Dear Family,
Sorry I don´t have much to talk about this week, and I didn´t take a single picture this week. How boring, right? :) Once again, my thoughts are probably going to be a little jumbled.
Things are going pretty well here in Villa Hayes. The ward has been doing most of their visits to menos activos, and tonight we´re going to have an FHE with a few families to hopefully strengthen their friendships and get them to feel the Spirit more. I´m pretty excited.
Cleto´s doing very well. The next time we visited him after his baptism, he made a comment about how he could feel the power of the "strong prayer." AKA, his confirmation. He says he feels so much happier and stronger now, and just like what happened with Hna. Sanchez in Mariano, he FEELS like a member, now. I´m really happy for him. He´s going back to the chaco in a few weeks, but until then, he´s busily telling all of his visitors about the gospel and the Book of Mormon. Que calidad. :) It´s led to some pretty fun lessons . He tends to have random preachers from the chaco staying at his house.
Rubén is doing very well. He didn´t come to church yesterday (we haven´t found him yet to figure out why), but we visited him a lot this last week and he´s been LOVING reading the Book of Mormon. He read 1 Nephi 11 and totally drew from it similar insights and favorite scriptures that I´ve always enjoyed. We also gave him Alma 32 to read for homework, and he came away from it with such a deeper understanding of faith. He said, "Alma must have changed a lot of lives. His writings are wonderful." I agree! And it makes me so happy to see in little ways how Rubén really believes that real prophets wrote the Book of Mormon. He´s so smart about it all. It´s always a joy to visit and see what new questions and insights he has. Because he´s been doing so well, we got permission to baptize him with only two church attendances instead of three. So we could possibly have his baptism before the end of the month (when I may or may not be changed out of Villa Hayes)! I so hope it all works out that way. After he didn´t come to church yesterday, I´m a little worried.
My own scripture study has been going well. I FINALLY finished reading the whole Bible in Spanish. I can´t even remember when I started with that goal. It was a long time ago. But I really enjoyed it, and I feel like I have such a better understanding of why people interpret the Bible the way they do around here. I´m also able to use the Bible more in our lessons, showing the people that we DO believe in it, and I HAVE studied both.
I´m also starting to re-read Preach My Gospel. I should have been doing that my whole mission but somehow I got out of the habit and forgot that I´m supposed to read it every day. My first day re-reading it, I found a sentence that said that as our knowledge of the Atonement grows, our desires to share the gospel will increase. It was an answer to my prayers! I haven´t been wanting to not share the gospel, per se, but I have been struggling to really WANT to go outside and sweat all day in the summer heat. So I´d been praying for a source of strength, and now I´ve found it. I´ve been studying scriptures about the Atonement every day ever since, and it really is helping a lot.
The heat is really unbearable, though. Paraguayans think we´re so crazy for being outside in the afternoons. Even crazier than when we go out in the pouring rain. They always ask, "What are you doing walking around with this heat??" I´m always tempted to answer, "We´re working hard now so that we can avoid going to the place where the heat never ends." :) We´ve had lots of lightning shows and seen plenty of rain clouds, but somehow the rain always manages to just barely go around Villa Hayes. How lucky are we?
Anyways, I´m also working harder in studying Spanish. I´d re-read the book I got at the MTC so many times that I figured I didn´t need to read it anymore. Then I dabbled in Guaraní for a bit... Now I´m back to studying the Spanish book. I received extra motivation after Thursday. The daughter of our branch president asked me to give her a little piano lesson while lunch was cooking (they have a cheap little keyboard). She´d figured out how to pluck out one song, but it was in the completely wrong key, and it was obvious that she hadn´t actually read the book she was using at all. The book is a simple and short one, written by a returned sister missionary. I started her lesson at the very beginning of the book, helping her to learn the notes and the scales and things, and her understanding increased so much. I just wanted to ask, "Why didn´t you just read the book? It´s so easy!" Then I realized that I´ve been kind of neglecting to just read the books that I´ve been given, too. All those activities in Preach My Gospel and the Spanish learning book are for me to learn by practice, but I´ve been jumping around in them so much. Now I´m determined to read them start-to-finish. They were inspired by Church authorities, and I know they´ll make me fluent in both Spanish and the gospel.
In other news...cicaedas are really, really loud. At least, I think they´re cicaedas. Is that even how you spell cicaeda? Dang, I miss wikipedia. :) I´m thinking of those bugs that take like 17 years to hatch or whatever and make lots of noise. I don´t know if they´re cicaedas or what. All I know is there´s a bunch of really huge black bugs around and they sit in all the trees and they make the LOUDEST buzzing noise ever. It makes it really hard to teach sometimes when we have to sit under a tree full of cicaedas in order to teach in the comfortable shade. Also, Hna. deVries found a stick bug the other day. No idea how she noticed it, since we were walking on a road covered in dead grass. It was like some kind of grasshopper with powerful back legs, and it jumped, but it looked exactly like a stick. We totally would have caught it and taken it home for further observation and photos had we not been in the middle of our work day. Bummer. It was cool at the time, though. :)
Well, that´s all to report this week. Thank you Grandma, Teresa, Mom, Dad, Amanda, and Ashley for writing to me! I love you all so much! Take care, stay true, and don´t forget to keep praying for an opportunity every day to share the gospel and be a member missionary. I LOVE YOU!!
