Week 51

Como vai voce?

Well probably the coolest thing that happened this week was that we picked up a new investigator, started talking to him,  then i looked to the side of his house, and saw a VERY familiar car. it was a 1994 Mazda 626!! haha if you dont remember, that was the car that i drove oh so often. I asked if i could take some pictures of it, and he said it was okay. it was terrific. Blast from the past. There are 3 mazdas in all of Salto, apparently. Mazda is not a very big car company here.

That, of course is NOT the coolest thing this week. Fanny recieved an answer that the church is true! She said that after reading and praying, she just feels like everything that she is reading is true! We talked about baptism, and i shared mosiah 18 8, and she siad that she had already read that scripture and liked it a lot. it was terrific. She will be baptized in a couple of weeks. She is terrific.

I have had an uncurable cold all this week. well, for almost 2 weeks. Ive been taking pills,a nd it just was not getting better. Then on friday, i woke up, and it felt like my face had gotten hit by a truck. I was in so much pain. My FACE hurt so bad! It was one of the funniest things ever. I litterally woke up, and siad ´´my face KILLS!´´ So thanks to the face pain symptom, we discovered that i actually have a sinus infection. And i started taking antibiotics and after 24 hours the pain went away and all of my cold like symptoms and now im better again. Who knew?

Theres this one venezuelan man that lives really close to our house that always yells at us in english. just funny stuff like ´´hey man hows it goin?? Keep it real! Chill out!´´ We always just yell back and its funny. We finally decided to talk with him. He lived in England for a long time, and learned english there. Hes very wealthy, and Changes chruches all the time, but is always very active in whichever chruch hes apart of. We taught himabout the book of Mormon, and he was very interested. Hes super funny, and smart, and understood. I will tell you if he ends up being another Fanny.

I love you too much

Elder Christensen

Week 50

Hello.

Well Fanny is still the best person on the planet if you were wondering. Shes now in Mosiah in the Book of Mormon, has read at least half of the General Conference edition of the Ensign magazine, and asked us what the best book about Joseph Smith was. And weve only had 3 lessons with her! Even in the class of Gospel Principles, she usually participates and asks more questions than anyone else.

She said that she wanted to go to our Branch Night activity (we didnt even remember to invite her, she just heard it announced during sacrament meeting) but her mom wouldnt let her because it was too dark outside. BUT, shes still looking for an answer that the chruch is true. She says that every time she has doubts, she starts reading general conference talks, and feels much better, though. We feel like thats good enough haha. We talked to her about baptism, and she said that shes going to wait for her answer. Well.... Ill tell you what happens.

I got way sick this week, so not much happened. Just got a fever and body aches and a cough. And Elder Hutchison has had a cough for almost 2 weeks, and stays up until about 3 coughing very hard every night. All this week. We havent slept much.. Weve both taken every legal drug known to man, but nothing much has helped. Were still pretty hechos percha. But just with dang coughs.

The most entertaining thing that happened this week was that we found someone that has pet monkeys, and that a naked 6 year old chubby boy tried to sit on my lap.

Have a nice day.

Elder Emil

Week 49

Hey man

Well this just about sums up the week-

Elder Hutchison bought a basketball, and now we run 2 miles every morning to the closest court, and play. It requires us waking up 30 minutes early. its awesome

our branch had a service project at a local elementary school. They invited us to go. we went, and then when we got there, no one else was there. So we called a few people, and they said they werent going, so we ened up doing home.... yeah.

The other missionaries told us that some members are accusing me and elder hutchison of not working. wow. i think thats the first time in my life i have ever gotten accused of NOT working. i always thought that my work ethic was one of my biggest characteristics. So we will continue working. its pretty much just because none of our investigators have come to church in a long time. but we call them on sunday morning, we pass by their houses, and they choose not to come. but... whatever.

one of the missionaries in our branch had to stay with us for 5 days this week. hes been in the mission for 2 months. super new. and all the days, he was giving us advice. most of his advice began with ´´at the beginning of my mission, i did this.... now i do this...´´ and i would just laugh to myself. I learned that i still have some issues of getting frustrated with people. So ill tell you if i ever fix that.

and lastly...

There's this 18 year old girl who lives right next to us. She always says hi to us, and we always say hi to her. its super awkward. shes always just sitting on her doorstep... anyway. it was 8 oclock at night. we had to go to the house because e hutchison had to take some medication, and we saw her just sitting there. we passed her, went to one of our appointments. the people werent there. I was down for just buying a pizza, but my comp said ´´no lets go and talk to our neighbor girl.´´ i had the same impression, but my stomach was ignoring it.

