Week 43 - Asuncion Paraguay - Villa Hayes

Dear Family,

Thank you so so so much for all the many birthday wishes! Thank you Dad, Mom, Amanda, Sarah, Ashley, McConkies, Jenkins, Andersons, Jefferies, Grandma and Grandpa Springer, Bishop Crittenden, Bishop Tinker, and President Ballard for your notes. You´re all so sweet. And thank you Goompa and Nana for the birthday money. I´m going straight to work spending it, and I´ll send you a picture of what I buy. :) (P.S. Yes, Laurel, I got your e-mail last week, and I loved it. Thanks!)

Honestly, it hasn´t really hit me that I´m almost 22. I´ve been saying, "Tengo 21 años," for so long that it will be weird to switch. And there has been pretty much no indication at all that it´s October--no Fall colors, no excess of candy, and no black cats or jack-o-lanterns. If anything, it feels like June to me. Summer is coming on full force.

Sorry I don´t have time to respond to all of your individual e-mails today. May I just say that sounds like the Springers had a fun Fall Break, and I´m SO JEALOUS that you went to Yellowstone! Those pictures literally made my jaw drop and my heart break from how pretty it is there in the Fall. 

Today we had a zone activity with all of the Elders from Remansito, Benjamin, and Mariano, along with Hna. Tua´one and Hna. Estigarribia, of course. It was lots of fun. We walked from the Mariano side of the bridge over the Paraguay river all the way to the Villa Hayes side. It was quite the walk, and VERY WINDY. We Hermanas ended up with our hair impossibly tangled, and all the other Hermanas were walking half bent over the whole time, trying to keep their skirts down. I was very grateful that I wore my longest skirt today. :) Unfortunately, the refreshing wind made me forget that I hadn´t applied sunscreen this morning (we had to rush out the door and it slipped my mind). Now I am completely burned. So much for all that careful sunscreen application and umbrella-holding. Anyways, it was good to catch up with our mission friends, and we all had lunch in Mariano and felt very rejuvinated. Next Monday we´re planning on having a Halloween activity. 

Seriously, though, it´s ridiculously hot. Even the Elder from Panama was complaining today. We are constantly sweaty. I get out of the shower, dry off, then later wonder, "Wait...why am I still wet?" Then I towel off again, and again...and again! I can never get dry! Who needs steam rooms? All of Paraguay is a steam room! We carry umbrellas to escape from the sun, eat lots of cold watermelon at night, and LOVE our twice-a-day cold showers. Our electric shower heater actually broke a few weeks ago, but now we don´t even care. Cold water works just fine. :) It´s the closest we get to a refreshing swim. 

I´ve pretty much experienced all that Paraguay has to offer. I just have to survive the summer, get robbed, eat cow stomach, and fall really hard. Everything else, I´ve done, including get bit by a dog. This week I went to give a woman besos and totally didn´t see the little dog under her chair. I stepped right on its tail and it bit me on my calf. It didn´t even break the skin, and the dog was really sweet so it wasn´t that big a deal--just a misunderstanding. :) But now I can mark that off my list of things I need to do to be a full-fledged Paraguayan missionary. 

Hna. deVries and I are getting the hang of cooking in Paraguay. We´ve found a bunch of great veggie vendors around town and we´re stocking up every week. Also, all of the trees are getting heavy with LOADS of mangos. I´m so excited for when they´re ready to eat. I hear it´s ridiculous how many mangos there are--just piles and piles of them in the streets because people can´t eat them fast enough. 

We´re sí o sí (that means "for sure") gonna have a baptism this Saturday! Fabiola is so ready to become a member of the church. She and her boyfriend are really great people and so humble and willing to do all that it takes to follow the Lord. They´re very willing, they just need to learn a few key doctrines. Specifically about marriage. Fabiola´s boyfriend, Cesar, is actually now her husband. They eloped a few weeks ago because their parents were trying to prevent them. Cesar knew that civil marriage only counted "until death do you part," and knew there was a "time and all eternity" option, but he thought that that was just a wedding held in the chapel. He´d seen a civil marriage before someone´s baptism and thought THAT was what it meant to be married in the church. He had no idea about temples. He also thought that to sleep together before a marriage in the church was breaking the law of chastity. So they basically had no wedding ceremony with their families and no honeymoon. Their faces when we explained that were priceless. Fabiola just laughed and gave Cesar a look like, "...seriously?" We´re going to throw them a great big party for Fabiola´s baptism to make up for their lack of public wedding. I´m just proud of them for being so willing to wait on the Lord. :) 

We found another golden investigator this week who just may be our next baptism. Her name is Andrea, and we found her when she was helping us find her cousin´s house. Her cousin was one of the kids doing a school project about the church, and as we walked I kind of tried to bring up the fact that we were missionaries, but then SHE asked US, "Can you come back on Saturday and teach me? I´m really looking for God in my life right now and I´d like to share with you." We said OF COURSE, and went back on Saturday as promised. She is such a lovely girl. She used to be Catholic but found that the teachings never seemed to really apply to her situation, and that none of the members there were really willing to help her. She also has a friend who´s addicted to drugs, and she´s very aware of the need for being spiritually in-tune. We haven´t taught her much yet, but our first visit was very spiritual as we bore testimony of God´s love for her, and told her that we would do all that we could to help her out. I have a lot of hope for her. She´s a wonderful person.