---Hna. Springer
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Week 55 - Asuncion Paraguay - Villa Hayes
Querida Familia,
I don´t have much more time to write today because I just got done writing to a bunch of insistent relatives. :) But thank you Grandma, Dad, Mom, Sarah, and the Blair Family for writing to me this week. I love you all.
We had a really good week this week. First of all, our air conditioning is HEAVENLY. I´m actually using a blanket again! I can sleep so much more soundly and feel well-rested in the morning. It´s awesome. We had one glitch with the system, though, on Tuesday night. We´d just gone to sleep when all of a sudden a stream of water came pouring out of the air conditioning. We quickly shut it off and got all our stuff off of the floor, and wondered what had just happened. We tried to turn it on again later, only to have the same thing happen. Not knowing what to do, we just turned it off altogether. It was a VERY HOT night, as luck would have it. I was sweating so badly. I ended up angrily stalking out to the kitchen and grabbing my frozen water bottles to cool me off. I was so cranky. It didn´t help that we had to get up extra early the next morning to go to a zone conference. I was so tired and irritable at the meeting. But that same day the repairman fixed the problem and we´ve slept great ever since (the problem was that the system was a little tilted, so the water was overflowing in one corner instead of draining out the back like it´s supposed to).
The zone conference was all about goal-keeping--how we´ve been having a problem of getting all hyped up after training meetings and such only to go strong one week and then go back to old habits. To keep us going strong, our zone leaders came up with a plan to have us review our conference notes every week, make three individual goals and three companion goals, and then report our progress with them to our district leaders. It´s helped us a lot so far. It was a really inspired idea. We also got to have interviews with Pte. Madariaga, which is always a joy. I always wish we could stay in his office longer.
One of the goals that Hna. deVries and I put this week was to have a more positive attitude. That´s something I´ve had as a goal almost my whole mission. It´s kind of hard sometimes. We´ve been especially irritated with our branch lately, and we´ve been having a bad tendency of saying things like, "Oh that would NEVER happen in Utah!" But we realized that the grass is always greener on the other side, and that actually all wards have problems, and that we really need to learn patience. We´ve been working on only saying positive things. Sometimes that´s a REAL challenge. We decided you can say nice things sarcastically, but no real negative comments. If nothing else, it makes us laugh a lot as we try to figure out a nice way to comment on a bad situation. Laughter really is the best medicine. :)
The Lord is so perfectly wonderful. What better way to help me see the world in a better light than by sticking me in a situation where everything looks grey? It´s not hard at all to be positive if everything´s sunshine and daisies. A true test of character--a true training experience--is having to work on being happy when it´s very hard to do so. I really really hope that I come out of this with a perfectly cheerful attitude about everything, with no more frowns and no more criticisms and no more grudges. I don´t like it when other people are sour, so why should I be? It´s so much happier to be smiley and positive.
The reason we were so irritated with the branch this week had to do with Cleto´s baptism. But I won´t tell you why. Just know that we had a baptism and Cleto loved it and it all turned out to be really beautiful. At our district meeting on Tuesday, our district leader (aware that we were going to have a baptism) helped us to plan out how we could make it a really reverent experience. We put a great deal of effort into the plans. I wrote out a program, Hna. deVries provided music to play before and after the service, we had a Moment of Reverence while Cleto got changed (instead of singing hymns out of tune like we´ve done at every other baptism I´ve seen in Paraguay)... It made it all really lovely. It was a lot more reverent and spiritual with everything so well planned. I gave the first talk about baptism and introduced Cleto to those who were in attendance, since he´s very shy and doesn´t really have many friends in the ward. Cleto was smiling so big at the end of it. He said he felt at peace, and he was much more animated at church the next day. It made me happy.
Even happier, though, was when I saw my mission´s dream come true this week! In teaching Rubén this week, we discovered that he is actually "feasting upon the words of Christ!" He´s read to 1 Nephi 11 so far, and he re-reads every chapter so that he can understand it better, then asks us dozens of questions. He learned to use the scripture guide and the footnotes without any suggestion from us, and he actually applies what he reads to his own life! I´ve ALWAYS dreamed of having an investigator treasure the Book of Mormon, and he really does! We read the part where Nephi´s family rejoices over the brass plates and realizes that they´re of great worth to his posterity, and he held the Book of Mormon to his chest and said, "It´s just like with me. I´m finding joy in the scriptures and they´re going to help me and my children so much." He is so calidad. I don´t know what´s going to happen at Changes at the end of this month, but I wouldn´t be sad at all if I got to stay and see his baptism. He´s one of the greatest investigators I´ve ever known, and I know he could be a really great Priesthood holder and leader someday.
Well, I don´t have any more time. Sorry. I think this may be the shortest letter I´ve sent so far. It wasn´t a super eventful week, but it was really a good one. I´m happy. :)
Thank you all for everything, especially your letters. I look forward to them every week.
I LOVE YOU!!
---Hna. Springer
Hey, I´ve only got one picture for this week--us at Cleto´s baptism! Yay for baptisms!!
