¡Hola todos! ¿Cómo están?
Happy birthday Dad! And a very happy Pioneer Day to everyone! I´ll admit I kind of forgot that yesterday was a holiday. Earlier this month I was totally planning on talking to all of our investigators yesterday about being pioneers in the gospel for their generations to come. I forgot to do that, but I think I´ll make that my theme for this week.
There was a major Paraguayan holiday yesterday, though. Paraguay played futbol against Uruguay for the Copa America. Apparently it´s a tournament they only have every four years, and Paraguay hasn´t won in 32 years. Man, you should´ve seen this place when Paraguay beat Venezuela and Brazil, meaning that they would be in the finals. It was like a war had been won or something. The partying went on all through the night. Hna. Tua´one and I were actually in a colectivo during the last few minutes of the game against Brazil, and it was like being back on BYU campus during football season. The bus driver had the game playing loudly over the radio, and several people in the bus had little portable TVs. All of these complete strangers on the bus were best friends when Paraguay made that final goal and made it to the finals. There was lots of cheering and hugging and it was all very fun. The hype built up all week long. It was almost impossible to get people to commit to go to church. "But I have to watch the game!" said one of our investigators, "The game´s only gonna last a few hours. Christ will be around forever! He can wait!" When we asked if there was anything we could include in our prayers for our investigators, the vast majority of them said, "Pray that Paraguay will win!" People were buying and selling flags and jerseys and kites and fireworks... and then they lost. You´d think there hadn´t been any game at all the way the excitement just DIED and absolutely nobody was talking about soccer anymore. It was so sad. I kind of hoped they would win. Soccer is pretty much all Paraguay does for fun. But at the same time I´m glad we didn´t have to worry about all the drunkards and parties.
Thank you so much for the package, Mom! I just got it on Tuesday, but I¨m pretty sure it got here earlier this month. Packages get to Paraguay in about four weeks without any problem. It´s getting them out of the office and to the missionaries that takes forever. But I absolutely love the socks. They´re PERFECT and got to me just in time. Thank you! :)
And thank you for your e-mails Shelli, Lucie, Dad, Mom, Sarah, Ashley, and Grandma! I´ve said it before but I´ll say it again--I LOVE YOU!
I´ve had several people asking me if they can e-mail me or if that would take too much of my time to read. Um... YES E-MAIL ME! I don´t have much time to RESPOND, but I can never have too many e-mails to read! I print them off in the morning on P-Days, then read them in my free time before writing the weekly e-mail at the end of P-Day. Never ever ever ever feel like I don´t want to hear from you, because I appreciate every single word you guys send me. The more the merrier! And it´s a total myth that your writing to me from home will make my homesick. In reality, I feel MORE homesick if I DON´T know what you´re doing. But when you tell me, it´s almost like I was there with you and I´m not homesick at all. And yes, Goompa, I got your last e-mail loud and clear. And no, Dad, Hna. Tua´one doesn´t read all of my e-mails. I hear missionaries used to have to e-mail one at a time with their companion looking over their shoulder during their hour of e-mailing, but now all we have to do is make sure that we´re on neighboring computers and can see each others´ screens. It saves a lot of time and it´s a lot less stressful. I hate it when people read over my shoulder.
Paraguay has a holiday on the 30th of July called "El Día de Amistad," which I´m excited for. Everyone gives gifts to all of their friends to express their love. Hna. Tua´one and I are planning little gifts to give to the members and our investigators. I wish we celebrated Friendship Day in the States. I guess that´s what Valentine´s Day if for, though.
People keep telling us that winter´s over now. If that´s true, that was the most anti-climactic winter ever. Yeah we got cold, but whenever we had a cold day people would say, "Oh, just wait until winter! Then you´ll REALLY freeze!" And now they´re saying that it´s over already! I was expecting it to get so bad and instead it´s getting hot and we´re wearing t-shirts again and suffering from humidity sickness. People are also saying that this summer is going to be incredibly hot. Oh joy. Maybe they´re wrong about that too? Hopefully?
Hna. Tua´one and I had another great week. We didn´t meet our goals every day, but only because we didn´t work on Tuesday due to humidity sickness (which was just headaches and nausea that needed sleeping off). We still did really well, though, and made up for lost time by doing my first ever division on Saturday. I was worried at first when Hna. Tua´one suggested that we do a division, because I´ve never had to do anything without my trusty Senior Companion before. But it turned out to be a really great experience and really refreshing for both of us. I went with a 16-year-old convert named Dihana, and she was excellent at sharing her insights and testifying at just the right time. She really has strong faith in the gospel and could really connect with all of our investigators who have problems living the gospel. That´s not to say that she carried the lessons. That was my job, and I did it just fine. It´s easy to be a leader when you´re left virtually on your own. :) The only real challenge I had was with Mario. Hna. Tua´one is a lot better at charades than I am. Dihana did well with him. I just started getting kind of frustrated at the end because earlier this week Hna. Tua´one and I had written out our testimonies and given them to him to read on his own. He told me that he´d read them and that he really admires us for serving missions. But, we´re just young girls from a "problem-free" country and have no idea what life is really like--we should learn from him and see that all this faith stuff is nice, but it doesn´t solve problems in "real life." I was really put to the test there. Had I been able to speak Spanish, I probably wouldn´t have been able to explain myself well. Having to speak Spanish to someone who can´t hear? That was hard. I couldn´t write fast enough as he went on raving, and nothing I wrote was adequate to get him to understand. Finally, I just sat back, let him finish his shpeal, and said a silent prayer for help. I still wasn´t able to get Mario to realize that he needs to exercise faith, but I was reassured by the Spirit that I AM right about the Gospel helping people. I may not be a poverty-stricken Paraguayan with four kids out of wedlock and three jobs and an addiction to alcohol, but I HAVE had problems, and I HAVE had them fixed through faith and prayer and keeping the commandments of God. God doesn´t give us commandments so that He can boss us around, no más. They´re His guideposts for us to be happier. Anyways, I was reassured of that, and Dihana and I said a closing prayer with him in which I prayed that Mario could understand that we CAN help him with his problems. Mario may not have felt the Spirit--maybe he did--but Dihana and I sure did, and we left feeling happier for having shared our testimonies.
