HAPPY THANKSGIVING (in three days)!! I'm so happy that you're all going to be together in Utah in the snow chowing down on turkey and mashed potatoes. I just realized, this will be the very first year of my life where I go without eating turkey and mashed potatoes. Weird! Anyways, I hope you're all being super grateful for all of our wonderful blessings. I just got the December Liahona this week (I read the whole thing already), and I took the challenge to write a list of 100 things I'm grateful for. It gives topics to help brainstorm, and I honestly could have kept writing hundreds more things if I'd had sufficient paper. :) Sarah, I keep thinking about how special we made last Thanksgiving, and if you're looking for suggestions for this year, I would really encourage you to make a list of 100 things, too. It really opens your eyes to all the beauty of the earth around you and this time that we live in and the blessings of the gospel that we have.
It's so strange to me how we went from a weak Halloween season to Christmas season without Thanksgiving to bridge the gap. Already people are wanting to sing Christmas hymns and they're hanging strings of lights on their porches. They even put up pine trees, which look REALLY out of place when we're walking around the campo sweating to death. I kind of figured they would just use palm trees or something. :) The other thing they've been doing is eating and selling tons of fruitcake. We went to the supermarket on Monday, and instead of the array of chocolate oranges and candy canes, they just had aisles and aisles filled with fruitcake. Hey, I guess it was popular in the States at one time, too, right?
This week we had the wonderful opportunity to go to Asuncion and have Zone Conference again. It's like General Conference only much more frequent and much more one-on-one. The talks by President and Hermana Madariaga were so inspiring, we got lots of tips from our nurse on how to keep our backs healthy and drink lots of water, and we were treated to lots of delicious food. Presidente Madariaga talked about how we need to have vision in order to make good plans and teach with determination (seems like Villa Hayes isn't the only branch struggling around here). He encouraged us to have the same vision as God--not to save every single person around us (that would rob them of their agency), but to give them the opportunity to hear and accept the gospel. God does have a perfect plan to carry out that vision, and we are a part of that. All we must do is obey His commands, forget our own visions of schooling or hobbies or whatever, and find the joy in service.
We also listened to Elder Holland's MTC talk again--the one he gave while I was at the MTC. That's the second time President has used it since I've been here. I feel so honored to have been in the MTC to hear that talk in person. It really is so powerful and makes me cry every time. Every time I hear it, I catch something new. What I'm especially moved by every time, though, is when he admonishes us to leave our nets FOREVER. When Christ told His apostles to leave their nets and follow Him, He didn't mean until He left--He meant until the end. That's what we must do as missionaries. We can't just leave our selfish, worldly desires behind for two years or eighteen months. We must leave them behind--become Christ's disciples--forever. That's my focus for the rest of this Change and hopefully for the rest of my mission. I'm SO GRATEFUL, Mom and Dad, that you sent me that picture of Christ telling Simon Peter and Andrew to leave their nets. Could that have been any more perfect??
Everything's been pointing me lately to forgetting about the little things and just enjoying the work. Hna. deVries and I re-read "The Fourth Missionary" during companionship study this week, and it's the exact same thing. We're allowed to be sad. We're allowed to not DELIGHT in working out in the rain or sun. But we must obey with a cheerful heart, not because we're being forced to, but because we know it's the only thing that will bring us true happiness. "He who finds his life shall lose it, but he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." (I don't have the scriptures with me--don't judge me if I just said that wrong. :) )
I still struggle to really jump into contacting, but thankfully I have an awesome companion who really applies everything she learns and works with full determination. On the bus ride back from the Zone Conference, we were standing next to these two old guys, and I was thinking, "Oh shoot, I should contact them. I should contact them. It's so awkward..." A few seconds later, Hna. deVries started talking with them about the church. Turns out, one of those men was an old investigator from the area book that we'd been looking for this week! If she hadn't talked with him, we may have never found him!
That man is an interesting character. He's the president of some association for the native Paraguayans, and he lives with this huge group of native families. We visited them yesterday, and they seem like really humble people. Two of them were old investigators we'd seen in the area book before. One of them randomly came up to us and handed each of us a huge canine tooth that he claims are jaguar. I believe him. Not sure what to do with mine. Is that bad to think it's totally awesome that I have the tooth of an endangered animal? Maybe I can tell all the environmentalists who hate me for it that I got it from a jaguar dentist who was pulling wisdom teeth for charity out in the chaco. That's totally believable, right?
Speaking of huge teeth...Man, I'm still conflicted about telling you about this, but here goes--I almost got attacked by a dog the other day. We went up to this house looking for a reference and there was this huge brown dog in the doorway. It kind of started growling as we got closer, but I figured if I just acted confident and unthreatened, it wouldn't do anything. But then when I clapped, it got REALLY aggressive. It charged at me, so I stuck my closed umbrella between us. I didn't run or do anything to seem like a target, but it snapped at my umbrella, snarling really menacingly, and I was starting to think that I was about to feel what it's like to get mauled by a predator. It was so big and so obviously not scared of me that I thought if I tried to hit it with my umbrella it would just fight back. Thankfully, just as I was about to panic, I remembered the "secret code word" that always works to deter dogs here in Paraguay. I yelled at Hna. deVries (who was freaking out behind me), "THROW A ROCK AT IT!" She confusedly but obediently bent down to pick up a rock (something I didn't dare to do with those teeth too close to my throat already), and immediately the dog scurried away, along with all the other dogs that had gathered around to see what the commotion was all about. She didn't even have to throw it--they just bolted. Thank goodness for past experiences with dogs. That was WAY too close.
Anyways...don't worry about me. I'm gonna keep plenty of rocks in my pockets from now on. :)
Thank you so much Goompa for your letter about your past experiences with struggling branches. Thank you SO MUCH Grandma for the shirt you sent and your e-mail. Thank you Jenkins for your birthday cards in the mail. So cute! Thank you Hna. Stagg, Dad, Mom, Sarah, Ashley, and Amanda for your e-mails this week. I really hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I'll be thinking of you as I slurp down noodles and beef on Thursday. :)
Oh, and Dad, I withdrew $50 from my account this week. But you can't know why yet. It's a surprise.
I LOVE YOU ALL!! Don't forget to count your blessings. Eat some third and fourth and fifth helpings of Thanksgiving dinner goodness to make up for our lack down here, okay? :) Take care. Stay safe. Enjoy the snow. Read the scriptures and pray every day. The little things make the biggest differences.
---Carly
P.S. Here's an update on my past companions: Hna. Stagg is home in Colorado and missing mission life. Hna. Alvarenga, sadly, went home as well. She got really sick and was in the hospital for about a month trying to recover before they finally decided to just send her home for further treatment (she still doesn't know what the problem is). Hna. Tua'one is done training. She's now in Loma Pyta with Hna. Brittner. Hna. Young is in Ypacarai with Hna. Rivera. It's funny how so many of my past companions are together, now. The world of the sister missionaries is pretty small.
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