One thing I´m struggling with, though, is confidence in the members. Andrea was all complaining about how gossipy the women in the Catholic church were and how they didn´t seem interested in helping newcomers, and I honestly couldn´t say that we don´t have that in the Church of Jesus Christ. It´s just so sad to me how we really shouldn´t have problems like that, yet they still spring up and chase newcomers and even old-timers away. We´ve talked with so many inactive members this week. We´ve been striving to teach them as if they were investigators, helping them remember (or learn for the first time) doctrines that they may not really know. It just breaks my heart how many of them don´t even know that the Book of Mormon was translated by Joseph Smith, not written by him. And yesterday we were talking with a member named Bernardo who, after he was baptized, was a member of the district presidency, the ward mission leader, the Elders Quorom president, helped the Elders baptize 70 people (!!!)....and then went inactive. The church has its ups and downs, obviously, but I feel like this little branch of Villa Hayes is in one of its worst ever slumps. We´re gonna do all we can to help people go to church for themselves and for God, not for any of the members or for the missionaries. Only then can they fell the Spirit there and become strong in the gospel.

This week we had good attendance, though, thanks to a Primary program. I wholeheartedly believe that of such is the kingdom of heaven. These little kids are so strong in their faith. Many of them come on their own to church while their inactive parents stay home. Quite a few of them managed to beg their parents to come yesterday, and we had a great spirit of friendship in the chapel. So many friends were reunited after who knows how long, and the childrens´ singing was so sweet and pure. 

Anyways, that´s all for this week. I hope you´re all doing all you can to stay strong in your own faith and helping build the faith of others around you. Remember that while we missionaries are out in the field full-time, the work really all depends on you, the members. Without you supporting newcomers or inactives, sharing your testimonies and being a friend, nothing we missionaries do will last very long. I´m happy to hear about all the campaigning that´s being done by the members all around the world. We really are undertaking a great work, but it´s so worth it. The church WILL flood the earth. Christ WILL come again. It all depends on how hard we work to make those things happen.

I love you all so so much. Thanks again for all of your love and birthday wishes. I´ll write all about my birthday next week, though I doubt there will be much to report. :) Take care! 

---Hna. Springer

Here´s a bunch more--most of them are from that one time when you didn´t get my weekly e-mail because i had photos attached. :)

1-Hna. deVries, Hna. Tua´one, Elder Castillo, Hna. Estigarribia, y Elder Collura on the Puente Remanso

2-Me and Hna. deVries on the bridge (before the sunburn)

3-Me with Justo, his mom Sonia, and Miguel.

4-Me and some cool trees in Mariano

5-Hna. Tua´one and some gorgeous little kids we taught in Mariano. Whenever they saw us coming they´d come running screaming, "HERMANAS!!!"

6-Me and Teodocio

LOVE YOU!!

---Carly

Week 42 - Asuncion Paraguay - Villa Hayes

Dearest Familia,

Well, third time´s a charm! This, our third week, was WAY more successful than the first two. We went from an average of 24 lessons a week to 32, and almost met every one of our weekly goals--we even got people in church! I´m so glad I can report great numbers to President this week. It didn´t even feel like we worked extra hard or anything, but the quality of our lessons and the people we find to teach has greatly improved. Hna. deVries pointed out that we waste too much time getting to know people by asking about their work or their dog or whatever, when what we NEED to do is become masters at creating spiritual experiences right from the start. We´ve been putting that into practice every day, and it makes an incredible difference. Now we get to know people by asking them about their experiences with church, their relationship with God, etc. It gives us a much better idea of what to teach and if we should continue to teach them. Plus we´ve done a lot less member visits and a lot more contacting and reference-asking to find new investigators. The result: a whole lot more spiritual experiences. We´re still not masters, but we´re working on it.

Seriously, I feel so much more accomplished. On Friday we had interviews with President, and he had charts of our numbers throughout our missions. My numbers had dropped so badly this last month, but now there´ll be a happy spike. :) What a spiritual month--district conference, general conference, temple trip, then interviews. I love getting one-on-one time with President. He never condemns me for my embarrassing numbers but praises me for my Spanish and dedication. I always feel like those 15 minutes are way too short.

Funny story about coming back from interviews. It was right around lunchtime, which meant that everyone was either coming home from school, heading out to school, or coming home for a quick lunch and nap between working. The bus from Mariano (where we had interviews) to Villa Hayes comes VERY infrequently. So when we finally caught one, it was PACKED. All sense of personal boundaries went out the window as we were crammed in like sardines. Not only were all the seats taken, the aisle was so full of people, we had to stand on tiptoe and suck in our stomachs to find room to breathe. People were standing on the steps in and out of the bus, little kids were up on the dashboard. It was ridiculous. I don´t know how people managed to squeeze by us to get off at their stop. We´d just reached the city limits of Villa Hayes when the driver pulled the bus over and told us all to get off. We all poured out ("AIR!!!") and it was like watching a clown car act. People kept coming. And coming. And COMING. Seeing the crowd around the bus when we´d all gotten off, I would have thought TEN buses had just deposited their passengers. Once we were out, we realized the bus was making a struggling, clanking sound that sounded a lot like, "I...think...I...can...I...think...I...can..." Luckily, a couple other buses came by soon and gave us free rides the rest of the way, but I could happily not be in a bus like that again. :)

Anyways, we´d put a goal this week of four people in church, and by a miracle we reached it! We´d worked so hard to get people to come, but only one of our investigators actually did, and she went to the Benjamin branch yesterday. We were really bummed, but then out of the blue, THREE high school kids showed up! Their school is doing a project about religions, so they decided to check out the Church of Jesus Christ. We had four in church! It was a miracle. 