So we went. we just walked up and asked ´´´can we share something?´´ she said yes,a nd went and broght out some chairs. we started talking, and she was super cool. just this 18 year old girl whos really outgoing, but super chill, just talking to us about college, and what not. we were just breaking the ice. she was easy to talk to.

she asked us if we had learned any guarani, and i said yes. how? i sAID THAT  i was studying out of the book of mormon in guarani. I said, yes, we have a nother book of scripture. she said ´´yeah, i know about the book of mormon´´ oh really? what do you know? she siad that she had just read the title page, and learned a bit. She siad that she hadd alwyas been interested in learning about religions, and had always looked up stuff on the internet to find stuff out.

she said that she knew that the book of mormon had other books, like the bible. she siad ´´Nephi... theres 4 of them, right? and jacob... and alma....´´ then she pulled out her phone, and pretty much immediately said ´´omni, words of mormon, mosiah, alma, heleman´´ what??? haha we asked her what she was using to look up the books so fast. she hid her phone. we pressured her. she showed us. SHE HAD THE BOOK OF MORMON APP ON HER PHONE. DOWNLOADED.

Fanny then told us that she was now in jacob 4!!

We asked her how long ago she started reading. 1 month ago!! she said that she had read almost every day

background- the elders have lived in this apartment for almost 5 years, and she had lived in her apartment for more than 1 year. And she said that no elder has ever said anything more than ´´hi´´ to her.

what... it was so suprising. She said that she really likes it. We told her to ask any question she had. yes ´´what is the Atonement?´´ was her fIRST question haha we explained it a bit. Then she asked about the really pretty building we had. The salt lake temple. yes. She said that was it. then she said ´´you guys just had general conference, didnt you?´´ YES. She siad that she really liked what Thomas S Monson said. she said that hes really wise. She also said that shes read a few talks frmo Elder Bednar, and says that she really likes what he says, too.

we were so stunned. Then she asked us if we knew that L Tom Perrry had died. Then she told us that it was okay because they were going to choose a new apostle in the next conference in october.

we walked 2 steps to our pension, and lended her our ensign magazine that has all the conference talks in it.

She told us that she had watched Gods Army. The mormon movie. And liked it... We invited her to church after talking about the book of mormon and the modern day prophets a bit more, and she said that she would love to come. we shook her hand, thanked her then left.

we got to the house and just started crying.

she walked to church yesterday with us and really enjoyed it. She even explained to some of our other investigators the differences between gospel doctrine and gospel principles classes.... 

I am so grateful that God loves us.

Elder Christensen

Week 48

Transfers came and im staying in salto. With elder hutchison. What luck.

AND 2 new missionariaes are coming to the zone. And theyre BOTH Brazillian!! vamos a falar!!

Well... Great week this week. We got a call from the hermanas this week, and their investigator that was going to be baptized on saturday is 17, and HADNT told her parents yet that she was going to be baptized. she lives with her aunt, and her parents are pretty anti mormon people. Well... so we decided to do a fast for her. This was thursday, and she was supposed to be baptized on saturday.

so we called the whole zone and started to do a fast so that she would be baptized. The next day, we got a call. And the hermanas told us a little bit of great news.

That they had brought up the challenge with her and her aunt, and then her aunt told them that she was technically this girls legal guardian and has the legal ability to sign documents in behaf of her. What in the world. In paraguay, too! So that was great. Our fast was answered, and  she was baptized on saturday.

another fun story.

we were just about to end our fast on friday haha by eating some of our favorite lomitos, and then this black brazillian man came up to us and started speaking to us in portugese. we did not understand anything, but it was very apparent that he wanted us to give him food, because he kept saying thaat he was hungry and wanted us to help him out (ok so maybe we DID understand a lot of what he was saying). We sat there for a moment and talked aobut it. We didnt want to give him any money, so we decided to buy him a lomito.

we went there and ate a lomito with him and practiced our portugese. His name was a very random brazillian name, and he has 12 sibblings... thats about all the portugese we know haha as we finished eating he thanked us a ton and left.

well it was good to help him out.

The next day, we had a zone meeting, and one of the elders in our ozne made a cake. And there were stilla couple of pieces left that we sdidnt want... but we had to take it. So we were awkwardly transporting this cake through the city going back to the pension where we were planning on just giving it to a member, when the SAME brazillian man came up behind us and started talking to us again. We offered him the cake, and he took it and left haha what a lifesaver!

well my testimony grew this week. Procelyting is awesome. i love you all with all my giant lion heart.

elder emil

Week 47

There are a lot of Brasilians that come over from the border to buy american stuff at the shopping malls here in Paraguay. I bet you didnt see that coming! But really. Theres almost more Portuguese spoken here than anything else. And its Paraguay, so everyone speaks Guarani. theres almost no Spanish. Just kiddint. Theres still a lot of Spanish.

If you dont remember, i am studying guarani, and Elder Hutchison is studying Portugesse. So that way, we know all 3 languages, and can communicate with EVERYONE as a companionship.

Well, I said something like ``the other elders have been stealing our miracles`` last week. And then a lot of cool things started happening.  A Few appointments we had fell through. So we decided to bury our feelings in food and went to buy burgers from this place that one of our investigators works at. We saw him there, talked with him for a little bit, then a bunch of brasillians walked in and sat down. One of them turned to us and asked ``so where are you guys from?``

Well, turns out last year he moved back to Brazil. He lived in Lexington, Kentucky, for 12 years working at a gas station iwth a bunch of other Brazillians. So we just talked in Englsih because he doesnt speak spanish, and we dont speak portugese.. Turns out one of his best friends in the states is a returned missionary, and he has listened to the charlas before. We talked a little about the church, and that. We talked for a while. He bought our burgers and he bought uys a  coke! it was the greatest. As we were going to leave, Elder Hutchison reached into his baag and pulled out a restoration pamphlet.... in PORTUGUESE!! haha it was the greattest. We NEVER carry around Portuguese stuff. He said that he put it in that day `just incase he had a portugeuse question`` so that was cool.

