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. :)
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