The rest of the day went perfect. We visited a lot of menos activo members and they were a lot more open with Dihana there to share her personal experiences about being a member in Mariano Roque Alonso. We also had success finding new investigators to teach, which Hna. Tua´one hadn´t expected me to do without her. She was very impressed, and by the end of the day I felt confident that someday I will in fact be able to be a Senior Comp. :) It was a really great day, and we have plans for a branch missionary to come with us every day this next week so that should really help us a lot.
As for me personally, I´ve reached Mosiah in the Book of Mormon. I love how the prophet Enos must have had so many amazing life experiences, but the one that he found most important to put in the records was his experience with prayer. I love how when God assured him that He forgave him of his sins, Enos immediately felt happier because he knew that God will never lie. I love how even after having been relieved of his own burdens, he continued in prayer in behalf of his people, and then in behalf of his enemies. I also really enjoy the story of King Benjamin. The part I recently read from his speech to his people is about how good leaders should work for their own support and not ask for the people to give them money. He was also confident that he had been a good leader and wouldn´t have to answer for the sins of his people because he´d done all he could to never permit his people to sin against God. Enos, too, said something about how he was excited to face God with a clean conscience. How many of us can say that?
When I was with Dihana, she chose the opening hymn in a lesson and picked "Count Your Blessings." At that point I wasn´t sure what I wanted to share with our investigator, so I looked at the footnotes of the hymn and opened to the reference there--DyC 78:17-19. That´s now one of my favorite scriptures--about how we have the understanding of little children when it comes to us knowing what amazing blessings God has in store for us. We don´t have the faith to live our lives problem-free, but we can be happy knowing that God will guide and bless us as we learn and grow. We need to be grateful for all that He has given us and do all we can to draw closer to Him so that we can have more and more happiness. God gives us riches after He knows that He can trust us to use them for the good of others. If we have God, we have EVERYTHING.
Y...eso no más. :) It´s been a good week. It´s been a good mission. I´m very happy with how things have been, and I´m excited to see how much better things get. I hope you all are counting your blessings and doing all you can to draw closer to God so that He can help you with all of life´s challenges. Never forget that the blessings are always there waiting---we just have to reach out and take them.
I love you all. Have a great week!
---Hna. Springer
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Week 29 - Asuncion Paraguay - Mariano Roque Alonzo
Dearest Familia,
Thank you Dad, Mom, Laurel, George, Goompa, Nana, Grandma Springer (and Teresa), Sarah, and Ashley for your e-mails and the fun pictures this week. I feel so loved. :)
I just spent almost my whole hour writing individual e-mails so I´m sorry if this one is short and/or makes no sense. And sorry if I´m not very descriptive or interesting. How about next week you guys send me some questions so I can know what would interest you?
The weather here in Paraguay continues to be completely unpredictable. Earlier this week it was beautiful and sunny. Then later it got too hot. Then towards the end there was a wind so strong we could barely move if we were walking into it. Then, of course, on Sunday it poured rain AGAIN! Is that crazy or what? Two weeks in a row where every day leading up to Sunday is just perfect for church attendance, then WHAM! Apparently people here need to learn to humble themselves and go to church no matter what the weather, and THEN the weather will be perfect to go. We actually had pretty good attendance this week, though, compared to last week. Hna. Tua´one and I successfully got two VERY menos activo families to come. They hadn´t come in so long that the Elders (and many of the members, sadly) thought that they were new investigators, not old members. We were very proud of them for coming.
But yeah, the rain was a mess yesterday. It poured so hard that after we dropped off some members and had to make our way back up the hill to home, it was like climbing a waterfall. The streets literally become rivers. There´s no dry path to be seen, and if you´re not careful you´ll get swept away. Thanks to boots and buses, we manage to get from place to place just fine, but Paraguayans are not very willing to leave the house when the neighborhood is in such a state.
Today marks one year left of being a missionary. Accordingly, I´ve made several "New" Year´s Resolutions. Mostly I want to become a much better listener. Hna. Tua´one often calls me a space cadet because I tend to zone out during lessons. :) She and I also started jogging as a new goal for exercise, and I want to read the entire standard works in Spanish and learn to bear my testimony in Guaraní before the year is through.
I feel like I´ve changed a lot already, though. I´ve especially become a lot bolder than before, thanks to having my testimony challenged so much by misunderstandings and just blind prejudice with some people we contact. Hna. Tua´one thinks I¨m going to become a lot more violent, too, because lately we´ve been working with a girl named Isa. I think I mentioned her in like my first e-mail from Paraguay. Anyways, she´s a newer convert and she likes to come do lessons with us, which helps us a lot in completing our goals. She´s cool for the most part, but sometimes she gets into these temper tantrums. One minute she´s smiling and helpful in Gospel Principles, the next she´s throwing her book and storming out of the room saying, "i´m never coming back!" Anyways, she´s taken a liking to me, and this means that she punches me a lot because she likes to play "Slug Bug." So I play, too, and at first I was really whimpy with hitting her, but since she never holds back, I´m getting a lot better at punching. Not good, I know. :)
We got to watch "The Testaments" twice this week. I LOVE that movie! First we watched it with the Flia. Granado for FHE on Monday, and then on Tuesday we had another FHE with the Flia. Bogarin. Last week, in parting, we´d asked the nonmember dad of the family if there was something we could do for them. He said, "Make us dinner!" We laughed, an he was like, "No really. You asked what you could do. If you´re good missionaries you´ll make us dinner." He likes to tease us Mormons. So on Tuesday we went to their place an made tacos for them. They loved it. Hna. Tua´one knows how to make home-made tortillas and they are super good. They also really liked the movie. None of them had ever seen it before, an I was especially happy for how entranced the oldest Bogarin was. He´s 18 and was planning on serving a mission when I first met him, but lately he´s been having doubts. He couldn´t take his eyes away from the movie, even when his dad came home and started teasing us again, and in the end his eyes teared up as Hna. Tua´one and I burst into tears (I can´t help by cry every time). We really felt the Spirit together, and I now feel a lot closer with the lot of them.
