March 17, 2014 - Week 11

So this week was full of ups and downs. I had some really good moments and (I´ll be honest) some mas o menos moments (that´s like alright/not too great in Spanish--more or less). So with the familia Portillo... Good news! I don´t think that they are moving super soon! Jorge found work close by, so I think they´re staying longer! So that´s good. Plus they are progressing, so that´s good. But, Angela (the wife) and the son, Joel, won´t be able to get baptized this week like we planned, because they don´t have the money to get married yet and they have to be civily married in order to be baptized. But, we are going to keep working with them and shoot for another goal so that they can be baptized as soon as possible, because they definitely have the desire! So that was good.

Then, we have Jenny. She is doing better, I think. So, as I said in the last message, she has like some issues--like depression and fainting issues--but, we visited her like twice this last week and she seemed like she was doing pretty good. We shared some cool scriptures with her and yeah! Then, we had a really cool lesson with Sabrina. So Sabrina is a less active member and she has a problem with smoking. These last 2 weeks though she did super good! She was smoking WAY less a day and then.... BAM! We had a lesson with her on the natural man. I chose (well the spirit DEFINITELY chose) to share that with her and it was so good! She told us at the end that she didn´t smoke at all the day before and she wasn´t going to smoke that day or ever again! So we´re all like super excited for her and it was a great great and spiritual moment. I also gave her a CTR ring so she could remember to Choose the Right, or Haz la Justo, in Spanish. We´ll see how that goes! Then, we had some super good lessons with this one lady, Mabel, who has some sickness problems and depression problems. Awesome lessons! She told us that only God can help her with her problems. Not a doctor.. No one but God. She could really feel the spirit and I think that she is starting to understand that baptism is super important. We´ll see how that goes this week too!

 

So then, the mas o menos stuff. First of all, my companion had lice. She had it right before I got here, but she thought that she got it out. Nope. She has had it this whole time. So she realized that she had it still, Hermana Hunt looked through her hair and confirmed that yes, she still did. Then she found two... Not one but TWO lice bugs! Ew! It was so gross. Then, Hermana B used this shampoo to kill it. It was an overnight shampoo so then the next day, Hna Hunt was going to go through and get the eggs out with this comb. The next day rolls around and guess what... They wouldn´t come out! So me and Hermana Hunt (the geniuses that we are) looked up in our oil books, Lice. We sprayed down Hermana B´s hair with water and Melaluca. And got another, BETTER, lice comb. And guess what. IT WORKED! The lice shampoo didn´t work, but the oils did! I´m a believer in oils for life now! Me and Hermana Hunt were so excited! Anyway, we got the eggs out and Hermana Hunt checked my hair..... I don´t have lice, so we´re good. I was really worried about getting it though. But, I think that since I have´t gotten it yet and my companion has had it for a while, and I mean A WHILE--there were TONS of eggs, that I won´t get it. It´s taken care of now... Hopefully...

Anyway, after that, we went to the Zone meeting. It was at like 2, so that was the first thing we did that day after getting the lice out. It was super good and helpful and really spiritual. It was awesome. But after, we didn´t get anything done. We had like no work that day and we just felt terrible. But after that, we did super good over the weekend and worked real hard. But, Saturday was a weird day. That´s the day when we usually get a ton of stuff done and we work with everyone, but NO ONE was home! It was the weirdest thing! Plus no one would answer their phone... It was just a weird day. But everyone in our ward was at the temple for Stake temple day, so that probably had something to do with it. So that´s what happened that was weird... Mostly good stuff this week! Also, me and Hermana B totally did Spanish workouts this week. We just did like all these jumping jacks and wall sits and planks, but we recited things in Spanish back and forth while we did it.... Super fun! And also hilarious...

So I GOT MY PACKAGE! It was at the Zone Meeting! I had a feeling I would get it too, cuz they always bring everything to the chapel that is for the area when they do zone meetings. So I got it! It was so cute! Thank you so much! My companion was like so happy about the card that she got as well. Super cute! And the shirt is adorable! And all that candy was great! I shared it with my companion and roommates, so they were glad about that... Hahaha it was just so cute and thoughtful! Thank you! So I was so excited about my curling iron, right?? So I plug it in with my converter (cuz it said it was only like 120 v, right..) And it doesn´t work. I´m just like devastated cuz I wanted it SO BAD! And I was so excited for it! I knew that it had to be something wrong with the iron too, cuz I didn´t blow it out with the power cuz I used my converter! So I´m like just so sad. Then, yesterday night, Hna Hunt is like.. just try it in the wall cuz it already doesn´t work now, so what´s the worst that could happen?? So I try that and IT WORKS! So I´m just super happy that it actually does work :) I don´t know why it doesn´t need the converter, but it works! So THANK YOU!