We´ve actually been interviewed twice for such high school project-doers, and it was both terrifying and thrilling. I was worried I´d say something wrong, but at the same time, so happy to be able to give them a true idea of who we are and what we stand for. I was especially consistent about using the correct name of the church, and I asked them to use it in their reports. Hopefully some good comes from this project. One kids´ questions were reall random. "Do you believe in the end of the world?" "Did Mary have children after Jesus?" "What does 666 mean?" But for the most part they were good topics like, "What is the aim of your church?" and "Who is God to you?" It was great to be able to share my testimony, even if they aren´t really looking for the Truth.

I´ve been realizing this week (especially after those interviews) that I totally talk too much! Who´dda EVER thought that I would say that?? I think I´m pretty good at giving Hna. deVries every opportunity to teach, but it feels so natural for me now to lead the lessons. It´s so weird in hindsight.

The one investigator we had in church besides the high schoolers was a girl named Fabiola (I think I already mentioned her...). Her boyfriend is a member who wants to marry her in the temple, so she´s been learning from us and the Elders in Benjamin. When we first went to visit her, I was afraid that she was only humoring her boyfriend by tolerating our visits. But I was so wrong. She is an amazing person--super courteous and sweet and really open to us about her experiences with Christ and repentance. She is an absolute delight to teach. She always says, "Please never stop visiting me!" and she´s well on her way to getting baptized on the 29th! Yay! 

She was the only one of our investigators to go to church, and very few MEMBERS went to church yesterday due to a big Catholic holiday. It was to worship their patron saint, La Virgin de la Victoria. They paraded around the streets with the statue leading the way, then had parties all day and into the night. It made teaching very difficult. Even the members had family over or were at the rodeo or something. Thankfully we´d already met most of our goals.

It would have been difficult every day to teach this week had we not had our rain boots. It´s been raining every night this week, leaving the uneven streets with vast puddles of water, especially in the crossroads. Even with boots sometimes we had to jump or use stepping stones, the water was so deep. On Saturday we didn´t take our boots because it hadn´t rained that night, and that proved to be a mistake. We had to go out to the campo that day and every step was muddy. We decided to cross through the cemetary at one point, hoping it wasn´t sacreligious to take advantage of the tile walkways they put around their tombs. When we´d finally navigated our way through the maze of graves, I got cocky and decided the small patch of dirt between my tile walkway and the gate could be crossed. I promptly sank almost to my knee. I tried to escape the situation with a shred of dignity, hoping the nearby Paraguayans hadn´t heard my shriek or noticed that Hna. deVries had to fish out my shoe and throw it to me. Not only did I lose one of my good socks and have to walk around all day with my foot caked with mud, I also had to constantly remind myself that people here bury their dead ABOVE ground. Had it not been so, I might have been seriously traumatized.

So early this week I finished the Gospels and have been reading Acts for the first time ever. I´m also reading 3rd Nephi. I loved how both readings coincided--the resurrection of Christ and the history of the church right after He left. I especially love the story of Paul. He really gave such a great example of a fearless missionary. I´m learning to appreciate the Bible and Book of Mormon so much on the mission. I took so many religion classes before but never really appreciated them. Now I would LOVE to learn more about the historical stuff, but for now the simple, precious, doctrinal truths are all I need. :)

I´ve been reading my Guaraní Book of Mormon out loud lately, because I recognize a lot of words in writing but not when they´re spoken to me. I was hpapy yesterday when I asked a woman in Guaraní what her name was ("Mba´éicha nderéra?"). It sounded so weird on my tongue, but to my delight she understood and answered! It´s progress!

Thank you Dad, Mom, Grandma, Grandpa, Amanda, Sarah, and Ashley for your letters this week. It sounds like you had an excellent Fall Break. I can´t belive you´re already planning Thanksgiving and practicing for the Christmas choir. Where did this year go??

I love you all so much! Thank you for your support and prayers and pictures! :)

Rohaihu! (That´s "I love you" in Guaraní...except it´s singular...I´ll figure out plural someday.)

---Hna. Springer

1. Me by the river this morning.

2. Me in the rain. :)

Week 41 - Asuncion Paraguay - Villa Hayes

Hola Familia! 

Thank you so much for your prayers this week. Seriously, I felt your support even before I got to read your e-mails this week. Thank you Grandma, Dad, Mom, and Goompa and Nana for your letters. I´m glad to hear that everything is going well for you.

Congratulations Andrew! I´m so glad that you are now officially a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints! Did you get the letter I sent you? I hope you did.

I can´t believe that it´s week 41 already. This means that I´m now half-way done with my mission. That is so sad. The year has absolutely flown by. I´ve seriously come so far. Spanish is almost never a problem anymore, unless someone mumbles or intentionally talks too fast. I´ve seen TWO of the three Conferences I´ll see in Paraguay, and have now had two of the three temple trips. It´s so sad. 

The temple was amazing this week. We got to go on Friday, and were looking forward to it all week. For good reason. It was a perfectly tranquil day. With the extra studies we do as trainer and trainee, and with how slow the buses are, we did no actual proselyting at all that day. It was like a mini vacation. :) We got to go to the Distribution Center before our session started (I used my debit card--I think all the super cheap stuff I bought came to like $10), and then had a dinner with two zones´ worth of missionaries at the oh-so-elegant Burger King (I...also used my debit card there.) It was all really fun to reconnect with the other missionaries and just enjoy ourselves. 

