Week 101

Mom!

Sealy!

Map of the Ciudad Del Este 6th Branch

Me, Elder Pettit, Sister Rigtrup and Quintanilla at leadership council.

They were great sisters to have in the zone.

President LaPierre with all the sisters in his last consejo.

I was very lucky to see Elder Baskin every month.

This is your average Paraguayan bus. Yes, those are wooden floors. Most of the time, you could see through the cracks or holes onto the pavement beneath.

Me and Elder Bezzant

We went to the temple for tramites.

Elder Pettit made a killer apple pie.

Maple syrup is a rarity in South America, so we were VERY happy to have some.

The last time I would be seeing President and Sister LaPierre in the mission. This happened at my last zone conference.

First time meeting President and Sister Svec, from Rancagua, Chile.

It was my birthday, and the missionaries made me banana bread, and deep fried oreos. Great!

Me and my old companion, Elder Diaz.

We went to the baptism of this man's family in Hernandarias.

Our first time to Itaipu, and it was packed!

No other dam produces more energy than this one! "The rock that makes sound." Itaipu.

I love Shawarma.

This was in a super cramped alleyway where everyone sells just about everything you can think of.

The chapel in Hernandarias.

The photo of their district. It was kind of candid, and it makes me laugh how unhappy everyone looks haha. We were happy, trust me.

Our landlord had a big German Shepard named Felipe. He was very well behaved and he rocked.

We had divisions with the Elders of CDE 4. Elder Gardiner had a very bad lung infection and had to do this therapy every couple of days for a few weeks. What a great guy. One of the funniest missionaries ever.

Ciudad del Este downtown, from our apartment.

Downtown Foz do Iguacu, Brazil, from our apartment

The sign for this car wash had a CX7.

Family Dure. They are great.

Typical Rice and beans from Brazil. Along with some random stir fry.

Elder Britez. We came to the mission together.

We went on a technical tour of Itaipu. Best decision of my life.

Looking into the twin cities. Ciudad del Este and Foz do Iguacu.

A look into the bowels of Itaipu.

We made a lot of dam jokes and Star Wars references.

Beautiful view of the Itaipu reservoir from the dam.

Downtown Ciudad del Este. Not the cleanest city!

You can't serve God and the Papaya (Papaya is called Mammon in Paraguay)

Rice with a meat sauce. Made this a lot.

Me and Hernan Castellano with the bridge of friendship in the background. To cross into Brazil, they don't even check for a passport, you don't have to stop.

Hernan went on splits with us a lot. We treated him to some street food every now and then.

Oh, Foz, oh, Foz! Cuantas ves os hubiera juntado como la gallina junta sus polluelos, y no quisisteis!

Monday Falls.

Monday. Pronounced "mon- da- uh"

Elder Baskin with me at my last consejo.

Sister Barragan from Colombia was great, and so were Elder Hidalgo from Argentina and Sister Santos from Brazil. Me and sister Santos were born on the same day.

Me, sister Cannon, and Sister Johnson all were going to go home together.

I invested $10 in a pair of knock off Nike cleats, and Elder Pettit would go with me to the local soccer field where I would run sprints.

Hammocks were very popular amongst the Paraguayans.

Typical spread for lunch. They love fresh juice in Paraguay.

3rd Branch chapel.

Food you'd find in our fridge. Look how clean we kept it!

Me and Elder Ferner from Brazil and Monday falls again.

Elder Pettit finished a year when he was with me! We burned my grossest shirt.

This was a great moment. The baptism of the Family Roman.

Luis. Elder Baskin found and taught him. He still loved coming to all the branch activities.

We would often find Luis and Ricky reading the Book of Mormon together outside of Luis' house. It was quite a sight to see.

My fondness for dogs grew tenfold with this little guy. He is the only dog that bit me. When I told the nurse she said "If its not dead in 10 days, then you don't have rabies. If it dies within 10 days, then you probably have rabies and we'll take care of it." I never had rabies.

My last time entering the key indicators.

This is the only waffle I ever ate. it was wonderful.

My last district meeting.

This donkey did not look good. Elder Pettit, however, looked very good.

Ricky's house. I just love the placement. I thought it was so cool.

My last time leaving the pension.

My last day, I went on divisions with Elder Baskin and Elder Carson.

This walkway was very long.

Evil Coatis tried to steal all our food. They crawl up your legs and bite and scratch.

Iguazu was so beautiful

Last night in the mission home. As you can tell, I was the tallest one there by a large margin. All of the missionaries going home were gringos. Me, Elder Arevalo from Lindon, President Svec, Then Elder Ah Quin from St George, Elder Johnson from Twin Falls, Idaho. Sister Johnson from Twin Falls, Idaho, Sister Svec, Sister Ehlert from Alpine, and Sister Cannon from Park City.

Selfie with the airplane that took us out of Posadas.

Stadium of the famous soccer team, River Plate.

Buenos Aires Temple is right off the freeway, very close to the airport.

In the airplane. Me, sister Ehlert, and Sister Cannon.

Hello.

Well, as it turns out, ill be going to Iguazu NEXT week.

