Tender Mercy From The Lord

So this week has been pretty good actually.   We had 4 investigators at church, and one of the families that is progressing couldn´t come but they let us know beforehand so we wouldn´t think they were ditching us haha.  We have prospects for baptism in these upcoming 3 weeks: Gloria (the most adorable 9 year old girl whose mother is a member), Alcides (a 15 year old kid who lives with his brother and sister-in-law who both are active members), and a couple named Pedro and Sonia Coronel.  All 4 of them I suspect will be baptized in the month of June.  They are all incredible people who have come to church already and who are progressing well in the gospel.  Gloria will be baptized first, and then probably Pedro and Sonia (if the Spirit can convince her to get married), and then Alcides.  It was so great to see the kindness and Christlike charity of the members here in Rama 1.  Pedro and Sonia are a young couple (she´s 21, he´s 24).  They had their first child less than a month ago: a sweet baby girl named Ashley.  They were a reference from a member in another branch, so we went to visit them.  Pedro had investigated the Church before, but it was years ago before he met Sonia, so she has never been exposed to the Church.  We met with them on Thursday and Saturday the week before last, and they came to church that Sunday.  They got there just after Sacrament started, so we were elated because we

How I Love My 3 Hermanas

Grr.  So I finally got to a cyber where they allow me to upload photos onto the computer so I can send them to you.  But before I attach them in an email, I have to make them smaller so they actually get to you.  Or else I´d have to send them 4 at a time because the files are too big.  Well, turns out these computers don´t have the program I need to change the image size.  Ugh!  The guy who works here was messing with it for like half an hour and wasted my time!  Gah.  And now I have 10 minutes to write again - without pictures!  Bleh.

The only real news is that I got a reeeeally cool letter today!  Hermana Sargent, Hermana Green, and Hermana Denker (the 3 Sisters from my MTC district) wrote me today!  They wrote all the Elders from our MTC district.  This past week, Hermana Sargent came back to Paraguay with her family to visit for a few days.  Cool, huh?  She´s awesome.  Apparently she brought the letters from each of them to the mission office, and they sent them out.  It was an incredible spirit-lifter happy-maker to hear from them haha.  How I love my 3 Hermanas :).  It is

I've Got A Legacy To Uphold

Hello everyone!

This week has been good.  Started off kind of rough though, because I had to travel to Asunción on Tuesday to sign my immigration papers to maintain temporary residence here (now they CAN´T kick me out...haha), so that took the whole day and we lost that day of proselyting.  We had some good experiences this week in terms of lessons and such.  There is Gloria (the daughter of a recently re-activated member) who has a baptism date for next week, so I´m way excited about that.  She turns 9 that week, and she is just the cutest little girl.  Very smart, likes to draw, and loves Primary (even though there are only like 4 Primary-aged kids in this branch haha).  So that should happen next week.  Then we came in contact with a member who got baptized with his wife about a year and a half ago who just moved into our area, so we´re helping them get situated and into the habit of coming back to church.  There are some great things that can happen here in the next few weeks.  The only difficulty is that we´re a little nervous about inviting investigators to church here haha.  We have church from 8:30-11:30, and Sacrament meeting is the last hour.  We only invite investigators to Sacrament meeting so they show up at 10 haha.  The problem is that there are so few active members here (about 20) and they almost all come late.  When 8:30 came yesterday, there were 2 members who had

Last Round of Letters

Wow, it was so great to see and talk to everyone yesterday on Skype.  A nice little motivation to hold me over until the my end of my mission!  To those I didn´t get to talk to, I love and miss you all too haha.  I´m sending out my last round of letters this change (besides letters I´ll respond to if someone writes me), because if I wait too much longer, chances are you won´t have time to write me back haha.  So if you want to write me and want a response from me, better do it now!

This area is probably my hardest in terms of challenges and things we have to do.  But still my favorite =P I´m glad I have a lot to do.  The members here seem good, but the normal church attendence is about 20 people.  Yikes!  Lots of work to do, I'm really glad I´ll be busy until the end of my mission.  Elder Alvarez and I came up with some really good, solid plans to help out the members here and start generating some activity.  We´re first going to

Encarnacion - Nauvoo Paraguay

Alright, I can´t lie.  I am beyond excited to see you guys on SKYPE this Sunday!  I mean, phone calls are awesome, but SKYPE is just taking it to a whole other level.  Taking it up a notch, thanks for the quote Chef Emril.  Yes, we have permission again to use Skype.  This will be my last phone call home.  I know I say this every time, but it really is weird.  I´ve had my last General Conference on my mission, I´ll be having my last phone call on the mission this Sunday, and next month will be my last temple trip on the mission.  But let´s not talk about the end of my mission, I don´t like that subject.  Changing to happier things :)

So this week were changes, and I got changed.  I left Obrero after 6 months (holy cow, I do not miss packing and unpacking my life in a suitcase...), and I´m now in what I imagine will be my last area.  It is a city called Encarnación, and I´m absolutely in love with it.  It´s like when I went to Reno and fell in love with it from day 1, it´s the same thing.  This city is amazing.  It is similar to Obrero, but a little bit more city-ish.  I am on the banks of the river that separates Paraguay from Argentina, so you can call it Nauvoo Paraguay haha.  My companion