I don´t have much more time to write today because I just got done writing to a bunch of insistent relatives. :) But thank you Grandma, Dad, Mom, Sarah, and the Blair Family for writing to me this week. I love you all.
We had a really good week this week. First of all, our air conditioning is HEAVENLY. I´m actually using a blanket again! I can sleep so much more soundly and feel well-rested in the morning. It´s awesome. We had one glitch with the system, though, on Tuesday night. We´d just gone to sleep when all of a sudden a stream of water came pouring out of the air conditioning. We quickly shut it off and got all our stuff off of the floor, and wondered what had just happened. We tried to turn it on again later, only to have the same thing happen. Not knowing what to do, we just turned it off altogether. It was a VERY HOT night, as luck would have it. I was sweating so badly. I ended up angrily stalking out to the kitchen and grabbing my frozen water bottles to cool me off. I was so cranky. It didn´t help that we had to get up extra early the next morning to go to a zone conference. I was so tired and irritable at the meeting. But that same day the repairman fixed the problem and we´ve slept great ever since (the problem was that the system was a little tilted, so the water was overflowing in one corner instead of draining out the back like it´s supposed to).
The zone conference was all about goal-keeping--how we´ve been having a problem of getting all hyped up after training meetings and such only to go strong one week and then go back to old habits. To keep us going strong, our zone leaders came up with a plan to have us review our conference notes every week, make three individual goals and three companion goals, and then report our progress with them to our district leaders. It´s helped us a lot so far. It was a really inspired idea. We also got to have interviews with Pte. Madariaga, which is always a joy. I always wish we could stay in his office longer.
One of the goals that Hna. deVries and I put this week was to have a more positive attitude. That´s something I´ve had as a goal almost my whole mission. It´s kind of hard sometimes. We´ve been especially irritated with our branch lately, and we´ve been having a bad tendency of saying things like, "Oh that would NEVER happen in Utah!" But we realized that the grass is always greener on the other side, and that actually all wards have problems, and that we really need to learn patience. We´ve been working on only saying positive things. Sometimes that´s a REAL challenge. We decided you can say nice things sarcastically, but no real negative comments. If nothing else, it makes us laugh a lot as we try to figure out a nice way to comment on a bad situation. Laughter really is the best medicine. :)
The Lord is so perfectly wonderful. What better way to help me see the world in a better light than by sticking me in a situation where everything looks grey? It´s not hard at all to be positive if everything´s sunshine and daisies. A true test of character--a true training experience--is having to work on being happy when it´s very hard to do so. I really really hope that I come out of this with a perfectly cheerful attitude about everything, with no more frowns and no more criticisms and no more grudges. I don´t like it when other people are sour, so why should I be? It´s so much happier to be smiley and positive.
The reason we were so irritated with the branch this week had to do with Cleto´s baptism. But I won´t tell you why. Just know that we had a baptism and Cleto loved it and it all turned out to be really beautiful. At our district meeting on Tuesday, our district leader (aware that we were going to have a baptism) helped us to plan out how we could make it a really reverent experience. We put a great deal of effort into the plans. I wrote out a program, Hna. deVries provided music to play before and after the service, we had a Moment of Reverence while Cleto got changed (instead of singing hymns out of tune like we´ve done at every other baptism I´ve seen in Paraguay)... It made it all really lovely. It was a lot more reverent and spiritual with everything so well planned. I gave the first talk about baptism and introduced Cleto to those who were in attendance, since he´s very shy and doesn´t really have many friends in the ward. Cleto was smiling so big at the end of it. He said he felt at peace, and he was much more animated at church the next day. It made me happy.
Even happier, though, was when I saw my mission´s dream come true this week! In teaching Rubén this week, we discovered that he is actually "feasting upon the words of Christ!" He´s read to 1 Nephi 11 so far, and he re-reads every chapter so that he can understand it better, then asks us dozens of questions. He learned to use the scripture guide and the footnotes without any suggestion from us, and he actually applies what he reads to his own life! I´ve ALWAYS dreamed of having an investigator treasure the Book of Mormon, and he really does! We read the part where Nephi´s family rejoices over the brass plates and realizes that they´re of great worth to his posterity, and he held the Book of Mormon to his chest and said, "It´s just like with me. I´m finding joy in the scriptures and they´re going to help me and my children so much." He is so calidad. I don´t know what´s going to happen at Changes at the end of this month, but I wouldn´t be sad at all if I got to stay and see his baptism. He´s one of the greatest investigators I´ve ever known, and I know he could be a really great Priesthood holder and leader someday.
Well, I don´t have any more time. Sorry. I think this may be the shortest letter I´ve sent so far. It wasn´t a super eventful week, but it was really a good one. I´m happy. :)
Thank you all for everything, especially your letters. I look forward to them every week.
I LOVE YOU!!
---Hna. Springer
Hey, I´ve only got one picture for this week--us at Cleto´s baptism! Yay for baptisms!!