So far this has been a perfect Change. We met our goals every day this week, too, and we had some great quality lessons. With Rosana we talked about the living prophet, and she almost cried as we told her how much our lives have been blessed because of God´s guidance. She loves reading the scriptures. Mario is also doing well. Before we could even mention church, he told us that he´s planning on coming with us next week. We read the testimony of Joseph Smith at the beginning of the Book of Mormon the other day, and he really liked it. I honestly think he believes it all.
He´s so funny, though. I wish you could all meet him. Whenever we go over there, he knows that I´m the shyer one and that Hna. Tua´one is the one who always tries to communicate and get him to do stuff. So when we show up, he arranges the chairs so that he sits next to me and far away from Hna. Tua´one. Then he vents to me while Hna. Tua´one is trying to get his attention. Whenever he sees her mouth move, he just says, "Shush!" and goes on. And when she gives him a piece of paper with info or an invitation or something on it, and he´s not done with his story, he´ll just hold onto it and not read. If she tries to take it back, he pulls it away. He´s very controlling, but can you blame him? It must be hard being deaf.
Shoot, I´m out of time. I had other things to tell you about but they´ll have to wait until next week. Sorry. I LOVE YOU ALL!!
---Hna. Springer
Thank you Dad, Mom, Laurel, George, Goompa, Nana, Grandma Springer (and Teresa), Sarah, and Ashley for your e-mails and the fun pictures this week. I feel so loved. :)
I just spent almost my whole hour writing individual e-mails so I´m sorry if this one is short and/or makes no sense. And sorry if I´m not very descriptive or interesting. How about next week you guys send me some questions so I can know what would interest you?
The weather here in Paraguay continues to be completely unpredictable. Earlier this week it was beautiful and sunny. Then later it got too hot. Then towards the end there was a wind so strong we could barely move if we were walking into it. Then, of course, on Sunday it poured rain AGAIN! Is that crazy or what? Two weeks in a row where every day leading up to Sunday is just perfect for church attendance, then WHAM! Apparently people here need to learn to humble themselves and go to church no matter what the weather, and THEN the weather will be perfect to go. We actually had pretty good attendance this week, though, compared to last week. Hna. Tua´one and I successfully got two VERY menos activo families to come. They hadn´t come in so long that the Elders (and many of the members, sadly) thought that they were new investigators, not old members. We were very proud of them for coming.
But yeah, the rain was a mess yesterday. It poured so hard that after we dropped off some members and had to make our way back up the hill to home, it was like climbing a waterfall. The streets literally become rivers. There´s no dry path to be seen, and if you´re not careful you´ll get swept away. Thanks to boots and buses, we manage to get from place to place just fine, but Paraguayans are not very willing to leave the house when the neighborhood is in such a state.
Today marks one year left of being a missionary. Accordingly, I´ve made several "New" Year´s Resolutions. Mostly I want to become a much better listener. Hna. Tua´one often calls me a space cadet because I tend to zone out during lessons. :) She and I also started jogging as a new goal for exercise, and I want to read the entire standard works in Spanish and learn to bear my testimony in Guaraní before the year is through.
I feel like I´ve changed a lot already, though. I´ve especially become a lot bolder than before, thanks to having my testimony challenged so much by misunderstandings and just blind prejudice with some people we contact. Hna. Tua´one thinks I¨m going to become a lot more violent, too, because lately we´ve been working with a girl named Isa. I think I mentioned her in like my first e-mail from Paraguay. Anyways, she´s a newer convert and she likes to come do lessons with us, which helps us a lot in completing our goals. She´s cool for the most part, but sometimes she gets into these temper tantrums. One minute she´s smiling and helpful in Gospel Principles, the next she´s throwing her book and storming out of the room saying, "i´m never coming back!" Anyways, she´s taken a liking to me, and this means that she punches me a lot because she likes to play "Slug Bug." So I play, too, and at first I was really whimpy with hitting her, but since she never holds back, I´m getting a lot better at punching. Not good, I know. :)
We got to watch "The Testaments" twice this week. I LOVE that movie! First we watched it with the Flia. Granado for FHE on Monday, and then on Tuesday we had another FHE with the Flia. Bogarin. Last week, in parting, we´d asked the nonmember dad of the family if there was something we could do for them. He said, "Make us dinner!" We laughed, an he was like, "No really. You asked what you could do. If you´re good missionaries you´ll make us dinner." He likes to tease us Mormons. So on Tuesday we went to their place an made tacos for them. They loved it. Hna. Tua´one knows how to make home-made tortillas and they are super good. They also really liked the movie. None of them had ever seen it before, an I was especially happy for how entranced the oldest Bogarin was. He´s 18 and was planning on serving a mission when I first met him, but lately he´s been having doubts. He couldn´t take his eyes away from the movie, even when his dad came home and started teasing us again, and in the end his eyes teared up as Hna. Tua´one and I burst into tears (I can´t help by cry every time). We really felt the Spirit together, and I now feel a lot closer with the lot of them.
So far this has been a perfect Change. We met our goals every day this week, too, and we had some great quality lessons. With Rosana we talked about the living prophet, and she almost cried as we told her how much our lives have been blessed because of God´s guidance. She loves reading the scriptures. Mario is also doing well. Before we could even mention church, he told us that he´s planning on coming with us next week. We read the testimony of Joseph Smith at the beginning of the Book of Mormon the other day, and he really liked it. I honestly think he believes it all.