But the best part of course was the temple itself. Walking through those doors was like stepping straight into heaven. Instantly all of the noise and smells and stress of Paraguay was snuffed out, and we were enveloped by a warm feeling of peace and calm. Everything was so beautiful. We got to do confirmations, initiatories, and an endowment session. Before, I went to the temple so often that the words became kind of old to me and I didn´t appreciate them as much. But after not having set foot in a temple for six whole months, I appreciated it all so much. It was like doing it all for the first time again. My memories were refreshed of the covenants I´ve made with God and the promises I´ve received from Him. Being able to pray in the Celestial room without worrying about the time or what my companion was doing or if someone was gonna interrupt me was so refreshing. I didn´t want the tranquility to end. None of us did. We could have stayed there all week had we been allowed.

So to all you Utahns who are now going on, what, 17 temples? I hope you go a lot and count the blessings you have in being able to do so. I´m so glad that Paraguay at least has a temple, and that I´m able to go every six months. But it will be awesome to be able to go every week again someday.

This week we actually found quite a few people who believe in the Church and want to be baptized. It was amazing to really see how many people there are who recognize the Truth and are ready to follow it. They´re few, but they´re so valiant. The only problem is, EVERY SINGLE ONE of them has someone keeping them from being baptized. Either they don´t have permission from their parents, or their spouse doesn´t want them to join. It´s so sad. We heard that FOUR times this week. Four! There´s one in particular named Sol who´s only 13 and is literally counting down the days until she turns 18 and can be baptized without her parents´ permission. Every time we see her, she´s out back reading the Doctrine and Covenants or working on Personal Progress. She´s seriously the most golden investigator I´ve ever met. We dedicated our fast this Sunday to her--to soften the hearts of her parents. As she always says, "God never gives a commandment unless we can do it." She has faith that she will be able to get baptized someday, she´s just afraid that she doesn´t have sufficient faith or something and that God will someday chastise her for not getting baptized before 18. We read with her in the Book of Mormon about Limhi´s people who weren´t able to get baptized because they didn´t have the authority, and assured her that sometimes we really do just have to trust in the Lord´s time and the Lord´s ways. 

We didn´t have much success in getting people to come to church with us on Sunday. And by "much success," I mean "no success" when it comes to investigators. Not a single one. BUT we did manage to get three inactive members to come with us, which made me so happy. I know that we´re supposed to focus on getting people into the waters of baptism, but honestly, getting people to re-enter the doors of the chapel is almost as rewarding. One of them was a man named Felipe who was depressed and heartbroken when a faithful, endowed woman in the church turned down his marriage proposal. When we visited him on Saturday he was determined not to go to church, not wanting to have to face her. He´s such an amazing, faithful member, though, that I would not leave that house until I´d gotten him to change his mind. I bore testimony that going to church is EXACTLY what we need to do when we´re sad, especially when it seems hardest--that Satan wants him to put off facing the woman perpetually. I expressed my fear that he would never go to church again if he didn´t face his fear and go this Sunday. He was pretty stubborn, until I gave the closing prayer, asking God to strengthen him. When I opened my eyes again, he was silently crying. He said he was going to study the scriptures and pray, because he knew he shouldn´t sin against the truth of church-going but confide in God´s love. He didn´t show up for the first hour of church and I was certain that he had flaked out. But then he was there for Sunday School, and at sacrament meeting he was talking with the woman he´d proposed to again. I´m sure his pain will still be there, but at least he´s making steps towards healing instead of wallowing in self-pity as Satan so often encourages us to do.

Anyways, church was really great yesterday. We had a grand total of 38 people there, and I´m pretty sure every single person bore their testimony in testimony meeting. They HAD to, to fill the time. The branch president practically begged them at the beginning to all be brave and share. It was so amazing to hear all of their stories of conversion. I´m sure they´ve heard each others stories loads of times, but for me it was so inspiring. I bore my testimony too, which I usually don´t do so that others can have a chance. It felt good. I don´t know why I´ve always been so scared to do that in the past. 

After church, we received word from the Elders in our neighbor city of Benjamin, that a girl who lives in Villa Hayes attended there with her boyfriend, loved the message of the Restoration, and wants to get baptized. After all of our hard work, finding almost no success with investigators, we just might see a miracle and have a baptism this month after all! I talked with the girl on the phone (her name is Fabiola) and she really does seem very interested. Yay for member boyfriends/girlfriends! Never forget the power of a good example. I just hope she really does go all the way. We´ve had so many false alarms lately.

Let´s see...what else happened this week... Oh! So our branch president, Presidente Rojas, is a VERY humble man. He has seven amazing kids--his oldest has served a mission and his second-oldest is filling out her papers right now. Every time we go to his house he´s diligently working. He has a very humble job of making woolen horse blankets by hand. He buys lots wool, washes it in the river, hangs it on his fence to dry, then (all by hand) spins it into yarn and weaves it. He does it all so quickly and is literally always working on it, that when we asked how many he makes a day, we were expecting some great number. Instead we learned that he can only make two or three. So on Thursday, after we had lunch with the Rojas family, we did some service by helping him for an hour. It was like being in pioneer times again. I´m pretty sure I´ve done that same thing at the "This is the Place" park. We used wooden paddles with barbs (like big dog brushes) to fluff out the wool, then spun it using an ancient, foot-powered spinning wheel, and then wove it on a simple loom. We were very slow at it, compared to Pte. Rojas´ skills, but I think it did help him a lot to be able to do the spinning while we worked on the fluffing and weaving or whatever. It was fun, too. I think we´re gonna start making that a weekly tradition.

