Querida Familia Mia,
Por fin we had success with our asistencia this Sunday! Just like the last two months or so, Sunday was the only overcast day of the week, but thankfully I never saw a single drop of rain. Three out of our four progressing investigators came to church with us! I´m so happy. :)
It wasn´t easy getting them all to church. Hna. Tua´one decided that since I could very well have a lazy companion next Change, I should start practicing my leadership skills. She put me in charge of all the planning and had me make all the calls throughout the day--who we were going to teach, where we were going to do, what we were going to teach, etc. It was stressful. I´m such a sheep, but this week I did my best to be a sheepdog instead. It felt kind of weird. Hna. Tua´one didn´t talk as much, wanting me to be able to focus and not wanting to forget not to take the lead. It would have been easy if we´d had a lot of investigators to go see, but since we dropped most of them this week, we ended up doing a LOT of finding. But to my immense relief I found that God really is leading me to the right people. I tried to act instantly whenever I felt like we should stop and talk with someone, and as a result, we got rejected a LOT less than usual. There was one day where we did nothing but finding, and I was sure that we were just going to wander the streets hitting rejection after rejection. Instead, EVERY house we clapped at recieved us! It was amazing!
Two of the three investigators who came to church yesterday were Nasario and Junior. I don´t know if I´ve told you about them or not. Nasario´s been investigating the church since January, and we´d decided last week that we were going to drop him for sure. But then we gave him one last chance to attend a baptism on Tuesday, and he came! We went back to visit him and found that he´s been doing so much better with his goal to quit drinking. It was a real challenge for him to come to church because he´s very shy. He came on his bike so that he could have an independent escape route. We literally had to push him into the chapel and sit on either side of him to keep him from ducking out. In the end, though, he was attentively listening to the talks and wasn´t trying to escape anymore.
Junior´s mom is an inactive member with a drinking problem (she and Nasario are drinking buddies), and we´d heard that she had forbidden him to come to church with us anymore. We´d thought we were going to drop him, too, but then when we went to visit Nasario, Junior was there. He said his mom would let him come again if we asked, and so we did, and she said yes. He´s such a good kid. He always tells us the truth when the adults lie about their drinking and such, and no matter where we are or what we´re doing, if he knows the misioneras are in his neighborhood he´ll run to the nearest despensa and buy us gum unasked. He´s so cute.
We really had a great Sunday yesterday. Hna. Tua´one and I have really become like sisters. I love her so much. We had a great time together yesterday. My favorite part was when she taught me how to make her handmade Mexican tortillas. I am now a pro, and I´m still thrilled that I learned that. They tasted divine, and when we topped them with guacamole from avacados straight off the tree and Hna. Tua´one´s Mexican chicken, we were both in heaven. They were quite possibly the best tacos I´ve ever eaten.
AND, we´re officially teaching the Miga de Pan lady, whose name I finally learned is Carmen. We went in to visit her on Monday night and for the first time ever she actually closed the shop and sat down to chat with us. We talked with her again yesterday night. At first it was all casual. We weren´t quite sure how to start teaching someone we´ve known for so long. But as we talked, she would occasionally get more serious and reveal things like, "I have friends in the Mormon church." Last night, she told us, "I used to go to your church with my co-worker." It´s a slow process, getting her to open up about religion. She keeps getting calls from clients as we talk, so it´s hard to keep the discussion going, but I seriously feel like she´s going to join the church someday. She´s an amazing woman.
Oh man, so now we have three baptisms planned for this month, and I¨m most likely going to be transferred this week. I´m going to be so sad if I leave. We´re finally having success and I feel so close to all of these people here in Mariano. And seriously, I love Hna. Tua´one. I was so fortunate to have Hna. Stagg, then Hna. Tua´one...I kind of feel like I should be getting a difficult companion sometime soon. There must be opposition in all things, right? :) We´ll see. We already said goodbye to most of our district due to a Special Change last week. We were together for three months--longer than I knew my MTC district--and it was hard to break up our little dream team. But change is good. It can only get better as we gain more and more experience, right?
