July 14, 2014 - Week 28

Well, this week was an adventure. So, Monday and Tuesday were pretty normal. Well, Tuesday, we had a zone conference with President McMullin. It was pretty good... BUT he dropped cane on us pretty bad. We need to be planning in our agendas better (because he has been looking through them and checking them off for like 2 months...) and we need to be contacting more. He told us that he had something else planned to teach just like with the other zones, but he decided to change what he was going to teach for us cuz we are lacking as a zone in those areas..... So yeah. But, it was still really good (cuz it´s President) and now we have even more of a desire to do those things! Haha but that was good.

Also, at the conference, I received my package with the card and chip in it! I was so happy! And you can bet that I have been listening to the new music I have everyday this week. I hope my companion doesn´t get sick of it!! She probably is... ;) But, anyways... I got the package and we had a great, 5 hour, conference. Also, another cool thing is that President announced something pretty cool. So, there is an Elder in our mission named Elder Gunther. I don´t know him personally, but a lot of people talk about him. Well, apparently he is a really musical person. Like REALLY musical and so President gave him permission to have a keyboard in his house and for like a few weeks or months or something, and he woke up early everyday to write a song for our mission! And so now our mission, Misión Paraguay Asunción Norte, has it´s own hymn! And they showed us a video of some missionaries singing it and then also have us the sheet music. And it is SO cool. It really is such a pretty song. Sounds like it came right out of the hymn book, too.

So that was the beggining of our week. Then, Wednesday comes along and we had a pretty good day, but the best was at the very end. We went out to the house of one of our recent converts, Familia Maldonado (those 3 girls that got baptized when I first got here) to teach their son, Saúl, who is an investigator. He is progressing really well and we are so excited to be teaching him cuz when I first got here, he wanted NOTHING to do with the church or the missionaries. And now, he has gone to church twice and is reading the Book of Mormon and we are hoping soon that he will get baptized! But, we were having a difficulty with him from LAST week. He told us that he ´´didn´t know´´ if he would pray to know if the church was true. And that kinda took us by surprise. So really, we came to the conclusion that he just didn´t want to pray in front of us or that he didn´t want to pray specifically to receive an answer. So we like brought it up in our district meeting and brought it up at the zone conference and some other missionaries gave us some suggestions. Also, last Sunday, we fasted for him. We just really wanted to help him and know what we should do so that he could realize the importance of praying. Cuz he is assisting the church and reading all the chapters that we give him in the Book of Mormon... He just isn´t praying. So, after all of that, we went to his house on Wednesday night and we taught a great lesson with him. We taught mostly about baptism from 2 Nephi 31 (because that was his assignment to read) and he really was participating and learning... Then, a miracle happened. We got to the end of the lesson and my companion asked him to pray. She just asked him noramally, and he said YES! And then he said the prayer! Not only the prayer, but a really good one! So this means he has been praying individually and stuff! And he wasn´t like nervous or didn´t know what he was doing or anything. And usually he is a shy person. But, he simply just said the prayer. It was seriously so cool cuz for like 3 or 4 times in the lessons he refused! So that was awesome. 

Oh, another thing... So BEFORE this miracle lesson, something happened. We were on a colectivo on our way to their house. And when we got off the colectivo, I checked my side pockets to make sure that I have everything (like I always do...) and I didn´t have our phone. So we lost the phone. Or... I lost the phone. We are guessing that it fell down when we stood up to get off of the colectivo and we didn´t notice until it was gone. So, what we did is we waited till the same colectivo returned (cuz it was on a route that returns) and checked. So like 20 minutes later, the colectivo came back and the phone was not there. We are like 99.9% positive that someone saw it on the floor and then took it. Cuz there is like NO chance of getting a phone back if you´ve left it somewhere. So, that happened this week. But, we were fine about it cuz we had such a great lesson with Saúl right after. And then, the next day, Thursday, we took a colectivo to Asunción and went to the mission office and got a new one! So everything is good and our new phone is nicer than all the others... So that is cool ;) 

But that was our crazy adventure.

And then, on Saturday we went to another area to do this thing (that I don´t remember if I have mentioned before...) called Sión al Rescate (Zion to the Rescue) and that is where all the missionaries in our Stake (so the 2 zones in our stake) get together with all the youth of the stake and we visit all the menos activo families in one area. So that was pretty fun. It´s like every 2nd Saturday of every month. This week we went to an area called Aratiri. Our group wasn´t able to find any of the three families on the list (none of them were home) so we just taught the teens how to contact people with us! Haha so we just contacted some people with our group of youth. It was pretty fun!

Souvenirs at Aregua

So, last thing... Today, for p-day, we went to an area called Aregua. It is pretty close to Itaugua so it only took like 30 minutes to get there by colectivo. It was so fun! Really, we went there cuz Hermana Francois is going home in like 2 weeks and she wanted to buy stuff for her family and her companion, Hermana Meese, has been to Aregua and so she knew where it was. So we went and there was like a ton... A TON of little shops with souvenirs. TONS. And then, we went to this house that Hermana Meese knew that sells real silver for cheap. And there were like tons of cute rings and earrings and stuff there. So beautiful, too. And the guy totally makes all of it! So that was pretty cool. Let´s just say that it is a good thing that my card got here this week...... ;) Haha but it was way fun. 

So, that is my week! Looking forward to another good week! Hope you guys have fun, especially cuz all of you guys are going to be at camp this week! LOVE YOU!! (Scott & Oaken were at Scout Camp, while Isabel and Joey were at Girls Camp - Jill was with Grandma!)

LES QUIERO MUCHISIMO!

CON AMOR, HERMANA WHITTAKER