Hey Family!
Thank you so much for the outpouring of letters! Shelli, Teresa, Holly, Dad, Mom, Ashley, Amanda, Grandma, and Goompa--you´re the best. I´m glad to hear that things are pretty tranquilo with you all. I hope you survive the summer heat, and remember that your summer is ending while mine is just beginning. Remember how last week I was freezing cold? Well, on Friday night I went to bed with four blankets and still shivered all night. But on Saturday night, all four blankets ended up on the floor as I tried to escape the heat! Paraguay weather is so random. Yesterday was sweltering hot, but everyone keeps telling me that it was nothing compared to summer heat. I think I´m gonna die. On that note, since you´ve all been asking what I want for my birthday, I would really appreciate some light summer shirts and skirts. But only if you really want to get some for me. I can totally buy some here for myself if I need to. I wouldn´t say anything if you hadn´t offered.
We had a good week this week. We had six investigators in church! My record before Loma was only three. The members are just so friendly here that we can easily rely on them to help us give investigators the motivation to come. We have one investigator named Blanca who is super amazing. When I first got here she was all upset that the Hermana before me had left, and she´d just gotten back from a trip to her parents´ house where they fed her anti-Mormon lies. So my first impression of her was that she was flakey and didn´t have a strong testimony yet. But then on Friday night we had a Noche de Hogar with a cool member family called the Flia. Ruiz. Hno. Ruiz had asked us to talk about keeping the Sabbath Day holy (obviously there´s been some debate in their family about that...). Blanca lives really close to the Flia. Ruiz, so we invited her to come with us. She was nervous. Before, she´d told us that one of her reasons for not wanting to be baptized was her lack of friends in the ward. But we convinced her to come to the Noche de Hogar, and it all went perfect from there. We read a lot of scriptures and talked about the beauty of church attendance and how God loves us so much that He asks that our tribute to Him is rest from our labors. Blanca really opened up about how much she wishes the world would keep the Sabbath Day holy, and she got to talking about how when she came to church last month she really felt at peace and it made her whole week better. Hna. Ruiz shared her testimony, too, and then the rest of us. It was a really sweet lesson, and in the end the Ruiz family and Blanca were exchanging numbers and figuring out where to meet to go to church together. Yesterday Blanca came to church with them, and during a new member´s confirmation, she whispered to us, "That´s going to be me on the 18th!" Now she has a baptismal date. :)
Oh, and that new member who was confirmed yesterday? She was our convert. Her name is Viviana. She´s the 15-year-old who only speaks Guaraní. I still don´t feel like I know her hardly at all, so it´s weird to count her as my baptism, but as I re-teach her the lessons this next month I´m sure I´ll come to love her as my convvert. Anyways, her baptism was on Saturday, and as is typical, nothing went as it was planned. Due to conflicts in her work schedule she couldn´t have her baptismal interview until an hour before the service. We planned to have her interviewed at 2:00 and have the service at 3:00. But we blocked out from 3:00 to 5:00 in our plans knowing it wouldn´t be on schedule. Not even that was enough, turns out. Vivi didn´t show up until 3:30, and the service didn´t get underway until 4:30. There was an activity for the Día del Niño in the cultural hall and her family was all distracted by the hot dogs and cake being dished out, so it was hard to round them all up. :) The actual service went well. The Hermanas and I sang a hymn with a singer in the ward named Matias. We sang "Mirad al Salvador," which is a great baptismal hymn, but I don´t think it´s in English, sadly. We sang a capella, and it was really pretty. As for the actual baptism, we had issues with the amount of water in the font. When filling the font earlier, the water in the whole building just shut off (I won´t even tell you about what kinds of problems that caused with the bathrooms). We only had like two feet of water to work with. At every baptism I´ve been to the person has had to get baptized twice, because Paraguayans don´t do much swimming and they try to get out too early. Well with Vivi, we had the issue of her not liking water, AND it was too shallow. They had to try FOUR TIMES before they finally figured out how to get her all the way under the water. It involved her kneeling in the font and tucking in her arms really tight against her body. She was unperturbed, though, and when she was confirmed yesterday, she was just glowing.
We´re going to have another baptism next week, but again it´s going to feel weird to count it as my convert. The woman getting baptized is named Aurora, and she´s been a member for the past 30 years. Yeah, you read that right. A member of 30 years getting baptized. Apparently last year, after being inactive for a long time, she tried to get her temple recommend and it was discovered that nobody could find her baptismal records. Nor her witnesses. Nor the man who baptized her. So, 30 years after her original covenant with the Lord, she gets to be baptized again! I was worried that she´d be all offended and leave the church like you sometimes hear of people doing, but instead she´s totally excited! After being inactive for a while, she wants nothing more than to start all over. She´s having a big party with the relief society after the service. She´s so cute.
You´re going to have to wait a while to recieve pictures from me. I´m having issues remembering my PIN number so as of right now I have no cash to print pictures. Next week they should be done and that means they´ll get sent the week after that... Eh. Just tell me when you get them.
I just ordered my cool personalized scripture cases from the man who makes them for our mission. They are going to be so legit. I ordered a cover for my Bible, for my Triple, and for my little Spanish hymn book. They should be done on Wednesday, and I´m so excited to see them. I´m definitely going to leave them at home once they´re done, though. I don´t want them to get stolen or ruined. They´re purely souvenires.
We have Elder Arnold´s conference this Wednesday, too, which I´m super excited about. I´m hoping it will be as great as General Conference and that I´ll come back more pumped and with more ideas on what to do to be a successful missionary.
I can´t believe that it´s been eight months already, can you? Sheesh, I feel like March was just yesterday. But I´m really satisfied with what I´ve done when I look back on my time as a missionary. I may not have converted all of Paraguay (yet...) but every time I watch a baptism I can feel the Savior´s love for that person so strongly. I know that even just one person entering that baptismal font makes such a huge difference in God´s plan. I´m so honored to be able to be a part of that plan.
I miss you all loads. I´m jealous of your air conditioning and swimming pools. But I´m loving my time here, and I´m not worried about us being apart. I am so blessed to know that I have you as my family for all eternity and that God has blessings in store for us that are unimaginably better than anything the Adversary can give or take from us. Don´t worry about me, and always look on the bright side. Study the scriptures every day. When you wake up in the morning, ask God for help doing what He expects you to do, and when you go to bed, ask Him how you did. I feel closer to God every day as a missioanry. I´m so grateful for this chance that I have to refine myself as well as change the lives of others, and I hope that you´re all growing closer to our Savior as well. I love you all, and I thank you so much for your strength and spirituality. Take care!
I LOVE YOU!!
---Hna. Springer
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