Monday, January 9, 2012
Week 54 - Asuncion Paraguay - Villa Hayes
Dearest Familia,
I got your package! Thank you so much Mom, Dad, Sarah, and Ashley for sending me so much stuff! You sent me everything I asked for! I was so happy. How did you know that I needed hand sanitizer and midol? :) I LOVE the skirt. I got tons of compliments when I wore it the other day. And of course the pistachios and jelly beans and cherry-chocolates were a very welcome touch. Those reminded me a lot of Christmas at home. I sent a picture of me with my spread of goodies. Let me know if you see anything missing, because there was a big hole in it taped over with "Paraguayan Mail" tape. I got my debit card and the thumb drive just fine, and it didn´t look like anything had been taken, but it was hard to tell.
With my new handkerchiefs (THANK YOU!!) I am now completely geared up for Paraguay every day. I´ve got my sunglasses to protect my eyes from the glare of the road, my handkerchiefs to wipe my sweat without making zits, my umbrella to keep the freckles away, my hand sanitizer, my candies to give to little kids, my bug spray to prevent dengue, and my water bottle. Sounds more like a camping trip than a day teaching the gospel, huh? :) Carrying water around is proving more and more crucial. I´m seriously considering spending my Christmas money on a huge thermos bottle, because our nice filtered water bottles get so hot so fast. And water is becoming scarce here with the summer heat. No idea why, but from 1:00 to 5:00, the city pipes run completely dry. We have to live off of bottled water or the hospitality of those who were smart enough to collect water in the morning before it ran out. It´s a pain. You´d think with a river literally blocks away, water wouldn´t be a problem. Go figure.
With the help of the Benjamin Elders, we moved from our cute little pink house to the yellow house on the second story next door. I think I walked up those stairs about 100 times today. The men did most of the heavy lifting, but we got our share of hard labor in there. I´ll miss our own house, but I kind of like the new one better. It´s got a nice big balcony and the windows are all open and breezy and best of all, we got a brand new air conditioner in there! We´ve been sleeping poorly the last few nights from the heat, and today when they invited us into the bedroom to test out the air conditioning, we both just went, "AHHHHHHHHH." It felt SO GOOD. I can´t wait to sleep tonight. :) All our things are all disorganized, though. I hate moving. The rat is no longer our problem, though! I actually think it´s been gone for a long while. We never got to put our cool trap to use. I was kind of disappointed. What we did was put a stick over an open bucket of water, with a plastic bottle in the middle of the stick. The idea was to put something yummy on the bottle, and then when the rat went for it, it would slip on the easily-spinnable bottle, fall into the bucket, and drown. Sad, I know, but I had a lot of fun making the trap. :)
Anyways, we´re cleaning house figuratively as well as literally. Hna. deVries and I made a list of all the promises our mission president has made if we do certain things, then we decided which ones we need to work on. We came to the conclusion that we´re wasting too much time visiting people who give us numbers but have never shown interest in the gospel or kept any commitments. It´s been a harder week, subsequently. We´ve had hardly anyone to visit. But we´ve done a ton of contacting and we´ve met a lot of new people. Also, since that incident with the Germans in Asunción, we have been a LOT more bold in our declaration of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. We teach the Restoration at every visit, adapting it to the needs of the investigator as the Spirit directs, but not moving on to the other lessons until we´ve established the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. As a result, we´ve had the most satisfying week I think I´ve ever had on the mission. I have no doubt that´s why God taught me that lesson in Asunción. I´ve already become such a better teacher since then. It was a good wake-up call.
I had a cool spiritual experience this weekend that made me feel that maybe I am doing okay heeding the promptings of God. We had a baptism this weekend of a little girl who´s mom is an inactive member. She´s a shy little girl who comes with her older sister. She has tons of friends in the primary but is mostly overlooked by the adult members. It was pretty much just her family and neighbor friends at her baptism. The baptism started out being really impersonal. The branch president and primary president aren´t very close to Magali (the girl who got baptized) or her family, so their messages were really short and impersonal. All the little kids were getting impatient for the brownies we´d brought. I was directing the meeting at the branch president´s request, and at the end I felt the distinct impression that I should as Magali´s mom to bear her testimony. Her mom always seemed kind of cold towards the church, and I wasn´t sure if she even had a testimony. I thought maybe she´d be irritated at the request and say something rote. But I acted on the impression (having learned in Asunción...), and the mom seemed surprised but she agreed. When she got up to speak, her eyes immediately filled with tears. She bore a wonderful testimony of how her life has been better since she joined the church, how her children have been blessed, and how she knows it is true without a doubt. It was so powerful. It drew the Spirit into the meeting, settled the kids down, and made Magali cry. I was so reassured that Magali will forever remember that special day in her life, thanks to her mom´s testimony.
Rubén couldn´t come to church this Sunday, so we may or may not have his baptism before I leave Villa Hayes. I pray every day that I can see his baptism. He is so amazing. We see him several times a week and the Spirit has been working with him so much. We´re working on trying to give him a vision of what he can become. He´s a little hard on himself, and he´s dealing with people judging him for his past more than seeing his present goodness. We may have a miracle, though, and get our baptismal goal this month after all! After MANY ups and downs, a man named Cleto is saying that he wants to get baptized this weekend. He´s been prepared for a long time, so we´re gonna go for it. It really is a miracle. We were thinking we were never gonna have another baptism in Villa Hayes.