Random question: Did you all buy that "Men of MoTab" CD for Father´s Day this year? Hna. deVries has it, and we listened to it on our new DVD player (one of the awesome perks of being a trainer) and I love it so much!! Men´s choirs are amazing, and MoTab especially. I´m gonna be sad when Hna. deVries leaves me and I don´t have that CD on my iPod anymore. 

Oh, and just some clarification: Hna. Rivera was crying when we got Changes because she didn´t want to leave Villa Hayes. Ypacarai is awesome, but Villa Hayes is the only area she´s known, so she was really sad to have to leave. But I hear she´s doing great now. 

Well, that´s all for this week. Thank you again for all of your support. I´m doing really well, and so is Hna. deVries. She´s almost used to Paraguay and the very taxing schedule, and so far we´ve had zero problems together. She´s a great hard worker and she loves the gospel. It´s been a lot of trial-and-error together, but we work together well and have improved a lot as a companionship.

I hope you´re all doing well and that you have an awesome week. I love you!

---Hna. Springer

Here are more pictures! Yay!

1-Me with Hna. Devries and the Madariagas.
2-Some awesome Villa Hayes scenery
3-Blackberries!
4-Our old Villa Hayes district (two of them went home)

Week 40 - Asuncion Paraguay - Villa Hayes

Dear Family,

Holy crow I cant believe how behind the times you are. I have so much to tell you it{s kind of ridiculous. (And for some reason my apostrophe key is weird so sorry for the grammar errors).

You{re not gonna believe what happened. Remember how last week I was all worried that I was going to become Senior companion and be miserable with a bossy junior companion? Well, we got Changes on Tuesday morning. We all huddled around the phone, anxiously drinking in every word from our District Leader. "Hna. Alvarenga is going to Mambure," he said, and Hna. Alvarenga jumped on her bed and went, "WHOOO!!" "Hna. Rivera is going to Ypacarai." Cue Hna. Rivera throwing herself face-first on her bed and crying. Then, "And Hna. Springer is staying...

"...to TRAIN."

...
...
...
...

We all just froze and gaped at each other. Finally I found the strength to speak again. "No, Elder," I said, "We{re talking about ME. Hna. SPRINGER. Hna. ALVARENGA is training. What am I doing? Am I going to Mambure?"

There HAD to have been a mistake. Hna. Alvarenga has a year and still hasn{t trained. There are eight Hermanas with more time than me. Three of them still haven{t trained. I{m not even halfway through my time in Paraguay yet. I haven{t become Senior companion yet. How could I train?? 

But the Elder just laughed and said, "I{m serious, Hermana. Be at the office at 7:00am tomorrow for your training meeting."

That day, Tuesday, was the single most stressful day of my entire life--worse than starting colllege. Worse than taking the ACT. Worse than finding out the spelling bee was the next day and I hadn{t started studying yet. I have never EVER before felt so completely, painfully overwhelmed. It was like the Universe{s worst ever pop quiz. I didn{t know how to plan our days. I didn{t know how to navigate Villa Hayes. I didn{t know how to prepare people for baptisms. Our house was disorganized. Our fridge was empty. Our area book was incomplete. There was so much to do to prepare, and I literally had two hours to do it all. The rest of the day, we still had to go to work.

I was TERRIFIED. I can{t even describe how burdened I felt. It gave me a headache, took away my appetite, made my mouth dry and my heart pound and I just wanted to scream to make the weight go away. It wasn{t training that scared me so much as being left to take care of all of Villa Hayes ALONE, with an impressionable Junior, brand new companion depending on ME for everything. I had so little to work with. I was practically opening a new area. What if I taught poorfly? What if I got us lost? What if I got us robbed? What if i forgot to visit someone and they forever hated the church? 

Really, the Liahonas and my Patriarchal Blessing saved me. That Monday before, I{d read so many Liahona articles for fun and reviewed my blessing for the first time in a while, and they were fresh on my mind. I remembered all of those stories of missionaries or other church members called to do more difficult things. I was reminded that everything works out in the end, that God has a plan, and especially, as I teach people every day, that we must turn to God in times of need.

And you know what? I can honestly say that I have never prayed so hard in my life. Never before have I felt such a need for God{s comfort and guidance. I said a silent prayer every time I wasn{t required to speak. I{d read a Liahona article earlier about the importance of acknowledging that we are nothing without God, and that{s exactly what i did. I must have prayed a thousand times, "Heavenly Father, I can{t do this. I can{t do this alone. I need you so badly right now. PLEASE help me." I{ve never sought God{s direction so sincerely before.

Tuesday was a blur as I followed my companions around to say goodbye to people. I went out with them, but the whole time I was in my own little world, trying to remember where everyone lived, planning what they needed to be taught later, and most of all, praying. I slept so poorly Tuesday night, and on Wednesday morning felt close to tears. I tried to focus on other things, like fitting all three of us AND ten bags{ worth of the Hermanas{ stuff into one taxi. They were really reassuring, the Hermanas. They told me to call them any time I needed help.

