Week 98

Robert Heyn. If you don't know who he is, look him up! He's in the general mesa directiva of the young men presidency of the Church.

This week, we did something a little different. Saturday morning, we just decided to animate the zone a little, and we sent a message telling them to invite as many people as they could to church the next day, and then we'd see how many we could do as a zone. We did 138 invitations. Pretty good.

Well, the most exciting one happened at about 8:30 at night. We just had a few plans fall through, and decided to go house to house, with the purpose of inviting, not really having a lesson. In one house, we learned that the lady is from Asuncion, and that her niece got married in the temple last week. Wow! Thats pretty cool. We didn't share anything, but w'ell go back. We went to their next door neighbors, and some old guy opened the door, and smiled, and ran up to the gate, opened it, and said "come in!"

Well, we had just walked in on 2 old guys just sitting around the coffee table, chatting. They lived in a very nice house for Paraguay. One of them told us "my brother is the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!" Wow. I thought this guy was smoking something. And I was even less convinced when he said his name. Robert Heyn. Nope. I definitely don't know him. Well I still wasn't sure, but he showed us pictures, he lives in Utah, and even this guy had gone to visit him once, and knew the temple, and went to Park City. Okay... maybe a little more legit. We had a very solid lesson about the Book of Mormon. They're both retired, and it's hard for them to learn, but they're both currently not going to church and they love reading. So I've got some hope. Robert Heyn's brother lives in Asuncion, and was only visiting for Saturday, and our new friend was going to take him back home. So they declined our invitation, but they said that in the future they will attend again.

I just barely looked up Robert Heyn, and, yes, he DOES exist. I contacted his brother!

Another great experience was that the family Roman passed their baptismal interview. They travelled to Asuncion yesterday, and promised that they'd attend there. But they're very excited, and should be baptized on Saturday. They are two very successful people that love reading the book of Mormon and should contribute to the church a lot here in Rama 6.

Another great experience from the invitation experiment came from a man that we already knew. A few weeks ago, I bought a pair of cleats so that I could run sprints at the park. It's the greatest. Anyway, on Saturday, we walked passed the shoe store, and saw the guy in there, and decided to invite him to Church. He's active in the Evangelical Church. But he said, "ask my wife! If she says yes, then well go." so we asked his wife.

First thing that comes out of her mouth, "what is different about your church from the other churches?" GREAT question! So we almost had lesson one right there. We left her with a Book of Mormon, and she said that she is very interested, and the Spirit was strong, and it was awesome. They're 23 and 24. They have 2 kids, and got MARRIED 5 years ago. They will contribute to the church a lot once they're baptized.

We had consejo this week. I had to stand up  the whole night in the bus on the 6 hour red eye again. Love it.

Elder Christensen

Week 97

Well, this week was great. The cyber broke down, and I don't really have much time to write.

I'm sending some dam pictures finally.

We had a lot of American interaction this week. On Wednesday, we were eating lunch with our Elders Quorum president. And we started talking about music. His favorite band is Creedence Clearwater Revival. haha he pulled out his laptop and played a couple songs. We shut it down after about 5 minutes. I just about cried. It's such good music....

Then we were standing in the super market, and this big white dude walked up to us, and asked us if we were from the states. YES! He's from Texas. His wife is Paraguayan, and he's visiting her family. How fun.

I've had a lot of people try to bible bash us recently. I really do everything I can to not fight back. We try to empathize the importance of just praying, and we try and answer their questions, but after about 10 minutes of aggression, I just get pumped, and I whip out the bible, and I say in my mind "you wanna go? We can go!" Anyway, once they get a better argument than "you don't worship the Virgin Mary or statues" or "the Book of Mormon isn't true, because there are many books written in it, and it should be 'books of mormon'", I don't think I'll ever lose the faith. But we DO NOT bash other churches. We just defend our doctrine. And the best thing is that every time we stay calm, and don't look like idiots, I can just feel the Spirit testify that our message is true.

Then I sing my favorite hymn, "True to the Faith."

Have a great day, and may the bible bashers ever stay out of your path.

Elder Christensen

Week 96

It's slurpee day!

Well a lot of great stuff happened this week.

One little tender mercy that happened was that we were walking down the street, and we heard a woman say "Oh! And now two elders are walking down the street right in front of me!" So we turned back, and saw that she was on SKYPE! We started talking to her! She was SKYPING her in-laws that live in Spain! And guess what? They are very active members! She actually attended the church several times when she lived with them there! The lady over Skype asked "Are the elders visiting you?" and I responded "we are now!" We didn't share anything, but we will be back!

Another great thing was that we found a family a couple weeks ago, and they have read the Book of Mormon, they have family members who are members (they even have a Bible from the church! It was quite a surprise to see them pull out the Church`s Holy Bible when we asked if we could share a scripture with them!), but they haven't really asked if the Book of Mormon was true. But this week, the 14 year old son did. And received an answer! As we were walking to church yesterday, guess who came up behind us and walked the rest of the way with us to church? HIM! Awesome. He will progress. He should be baptized in August.

The third great story is that on Saturday night at 8:30, we were just kinda looking for something to do, and we contacted a few houses, it was pretty discouraging, no members were home or awake, and we were kind of scraping the bottom of the barrell looking for stuff to do. We contacted one house, and a lady and her husband left, and said that they had always talked with the missionaries there at their gate, but that they had never shared with them before. Well why not?! They didn't know, and they let us pass! hahaha

We just immediately started talking about the family and the church, and  the dad asked "Is there a pastor in your church that can pray for me?" we said "Well... we can give you a blessing, if you want. We are authorized to do so." He said "Awesome." So we went and gave him a blessing. It was one of the most spiritual experiences of my mission. He said that he just had attacks of depression that had just started, and didn't know what it was.

Well, after the blessing, we just kinda sat there in silence for probably 60 seconds and he explained that he had had this depression for a while now, and his catholic priest told him that it was because his neighbors were doing voodoo on him, and that nothing could be done. He expressed a lot of worry to his wife, and never really got better. He was quite worried. Well, he said that he was looking for some possible way to get comfort, when we showed up at his door. When his wife saw us, she said "Here comes your salvation!"

Well, they didn't go to church yesterday, but the hermano said that he was going to, no matter what, do everything that we told him to do because of the peace that he had felt after receiving the blessing.

Great week.

By the way, changes came, and nothing is happening! I'm going to finish here in Rama 6 with Elder Pettit!

Elder Christensen

Week 95

Well it was a pretty good week. I feel like I was just barely in this cyber, writing.

For my birthday we met the new mission president! Presidente Svec. He's from Chile. He's short and fat and a pretty spiritual dude. He was in Bountiful a couple months ago for his job. He worked for the seminaries and institutes of the Church. Pretty awesome.

Yanina, the girl who now is in Jacob in the Book of Mormon after 2.5 weeks fasted with us yesterday! That was pretty awesome! She's progressing. She doesn't really want to be baptized, but she just barely read 2 Nephi 31, and were going to hash that out pretty hard in our lesson tomorrow. Well see what she says...

Also the family Roman came to church yesterday! It was the mom's first time coming to church! The hermano is already to be baptized, but he wants to get baptized with his wife, so they're going to wait a couple more weeks in order for her to come. So were pretty excited about that.

... I took a lot of pictures, but the lady that owns these computers always complains about how many viruses are on them, so I think I'll hold off on plugging my camera in...

We're going to a dam today. That'll be fun

Elder Christensen