WE also contacted this one house, and the husband was out back, working, and pointed us to go up front. We turned around, and his wife was getting out of a hammock, ready to listen to us. Pretty much the first thing out of her mouth was ``im just looking for the perfect church. I keep going to a bunch of different ones, but i dont really like them...``` wow. Thats terrific. We invited her to church the next day, and she said ``oh! my daughter is friends with one of the members there, and has gone a few times. She says she likes it!``

Well she came to church, and LOVED it. Plus, one of the members here works with her husband, and she siad that she was very happy to ``finally have gone to this hermano`s chruch`` and she said that she fels very comfortable.

Well it was a great week. Im in Posadas right now, and wont be back until thurshday, but ill tell you how it goes with her,

Have a wonderful day

Elder Emil

One is of us in a taxi coming back to salto from Puente Kyjha

and the other is me waiting for my delectible Lomito sandwich. You can see the delicious meat spinning around on the tasty skewer in the yummy background.

Week 46

Hey gang

Well... without a doubt we just had the funnest zone activity that i have ever don in my entire life. Kickball!! we have a tiny zone, it was only 5 on 5, but we played at the church, and it was finally fun to play a sport again. I did horrible. I probably had 4 errors in the field, but i went 4 for 4, with 3 RBIs, and 3 runs scored, and 3 doubles. we ended up tying 10 to 10 after 2 innings. We were all incredibly unathletic.

Well. this week was super difficult. We focussed last week on contacting a bunch of new people, and we hoping that all would progress and show something cool... but pretty much all of our scheduled things fell through. It was super difficult. we had a ton of citas fall through, and we had a lot of problems with people not wanting to continue, and all that jazz. super depressing. we definitely felt the Spirit in the lessons, and got to know them pretty well, but we left, and they.... didnt do anything. So, of course theyre not just going to all of a sudden think that its true.

But we continue. Were working with the members, were obedient, and we work hard. Plus, ive started doing my worthwhile bodyweight circuits again. So Im sore a lot again. Thus... i am happy.

The other elders here in salto are having a TON of success. Last week, some one got baptized. a young couple that look like they will build the branch here in salto. Plus they found a gfamly who came to the baptism, and asked them ´´what do we need to do to be bapitzded??´´. and they thought that asssisting church and reading the book of mormon was reasonable. and they have followed through. Another young family. AWESOME. PLus, on 2 different occasions, they were walking down the street, and someone called them over. They went. And they were a menos activo woman whos husband wanted to get baptized. They both came to church on sunday. What in the world.... so many miracles. They seem to be stealing all of our miracles haha

well.... ive started studying guarani a lot. I can now pray and form sentences and i understand about as muchh guarani right now as i did spanish 10 months ago. che ndaikatui ñe´´é guaranipe

I heard it was rileys farewell talk yesterday and that she rocked it!! you go girl! I also talked in chruch yesterday. We are SO connected.

I love you all. Sorry i dont have pictures.

Elder Emil

Week 45

Well it was a cool week this week.

Mostly because it was full of divisions. One place, in katuete, we went, and contacted all day. how enjoyable. One of the houses we contacted, a brazillian woman came out and accepted us easily. We talked about her family, and all that fun stuff,a nd then she started totally opening up to us. She has started having alot of problems with her boyfriend and kids, and she said that she had just been really hoping that someone would come and talk to her. she started crying, and we shared just about Christ, and about the importance of families. She said that she was so greatful that we passed by and that she was seriously praying for someone to come along. so well see where that goes. It was cool.

Then we went to Puente Kyjha. There... idont remember what happèned really. But the elders were having some big problems. we just told them to focus on waking up at 630 every morning. We call them to veryfiy if theyve woken up, and then the rest of the day is in their hands. They just barely told us that they had been doing it.

And they have started doing companionship study for the first time in their 8 weeks together. They achieved the normas of exelencia for new investigators, and they said that they dont hate each other anymore. So thats cool. I love obedience. Even the most simplest thing goes a long way.

on sunday, at 11 oclock, we went to take a bus to asuncion. i had to do tramites again. We got there at 12 in the afternoon, and went to the temple. the red eye bus ride is not a fun bus ride, let me tell you. but the temple ROCKS!!! We even saw my first gringoes. They were both from provo. And return missionaries. twas cool. Then we got back at 11 last night. Thus, i couldnt write until today. I took some pictures at the temple, but i was pretty hecho percha, so im not sure if i will send them to you, because i still have a LITTLE pride in my heart, and i really look quite hideous.

I love the gospel. I love you all. I really wish the best for you

Elder Emil