That morning at the office was fun, though. There were 29 new missionaries coming and eleven leaving so there were a LOT of us there for Changes. I saw Hna. Stagg again, finally. She went HOME that day. How crazy is that? I also finally saw Elder Andreasen (from my MTC district). Five of the eight of us in our travel group are training this Change. What a quality group we are. :) I tried to keep quiet around the other Hermanas about me training but eventually word got out. They all seemed really skeptical, and a few of the older ones were outright angry that they still hadn{t trained and now i was. I just wanted to be like, "It{s not my fault! I{d happily give you the job before me!"

Too soon it was time for me to go to my training meeting, with 28 Elders. It was weird being the only Hermana in the room. All the Elders kept joking, "Hey Hermana, when the newbies come in, I bet I can guess who your companion{s gonna be! I{m really good at guessing." 

Ha. Ha.

President Madariaga spent two hours with us before our "babies" arrived. He looked just as nerve-wracked as the rest of us. This was the biggest group of new missionaries he{s ever had to deal with, and he seemed worn out. He actually started crying as he told us how much praying he{s done, hoping to do the right thing for the new missionaries. He emphasized how crucial it is that new missionaries get the very best training. Before, it was common practice to sent new missionaries to trainers who needed to be trained. But Elder Holland cracked down on that hard, saying, "That just DOUBLES your amount of struggling missionaries! You need to send new missionaries to the very best trainers, to double your amount of EXCELLENT missionaries instead!" President Madariaga said he knows that we{re not perfect, and he doesn{t expect us to be. But he{s been making arrangements prayerfully for the past six weeks, and this is how he feels it should be. He expects us to rely on the Lord, be obedient with exactness, and give our "babies" the very best . Then he introduced us to a new training program the Church came out wiht just in time for me to train. It gives us an easily-followed, specific plan for the new missionaries{ first 12 weeks. So by the end of our meeting with President, I was feeling a lot better. President actually said at the very end, looking desperate to do the right thing, "Elders and Sister, if any of you really feel like you can{t do this, just tell me and we{ll change your assignment." Not gonna lie, I perked up at the idea, knowing he was dead serious. But then i realized that I DIDN{T feel that way. Yeah, I was freaking out, but I didn{t feel the Spirit telling me to back out. I felt only assurance that I COULD do it. So I didn{t quit.

My companion{s name is Hna. Devries. She{s from Sparks, Nevada, and looked really familiar to me when I first saw her. She went to BYU so maybe that{s it, or maybe it{s just because she looks like a brunette Jodie Foster. (Oh, P.S. I saw Elder Barazoto! He{s so excited to be here and has an awesome trainer.) Hna. Devries actually speaks Spanish really well already. I hardly ever have to interpret for her, and she{s very good at identifying and learning words or phrases she doesn{t know. She{s a fast, excited learner, with that awesome fresh-from-the-MTC motivation to change the world.

That first couple of hours together, we got right to work studying at the house. Well, SHE studied. I read the scriptures and Predicad for a bit, then just sunk back into fervent prayer for help. I was determined to be obedient, reliable, and positive. I was going to make Hna. Devries an awesome missionary who was going to change the world. The only problem was that I didn{t know where to start. There was so much ground to cover and so few investigators. I wanted to give Hna. Devries an excellent spiritual experience right from the start, but didn{t know where to find it. The map confused me, the area book was a mess...

Then a scripture popped into my head. "And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order, for it is not requisitie that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize. Therefore, all things must be done in order." Mosiah 4:27. I thought of that, then put the area book away, turned away from the map, and decided that we were literally going to start at Square One. Our numbers were going to stink, but we needed to start small and do everything right rather than scramble around trying to do everything and doing it poorly.

And that{s exactly what we{ve done this week. We started by visiting the most active members, getting to know them, pinpointing them on the map, gaining their confidence, then having them help us find the menos activos and some investigators. We{re starting by cleaning the inner vessel and working our way out--it{s slow progress but it{s managale and effective and best of all, the Spirit reassures me that I CAN DO IT.

It{s like a ligh switch was flipped. The whole character of my mission just got drastically changed in a matter of days. Before, I hung in the shadow of my Senior companions, sort of getting to know people and not really relying on the Lord as much as on my Senior companions. But now it{s like I{ve had to step up to a higher spiritual plain. My prayers are so much more sincere and faithful as I have no one BUT the Lord to rely on. I have to do all the talking, and the people are so much more important to me now. We KNOW each other. One young man said the other day, "Hermana Springer, you{re so much happier now."

And it{s true. :)

It{s still a little hard to not be discouraged sometimes when I realize how few people we have to teach and no real prospective baptisms. But Hna. Devries is a great "daughter." It{s so fun watching her get so excited by the little Paraguayan things that I{ve gotten so used to, just like a newborn{s first experiences. And because I{m so young on the mission and so desperate for help, we{re already co-workers. From Day One I{ve been able to count on her to help me plan and teach. I just try to tap into her MTC drive to make this the best area ever--to be there as a guide but let her follow the Spirit freely. Our lessons have been excellent. We come away from them feeling like if the poeple didn{t accept our message, it wasn{t our fault. We do the best we can, and we{re determined to let this whole city know how cool we are. We have at least three months here together, and I know we{re gonna leave it way better than how we found it.

Jeez, I just can{t believe I{m training already. I{m senior companion. I{ll never be junior companion again. I may train multiple times. It{s. CRAZY.