Also, one more cool experience I had that I just remembered... So yesterday we decided to visit Hermana Flores (Sabrina's mom--also she is the one who washes our clothes) who is active, but she wasn´t at church and she wasn´t feeling too great. So we paid her a visit and had an awesome little lesson with her about the baptismal convenant. So it was a great lesson and then after, she told my that she understood me super good and understood everything that I said. She then told me that I´m learning super fast and stuff. It totally made my whole week! It´s just a huge testimony that I know this church is true. It´s the only true church on the face of this earth. There´s no way that I would be able to learn Spanish if it weren´t for Heavenly Father and His help. And there´s no way I would have been able to speak so good to her if it weren´t for the Spirit. I just love this great work and being a missionary! Well that´s about it for this week. I love you guys so much! Thank you for the package! I loved it SO MUCH! Can´t wait for the next!!! ;)

LOVE YOU!

Love, Hermana Whittaker

March 10, 2014 - Week 10

One whole month in Paraguay! Wow. I`ve been in this beautiful country for a whole month tomorrow! Can you believe it?? It`s been such a good time though. I love it here so much. So this week was really good and super spiritual for me.

So we`ve just been working really good with some of our investigators all week and things have been going along smoothly. So there is this family (Familia Portillo) and they are members. Hno. Portillo has this brother though, named Jorge, who is not a member, but has come to live with them. He has a wife (not really though, because no one in Paraguay is actually married) named Angela, and four kids. We have been working with them since like the first day that I got here and I have gotten to know them so well. I love them and their kids are just like the cutest things ever. Also, they speak a lot of Guarani, so it`s nice to have his brother there to help his understand everything if they don`t quite understand. (BTW-Guarani is SUPER weird sounding! It sould so hard to learn! I only know how to say `a little` which is `mishimi`--I think that`s how you spell it.) So they are totally like preparing to be baptized and stuff and we`ve just seen this whole change come over them and stuff. Then, we find out that they are moving back to where they were before because he thinks he will be able to find work better there (Paraguayans and their trabajo..... It`s super important to them... As it should be I guess... ; ) ) So they are leaving! It makes me so sad, but we are going to try to see if they can or still want to get baptized before they leave... It`s a little bit confusing, but I was just way sad cuz I love them!

Then, we have this less active girl named Jenny. Her whole family are members, but they have just been a little bit less active lately, so we went to talk with her. She`s like 16 years old and has kind of been going through a rough time lately... So we shared Moses 1 with her about the part where Moses says `get thee hence, Satan` and it was really good! The spirit was just SUPER strong then! It was such a cool experience. She really got something out of it, too. I could tell. And it`s cool, cuz it was totally inspiration that I received to share that with her! Wow it was just so awesome. Moments like those.... Are just the greatest. Plus I just love her so much. She is just the cutest and she totally dyed her hair purple... It`s so cool. And she is in LOVE with my eyes (lots of people here are... They always say `Que linda su ojos!` or `Ojos azules!`--it`s really funny). So it`s relaly great that she is progressing. She came to church this Sunday, so we were so happy!

Everything else is going really good too. I had a super good Sunday yesterday. The classes that we had were just so great! And I understood all of it, for the most part. I just really felt the spirit. (I say that a lot... But, it`s so true!) And since it was Fast Sunday, everyone got up and bore their testimonies... Super cool. And I honestly felt like this Sunday I felt the most comfortable with everyone! Like I was just talking to everyone and trying to respond and it was all just really good! I honestly love the people so much.... I have just become friends with tons of people. Honestly, one of the hardest parts about having to learn Spanish is that sometimes I feel like my personality doesn`t show to people because a lot of the times I don`t know how to say what I want to say and stuff.... But, the more and more I try to just talk and understand.... The easier it gets! Haha I have been able to be myself and say funny things sometimes and just really relate to the people! It`s just super cool to me. Also, we taught a lesson to a new investigator we have yesterday and I said A TON in the lesson. It was seriously so awesome. I just was really calm and just said what the spirit told me to say. Sounds crazy, but it`s true!

So this week has been just great. We totally went to Asunciòn today and ate at this Chinese buffet that everyone wanted to go to. It took a while to get there, but it was fun! 5 companionships of Hermanas went. So that was cool! 

 

Hermana Whittaker & Hermana Hunt

I hope you guys have an awesome week! Love you so much!

Love, Hermana Whittaker

March 3, 2014 - Week 9

Wow can you believe that I've been out here for 2 months already?! Time sure does fly... It also seems like it was just P-day.. Crazy! Well anyway, this week has been really good!

Things have been going pretty good. Just visiting everyone and loving it. Spanish gets easier and easier to understand and to speak everyday it seems like. So that`s good. I love the people so much. Like they are all just super nice and patient with the fact that I don`t always understand what is being said and stuff. Super patient. And they all just wanna talk all the time! We seriously never have problems with finding people to share our message with because everyone is just so open and willing to let us share a MICHIMI (that is "little" in Guarani!) message with them! So that is just really cool. Paraguayans are just so chill!

Houses in Conavi - super cute!