He´s so funny, though. I wish you could all meet him. Whenever we go over there, he knows that I´m the shyer one and that Hna. Tua´one is the one who always tries to communicate and get him to do stuff. So when we show up, he arranges the chairs so that he sits next to me and far away from Hna. Tua´one. Then he vents to me while Hna. Tua´one is trying to get his attention. Whenever he sees her mouth move, he just says, "Shush!" and goes on. And when she gives him a piece of paper with info or an invitation or something on it, and he´s not done with his story, he´ll just hold onto it and not read. If she tries to take it back, he pulls it away. He´s very controlling, but can you blame him? It must be hard being deaf.
Shoot, I´m out of time. I had other things to tell you about but they´ll have to wait until next week. Sorry. I LOVE YOU ALL!!
---Hna. Springer
Monday, July 11, 2011
Week 28 - Asuncion Paraguay - Mariano Roque Alonzo
Hola mi familia!!
I love Mondays. I love getting to write to you and read your e-mails and hear about life outside of Mariano. Thank you Grandma Springer, Dad, Mom, Sarah, Ashley, and Amanda for your e-mails this week. You make my weeks so happy.
Not that life isn´t awesome here in Mariano. Seriously, it´s been amazing lately. First of all, as I predicted, I´m still here with Hna. Tua´one! Yay! I knew I wouldn´t leave. Everyone kept telling me I would but I never felt like it. Now i get six more fun-filled weeks with my awesome companion. Then, yeah, I´m pretty positive I´m out of here. Funnily enough, nobody changed in our whole zone. Everything is exactly the same. It´s kind of weird, but luckily we all love each other.
We had SUCH a great week, the two of us. We made goals for this new Change and we put all our effort into achieving them this week. For the first time in my history as a missionary, we met our goals every single day. It was so hard but so worth it in the end. Today we got to report our numbers to President and feel like a million bucks.
There were two days in particular where everything just went perfect. First was Wednesday. We´d been going from investigator to investigator all afternoon and they all lived far apart. We were dead tired, but we still needed to find two new investigators to meet our daily goals, and we only had about an hour to do it before our next cita. Finding news is SO hard and often very discouraging. And at the time we were in one of our least friendly areas. So Hna. Tua´one said, "Alright, if you feel like we need to go to a certain house, go for it." We´d only been walking for a few minutes when she suddenly veered off the road and clapped at the only house with an open door. The woman inside was Catholic but ended up being really humble and polite and said we could come teach her anytime. One new down, one to go. It was my turn to do the finding. We wandered around a bit more, not really sure where we were headed. Then we passed a house with a little salon in the front. There was a little kid playing in the yard, and it was the first sign of life we´d seen on that street. I felt compelled to go and clap it. I wasn´t sure if I was allowed to contact a business, but I made myself clap before I talked myself out of it. Hna. Tua´one confirmed, "You can´t clap here! It´s a business!" but then the woman who came out, as soon as we told her who we were, opened her gate and said, "Bienvenidos!" with a warm smile. She was so great. She loved our singing. She loved our pamphlet. She loved the fact that we´d given up school and such to come serve in a strange country. She loves God. New investigator number two found. We only clapped two houses, and both were exactly what we were looking for.
Then there was yesterday. After all of our hard work with a record nine progressing investigators, it POURED rain Saturday night and Sunday morning. Paraguayans don´t go to work or school when it rains, let alone to church with virtual strangers, so all of our investigators (and most of the members) flaked out on us. All of our attendance goals failed and our baptism dates fell (they need to come at least three times before baptism), so we were bummed. I was especially sad because I gave a talk yesterday. I spoke about families--our mortal family unit, our branch family, and the human family, and how we all have an important role to play to help all of our spiritual brothers and sisters make it back Home. I enjoyed preparing for it, and I was sad that hardly any of my branch friends were there to hear it.
Anyways, after church everything went great. The rain stopped (RIGHT after church, of course...) and left a beautiful blue sky in its wake. We got a member friend to come do visits with us and ALMOST get all of the nine with-member lessons we needed to meet our weekly goals. We got five lessons in only two and a half hours. It was awesome.
We only had two and a half hours to go teaching because tonight there was an activity with all the ward missionaries (aka, the youth). It was such a great evening. The youth split into three groups and each pair of us missionaries taught them key doctrines from Lesson 1--The Restoration. Hna. Tua´one taught about the Book of Mormon and prayer. The youth in this branch are so amazing. Almost all of them are converts, and they have such a light about them as they enthusiastically talk about the gospel. We had some fun practices with them, and with the last group we had a mini-devotional. One boy asked why we need a Mediator when God knows everything about us. The Spirit was so strong in the room as we explained how Christ will be by our side during Judgment and be our Advocate with the Father if we´ve repented. The same boy later asked why God blessed Hna. Tua´one and I with the gospel from birth but left the Paraguayans to find the Truth for themselves. We had a powerful discussion about how there are no coincidences in life and how God sets all of us up to be amazing. We commended them for being so much stronger than us--for changing their lives to live the gospel instead of just doing what their parents or friends did. I think they were just as touched as we were.
This week I studied the New Testament a bit. I love reading the Joseph Smith translations, especially in the Sermon on the Mount. There are so many plain and precious things taken from Christ´s teachings. It´s sad. But I´m so grateful that I can read those missing scriptures about how God always gives personal revelation and how we are commanded to be perfect, not just obedient.
Our deaf investigator Mario still won´t come to church with us, and it frustrates me so much because he keeps saying, "You two understand me, but nobody else will." I try to tell him that we´re just REPRESENTATIVES of the Church. We´re just a teeny tiny piece of the love and understanding to be found in the Kingdom of Christ on the earth. If only he knew that there´s a whole family of kind, wonderful people in the Mariano branch, waiting to accept him with open arms, hearing or no hearing.
We just got word today that we missionaries won´t be allowed to go to the huge expo going on this month. It´s something i´d heard a lot about from past missionaries, but apparently President Madariaga changed the rules about it when he came. It´s probably a good thing. We hear a lot about how people go into the expo, buy something awesome, and get it stolen from them before they even make it back out the door. I was hoping to blow my money on some souvenires, but it´s probably not the best place for some obviously-well-off American girls to be hanging out.