But lucky Hna. Devries started her mission just in time for a laid-back General Conference weekend. Jealous! But remember how last Conference I was sick as a dog and it was difficult for me to go? Well apparently Conference is such a huge blessing that we missionaries are meant to struggle hard before enjoying it. Friday was the hottest day I{ve ever had in Paraguay (again, lucky Hna. Devires). Then Saturday morning dawned blazing hot, too, only to bring a MONSOON an hour before Conference! We bundled up and made it onto the bus okay, soaked but confident. Then we got to Mariano (we go to our stake centers to watch it), and the streets were literally turned into rivers. We made it to one block away from the chapel relatively easily, but then that last block was ridiculous. We had no choice but to wade through knee-deep water, wearing mid-calf-length skirts. Hna. Devries just kept laughing and saying, "This is CRAZY!" over and over. She{s thrilled by the adventure she gets to write home about today. I was just exhausted and happy to finally make it to Conference, soaked to the skin and smelling like frogs but at least on time to hear it all.

Then the power went out right in the middle of Elder Scott{s talk. 

I almost cried.

We got power back in time for Elder Packer{s talk (we called other missionaries to find out the temples--SO COOL!!), then the power went out once more during the Saturday afternoon session. But Sunday everything went perfectly. It was a beautiful conference. I wish I had next month{s Liahona already so I can re-read those talks again and again. I{ll have to go more in-depth next week about what I loved, but just know that I especially connected with Carl B. Cook{s talk. It was just what I needed to hear.

I{m really sad Conference is over already, but I felt really connected to you all as I stood and sang the intermediate hymns, knowing you were doing so at the same time--or when I heard them talk about missionaries and knew that your thoughts were briefly turned to me. Just think, next conference I{ll be almost home! CRAZY!

Gotta go. This e-mail took a long time to type out. I LOVE YOU!! PRAY FOR ME!

---Hna. Springer

P.S. Thank you Evie, Laurel, Holly, Grandma, Mom, Dad, Ashley, Sarah, and Amanda for your e-mails this week.

Week 39 - Asuncion Paraguay - Villa Hayes

Dear Family,

I can´t believe you didn´t get my e-mail last week! I´m so sorry. It said it sent just fine. Good thing i sent a few personal messages or you probably would have thought that I dropped off the face of the earth, huh? I´m glad I was able to re-send Week 38. And thank you Dad, Mom, Sarah, Ashley, Amanda, and Grandma for e-mailing me even without my weekly update. Oh and Andersons, I got your drawings in the mail last week. So cute! That really made my day and whenever I need a pick-me-up I just take them out again. You´re so thoughtful. It makes me happy. :)

This week was pretty tranquilo. Spring is really coming on, with little baby lambs, flowers, fruit, and hot lazy afternoons. We have become expert blackberry eaters. Blackberry trees are all over the outlying neighborhoods, and every time we pass one we stop and feast. It doesn´t matter that everyone else does that--even if the lower branches are picked bare, I´m tall enough to pull down the higher ones and give my little companions access to the untouched ripe berries towards the top. I´m glad I can be useful. :)

The fireflies and frogs are becoming more and more active at night. When we pass through the unlit areas in the evenings I keep finding myself stopping to just stare at all the twinkling fireflies or better, the stars, neither of which are easily seen in the middle of town. The stars are different in the Southern Hemisphere--Scorpio is a lot more prominent than I ever noticed before. And my sisters and cousins would go crazy for the frogs. They make the biggest ranch toads look like wimps. My companions are terrified of them, which makes me laugh. Hna. Rivera especially just kind of doesn´t pay attention to the ground at night, and she doesn´t question when I randomly steer her to the side because she´s about to step on one. They´re everywhere, and it takes a lot of effort on her part to pretend not to see them. 

My companions are also afraid of anything long and thin that we see on the ground, but I have yet to see an actual live snake. Funny story: the other night we´d just gotten rejected at a house (again) and we headed back to the main road. We had to pass this little bridge over a swampy ditch. I was last in line, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a frog jump. I paused to see if it would jump again, and it did--right onto my foot. It took me by surprise, so I screamed and leaped away. When I quickly recovered, i realized that my companions had gone running in the opposite direction screaming their heads off, thinking that a snake had attacked. Good to know that they´ll be there for me when a snake really does attack. :) I´m still teasing them about that.

I had two questionable food experiences this week. The few people who feed us are really nice and selfless to do so, but sometimes I´d rather go hungry than fill my stomach with some of the things they feed us. The first experience was with soup where the broth looked and tasted like leftover hamburger grease. The noodles were okay, but the meat was...not. We each got something different. Hna. Rivera got a chunk of beef. Hna. Alvarenga got a drumstick (lucky). I got a chicken wing that was literally skin and bone. Apparently the woman feeding us realized I´d been shortchanged, so she threw in a random hard-boiled egg yolk, too. Her daughter got a SNAIL in her soup, which she happily sucked out of its shell. *shudder*

The second experience was in the Elders´ area of Remansito, which is a lot poorer than Villa Hayes. We stopped at a member´s house to pick something up after a district meeting, and she made us sit down and eat. She used to be in the military, so when we told her we had lunch plans she said, "This isn´t a question, it´s a command." And she meant it. She stared us down the entire meal, and seriously it´s a miracle I managed to keep a straight face and not puke. Again, it was REALLY nice of her to feed us, but I would have rather gone hungry. She fed us this weird type of spaghetti noodle that had a strange pink sheen that made it look like brains. It had a texture similar to brains, too, and made this awful squishy sound as we scooped it up. She served it with what looked like salami when she gave us each a slice, except that when it hit the plate it lost its shape. I whispered, "What is this?" to Hna. Rivera, and she said, "It´s...um...just eat it." That made me feel loads better, you can imagine. Hna. Alvarenga is a stubborn little thing and she had a will as strong as the woman´s. When she refused to eat, she wasn´t made to. But the rest of us had to. Especially me. If I were to refuse a meal, I´d be forever hated as "That American gringa who was too good for our food." I felt sick the rest of the day. If she hadn´t given us a roll to wash it down, I don´t think I would have made it. 