Our Area Seventy, Elder Arnold, is coming to chew us out on the 30th. I don´t actually know that he´s going to be harsh, but from what I´ve heard from others who have heard him speak, he is an intense speaker who makes all the missionaries squirm with guilt. I´m worried that I´m doing something wrong that he´s going to discover and call me out on. I don´t THINK I have anything to worry about, and I´m sure it´s going to be very inspirational and uplifting, but I´m still going to double- and triple-check that I bring all the materials he told us to bring.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I taught Gospel Principles yesterday. It really wasn´t that big a deal--how many times do I teach every day of the week! But it´s different when you´re teaching a whole big group of investigators instead of being one-on-one and having a companion at your side to help you find the words you don´t know in Spanish. I only struggled a little bit, though, with the language. The lesson itself was on Charity, and teaching it was easy. I really felt guided by the Spirit, at one point stopping in the middle of the lesson to flip through my scriptures and find a passage of scripture that wasn´t listed anywhere in the manual. It ended up sparking a lot more discussion than any of the other scriptures we read. I felt really confident and happy to teach a subject that really means a lot to me--it´s charity that brought me here to Paraguay, after all.
I´ve been doing a lot of good reading this week. I decided to take up reading the Bible again. I´m reading in the New Testament, though, since I feel like I just barely read the Old Testament. I´ve finished all of Matthew, and I think I circled about 80% of the verses. :) I thought I read the words of Christ all the time through the writings of the prophets, but to read about the actual mortal life of Christ is something I should have done a long time ago. I loved every single part, and I´m grateful that I read Jesus the Christ earlier this year to give me a greater perspective on Jerusalem and the people Christ helped. I feel like I can do a much better job about trying to be Christlike now that I´ve got Matthew fresh on my mind.
We also got the new LIahona on Tuesday and I´ve already read the whole thing. I never realized before the mission how much the Liahona talks about missionary work and those who change the lives of others by being pioneers in the gospel. It was so inspiring to read so many stories about peoples´ conversion, especially when it involved missionaries coming for AGES before the person got baptized. Many times I feel like I´m doing a lot of sowing instead of reaping, but I´m happy knowing that someday someone else will be able to enjoy the fruits from the seeds I plant for them.
Let´s see...what else... I learned that pigs are very, VERY vocal. The Gastóns got a pig this week. They kept it tethered in the yard for three days, and that was all we could take. It was CONSTANTLY grunting, and early in the morning it would start SCREAMING for its food. Hna. Tua´one joked every morning at 5:00 when it woke us up that if the Gastóns didn´t give it food soon, it was going to become food. Even when it was finally fed, it ate like...well, like a pig, with lots of smacking and slurping, making it hard to fall back asleep. Every time we saw the Gastóns, they were talking about how to get the pig to be quiet. They debated muzzling it, but decided that it makes most of its noise through its nose. One day we went outside to find them trying to shove the pig into a cardboard box. No idea what they were thinking. It just squealed all the louder. Finally I think all of the tenants had complained at one point or another, and the Gastóns sent the pig away to a distant relative. Por. Fin.
And the Gastóns continue to feed us weird food. Last week goat, this week duck. I thought duck was supposed to be white meat like chicken? Nope. Totally dark meat like beef (Why does everyone say, "It tastes just like chicken," when so far I´ve found that everything tastes like beef?). You learn something new every day.
I´m so relieved that you finally got my pictures. I was so worried that they´d gotten lost forever. Now I can rest easy. :)
Thank you Dad, Mom, Sarah, Ashley, Laurel, Grandma, and Grandpa Springer for your e-mails this week. I´m glad to hear that you enjoy reading about my mission. It all seems so every-day to me. :) Stand in holy places and be not moved! I love you all so much and I already can´t wait to hear from you again next week!
¡Cariño! (I just learned that word this week. :))
---Hna. Springer
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