Sorry, I haven´t had time to read any of your e-mails yet today so I won´t be sending out any individual letters. But I can´t wait to read all that you´ve written me. I hope everything´s great with you. Thank you Grandma, Laurel (and Shelli), Bishop Crittenden, Blair Family, Dad, Mom, Sarah, Amanda, and Ashley (and Jersey and Leo) for writing to me this week. You make me feel so loved.
On an ending note, I was reading Jacob 5 the other day. I´ve always loved that chapter and found something new every time I´ve read it. I especially love the part about the servants helping the Lord of the Vineyard with the Final Harvest and receiving joy from that. But something I noticed that I hadn´t ever before was the part where the Lord says (to paraphrase), "Now for the last time we´re going to nourish this vineyard. We´re going to save all the good branches and destroy the bad. BUT, because the good branches are so small, we have to wait until they´re strong before we can take away the bad ones. Otherwise the whole tree will die." It was an interesting concept. The message I got from it? BE STRONG, MEMBERS!!
Eso no más. :)
I LOVE YOU ALL!! Have a wonderful week (hopefully filled with lots of snow. What I wouldn´t give for a snowfall right now...)
---Hna. Springer
1-A bunch of girls playing volleyball before the baptism (guess which one got baptized. Ha ha!)
2-Adorable little "lamanitas"
3-Me with my AWESOME Christmas package!!
I got your package! Thank you so much Mom, Dad, Sarah, and Ashley for sending me so much stuff! You sent me everything I asked for! I was so happy. How did you know that I needed hand sanitizer and midol? :) I LOVE the skirt. I got tons of compliments when I wore it the other day. And of course the pistachios and jelly beans and cherry-chocolates were a very welcome touch. Those reminded me a lot of Christmas at home. I sent a picture of me with my spread of goodies. Let me know if you see anything missing, because there was a big hole in it taped over with "Paraguayan Mail" tape. I got my debit card and the thumb drive just fine, and it didn´t look like anything had been taken, but it was hard to tell.
With my new handkerchiefs (THANK YOU!!) I am now completely geared up for Paraguay every day. I´ve got my sunglasses to protect my eyes from the glare of the road, my handkerchiefs to wipe my sweat without making zits, my umbrella to keep the freckles away, my hand sanitizer, my candies to give to little kids, my bug spray to prevent dengue, and my water bottle. Sounds more like a camping trip than a day teaching the gospel, huh? :) Carrying water around is proving more and more crucial. I´m seriously considering spending my Christmas money on a huge thermos bottle, because our nice filtered water bottles get so hot so fast. And water is becoming scarce here with the summer heat. No idea why, but from 1:00 to 5:00, the city pipes run completely dry. We have to live off of bottled water or the hospitality of those who were smart enough to collect water in the morning before it ran out. It´s a pain. You´d think with a river literally blocks away, water wouldn´t be a problem. Go figure.
With the help of the Benjamin Elders, we moved from our cute little pink house to the yellow house on the second story next door. I think I walked up those stairs about 100 times today. The men did most of the heavy lifting, but we got our share of hard labor in there. I´ll miss our own house, but I kind of like the new one better. It´s got a nice big balcony and the windows are all open and breezy and best of all, we got a brand new air conditioner in there! We´ve been sleeping poorly the last few nights from the heat, and today when they invited us into the bedroom to test out the air conditioning, we both just went, "AHHHHHHHHH." It felt SO GOOD. I can´t wait to sleep tonight. :) All our things are all disorganized, though. I hate moving. The rat is no longer our problem, though! I actually think it´s been gone for a long while. We never got to put our cool trap to use. I was kind of disappointed. What we did was put a stick over an open bucket of water, with a plastic bottle in the middle of the stick. The idea was to put something yummy on the bottle, and then when the rat went for it, it would slip on the easily-spinnable bottle, fall into the bucket, and drown. Sad, I know, but I had a lot of fun making the trap. :)
Anyways, we´re cleaning house figuratively as well as literally. Hna. deVries and I made a list of all the promises our mission president has made if we do certain things, then we decided which ones we need to work on. We came to the conclusion that we´re wasting too much time visiting people who give us numbers but have never shown interest in the gospel or kept any commitments. It´s been a harder week, subsequently. We´ve had hardly anyone to visit. But we´ve done a ton of contacting and we´ve met a lot of new people. Also, since that incident with the Germans in Asunción, we have been a LOT more bold in our declaration of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. We teach the Restoration at every visit, adapting it to the needs of the investigator as the Spirit directs, but not moving on to the other lessons until we´ve established the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. As a result, we´ve had the most satisfying week I think I´ve ever had on the mission. I have no doubt that´s why God taught me that lesson in Asunción. I´ve already become such a better teacher since then. It was a good wake-up call.