Just another random observation before I sign off--reading the Book of Mormon every day of your life is seriously vital if you want to stay active in the church. It truly is the keystone of our religion, and if we can´t feed our testimony about it, the Adversary will have a much easier time of convincing us that we´re wrong. I try to encourage every member, inactive or no, to read the Book of Mormon every day. Every inactive member we talk to tells us that they don´t read anymore, and I have no doubt that there´s a correlation there.
After being disappointed so many times by inactive members, I´m determined to stay strong in the gospel and always be there to support my leaders and my family. Each member is so important. I just read a passage of scripture about that in the Bible the other day--how the head can´t live without the feet, etc, etc. So true. We need to be strong together.
Thank you so much for being such a solid family and an unconditional support for me. I love you all so much. Sounds like you´re having a great summer, and I´m happy that everything´s going well with you. Don´t forget to write, and read the Book of Mormon every day. :)
I LOVE YOU!
---Hna. Springer
P.S. No nasty bug stories this week, and I can finally wear my boots again now that the sand fly nest is gone. Yay!
I love Mondays. I love getting to write to you and read your e-mails and hear about life outside of Mariano. Thank you Grandma Springer, Dad, Mom, Sarah, Ashley, and Amanda for your e-mails this week. You make my weeks so happy.
Not that life isn´t awesome here in Mariano. Seriously, it´s been amazing lately. First of all, as I predicted, I´m still here with Hna. Tua´one! Yay! I knew I wouldn´t leave. Everyone kept telling me I would but I never felt like it. Now i get six more fun-filled weeks with my awesome companion. Then, yeah, I´m pretty positive I´m out of here. Funnily enough, nobody changed in our whole zone. Everything is exactly the same. It´s kind of weird, but luckily we all love each other.
We had SUCH a great week, the two of us. We made goals for this new Change and we put all our effort into achieving them this week. For the first time in my history as a missionary, we met our goals every single day. It was so hard but so worth it in the end. Today we got to report our numbers to President and feel like a million bucks.
There were two days in particular where everything just went perfect. First was Wednesday. We´d been going from investigator to investigator all afternoon and they all lived far apart. We were dead tired, but we still needed to find two new investigators to meet our daily goals, and we only had about an hour to do it before our next cita. Finding news is SO hard and often very discouraging. And at the time we were in one of our least friendly areas. So Hna. Tua´one said, "Alright, if you feel like we need to go to a certain house, go for it." We´d only been walking for a few minutes when she suddenly veered off the road and clapped at the only house with an open door. The woman inside was Catholic but ended up being really humble and polite and said we could come teach her anytime. One new down, one to go. It was my turn to do the finding. We wandered around a bit more, not really sure where we were headed. Then we passed a house with a little salon in the front. There was a little kid playing in the yard, and it was the first sign of life we´d seen on that street. I felt compelled to go and clap it. I wasn´t sure if I was allowed to contact a business, but I made myself clap before I talked myself out of it. Hna. Tua´one confirmed, "You can´t clap here! It´s a business!" but then the woman who came out, as soon as we told her who we were, opened her gate and said, "Bienvenidos!" with a warm smile. She was so great. She loved our singing. She loved our pamphlet. She loved the fact that we´d given up school and such to come serve in a strange country. She loves God. New investigator number two found. We only clapped two houses, and both were exactly what we were looking for.
Then there was yesterday. After all of our hard work with a record nine progressing investigators, it POURED rain Saturday night and Sunday morning. Paraguayans don´t go to work or school when it rains, let alone to church with virtual strangers, so all of our investigators (and most of the members) flaked out on us. All of our attendance goals failed and our baptism dates fell (they need to come at least three times before baptism), so we were bummed. I was especially sad because I gave a talk yesterday. I spoke about families--our mortal family unit, our branch family, and the human family, and how we all have an important role to play to help all of our spiritual brothers and sisters make it back Home. I enjoyed preparing for it, and I was sad that hardly any of my branch friends were there to hear it.
Anyways, after church everything went great. The rain stopped (RIGHT after church, of course...) and left a beautiful blue sky in its wake. We got a member friend to come do visits with us and ALMOST get all of the nine with-member lessons we needed to meet our weekly goals. We got five lessons in only two and a half hours. It was awesome.
We only had two and a half hours to go teaching because tonight there was an activity with all the ward missionaries (aka, the youth). It was such a great evening. The youth split into three groups and each pair of us missionaries taught them key doctrines from Lesson 1--The Restoration. Hna. Tua´one taught about the Book of Mormon and prayer. The youth in this branch are so amazing. Almost all of them are converts, and they have such a light about them as they enthusiastically talk about the gospel. We had some fun practices with them, and with the last group we had a mini-devotional. One boy asked why we need a Mediator when God knows everything about us. The Spirit was so strong in the room as we explained how Christ will be by our side during Judgment and be our Advocate with the Father if we´ve repented. The same boy later asked why God blessed Hna. Tua´one and I with the gospel from birth but left the Paraguayans to find the Truth for themselves. We had a powerful discussion about how there are no coincidences in life and how God sets all of us up to be amazing. We commended them for being so much stronger than us--for changing their lives to live the gospel instead of just doing what their parents or friends did. I think they were just as touched as we were.
This week I studied the New Testament a bit. I love reading the Joseph Smith translations, especially in the Sermon on the Mount. There are so many plain and precious things taken from Christ´s teachings. It´s sad. But I´m so grateful that I can read those missing scriptures about how God always gives personal revelation and how we are commanded to be perfect, not just obedient.
Our deaf investigator Mario still won´t come to church with us, and it frustrates me so much because he keeps saying, "You two understand me, but nobody else will." I try to tell him that we´re just REPRESENTATIVES of the Church. We´re just a teeny tiny piece of the love and understanding to be found in the Kingdom of Christ on the earth. If only he knew that there´s a whole family of kind, wonderful people in the Mariano branch, waiting to accept him with open arms, hearing or no hearing.
