Week 16 - Week, um, 9?

This is Tañarandy (TAN-yuh-ran-DO). Every Easter they 

put up some giant portrait of the life of Christ, but with a fun catch.

Eh, Who's counting anyways... This week was General Conference, and also marks my trainer's final 6 months. Turns out Elder Thorpe gets to watch the next conference, and then jump on a plane back home. He's less than excited. I don't blame him though, he's had a lot of good experiences and he really loves the people here. I'm sure I will to.

Things that happened this week. Lot's of walking. However for the first time in a long while, we managed to receive a reference from somebody. Not only that, but we also contacted her in the same week! That made our numbers look really good. Her name is Cyntia, and she's great. She's a single mother with two kids, one 7 and one 2 or 3. She didn't have a whole lot of interest in religion to start with, but because her daughter is brilliant, loves reading, and wants to study the bible, she asked her friend to recommend a good church (she's not a fan of the Catholic church she was raised in). Miraculously she decided to ask an old investigator who thinks very highly of our church, but was dropped due to a lack of progress. Cyntia seemed rather interested and so we'll see how she progresses in the next few weeks.

Week 15 - He is Risen

We have had such a long week. To think that 8 days ago was the district conference in Pilar blows my mind. Unfortunately long weeks result from people not being home when they say they will. Which happened a lot this last week. On the bright side, my calves look fantastic! haha chiste no mas

However everytime we manage to find people to teach, we tell them about General Conference! We will be watching conference in our chapel via internet, and we have invited everyone we meet to watch it with us. Our session will start at 12:00 because we just had daylight savings time, and now we're only 2 hours ahead!

Thank you everyone who sent me birthday wishes this past week. It was really nice to read them today. To celebrate, Elder Thorpe and I baked a coconut cake, and tried to make vanilla frosting.

Easter - #Hallelujah

This is the message Elder Scott has been sharing this week.  While we had placed links to the video within the text of his letter, I felt it needed to be shared as its own post on his blog.  Please watch, and share the message of Easter and why we say #Hallelujah.

Week 14 - #Aleluya

This was the scenery during the bus ride to Pilar this week.

So this week marks the start of the Semana Santa, or the holy week leading up to the resurrection of Christ. This is the week when everyone actually attends the churches they say they do. They also make a lot of Chipa, which is a breadstick made with Mandioka starch and Queso Paraguayo. It tastes fantastic. As a missionary I will not be joining in the festivities of making Chipa, (though I may join in the eating part) but instead will be handing out Pass-along cards to promote the #aleluya video for easter.

This past week has been rather busy, again with us being unable to find people and doing a lot of contacting. However Wednesday we had a great lesson with the active wife of a less active member who live 40 minutes outside of town, and for that we don´t visit them much. However, they were home in the morning so we visited and talked about the temple and how they could prepare to be sealed. She seemed really excited, and greatly desired to receive those blessings, so hopefully she can animate her husband a little.

Week 13 - Miracles in San Ignacio #MilagrosEnSanIgnacio

"Today was a rough day for numbers. It almost seems like we can have either good numbers or we can have miracles. Well, today we had miracles" -My Journal

 



Wedding Day

Let´s start off this email with the events that transpired monday night. Gregorio´s papers went through! He had to ask the help of a couple different people, but by the end of the day he got it all taken care of. Now he only has to wait 48 hours before setting a time with a judge.

 

Wednesday was the day from which that quote is taken. We have an investigator named Zuni who has been making a bit of progress these last few weeks.

Week 12 - Transfer Week

View of San Ignacio from our roof.

This week starts off our transfers! One down, 1.8 years to go. Luckily my trainer and I are staying here, but one of our hermanas is being transfered to Argentina. I´m really glad I get to remain here in San Ignacio, because I love these people. I haven't had a lot of luck with investigators lately, but there have been some great miracles here these last 7 days.

 

First off, our small and insignificant one. The other day we were walking through Soreños, which is not our normal store, and we happened upon Worchestershire sauce! Elder Thorpe says that in all his misison he's never seen it. Not even in the largest stores in Encarnacion...

Week 11 - Clean Sweep

Let's start with the awesome news:
Elder Bednar did a training with around 8,000 missionaries in the South America South area. He was in Buenos Aires, and it was being broadcast all over Argentina, Chile, and Paraguay I think. He talked a lot about being an Agent and not an Object, and how we can help our investigators act as agents in their conversion. He also talked a lot about what it means to have faith. He shared the story of Israel crossing the river Jordan. They were told that the water would heap up to either side, and instead of waiting on the shore for that to happen, they walked into the river and hoped God would follow through. They had to walk the entire river in 6 or so inches of water, but as they looked back, they could see the water doing exactly as promised. Nothing happens until we get our feet wet. Until we take those first few steps. Even then, we don't get all understanding at once, but we have just enough understanding to take the next leap of faith, and only looking backwards can we see our spiritual progress.