For Reasons like this, I am a Missionary

Hello friends and family!  Good to be able to write you again this week.  Hope everyone had a good week, especially Elder Pierce on his birthday.

First thing´s first:  we´re going to have a baptism this week!  Man oh man, I love when that happens.  Their names are Domingo and Suni, and they have an 11-year-old son named Marcos who will also be baptized.  The baptism will be on Thursday.  We met them through the family of a less active member.  We went to visit him, and his parents were there so we shared with them.  They liked it and told us how to get to their house (I was going to put gave us their address, but silly me, there are no addresses in Paraguay!), so we went to find them and we did.  One time when we were teaching them, their other son (who is Domingo) was there, and we started teaching him as well.  He´s a great guy.  We met his wife Suni the next visit, who is also incredible.  They have 3 kids, and Marcos is the only one old enough to get baptized.  They came to church without us having to go to look for them the past 2 weeks in a row, and on Sunday the branch president announced their baptism for Thursday.  We have to marry them first, which will happen the same Thursday right before the baptism.  We´re extremely lucky, because apart from people in Paraguay never wanting to get married (which they had no problem with), it´s hard to marry people in this country.  We´ve been extremely blessed to be able to find this familiy and teach them the Gospel.  I´ll let everyone know how it goes next week!

Old Guy who punched my companion! 

What´s next...OH YEAH! Remember when I wrote a few weeks ago about the old guy who punched my companion?? 

The Best Gift I Have Ever Received (Half Way Mark)

Subject: 6 September 2010

One year ago, I was in my first few days at the Missionary Training Center in Provo.  I was terrified.  If somebody could think of a word about 20 times stronger than inadequate, that would describe a small fraction of how I felt.  I missed my family and the people that love me and that I love more than I thought was possible.  Don´t get me wrong, I loved being a missionary.  I still love being a missionary today.  But I was lost, confused, and a whole onslaught of other emotions all at once.  I think somebody had slipped Pandora´s Box in my juice or something.  But above all, I knew what I was doing and why I was doing it.  Or, at least I believed that anyway.  In Paraguay, the emotions were amplified tenfold.  This was the real deal, this wasn´t the "training center".  The word was hard, the heat was brutal, and I had a lot of issues to deal with.  This was the basic pattern that continued for the 10 months that followed  up until today.  The work is still hard, the heat is still dreadful, and there are still more issues to deal with than I can express.  But I kept fighting, kept pushing through the unequivocally hardest trials of my young life, and here I am a year later still going strong and still fighting the good fight.  Salvation is not a cheap experience.  It wasn´t easy for Christ, it won´t be easy for me.  But the blessings are indescribable and irreplaceable.  I am so blessed to be a missionary.

"From Whence Thou Comest, There Thou Goest"

¡Buen día mi querida familia!

So this Sunday was Branch Conference.  It went really well.  We had double the attendance that we normally do and 4 investigators in sacrament meeting.  Good day I´d say.  There was no time for the special musical number, but whatever, President Callan´s talk was better haha.  He did such a good job, man, the guy is a stud.  Pure inspiration.  He called Sister Callan to the pulpit first thing and introduced her and gave her a chance to share her testimony before he gave his message.  It was great, she did a good job.  She just loves visiting the people.  Then President gave his talk.  It was really well.  He talked about the goal of getting the big church built across the street in the empty terrain that we have.  He gave them a list of ways to accomplish it.  Then he was like "I want to ask the full-time missionaries to stand up for just a second".  So Hermana Callan, Elder Martinez, and I stood up.  And he was like "Ok thank you, sit back down".  And then he was like "That question was really kind of a trap.  I should have seen every one of you in this room on their feet, because yenno what?  These 2 elders and my wife and I will come and go, but you members will stay here in your home ward building up the kingdom.  Everybody here is a full-time missionary.  So let me ask you again and see if the result changes.  I´d like to ask that the full-time missionaries stand up" and everybody stood up that time.  It was really helpful, that should motivate the members a lot.  He gave a good talk, and everybody wanted to take pictures with him afterwards.  All the young women were talking to Hermana Callan after the meeting and their families were bugging them that they wanted to go home and to leave the mission president´s wife alone hahah.  But Hermana Callan loves talking to them, she´s just great.  It went well.