We just got word today that we missionaries won´t be allowed to go to the huge expo going on this month. It´s something i´d heard a lot about from past missionaries, but apparently President Madariaga changed the rules about it when he came. It´s probably a good thing. We hear a lot about how people go into the expo, buy something awesome, and get it stolen from them before they even make it back out the door. I was hoping to blow my money on some souvenires, but it´s probably not the best place for some obviously-well-off American girls to be hanging out.
Just another random observation before I sign off--reading the Book of Mormon every day of your life is seriously vital if you want to stay active in the church. It truly is the keystone of our religion, and if we can´t feed our testimony about it, the Adversary will have a much easier time of convincing us that we´re wrong. I try to encourage every member, inactive or no, to read the Book of Mormon every day. Every inactive member we talk to tells us that they don´t read anymore, and I have no doubt that there´s a correlation there.
After being disappointed so many times by inactive members, I´m determined to stay strong in the gospel and always be there to support my leaders and my family. Each member is so important. I just read a passage of scripture about that in the Bible the other day--how the head can´t live without the feet, etc, etc. So true. We need to be strong together.
Thank you so much for being such a solid family and an unconditional support for me. I love you all so much. Sounds like you´re having a great summer, and I´m happy that everything´s going well with you. Don´t forget to write, and read the Book of Mormon every day. :)
I LOVE YOU!
---Hna. Springer
P.S. No nasty bug stories this week, and I can finally wear my boots again now that the sand fly nest is gone. Yay!
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Week 27 - Asuncion Paraguay - Mariano Roque Alonzo
Hey Family!
HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY! Can you believe I´ve been gone six months already, and that we´re gonna have Change 4 this week, and that on the 17th I´m gonna hit my only-one-year-left mark? June absolutely flew by. We should hear about Changes tonight, and I´m gonna be really sad if I have to leave Mariano and Hna. Tua´one. I´ve had so many great experiences here. I don´t want to leave. But if I must... well, Father knows best. :)
Thank you Holly, Ashley, Laurel, Sarah, Mom, Dad, and Grandma Springer for your letters this week. It sounds like you all had a blast together in Utah. After all the traveling to and from Utah and Arizona for the wedding and everything, though, I bet you´re ready to just relax at home.
So I have another fun story concerning nasty bugs! Don´t freak out, though, okay? I was considering not even telling you because it sounds worse than it actually was. So when I first got to Paraguay my shoes weren´t quite ready to handle the crazy rocky streets and everything, right? I predictably got lots of blisters. No biggie. Well, the blisters turned into callouses over time, except on my left foot it was like the callous on my heel wasn´t healing right. It was extra big and really painful and had a weird black spot in the middle. I just thought I had to walk it off and wear good socks and all that. Well, on Monday it was all rainy and I wanted to wear my rain boots, but those rub on my heels a bit and it hurt my left foot. So I decided I might as well at least confirm that this was in fact something I should just walk off, or I should get it taken care of so I could wear boots again during the rainy season. So we called it in and Hna. Madariaga told us to go see a foot specialist person in Asunción. On Tuesday, after a morning of teaching, we hopped on the bus and spent the rest of the day in Asunción. First we went to this really nice salon that the Asunción Elders referred us to, where like six people doted on us, took our coats, gave us drinks, and made us feel like we were way richer than we really were. But when I showed them my blister thingie, they got really concerned and told me they didn´t deal with stuff like that.
(Which made us wonder why the Elders go to that salon if not for actual foot problems. Do they just go there and get pedicures whenever their feet are sore??)
So I was getting concerned at that point, thinking I had the plague or something. We called Hna. Madariaga again and she scheduled an appointment for me with an American doctor nearby. We went to him, and I was really worried that he´d have to cut off my foot or something really painful like that. But instead he just looked at it and was like, "Oh. This. You´re fine." Apparently that callous thingie was actually the nest of a sand fly called tunga penetrans. He said it´s really common and that it would have cleared up on its own. It´s painful, but once the flies hatch and move out, there´s no lasting damage at all. But since I wasn´t too happy with the idea of having baby sand flies coming out of my foot, he speeded up the process by taking a scalpel to the callous and removing it all. It didn´t hurt one bit (it was still really gross, though), and once it was all disinfected and covered with a band-aid, I was good to go. :)
Really, no big deal. Dr. Schmidt gave me the name of the parasite just so I could have you all look it up and be unconcerned. :) I really wouldn´t have even told you at all, except then you´d wonder what I was doing in Asunción when I got to telling you about the rest of that afternoon.
Asunción was really fun to take a bus through. It almost felt like the States again, except for all the trash and horses and child laborers. Hna. Madariaga bonded with us a lot that day, first by taking good care of me with the whole parasite issue, and then by telling us to go ahead and have dinner in the city. First we went to a supermarket across the street from the doctor, where we discovered a little section that specifically caters to American tourists. We couldn´t resist buying a box of KRAFT macaroni and cheese, and were really tempted to grab some parmesan cheese, ranch dressing, barbecue sauce, and peanut butter, too, but we didn´t. Don´t you love how all of the American things I just listed are totally fattening? :)
We went to dinner at the mall foodcourt, where they had an actual Burger King! I never even liked Burger King in the States, but oh man that chicken sandwich tasted so good after all the weird Paraguayan meat we´ve eaten over the last four months. And Hna. Tua´one was having such a blast chewing on the ice in her soda. You learn to appreciate the little things. It was really bizarre being in a mall again, especially since there was a movie theater on the floor above us, so we were surrounded by movie posters. I´ve never been so out of the loop in my life! Seems like you have some fun theater trips to go on.
I really don´t miss all the pop culture stuff, though. I spent way too much money on movies before, and there are some things I wished I hadn´t watched now that distracting stuff keeps popping into my head. I can wait to watch them on video, if I watch them at all after the mission. :)
So that was our super fun Asunción trip. An American doctor, the mall, flip-flips (which I had to wear to let my heel heal), and macaroni and cheese. It´s a good thing we don´t actually work in Asunción or I wouldn´t miss home at all. :) Other than that our week was pretty normal. Hna. Madariaga gave us a new space heater so our fingers don´t freeze anymore as we study. It´s heavenly!