I had a cool spiritual experience this weekend that made me feel that maybe I am doing okay heeding the promptings of God. We had a baptism this weekend of a little girl who´s mom is an inactive member. She´s a shy little girl who comes with her older sister. She has tons of friends in the primary but is mostly overlooked by the adult members. It was pretty much just her family and neighbor friends at her baptism. The baptism started out being really impersonal. The branch president and primary president aren´t very close to Magali (the girl who got baptized) or her family, so their messages were really short and impersonal. All the little kids were getting impatient for the brownies we´d brought. I was directing the meeting at the branch president´s request, and at the end I felt the distinct impression that I should as Magali´s mom to bear her testimony. Her mom always seemed kind of cold towards the church, and I wasn´t sure if she even had a testimony. I thought maybe she´d be irritated at the request and say something rote. But I acted on the impression (having learned in Asunción...), and the mom seemed surprised but she agreed. When she got up to speak, her eyes immediately filled with tears. She bore a wonderful testimony of how her life has been better since she joined the church, how her children have been blessed, and how she knows it is true without a doubt. It was so powerful. It drew the Spirit into the meeting, settled the kids down, and made Magali cry. I was so reassured that Magali will forever remember that special day in her life, thanks to her mom´s testimony.
Rubén couldn´t come to church this Sunday, so we may or may not have his baptism before I leave Villa Hayes. I pray every day that I can see his baptism. He is so amazing. We see him several times a week and the Spirit has been working with him so much. We´re working on trying to give him a vision of what he can become. He´s a little hard on himself, and he´s dealing with people judging him for his past more than seeing his present goodness. We may have a miracle, though, and get our baptismal goal this month after all! After MANY ups and downs, a man named Cleto is saying that he wants to get baptized this weekend. He´s been prepared for a long time, so we´re gonna go for it. It really is a miracle. We were thinking we were never gonna have another baptism in Villa Hayes.
Sorry, I haven´t had time to read any of your e-mails yet today so I won´t be sending out any individual letters. But I can´t wait to read all that you´ve written me. I hope everything´s great with you. Thank you Grandma, Laurel (and Shelli), Bishop Crittenden, Blair Family, Dad, Mom, Sarah, Amanda, and Ashley (and Jersey and Leo) for writing to me this week. You make me feel so loved.
On an ending note, I was reading Jacob 5 the other day. I´ve always loved that chapter and found something new every time I´ve read it. I especially love the part about the servants helping the Lord of the Vineyard with the Final Harvest and receiving joy from that. But something I noticed that I hadn´t ever before was the part where the Lord says (to paraphrase), "Now for the last time we´re going to nourish this vineyard. We´re going to save all the good branches and destroy the bad. BUT, because the good branches are so small, we have to wait until they´re strong before we can take away the bad ones. Otherwise the whole tree will die." It was an interesting concept. The message I got from it? BE STRONG, MEMBERS!!
Eso no más. :)
I LOVE YOU ALL!! Have a wonderful week (hopefully filled with lots of snow. What I wouldn´t give for a snowfall right now...)
---Hna. Springer
1-A bunch of girls playing volleyball before the baptism (guess which one got baptized. Ha ha!)
2-Adorable little "lamanitas"
3-Me with my AWESOME Christmas package!!
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Week 53 - Asuncion Paraguay - Villa Hayes
Hola, Familia! ¿Mba´e la pórte? (That means, "What´s up?" in Guaraní).
I hope you all had a wonderful New Year´s! Thank you for telling me all about your festivities. Our New Year´s was pretty quiet. Well, not literally. We were woken up at midnight by a half-hour´s worth of fireworks, and I managed to sleepily mumble, "Feliz Año Nuevo" to Hna. deVries, but other than that, we didn´t actually do any celebrating. :) Paraguay is crazy about their parties, though. They celebrated all weekend with lots of beer and fireworks. Their fireworks are pretty weak compared to ours--just bombs, really--but they can´t get enough of them. All day long, little kids are outside setting them off. And I mean LITTLE kids. I´ve quickly learned not to freak out when I see a group of three-year-olds setting matches to little fosforitos. Their parents always provide them and sometimes lazily watch them set them off. That whole "parental supervision" warning is kind of lost to them. Another observation about fireworks, and fire in general, is that they never actually do any damage here. I don´t know if it´s the humidity or what, but things never catch on fire. People burn their trash just out in their yards or in a field somewhere, and all the trash burns but it doesn´t spread to the rest of the field or their houses. Nobody supervises them at all. I don´t understand why. They all think it´s weird when we explain that we can only set off fireworks twice a year due to fire hazards. Forest fires are nonexistent here. It´s so strange.
But anyways, to make up for our lack of Christmas Eve festivities, our branch president´s family had us over for dinner on New Year´s Eve AND last night. We also had an end-of-year party at the chapel on Thursday night. It was a good way to get the menos activos to the chapel again--it´s a long-standing tradition apparently. We ate lots of baked chicken (SUCH a nice change from beef) and rice salad and something called chipa wasu. We got lots of leftovers and didn´t have to spend hardly any money on our own groceries this week. :)
I can´t believe that it´s been a full year already. I don´t know why, but it just hit me the other day that it´s been a FULL YEAR since I was in the MTC, barely able to speak any Spanish. So much has happened since then. It´s kind of freaky. But honestly, 2011 must have been the most rewarding year of my entire life. I´ve never felt so satisfied with my time before. Nothing is as gratifying as serving the Lord with all your time and energy all year long. I think last year was the first time ever that I actually met all my New Year´s Resolutions.
