Happy Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day and Feliz Dia de la Adoracion de la Virgen de Caacupe!! (The 7th and 8th respectively). We had quite the week. Our zone leaders challenged us to meet our daily goals every single day this week. They promised us that if we did it, we would have more baptisms and confirmations. So we worked as hard as we possibly could, and we did it! On Saturday, when we had six days of goals met and only faulted one more, we were so excited. But funnily enough, when we met our goals yesterday and successfully got 7/7, we weren't all that celebratory. We were just really, really tired. :)
But we did have a good week. Three of our investigators either went to the chaco for Christmas break or are being hidden from us by their parents, but we have two investigators who are really doing well. One of them is the girlfriend of one of the members--Jasmin--and just the fact that she's dating a member kind of gives me hope that she'll go all the way and get baptized. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that--we don't want her commitment to the church to end with their relationship--but at the MTC we heard so many new missionaries tell their conversion stories, and so many of them involved member girlfriends/boyfriends! That's how Fabiola got baptized, and she's doing amazing. She still loves to learn so much, and she's super strong in the church. Hopefully Jasmin goes the same direction.
The other investigator is our dear Ruben. We visited him again earlier last week, after he failed to come to church. When we got to his house, he seemed okay, but as the lesson went on we realized that he wasn't himself. It was obvious that he was either currently on something or he had very recently been on something. We got through the lesson, but he just wasn't there. He was kind of snippy, and we left feeling really sad for him. Hna. deVries was devestated, thinking that he was a lost cause, but thankfully I've had experience with drug addicts in the past and I told her we just needed to forget that visit and remember how he'd been before when he wasn't under the influence. Honestly, I was just really hoping that I was right about him and that he sincerely did want to change. I was kind of in denial that we'd seen the other side of him. But then yesterday at church, after having not spoken a word to him after that last visit, he showed up out of the blue! He was his normal, humble, super polite self again, and it made us so happy. He was so sincerely apologetic and ashamed of how he'd been when we'd talked to him, and at church he was completely reverent and hungry to learn more about Christ. Then we went to find him at his house yesterday after church, only to find him helping fix a car along with two of our strongest families in the branch. They're totally friends already, and now my hope for him has doubled because the members live so close by and are so willing to be there for him. He gave the prayer after our little reunion there at the gutted car, and it was the sweetest, humblest prayer I've ever heard. He really is wonderful.
It continues to be freakish hot here. I'm constantly wet with a sheen of sweat, and even with my umbrella I feel like I'm getting dried up like a raisin. Several of you have suggested that we soak our sheets or clothes or both in water before going to bed. Not a bad idea. We may just try that. I just hope it would help. It's so humid, I'm honestly not sure that it WOULD dry. Oh man, yesterday we totally jinxed ourselves by saying, "Man, we are so grateful that we at least have air conditioning!" In the middle of the night last night, our power went out and we lost our air conditioning and our ceiling fan. Our room grew steadily hotter, and we both just laid there, wide awake, staring desperately at the ceiling fan and waiting for it to move again. It was boiling. When the power did finally come back on, I said a prayer of thanks and fell promptly back asleep. Circulating air has never felt so good. Sadly, the power went out again at like 5:00AM and this time stayed off until 9:00, along with our water. Joy. Now all's well, though. I just pray that doesn't happen often or we're gonna have lots of restless nights.
Good news! Mango season is coming on! We still haven't actually eaten any, but we've seen others feasting on them. It's so funny--they just wait for them to fall off the tree when they're ripe instead of actually harvesting them. We'll be in the middle of a lesson and all of a sudden hear a thump behind us, and the little kids go running off squealing excitedly to collect the fruit. They never share. :( But they assure us that soon so many people will have so many mangos that they'll just leave baskets of them in their front yards for anyone to take. We're excited. :)
So today for P-Day we went out to Benjamin Aceval (where our district Elders work) to say goodbye to Lilian--that RM girl who helps us do visits (both here and back when I was in Mariano). She's flying out to Utah today to go to BYU this winter! I am so excited for her. She's such a charitable, honest, hard-working girl, and she deserves every moment of happiness that she experiences in Provo. She served her mission in Salt Lake City, so she has tons of connections and is already United States-savvy, but she was so nervous today. Her poor mom was just silently crying. Lilian may honestly never live in Paraguay again, and she just got back from her mission nine months ago. But she had a great last few hours with her family, and was nice enough to invite us. We ate rice and beef and hot dogs, and she showed us all her pets (a dog, three cats, and two rabbits). Her aunt (Cesar's mom) was there briefly, along with her new baby coati. I immediately begged her to let me hold it and take a picture. I've always loved coatis (from what I've seen of them on Animal Planet) and was thrilled to get to see one in real life.
People here have some weird pets. Pretty much any baby animal they find in the chaco, they take back to some pet store in the city to sell--monkeys, parrots, coatis, toucans, owls, you name it! I want to see some in the wild sometime. We may have to explore the forest again. I hear there are armadillos around here, too. Last night, Ruben was talking about how some people eat them, but he didn't know the word for armadillo in Spanish. He started describing it--"It's big, and it's like a turtle..." "Okay," I thought, "It's some kind of fish. Whatever." "Except," he said, "It can go like this," and he motioned it curling up. My jaw dropped when I realized what he was talking about. "You EAT armadillo?! You barbarians!" I was just teasing, of course. :) But really, I like armadillos.
Anyways, I've now finished reading the Liahona for April conference, and I CANNOT WAIT to get the Liahona for November tomorrow. I love reading the words of the modern-day prophetes. Something that I've heard repeatedly recently is that when we listen to the prophet today, we literally come to know God better. The prophet is God's spokesman, and if we are familiar with their words and their ways, we're familiar with God. Also, there was a verse in the scriptures the other day about how when there's a prophet on the earth, we can rejoice as if Christ was already here with us, because we'll already be preparing to see Him. I have a testimony of that. The prophets are men of God and I just love reading their words.
Well, I gotta go. I love you all so much! Thank you for your letters, and enjoy the Christmas season while it lasts! Take care!
---Hna. Springer
Here are some pictures from my week. Well, actually, just from today. :)
1-Me and a baby coati!
2-Hna. deVries at Lilian's house about to chow down on hot dogs.
3-Lilian on her way to SLC.
Love you all! Have a great week!
--Carly
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