Our zone had a really great month. We were the only ones in the entire mission to meet our baptism goals. We´d set a goal of 14, and we got 15! President Madariaga called to congratulate us. We´re sad that the rest of the mission didn´t meet their goals, but we´re really proud of ourselves, too. Hna. Tua´one and I are still trying to find another golden investigator. We didn´t have anyone come with us to church yesterday, sadly. But the Elders did so great! Together they brought three whole families and some single investigators. It was the first time all of the chairs were filled in our Gospel Principles class. I was really impressed with them.
Hna. Tua´one and I think we may have found our next awesome investigator, though. Hna. Stagg and I had taught Rosana back in April, but she moved unexpectedly and we lost contact. Well, the Elders found her workplace in their area and started teaching her, but she actually lives in our area still. She came to church, and then we went to her house yesterday afternoon to reconnect and she is an amazing girl. She´s so excited to learn and loves reading the Book of Mormon. We taught her about the Plan of Salvation and she had some great questions about the resurrection and the kingdoms of glory.
Speaking of the Plan of Salvation, I´ve been reading in 2 Nephi lately, and I realized that the Book of Mormon is so distinct and so important partly because it speaks so clearly about the Plan. I was marking scriptures like crazy yesterday as I found principle after principle and felt SO inspired. Without a clear knowledge of the Plan, people really can´t fully appreciate our Savior, or baptism by authority, or charity, or anything! How can we have a perfect brightness of hope if we don´t learn about the eternal scheme of things?
I was also really inspired this week by a talk that President Madariaga sent out. It was 24 pages long, and I thought it was going to be tedious homework to read it all, but I read it all in one sitting this morning. It was entitled "The Fourth Missionary." It was given by the mission president in Chile back in 2002, and he said that there are four types of missionary. 1. A missionary who is disobedient and goes home early. 2. A missionary who´s disobedient but stays the whole two years. 3. A missionary who´s obedient and serves worthily but only because that´s what´s expected. Finally, 4. a missionary who´s obedient and serves worthily because their only desire is to do as the Lord desires. As missionaries we always hear, "Lose yourself in the work," but I think sometimes we think of that like "Time flies when you´re working hard." Instead of counting down the days of hard work and looking forward to doing other things, we need to dedicate all that we are to being the Lord´s servants. In reality, everything we have is already God´s, EXCEPT ourselves. The only gift we can give God is our will and our desires. And really it´s a win-win situation. If we lose our will to God, we win in the end. But if we kick against the pricks or just grin and bear it but don´t really put our heart into serving, we´re not going to be very happy, and neither will God. If we give God our all now, He´ll give us all He has in the eternities. That´s the only intelligent way to serve a mission. If we serve for 18 months only for wordly recognition, we´ve thrown those months away. But if we serve those 18 months with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, we´ve benefitted eternally. It´s an investment! And everything is stacked in our favor to become like Christ and serve like the Fourth Missionary. As it says in Matt. 11:28-30, the Lord´s yoke is easy and His burden is light. All we need to do is put our trust in Him, and we win. :) I also love that verse in Matthew where it says if we lose our life, we´ll find it. I think I´m going to make that my motto when I make my "new year´s resolutions" on the 17th.
Well, time to go again. Thank you again for your letters and your prayers. I´m praying for all of you, too, and I know that the Lord is looking out for us all. Even in times of tragedy and hardship, the Lord gives us challenges for one purpose only: to give us the opportunity to apply the principles of the gospel of Christ in our lives and find eternal happiness. Stay true to the faith! I LOVE YOU ALL!!
---Hna. Springer
HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY! Can you believe I´ve been gone six months already, and that we´re gonna have Change 4 this week, and that on the 17th I´m gonna hit my only-one-year-left mark? June absolutely flew by. We should hear about Changes tonight, and I´m gonna be really sad if I have to leave Mariano and Hna. Tua´one. I´ve had so many great experiences here. I don´t want to leave. But if I must... well, Father knows best. :)
Thank you Holly, Ashley, Laurel, Sarah, Mom, Dad, and Grandma Springer for your letters this week. It sounds like you all had a blast together in Utah. After all the traveling to and from Utah and Arizona for the wedding and everything, though, I bet you´re ready to just relax at home.
So I have another fun story concerning nasty bugs! Don´t freak out, though, okay? I was considering not even telling you because it sounds worse than it actually was. So when I first got to Paraguay my shoes weren´t quite ready to handle the crazy rocky streets and everything, right? I predictably got lots of blisters. No biggie. Well, the blisters turned into callouses over time, except on my left foot it was like the callous on my heel wasn´t healing right. It was extra big and really painful and had a weird black spot in the middle. I just thought I had to walk it off and wear good socks and all that. Well, on Monday it was all rainy and I wanted to wear my rain boots, but those rub on my heels a bit and it hurt my left foot. So I decided I might as well at least confirm that this was in fact something I should just walk off, or I should get it taken care of so I could wear boots again during the rainy season. So we called it in and Hna. Madariaga told us to go see a foot specialist person in Asunción. On Tuesday, after a morning of teaching, we hopped on the bus and spent the rest of the day in Asunción. First we went to this really nice salon that the Asunción Elders referred us to, where like six people doted on us, took our coats, gave us drinks, and made us feel like we were way richer than we really were. But when I showed them my blister thingie, they got really concerned and told me they didn´t deal with stuff like that.
(Which made us wonder why the Elders go to that salon if not for actual foot problems. Do they just go there and get pedicures whenever their feet are sore??)