One experience I want to share with everyone before I start on the Article of Faith for this week.  I almost wasn´t going to share it, but I´ve decided that it´s alright and you all will benefit from it.  I´m adapting it from my Saturday August 28th journal entry.

Drunk Grandpa Sanchez/Crazy Lady Rosa

Ok, so there´s lots to talk about today.  Let´s get to it!

Changes - Nothing happened with me and my comp.  Yes!  We´re both here in Guarambaré todavía.  Which is good, because I get along with him better than with any of my past comps, and we work really well together in terms of teaching, so it should be good.  One elder got changed and his companion is training a new guy this change, so I´ll have to go there tomorrow to get to know him and let him know that if he needs anything he can give me a call because I´m his district leader.  Just a little pow-wow.  I talked to him on the phone the day he got here, and was like "hey how´s your Spanish?" and he said mas o menos haha.  So I was like "well we´ll test ya.  Talk to my companion for a minute, he´s Colombian so see if you can understand him".  Didn´t understand a thing.  Hahah poor guy.  Everyone starts like that, but it was funny.  But yeah, the work continues!

Temple Prep Classes - Oh goodness I love them.  Teaching members who have a base knowledge of the doctrine and stuff is totally different than teaching an investigator.  I´ll be extra lucky if I get called to be a Sunday School/Gospel Principles teacher when I get home or something, I would love that.  I love teaching.  We have 4 people that are currently participating, and one who just came this past class to get started.  We´ll have to find a time to teach him the 2 lessons he missed so he can go to the temple.  But the classes are going fantastic and I love them!

A Kid in Candyland

Let´s get down to business!  Had an extra long something to do on the side this week - as usual - so I´ll jump right into it.  This week will be short - sorry!  Just know that I´m doing very well, happy as a kid in candyland, getting along excellently with my comp, and the work is moving along like a well-oiled machine.  Just a few squeaky wheels is all :).

Article of Faith...I think it´s 7?  I don´t remember the number haha, but here it is.
"We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly.  We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God."
We believe in the Holy Bible.  It is unequivocally the word of God.  It contains doctrines of salvation and of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  However, because of the history of the Bible, the compilation of works we have today known as the Bible are not the same as they were originally written by the hands of the Lord´s prophets and apostles.  Things have been changed or taken out.  This is because of 1.) people intentionally changed/removed them, or 2.) the true meaning was lost in translation.
 

Teaching Temple Prep Classes - Way Excited!!

Sorry for the day delay, we had Zone Conference yesterday and P-day was changed to today.  But here I am again, you lucky people!  Next week I´ll send pictures.

Things are getting much better in Guarambaré.  After 2 months of hard labor, things are looking up.  I speak in terms of the branch here, not necessarily investigators.  The branch is finally getting it´s act together.  Our branch president is working with us finally and getting things in gear, getting his branch organized and shaped up.  We have worked extra hard with the members here these past few weeks to build them up and get them some enthusiasm, and we´re seeing the benefits.  It feels good to know you´ve had some effect on somebody, and you´re not doing things meaninglessly.

President Lopez (branch president) actually gave us a mini calling in the branch.  We can´t have callings because our callings are being full-time missionaries, but it´s an assignment.  He called us into his office on Sunday and said that he and his counselors have been praying and they think that we are the right people for the job.  We get to teach temple preparation classes.  I´m way excited!  It´s every Tuesday for anybody who is preparing to enter the temple for the first time.  He called and asked President Callan for permission, and got the green light.  We start today at 5, so I´m excited for that :).
 

Let's See What These People Can Do!

11 months down today!  1 more month and I´m on the downhill slope!

We are starting to see some enthusiasm and excitement from the members here in Guarambaré.  It´s about time!  We´ve been working so hard to get these people going, and finally they´re getting their tails into gear.  Things should be picking up here soon.  The church here is a rented out house, but across the street the church has land where they want to build a big chapel, but there´s some requirements we have to meet first.  We have a weekly attendance at church of about 35 people.  By November, we need to have 70.  If we can accomplish that, they won´t sell the land and will start building the big chapel.  Let´s see what these people (and us) can do!