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
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