But I still have a lot to learn, as I figured out this week. We had to go to Asunción to sign Hna. deVries into the country. When we walked in there, a huge group of young Elders and we Hermanas, we overheard a group of German men talking about us in English. Two of the men were straight from Germany, and the other had lived in Paraguay for a while, I guess. The new ones asked the veteran who we were, and he explained, "They´re missionaries. They come here for their church. The Mormon church. It´s like the Catholic church, only smaller. It´s new." "Why would they come do that?" one of the men scoffed. "They don´t know better," said his friend. "They´re brainwashed." It made me cringe to hear that, but I didn´t say anything. Our group sat around the Germans. Hna. deVries and i were behind them, and when they weren´t discussing their business venture or whatever, one of the men was looking up "Mormons" on his iPhone. We were there for a half hour, and yet none of us said a thing to them about what the Church was REALLY about and why we were REALLY there. Then it was time to go, before any of us had worked up the courage. We felt so ashamed of ourselves afterwards, especially me--the most senior missionary in the group. I realized, after reading Elder Perry´s conference talk later, that I let fear overcome my faith. Usually that doesn´t happen, but because the men were wealthier, more educated, English-speakers, I froze up. What am I gonna do in the States in the future, then? I need to overcome ALL fear. And I realized later this week during my lessons, that it´s really not that scary to speak up. Really, people are genuinely curious. All we´ve got to do is let them know who we are. If we do, even if they snub our beliefs, at least we´ll be satisfied with ourselves. If we don´t, we´ll just beat ourselves up about it. Take it from someone who knows. :) My New Year´s resolution is to never let that happen again.
Rubén is doing well, but he didn´t make it to church this week, so we don´t know when he´ll get baptized. All of our other prospects are unraveling, too, sadly. But we had the Elders come give Rubén a blessing on Tuesday. They very sweetly taught him about the Priesthood and how God has prepared a calling to the Priesthood for Rubén if he only does what he needs to to accept it. The blessing was very powerful and very sincere. Rubén was close to tears. I hope that he´s felt an increased resistance against temptation. We haven´t heard from him much this week due to all the festivities.
But good news! We were in church yesterday when we noticed these two little girls who always come to church by themselves. We knew that one of them was a recent convert, and that most of her family are WAY inactive members, but we didn´t know much about her little sister. So we asked, and she was like, "I´m eight, and I never got baptized!" We immediately verified with the President, and with the girl´s mom, and sure enough there was some misunderstanding back in June when her baptism was supposed to be. President thought the mom didn´t want her to get baptized, and the mom thought that President was having trouble putting the baptism together, and it just got put off indefinitely. So, long story short, we´re having a baptism this Saturday! It won´t count as a convert, since her mom is a member, but still! Por fin, a baptism in Villa Hayes!!
Anyways, Hna. deVries has been giving me some awesome insight this week. First of all, she pointed out that our calling is to have baptisms in quality AND quantity. As a companionship, we´ve been doing well with the quantity part, when it comes to lessons, but the quality of them has been lacking for sure. So this week we´ve been striving to make sure to make each lesson awesome, or to not count it at all. Apparently we´ve got the best numbers in the zone, but obviously we have no baptisms to show for it. We want to change that.
Secondly, she mentioned the other day how EVERY time she reads the Book of Mormon (and she reads it several times a day), she ends her studies by praying to know if it´s true. No matter how many times she´s received that witness, she prays after each reading. I´ve always noticed how spiritual she is, so I´ve decided to give that a try, and honestly it makes such a difference. I read looking for a principle to pray about, and the answers of the Spirit I receive after praying fortify my testimony day-by-day. It´s amazing.
We made a new rat trap using pioneer methods. Sadly I´ve run out of time and can´t explain it very well, but stay tuned next week to see if it works!
I love you all! Take care! You´re the best!
---Hna. Springer
Hey fam! Sorry I don´t have lots of photos to send you this week. It was all pretty ordinary. But here´s a picture of my new and improved rat trap (read all about it in this week´s e-mail), and a little doodle that an adorable little girl drew me in sacrament meeting.
I LOVE YOU!! Take care!
---Carly
I hope you all had a wonderful New Year´s! Thank you for telling me all about your festivities. Our New Year´s was pretty quiet. Well, not literally. We were woken up at midnight by a half-hour´s worth of fireworks, and I managed to sleepily mumble, "Feliz Año Nuevo" to Hna. deVries, but other than that, we didn´t actually do any celebrating. :) Paraguay is crazy about their parties, though. They celebrated all weekend with lots of beer and fireworks. Their fireworks are pretty weak compared to ours--just bombs, really--but they can´t get enough of them. All day long, little kids are outside setting them off. And I mean LITTLE kids. I´ve quickly learned not to freak out when I see a group of three-year-olds setting matches to little fosforitos. Their parents always provide them and sometimes lazily watch them set them off. That whole "parental supervision" warning is kind of lost to them. Another observation about fireworks, and fire in general, is that they never actually do any damage here. I don´t know if it´s the humidity or what, but things never catch on fire. People burn their trash just out in their yards or in a field somewhere, and all the trash burns but it doesn´t spread to the rest of the field or their houses. Nobody supervises them at all. I don´t understand why. They all think it´s weird when we explain that we can only set off fireworks twice a year due to fire hazards. Forest fires are nonexistent here. It´s so strange.
