PICTURES!

On the side of the bus you will see "Orgullo de ser misionero".  Translation: Proud to be a missionary.

With Elder Christiansen

Trevor intently reading a manual.  

Heres some pictures for you! They're all from when I was in Posadas, or in the apartment.

Week 85

Well I figured I might just give you another story. Life is great.

We were walking around looking for another contact we had received. We knew the general area, and were just going house to house looking for them (funny story- one time, we got to a house, and the lady immediately left and said "I'm Jehovah's Witness, I don't want to talk with you, I'm very happy in my own religion." That's fine, whatever. But I asked "Thats fine. We're looking for Eduardo and Mara." She responded with ´´YOU'RE looking for Eduardo and Mara, but I'M looking for Jehovah!" ... and then never told us where they lived.... Sometimes, people just make it so hard for us to love them).

Anyway, we talked with this pretty cool dude. His name is Hugo. He has a mustache. So immediately we wanted to talk with him. He said we should pass by later. So we did. Last week. It was a pretty great lesson. We went with a member who lives close by, and we basically just talked about family. Great. We left the Restoration pamphlet to read.

We went back. They read up until Christ's ministry. Great. By the way, we left with a young man from the ward this lesson, and we let HIM explain the Joseph Smith story. Super powerful. It was awesome. We left soon after.

We went back a couple days later. Saturday. With another member. And she immediately started telling us that she had recently left her church. She didn't feel comfortable. And started praying to find another church to go to, and that someone would come to explain the gospel to them. The next day, we showed up to her house after talking with Hugo. She also said that their family had started talking about the Restoration right after they left, and they talked about how it was an answer to their prayers and that it was, indeed, from God.

It was a great experience. I love it. They didn't come to church yesterday, though. They thought that the meetings started at 9 PM instead of 9 AM... poop.

Another uplifting story...

We were walking down the street going to an investigators house. I saw a woman sitting on her porch with her kid. As we walked past, I heard myself reading out loud in Preach My Gospel "talk with everyone." ... crap.... so I could only bear the guilt for about 10 steps, then I told Elder Christiansen that we had to turn back. ]We went and taught her and her husband about the Book of Mormon. Then left

We went back on Friday. She said that She had moved there recently. She's Lutheran, but the chapel was really far away. She went with her husband to an evangelical church, and left feeling more confused. so she said that she prayed and started reading the bible. She said that she was praying so that she would know the correct church to go to. 2 days later, we walked past their house, and I felt the impression that we had to talk with her. We taught her about the restoration, and she said that she has doubts, but she's willing to see whats up.

It was a great week. We just had interviews with president LaPierre. It was sad because its the last interview that ill have with him... He's such an inspired man, its crazy.

Elder Christensen

Turns out, my memory card didn't work... so I had to use a new one...

Here's me and Elder Christiansen showing some school pride!

Week 84

We just got changes! And me and Elder Christiansen are staying together! woohoo! looks like I'll have even more time to reminisce about Woods Cross!

Well this week was probably my most successful week, numbers wise, as a missionary; due to the fact that we found 4 new families to work with. And we taught the whole family in every visit! It was quite astounding! There are many stories (4 to be exact) about how we just happened to find them all, but I'll tell you just one.

Well, we were walking down the street looking for somebody to talk to, and we walked past an extremely pregnant woman carrying a bag of groceries. We asked if she needed help. She said no. But we felt impressed to just keep talking with her. She was pretty cool. She's younger than me and is already going to have her second child, so thats crazy, but she was pretty nice. We asked if we could pass by another day to share something. She was "busy" then. But said okay, and pointed out a house.

We passed by a day or two later, and she definitely did not live there. It was raining pretty hard, and as we were leaving the house, we saw a dude sitting down underneath a little roof thing out side his house, and we both wanted to talk with him. We did, and he immediately invited us in, and had us sit down, and we called all his 4 kids to us, and his wife and his neighbor to sit down and listen. It was great! They were way nice! We went back, and they made us chipa. It was great. Weve had a few good lessons with them. They even accepted a baptismal date!

Well, during one lesson, he asked us "do you guys believe in signs from God?" uhhh.. yes. so then he said "because the afternoon before you guys came, I was sitting on my porch with my daughters, and we saw two big pillars of light come down from the sky, and we didn't know what they were. Then you guys showed up!" He said that he thinks its a sign from God. I didn't really understand what happened, but cool!

On Saturday, we were walking down the street, and they drove past, and asked us if we wanted a ride! We said yes! So they drove us to the next lesson, and they told us that they had just filled up their van with gas so that they could go to church the next day! Sick! But they weren't there. We went back the next day, and they said that one of their neighbors got attacked that morning, and was bleeding all over the place, and they took him to the hospital, so they couldn't go to church. They even have the bloody back seat to prove it!

Crazy stuff happens to the Vasquez family!

Elder Christensen

Week 83

I got to revisit Obera! One of my old areas! It was one of Elder Christiansen's old areas, too. So we were both pretty stoked. We had a leadership meeting there with our zone. I took pictures and everything, but I'm pretty sure that my camera is extremely fake. Thats what you get when you buy electronics in Paraguay! We had a lot of priesthood power in that meeting. We got stuff done!

Then we did divisions. It was pretty fun to be walkin' all those hills again. My legs were feeling it. Obera is the San Francisco of Argentina. Super pretty, too. We found a pretty cool girl. We just kind of clapped at her house, and she walked out. She was pretty interested in the gospel... she said she loves gospel music, so me and Elder Ferner sung her a hymn. I'm not the best singer. Anyway, The elder I went on divisions with is from Sao Paolo Brasil. And he showed me a picture of him with the mission president from his mission. President Farns! Whose children are Skyler and Ashlyn! Pretty crazy! Such a small world.

Another great thing that happened was that as we were walking down the street, a guy called us over, so we went. He asked us what time church started. We told him. Then he said that his wife really has heard good things about the church and wants to start attending. He gave us his address and we're going there tonight. Can't wait.

I know that the Church is true and that Christ lived and lives!

Elder Christensen

Week 82

All Star Weekend.

Boy, are those guys good or what??!!

The highlight besides going with Diana to the conference was definitely Elder Renlund`s talk. Boy, is that guy wise or what? If life were fair, Christ would have never suffered, died, or resurrected. And all of us, in turn, would never be perfected or resurrected. So I'm happy that life isn't fair... wow! what a stud!

It's also much more powerful in English. I cant wait to watch it again!

The other big news is that I got a new companion. Elder Diaz went to Encarnacion, Paraguay on emergency changes, and my new companion came from Ciudad del Este. He's going to finish his mission in 2 transfers. He's from North Salt Lake. He went to Woods Cross. We walked right next to each other at graduation. And his name is Elder Houston Christiansen. People make so much fun of us for our names haha.

I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. We get along really well.

We had a lesson with Diana last night after conference, and she pretty much bore her testimony to us, and said that she knows that she's supposed to get her family to go to church and be baptized, and she said that she now has a better outlook on the family, and wants to keep going to church and keeping the commandments. Her family is totally cool with her being baptized, but they just don't want to go. And its kind of killing her. But she's such a great example.

You're the best.

Elder Christensen

PS The computer STILL cant read my camera!