Week 61 - Asuncion Paraguay - Ybera

 Mis Queridos,

This week was so wonderful. First of all, I got your packages, Goompa
and Nana and McConkies! Thank you SO MUCH! And thank you Grandma and
Grandpa Springer, Dad, Mom, Ashley, Sarah, and the Blaires for writing
to me this week. I love you all and appreciate everything you do!

A ver... where to start... Really, so much happened this week. Hna.
Fonseca and I made it a goal to do at least one act of service every
day (you know...besides the full-time service of missionary work). We
did a LOT of raking and cutting weeds with machetes and filling bags
with water to make ice to sell and playing piano for the Young Women
and washing dishes and helping at birthday parties. :) I have two big
blisters on my thumbs from using big, Harry Potter brooms to clear
yards with. It´s satisfying to see it all cleaned up in the end, but
not much fun to do in skirts. We´ll have to plan ahead better so we
can bring our jeans next time. :) Thankfully it hasn´t been too hot
lately. We´ve been getting lots more rain than usual (is autumn coming
I hope??). It´s more humid, but the sun is usually hidden so I´m not
being fried alive much.

Hna. Fonseca provides a lot of service by cooking for people. She
makes some awesome Honduranean food. I want to help cook for people,
too, but I don´t know how to just throw meals together with the few
ingredients that the street despensas provide. Everyone keeps saying,
"Oh, you don´t know how to cook because you Americans just eat
hamburgers and French fries and pizza for every meal." Hna. Fonseca
has quickly learned that I HATE it when they say that. :) But it´s
hard to convince them otherwise when they ask me what a typical
American food is and hamburgers and pizza are the first things to come
to mind. :) Can anybody help me out with this? I´d love a brainstorm
of purely American foods (that aren´t desserts), and some simple
recipes, too, if that´s not too much to ask. I think of chicken,
mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade rolls, and cooked carrots, but I
don´t have the ingredients or time to make any of those...

Anyways, the birthday party I mentioned as one of our service projects
was the birthday of an eight-year-old girl whose baptism we were able
to go to. I´ve helped set up birthday parties several times before,
and I love how simple yet elegant Paraguayan birthday decorations are,
but it was the first time I actually got to attend a little girl´s
party. It was so cute. I could tell you lots of things about it, but
the thing that fascinated me most was how they did the piñata. Instead
of a big paper machet (sp?) thing, it was just one of those big, thick
balloons filled with candy and confetti. An adult headed over to the
group of excited kids waiting under the balloon, and he had a knife in
his hand. I thought, "THIS should be safe--using knives instead of
bats..." but then he said, "Alright, let´s do this!" and everyone
knelt under the balloon and held their hands cupped above their heads.
The adult said, "One...two...THREE!" and stabbed the balloon. It
exploded all over the place and the kids scrambled to grab as much
candy as they could. A lot simpler and safer and faster than the
Central American piñata tradition, huh? Not quite as entertaining,
though. :)

This week we had Zone Conference in Asunción. It was so wonderful--all
about charity and being true disciples of Christ. We watched a
video--almost a music video, really--of MoTab singing "My Song in the
Night," with a video of a chain of acts of service that were so simple
yet so touching I almost cried. I´m never going to be able to listen
to that song again without tearing up. :) Hna. Madariaga talked a lot
about getting to know our companions and becoming a strong team. She
had us fill out questionaries about each other. I was sadly lacking in
knowledge about Hna. Fonseca, so now I´m working harder at getting to
know her better. I know how she is NOW, but I don´t know much about
her family or past.

Zone Conference was great, except the lunch they served us gave half
the missionaries who attended food poisoning, including Hna. Fonseca.
I was luckily spared, but my poor companion! She´s doing lots better,
but she sure didn´t need an upset stomach on Saturday, our busiest day
of the week! I´m doing better, too, by the way. No more runny nose,
but still a little bit of a cough. Nothing to complain about, though.

I got a haircut last Monday. Hna. Fonseca looked through a menu of
haircut options and decided which one would be best on me (I have no
creativity when it comes to my own hair. My favorite haircuts have
always been those where i let other people choose). I agreed with what
she selected, but I didn´t see when Hna. Fonseca told the hair stylist
how short to cut it. She kept cutting...and cutting...and CUTTING!
It´s now shoulder-length with lots of layers, AND it´s thinned out. I
barely have any hair now! A change was LOOOONG overdue, and I really
love my new look, but it´s gonna take me a long time to get used to
it. I don´t have much time to experiment with it. Thankfully it´s
still just long enough to pull into a ponytail.