So Tuesday was alright. We didn`t really get a ton of stuff done because we just had a lot of things come up.. Then Wednesday it rained and I got to wear my rainboots! We had to walk from this place called Cañada to this other place called Conavi (places in our area) and that takes about 25 or 30 minutes to walk, and it was all muddy... So it was a good thing that we had our boots! It hasn`t rained too hard since I`ve been here, but I`ve heard from everyone that sometimes the streets are like flooded up to your shins... So we`ll see how that goes when that happens!

So I had an interesting day on Thursday. My companion has been sick with a cold for like a week and on Thursday, it was just really bad. The other Hermanas and I told her that she should get some rest so she could start getting better. So she slept the whooooole day (which was really good for her). BUT I actually still worked that day. We decided that I would go out with Hermana Hunt and we would work in BOTH of our areas to get some stuff done and that Hermana Hernandez would stay with my companion at home. So we did that and it was really fun! I just love Hermana Hunt. She`s hilarious and such a good missionary. We went out and visited some of her people and it was just really spiritual and good. Then, we were going to just visit some of the people that live in this one part of our area that we don`t really visit too often. So we go and visit with one family--super good lesson. And then we both had this feeling that we should go to Conavi to visit with this menos activo girl named Sabrina (her family is active, and she`s trying hard to get her life together and be active again). So we go to visit her and she`s home! We were worried that she would`t be because she has school at night. Anyway, we have a super good lesson with her about repentance and how there`s all this cargo when we sin and if we have the help of the Savior, it`s a lot easier and feels so much better when you don`t have the weight of sin.... Anyway... Super good. So that was a great day. I learned a lot from Hermana Hunt that day.

 

Then, Friday comes along and we end up having divisions! So the two Sister Leader Trainers, Hermana Tomco and Hermana Owen, come out to Itaugua and we had like a double division in our area. (Usually, they come out and one stays in the area that the visit with one of the other companions and the other takes the other companion from that area and they go to the area of the SLT--make sense?? Hahaha) So they just both stayed in our area and I went with Hermana Tomco and Hermana B went with Hermana Owen. It was so fun! I love Hermana Tomco! I know exactly why she is Sister Leader Trainer, too. Cuz she is a DANG good missionary! She is SO good at teaching the gospel in such a way that everyone can understand it and everyone is involved in the lessons... WOW it`s just super good. Plus her Spanish is just amazing! But it was really fun to spend a day with her and stuff. It was also cool cuz I totally know our area! She was really impressed that I knew exactly where to go and how to find my way around for only being out here for the time that I have. So that was pretty cool! ALSO, she is just a cool girl. She totally likes The National and other good music, so we got along pretty darn well :) And at the end of that day we went to one of our members homes (familia Flores--the family with the daughter Sabrina who is trying to change her life around) and had a party for Hermano Flores cuz he was just released as our Ward Mission Leader. So that was really fun too! We made him a cake, hahaha. They are a really cool family and the Hermana Flores washes our clothes every week. They`re awesome.

Hermana B, Hermana Whittaker, & first baptism of three ladies

Then on Saturday we went to a baptism for some of the Elders in our district. They had like 3 people getting baptized. That was pretty cool. Then that night we had a Stake Conference meeting thing, so all of the missionaries in our zone and a ton of members went and also our Mission President and his wife. So they showed this video.... So on Thursday, they told our district that they wanted to videotape our Ward Council meeting so they could show everyone what a really good example of a ward council meeting looked like. So I was in it. At the end all of the missionaries in our ward (three companionships) are talking about why it`s important to have the members involved in mission work. So when me and my companion come up, it`s just hilarious because she is speaking Spanish and I`m just nodding my head and smiling! Hahaha it was so funny, but you had to be there to understand just how funny it really was...... Anyway... We had one of the Hermanas that Hna B and Hna Hunt knew come over to our house and spend the night because her companion went home early on Saturday and she needed to go to the same place the next day for Stake Conference, so we asked President if that would be ok cuz it would be easier and he said yes. So she stayed with us. She`s so cute. Her name is Hermana Buss and she was in the CCM the same time as Hna B and Hna Hunt. We ate these chicken wraps called Lomitos that night, after the Stake thing, and they were so good. But I totally was eating the paper wrapper of the Lomito and didn`t even know until Hermana B pointed it out. Then everyone laughed. Haha what an idiot move! Anyway, it was pretty funny.... ;) Then we had Stake Conference on Sunday. It was really good and there were a ton of people there.

Today, we went to this place called San Lorenzo and ate at Pizza Hut with two other Hermanas (Hermana Buss and her brand new companion that she just got) and then went to this frozen yogurt place! I totally felt like I was in the States again for a minute cuz it was just like a YogurtLand and it was in this nice mall! So that was pretty funny.

 

Me holding a turtle at a members house!
Then Hermana B and Whittaker getting ice cream
after the baptism.

Things are going great! I am pretty stoked about this week. We are gonna get stuff done and I am going to just keep learning the gospel and the language! Wow... Already been two months. I can`t believe it`s March already. Tht`s like the 3rd month of the year! Wow... Anyways, I love you so much!

LES AMO MUCHISIMO!

LOVE, HERMANA WHITTAKER!