So I was getting concerned at that point, thinking I had the plague or something. We called Hna. Madariaga again and she scheduled an appointment for me with an American doctor nearby. We went to him, and I was really worried that he´d have to cut off my foot or something really painful like that. But instead he just looked at it and was like, "Oh. This. You´re fine." Apparently that callous thingie was actually the nest of a sand fly called tunga penetrans. He said it´s really common and that it would have cleared up on its own. It´s painful, but once the flies hatch and move out, there´s no lasting damage at all. But since I wasn´t too happy with the idea of having baby sand flies coming out of my foot, he speeded up the process by taking a scalpel to the callous and removing it all. It didn´t hurt one bit (it was still really gross, though), and once it was all disinfected and covered with a band-aid, I was good to go. :)
Really, no big deal. Dr. Schmidt gave me the name of the parasite just so I could have you all look it up and be unconcerned. :) I really wouldn´t have even told you at all, except then you´d wonder what I was doing in Asunción when I got to telling you about the rest of that afternoon.
Asunción was really fun to take a bus through. It almost felt like the States again, except for all the trash and horses and child laborers. Hna. Madariaga bonded with us a lot that day, first by taking good care of me with the whole parasite issue, and then by telling us to go ahead and have dinner in the city. First we went to a supermarket across the street from the doctor, where we discovered a little section that specifically caters to American tourists. We couldn´t resist buying a box of KRAFT macaroni and cheese, and were really tempted to grab some parmesan cheese, ranch dressing, barbecue sauce, and peanut butter, too, but we didn´t. Don´t you love how all of the American things I just listed are totally fattening? :)
We went to dinner at the mall foodcourt, where they had an actual Burger King! I never even liked Burger King in the States, but oh man that chicken sandwich tasted so good after all the weird Paraguayan meat we´ve eaten over the last four months. And Hna. Tua´one was having such a blast chewing on the ice in her soda. You learn to appreciate the little things. It was really bizarre being in a mall again, especially since there was a movie theater on the floor above us, so we were surrounded by movie posters. I´ve never been so out of the loop in my life! Seems like you have some fun theater trips to go on.
I really don´t miss all the pop culture stuff, though. I spent way too much money on movies before, and there are some things I wished I hadn´t watched now that distracting stuff keeps popping into my head. I can wait to watch them on video, if I watch them at all after the mission. :)
So that was our super fun Asunción trip. An American doctor, the mall, flip-flips (which I had to wear to let my heel heal), and macaroni and cheese. It´s a good thing we don´t actually work in Asunción or I wouldn´t miss home at all. :) Other than that our week was pretty normal. Hna. Madariaga gave us a new space heater so our fingers don´t freeze anymore as we study. It´s heavenly!
Our zone had a really great month. We were the only ones in the entire mission to meet our baptism goals. We´d set a goal of 14, and we got 15! President Madariaga called to congratulate us. We´re sad that the rest of the mission didn´t meet their goals, but we´re really proud of ourselves, too. Hna. Tua´one and I are still trying to find another golden investigator. We didn´t have anyone come with us to church yesterday, sadly. But the Elders did so great! Together they brought three whole families and some single investigators. It was the first time all of the chairs were filled in our Gospel Principles class. I was really impressed with them.
Hna. Tua´one and I think we may have found our next awesome investigator, though. Hna. Stagg and I had taught Rosana back in April, but she moved unexpectedly and we lost contact. Well, the Elders found her workplace in their area and started teaching her, but she actually lives in our area still. She came to church, and then we went to her house yesterday afternoon to reconnect and she is an amazing girl. She´s so excited to learn and loves reading the Book of Mormon. We taught her about the Plan of Salvation and she had some great questions about the resurrection and the kingdoms of glory.
Speaking of the Plan of Salvation, I´ve been reading in 2 Nephi lately, and I realized that the Book of Mormon is so distinct and so important partly because it speaks so clearly about the Plan. I was marking scriptures like crazy yesterday as I found principle after principle and felt SO inspired. Without a clear knowledge of the Plan, people really can´t fully appreciate our Savior, or baptism by authority, or charity, or anything! How can we have a perfect brightness of hope if we don´t learn about the eternal scheme of things?
I was also really inspired this week by a talk that President Madariaga sent out. It was 24 pages long, and I thought it was going to be tedious homework to read it all, but I read it all in one sitting this morning. It was entitled "The Fourth Missionary." It was given by the mission president in Chile back in 2002, and he said that there are four types of missionary. 1. A missionary who is disobedient and goes home early. 2. A missionary who´s disobedient but stays the whole two years. 3. A missionary who´s obedient and serves worthily but only because that´s what´s expected. Finally, 4. a missionary who´s obedient and serves worthily because their only desire is to do as the Lord desires. As missionaries we always hear, "Lose yourself in the work," but I think sometimes we think of that like "Time flies when you´re working hard." Instead of counting down the days of hard work and looking forward to doing other things, we need to dedicate all that we are to being the Lord´s servants. In reality, everything we have is already God´s, EXCEPT ourselves. The only gift we can give God is our will and our desires. And really it´s a win-win situation. If we lose our will to God, we win in the end. But if we kick against the pricks or just grin and bear it but don´t really put our heart into serving, we´re not going to be very happy, and neither will God. If we give God our all now, He´ll give us all He has in the eternities. That´s the only intelligent way to serve a mission. If we serve for 18 months only for wordly recognition, we´ve thrown those months away. But if we serve those 18 months with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, we´ve benefitted eternally. It´s an investment! And everything is stacked in our favor to become like Christ and serve like the Fourth Missionary. As it says in Matt. 11:28-30, the Lord´s yoke is easy and His burden is light. All we need to do is put our trust in Him, and we win. :) I also love that verse in Matthew where it says if we lose our life, we´ll find it. I think I´m going to make that my motto when I make my "new year´s resolutions" on the 17th.
Well, time to go again. Thank you again for your letters and your prayers. I´m praying for all of you, too, and I know that the Lord is looking out for us all. Even in times of tragedy and hardship, the Lord gives us challenges for one purpose only: to give us the opportunity to apply the principles of the gospel of Christ in our lives and find eternal happiness. Stay true to the faith! I LOVE YOU ALL!!
---Hna. Springer
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