Anyways, enough of the silly secular stuff. :) This week was really nice spiritually. On Saturday we got permission to go to Loma Pyta for me to see Justito´s baptism. Miguel didn´t get baptized with him, sadly, because he got shipped off to the chaco. (When parents get fed up with their childrens´ misbehavior, they send them off to live with their distant relatives in the jungle. I´m not kidding.) Anyways, it was nice to get to visit Loma again, and the baptism was really sweet. Justito was so excited to be baptized, and his parents looked so proud and happy. It was great to get to see a baptism of somebody who I really found and taught from beginning to end (almost). 

It was kind of weird going back to Loma, though. I can´t believe I´ve only been away from there for a week and a half. Even weirder, though, was when we went to Mariano yesterday for District Conference. That was a great day. We had a bus just for us to take the members from Villa Hayes and Benjamin out to Mariano. President and Hna. Madariaga were there, as well as the temple president and matron and a visiting Area Seventy--Elder Avila. Their talks were so great. They all spoke about eternal families, preparing to enter the temple, and treasuring the scriptures. And it was amazing (but weird) to see my old Mariano family again and go to my old chapel. I had to say hi to EVERYBODY of course. In the end the bus was honking at me because I was the last one to get on, and I hadn´t even seen Hna. Tua´one yet. I had literally five seconds to give her a hug, have her tell me "Be good," and promise to call her later. What a bummer. But I´ll see her next week for General Conference.

My personal study time this week has mostly been devoted to reading the Liahona. I LOVE THE LIAHONA. On Tuesday I got my very own English copies of the September and October issues, and I love them so much. I´ve read them twice already and am going through a third time to take notes and study them more in-depth. September´s theme is eternal marriage, and while marriage isn´t my main objective at the moment and I don´t have anyone waiting for me or anything, I still feel like every day on the mission is preparing me more and more for married life. I realized yesterday that if I hadn´t come on the mission, I never would have learned the things that I now realize are necessary for a celestial marriage. Maybe I would have found the perfect eternal companion, but I wouldn´t have been a perfect eternal companion. I´m still not, but at least now I know what I need to change. 

October´s issue was AMAZING. I love that they dedicated the entire issue to the Book of Mormon--where it came from, why it´s important, what stories we find in it, how it supports the Bible, etc. It made me so incredibly happy to read testimonies of the Book of Mormon from people all over the world, and to be assured that even when people here don´t receive the Book of Mormon very well, it really DOES change peoples´ lives and the world. I feel that now, after reading that Liahona, I have a much greater appreciation for the Book of Mormon and its teachings. It really was written for our day. Everything inside it is meant to help US in these last days. When we read we need to ask ourselves, "Why did the Lord have Mormon include this? What am I supposed to learn here?" Now when i read the Book of Mormon, I really try to find a personal message. And I´m so sad that I never got into a habit of reading it before the mission. I´ve promised God that from now on I will NEVER miss a day of reading the Book of Mormon. It really is the keystone of our religion and of who I am--without it, I´m gonna fall. I hope you all read the October Liahona (or...Ensign...) and are as touched by it as I was.

Well, the clock outside just chimed 4:30. It´s about time for me to go. (The Catholic cathedral has a bell tower, AND there´s a soap factory nearby that rings a siren every hour on the hour, which is very useful but makes me think of Cinderella everytime. "Oh that clock...!") I´m sad P-Day is almost over again. Especially since we receive Changes tonight. Hna. Madariaga hinted that both Hnas. Alvarenga AND Rivera are gonna leave me. That....freaks me out. A lot. I LOVE the Hermanas so much. We decided that we´re a lot like characters from Ice Age 2--they´re the twin possoms (Crash and Eddie, I think?), and I´m the mammoth, Eli, who thinks she´s a possum. In our case, they´re the twinner latinas and I´m this huge American who´s pretending to be latina, too. :) Anyways, I´m going to be seriously depressed if they both leave. This last week and a half has been the most fun of my mission so far. I know that the Lord has everything planned out perfectly, and that whatever happens is for me to learn by, but I would love to stay with the Hermanas for at least another six weeks. If they leave, not only will it probably not be as fun, I´m going to be in charge of an area that I still barely know. When we plan, I still have to ask, "Uh...who´s Juan?" I guess I should study the area book and the map and whatever, but I´m more than a little daunted by the task of leading here. Pray for me! 

Take care everybody. I love you so much. I hope you know that, and that the Church is true and that only by living the Gospel can we truly be happy. I´m the happiest now than I´ve ever been in my whole life, and I know that it´s because I´ve distanced myself so much from the money and the movies and the toys and worked so hard at drawing closer to the Lord and doing His will. I hope you´ve all had--or WILL have--a similar experience as me. Stay true to the faith and never stop smiling!

I LOVE YOU!!

---Hna. Springer