourself.  You'll learn things - things about yourself as well as practical skills - that will help you for the rest of your whole life.  Tuscon, AZ that's awesome man!  Fish fish, got your wish: you're staying in the states speaking English haha.  Poor guy ;]  no no just kidding haha.  You'll love it, and I know you'll do great.  I should be getting more stamps this week or next week, so I'll get you a letter before you report to the MTC.

Ok, secondly, what the heck?  How are we almost in February of 2010 already?  This means only 1 thing - that it's Dad's birthday this week!  Happy birthday Papa Bear, you crazy 21-year-old you!  Haha but yeah, where did my 5 months on the mission go?  It still feels like I'm getting accustomed to everything, or that I just got here yesterday.  Changes came and went on Tuesday, and believe it or not, Elder Ganga and I are still both here for a 3rd change.  That's really, really rare in the mission.  3 changes with one companion is strange enough, but he has been here for 6 months already which is even more weird.  He'll have 7 1/2 months in his mission here in Ciudad del Este after this change.  And he only had 1 area before this, so that will be 2 areas in 10 1/2 months.  Insane, I tell you, insane.  But, it's the Lord's will and we'll keep working.

PIZZA HUT oh yeah!

Hey everyone!  Before I forget, next week is changes again, so I'll be emailing on Thursday instead of Monday.  So don't worry when you don't have any notice from me on Monday, I'll still be alive...hopefully =P

This week wasn't so great in terms of missionary work.  Not because I'm sad or having a bad time or anything, we just couldn't do very much work.  On Tuesday, I was sick with the flu and we didn't leave the house.  If you're clever, you remembered that it's summer in Paraguay and 110 degrees out.  But don't ask me how I got the flu in the middle of summer, I have no idea.  It's the magic of Paraguay.  And then Thursday, Friday, and Saturday Elder Ganga was sick and we didn't leave either except for a few hours one of the days.  Kinda a bummer, but what can ya do?  We don't really know what he has.  He has a major headache that comes and goes every so often, but he says its really bad.  It's something else though, we're not quite sure.  We have interviews with the mission president this Wednesday, so we'll ask him what we should do then.  I already gave him a blessing, so we're just waiting for him to feel better.

Nothing short of a Miracle

I never know what to put for the subject, so I figure I'll just start putting the date haha.  Easier that way.  Oh, and how funny that last week I told Julie and Cliff to get goin on the Dear Elders, and yesterday I got one from them in the mail hahah.  Thank you!  :D

So this week was great - we had a baptism on Saturday!  It was Eli Centuri贸n.  Well we didn't baptize her, her son did (her kids are members, he is a return missionary and its his mom so we let him do it).  She's the lady who has been going to church for years but could never be baptized because she's living with her kids' father and he would never get married.  Well, with a lot of work on our part and even more help from the Lord, he finally agreed.  I can't tell you for how many weeks we've been fasting and praying for them.  She has been too.  It was nothing short of a miracle that this guy agreed to be married so she could be baptized.  He drank every single day, he was always angry and never said 2 words to his family in the house, didn't want anything to do with the church, and was just plain unhappy.  And then one day about 2 weeks ago, Eli told us that he stopped drinking so much and was actually friendly and talking to his family like they had been a close family for years.  What changed?  We had tried to talk to him before without success.  They all had tried to talk to him without success.  When we started praying and fasting together for him, only then did everything start to work out.  Katie told me in a Dear Elder once about a part in the Bible she was reading for a core humanities class in school that talked about faith, and how faith conquers all.  I've learned that lesson first-hand.

We're going to a Zoo!

Hey everybody!

I need Josh's email so I can forward these emails to him too, so if you could get it from him for me and email it to me that would be great.

This week was good!  We have a baptism this Saturday, we're baptizing Eli, the lady I told you about who her kids are members but not her husband and she had to get married.  Elder Ganga and I talked to her husband and as of right now, everything is good to go.  We just need to make sure he follows through with the marriage, I'm crossing my fingers.  And then we have another guy named Eulogio who has a baptismal "fecha" (date) planned for the 23 of January, so we're working hard with him too!  We're trying to get his wife to be baptized on the same day, but she isn't quite as receptive as he is.  We'll keep working.

Later today we're going to a zoo with some less active members.  Yesterday we were standing outside their house for half an hour at 7:30 in the morning trying to wake them up to go to church.  They haven't been in a couple years.  We figured that if we bugged them enough, they would eventually wake up and just go with us to get us to leave them alone haha.  It worked though, they went :].  Afterwards, they were so thankful that we were persistant in getting them to church, it looks like they'll start going again.