But anyways, to make up for our lack of Christmas Eve festivities, our branch president´s family had us over for dinner on New Year´s Eve AND last night. We also had an end-of-year party at the chapel on Thursday night. It was a good way to get the menos activos to the chapel again--it´s a long-standing tradition apparently. We ate lots of baked chicken (SUCH a nice change from beef) and rice salad and something called chipa wasu. We got lots of leftovers and didn´t have to spend hardly any money on our own groceries this week. :)
I can´t believe that it´s been a full year already. I don´t know why, but it just hit me the other day that it´s been a FULL YEAR since I was in the MTC, barely able to speak any Spanish. So much has happened since then. It´s kind of freaky. But honestly, 2011 must have been the most rewarding year of my entire life. I´ve never felt so satisfied with my time before. Nothing is as gratifying as serving the Lord with all your time and energy all year long. I think last year was the first time ever that I actually met all my New Year´s Resolutions.
But I still have a lot to learn, as I figured out this week. We had to go to Asunción to sign Hna. deVries into the country. When we walked in there, a huge group of young Elders and we Hermanas, we overheard a group of German men talking about us in English. Two of the men were straight from Germany, and the other had lived in Paraguay for a while, I guess. The new ones asked the veteran who we were, and he explained, "They´re missionaries. They come here for their church. The Mormon church. It´s like the Catholic church, only smaller. It´s new." "Why would they come do that?" one of the men scoffed. "They don´t know better," said his friend. "They´re brainwashed." It made me cringe to hear that, but I didn´t say anything. Our group sat around the Germans. Hna. deVries and i were behind them, and when they weren´t discussing their business venture or whatever, one of the men was looking up "Mormons" on his iPhone. We were there for a half hour, and yet none of us said a thing to them about what the Church was REALLY about and why we were REALLY there. Then it was time to go, before any of us had worked up the courage. We felt so ashamed of ourselves afterwards, especially me--the most senior missionary in the group. I realized, after reading Elder Perry´s conference talk later, that I let fear overcome my faith. Usually that doesn´t happen, but because the men were wealthier, more educated, English-speakers, I froze up. What am I gonna do in the States in the future, then? I need to overcome ALL fear. And I realized later this week during my lessons, that it´s really not that scary to speak up. Really, people are genuinely curious. All we´ve got to do is let them know who we are. If we do, even if they snub our beliefs, at least we´ll be satisfied with ourselves. If we don´t, we´ll just beat ourselves up about it. Take it from someone who knows. :) My New Year´s resolution is to never let that happen again.
Rubén is doing well, but he didn´t make it to church this week, so we don´t know when he´ll get baptized. All of our other prospects are unraveling, too, sadly. But we had the Elders come give Rubén a blessing on Tuesday. They very sweetly taught him about the Priesthood and how God has prepared a calling to the Priesthood for Rubén if he only does what he needs to to accept it. The blessing was very powerful and very sincere. Rubén was close to tears. I hope that he´s felt an increased resistance against temptation. We haven´t heard from him much this week due to all the festivities.
But good news! We were in church yesterday when we noticed these two little girls who always come to church by themselves. We knew that one of them was a recent convert, and that most of her family are WAY inactive members, but we didn´t know much about her little sister. So we asked, and she was like, "I´m eight, and I never got baptized!" We immediately verified with the President, and with the girl´s mom, and sure enough there was some misunderstanding back in June when her baptism was supposed to be. President thought the mom didn´t want her to get baptized, and the mom thought that President was having trouble putting the baptism together, and it just got put off indefinitely. So, long story short, we´re having a baptism this Saturday! It won´t count as a convert, since her mom is a member, but still! Por fin, a baptism in Villa Hayes!!
Anyways, Hna. deVries has been giving me some awesome insight this week. First of all, she pointed out that our calling is to have baptisms in quality AND quantity. As a companionship, we´ve been doing well with the quantity part, when it comes to lessons, but the quality of them has been lacking for sure. So this week we´ve been striving to make sure to make each lesson awesome, or to not count it at all. Apparently we´ve got the best numbers in the zone, but obviously we have no baptisms to show for it. We want to change that.
Secondly, she mentioned the other day how EVERY time she reads the Book of Mormon (and she reads it several times a day), she ends her studies by praying to know if it´s true. No matter how many times she´s received that witness, she prays after each reading. I´ve always noticed how spiritual she is, so I´ve decided to give that a try, and honestly it makes such a difference. I read looking for a principle to pray about, and the answers of the Spirit I receive after praying fortify my testimony day-by-day. It´s amazing.
We made a new rat trap using pioneer methods. Sadly I´ve run out of time and can´t explain it very well, but stay tuned next week to see if it works!
I love you all! Take care! You´re the best!
---Hna. Springer
Hey fam! Sorry I don´t have lots of photos to send you this week. It was all pretty ordinary. But here´s a picture of my new and improved rat trap (read all about it in this week´s e-mail), and a little doodle that an adorable little girl drew me in sacrament meeting.
I LOVE YOU!! Take care!
---Carly
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