Yes. The Family Roman finally got baptized. It was a great experience. I won't send pictures, but you can imagine it if you want. Those people are going to do many great things. The Sister`s brother-in-law is a stake president in Asuncion, and gave a talk about Japanese Bamboo. He said that when you plant a seed for Japanese Bamboo, it doesn't sprout upward for 7 years. He said that a farmer has to have an incredible amount of faith to go back often to the same spot of ground and water it and keep it up for 7 years without seeing any signs of growth. But once it does sprout, within a couple of weeks, it can grow 30 meters tall. What does the seed do those 7 years? it just builds roots deep enough to support 30 meters worth of bamboo.

He compared this to the family Roman. The sister was living with her aunt and sisters when they got baptized 41 years ago. She was 12, and never went to church, and never wanted to be baptized. But the family for 41 years kept visiting her and teaching her and her family all this time with the hopes that they would finally sprout upward. Pretty crazy. Everyone was crying. It was a great sight.

After the confirmation, we went and had a lesson with their whole family in their house. Amongst them are 1 stake president, 2 bishops, and a counsellor to the mission Paraguay Asuncion Norte. Man. Talk about intimidating haha We made everyone share about how the preisthood has helped them in thier life.It was super spiritual.

We did divisions in Presidente Franco. I will tell you one story- we were contacting, and we got to this one house, and a guy left, and was pretty nice. He quickly said that he didn't have any time, but he kept talking with us. He was very polite. Well, he asked what church we were from, and we said the Church of Jesus Christ. And he said "oh. I have a client that`s mormon..."+ and he didn't remember his name. He said that he's Indian. There are only 3 indian families here in Ciudad del Este, so I asked "Rakesh?" "no..."  "Vijay?"  "Yes! Vijay."

It kind of stunned me. This guy didn't remember his client's name, but he knew that he was a member of the church. It's a great example to me of being a light on a hill. Living proudly as a member of the Church, so that even if people don't know your name, they know you're a member.

Well... Thats it.

Hey, someone showed us the medal count for the olympics the other day. Looks like the USA is destroying everyone

Elder Emil

Week 100

Well, we decided as a zone to just invite a ton of people to church again on Saturday. It was alright. We invited like 110 people as a zone. Actually, it was awesome. As we were getting back to the apartment at night, we talked with our landlady and thought that we should invite her to church. She said she'd think about it.

As we left the house Sunday morning, her daughter told us that she was going to go with us! What?! Haha they got there 1 hour late, but got to listen to us teach Gospel Principles class and went to Relief Society! They loved it! It was awesome. She lives in New York City, and comes down a couple times a year, but were gonna see if she can start to investigate the church there in NYC!

One of our investigators, Orlando, has now gone to church 6 times. We can only teach him once a week. He works a lot. Hes' the boyfriend of a member here. They have separate houses, and we decided to teach the Law of Chastity last night! And guess which law they haven't been keeping!

We were just talking about the blessings that come from keeping the law of Chastity, and the member said "exaltation." wow. That's totally true. We explained temples, and families eternals. It was a pretty good lesson. I'm not sure if he's convinced, but I'm pretty sure I am. Chastity.

Elder Christensen

ps I'm going to Iguazu Falls next week!

Week 99

I'll just share a quick experience. Maybe 2. A couple funny things happened this week.

First, one of our progressing investigators is a 14 year old kid. He read 12 chapters in the Book of Mormon very quickly. Went to church, prayed, and received a testimony. We were going crazy. Then he stopped reading. And stopped going to our church. Started going to the Evangelical church. And then started hearing a bunch of anti-doctrine. One of the funniest things I have ever heard was when he said that the Book of Mormon doesn't testify of Jesus Christ. Just His prophets. What? He said that if you opened up the Bible to a random scripture, is testifies DIRECTLY of Christ, while the Book of Mormon doesn't. Alright. So he showed us proof. And we got a battle between Exodos 8:1-2 verses Mosiah 3:19 hahaha you should read those two verses. Mosiah 3:19 is one of the best verses of scripture ever written, vs the Lord telling Pharoah that theres going to be a plague of frogs. I thought it was BLUNTLY obvious which scripture had more spiritual firepower, but you can imagine my surprise as this kid tried to talk his way out of it. He still denies that the Book of Mormon testifies of Christ, and claimed that the scripture in Exodus 8 is more important for us today than Mosiah 3:19. We won't be visiting him for much longer.

Then yesterday, we were contacting, and we ran into a prophetess! Oh my goodness! She just randomly started prophesying about us! She said that I'm going to be a surgeon and that my first surgery I perform will be a heart transplant, and then she prophesied about Elder Pettit. Apparently, he has fallen in love with a girl recently, and he should follow those feelings! But, he's also apparently not sure if he wants to go study in college or not, and that he should go. But when he goes, he´ll meet a new friend. This new friend is very popular. But he's bad news. He's not popular for the right reasons. He should stay away from him.

It was quite hard to hold in laughter when she said that he had fallen in love, and started asking him "what's her name?! Tell me! Whats her name?!´´ haha she kept pestering him about his imaginary girlfriend

Well the Family Roman is doing great. We just ate lunch with them, and they will get baptized on the 13th. Their family was traveling last week and this weekend, so they can't get baptized until then... whatever. But it's probably better that way. They said "we've delayed it too long, but if they can't come on the 13th, we'll send them a picture." Yes. There we go. So it looks like my second to last week, I should be seeing a family get baptized. A nice little going home present from the Lord.

I've been studying the Millenium lately. Another one of Fernando's anti-doctrine that he had heard was that the missionaries don't understand what will happen at the Millenium. That's partly true. So I started studying the socks off of it, and it's quite interesting!

Elder Christensen

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