So this week we had a day when every single lesson that we had was
with someone who wanted to Bible-bash. It was not a very fun day. The
next morning I felt kind of depressed, not because of the Work, but
because they´d challenged my knowledge of the scriptures and expressed
surprise that I was a "preacher" when I knew so little about God.
According to them, anyways. But that next morning I read in the Book
of Mormon (which always helps), then turned to the living prophets by
reading in the Liahona. As I did, I felt reassured that God doesn´t
expect me to be a professional preacher. He doesn´t want me to be like
other religions´ pastors--He wants me to be humble and rely on Him,
and then He will make me strong enough to confound the wise and keep
this great work going on nobly, boldly, and independent. I ended that
morning´s personal study reassured that I´m doing just fine, and when
I prayed to end, I finished with "I love Thee," as I always do, and I
felt an overwhelming sense of love as if Heavenly Father responded, "I
love you, too." It still makes me tear up, remembering that moment.
It´s a morning i won´t soon forget.

Well, that´s enough for this week. I hope you´re all doing great.
Seriously, thank you so much for writing to me and keeping me
up-to-date with your lives. I love hearing all about you and the great
things you´re doing. I´m grateful for each and every one of you. Take
care!

---Hna. Springer

1-The Paraguayan piñata (see big e-mail for details)
2-Me with Yadira, the girl who got baptized this last weekend
3- Yadira with her dad
4-My new haircut!

Week 60 - Asuncion Paraguay - Ybera

Dear Family,

Things continue to be awesome here in Ybera! Turns out that Hna.
Fonseca has atypical pneumonia. One of her lungs has issues, which
explains her back pain. She´s now taking lots of medicine and watching
her health a lot more. She´s tired of feeling sick, but relieved that
now she knows what´s wrong with her.

I was sick this week, too. I had a really nasty cold. It started with
what felt like strep throat, turned into a dry cough (when I feared
that maybe I was developing pneumonia, too ), then turned into a super
runny nose. Thank goodness for my handkerchiefs! My Kneelex ran out
way too fast. Today, though, I feel perfectly fine. I´m relieved. We
didn´t have much energy to work this week, the two of us. We left the
house every day, but our numbers were pretty low and there were a few
mornings where we got a late start because Hna. Fonseca was so tired.

Life with Hna. Fonseca as a companion is so much fun.  We have these
two dogs that live in our apartment complex--one´s a big
Doberman-looking thing (it makes me happy when he growls at strangers
yet LOVES Hna. Fonseca and me--I feel a lot safer in our apartment
with him around), and the other looks like an otter. He´s super short,
super long, has huge paws, and wiggles uncontrollably whenever we come
home. Hna. Fonseca LOVES that dog.  It´s adorable how she baby-talks
him.

Last night after giving our weekly report to the Elders, Hna. Fonseca
wanted me to teach her how to play "Go Feesh." Somebody left her a
deck of cute Go Fish cards but she didn´t know how to play. It was so
hilarious teaching her--not only the techniques of the game, but also
how to pronounce "pufferfish," "seahorse," "whale," and "octopus." It
made me crack up how I would pronounce them well, and she´d just look
at me blankly. Then I´d say them in a Spanish accent ("pooferfeesh"
"seehor" "wallay" and "ohk-toh-poos") and THEN she understood. I love
Spanish accents. :)

She´s so adorably craftsy, too. She totally decked out the Zarate
place on Friday night. They felt so special when they came home from
the temple to find balloons, banners, party favors, ward friends, and
food waiting for them. That party was so great. This ward is so
united. The Zarate family was absolutely beaming after their
experience in the temple. They´d waited over five years to get sealed
due to some sort of complication, and they were all close to happy
tears as we took pictures with them and congratulated them. It was so
wonderful. And the Zarate family all bore their testimonies in church
yesterday. They cried a lot, and I think the ward was really touched
to hear about how worth it it is to be worthy to enter the temple.
The Zarate mother is especially more tender lately, and I can tell
that she felt God´s love for her and her family in the temple just as
strongly as I felt it when I entered. I can´t wait until April when i
get to go again. Hna. Fonseca is really sad that we couldn´t accompany
the Zarates. It would have been adorable to see the family of ten
being sealed. The littler ones look so adorable in their Sunday
clothes. I can only imagine how beautiful it would be to see them in
white.

Speaking of clothes--I just checked out a store that specializes in ao
po´i--the really cool Paraguayan traditional stitching that I´ve
really come to love. I now have a good idea of what I´m going to bring
home to you all. :)

I really don´t have much else to write about today because, like I
said before, we were sick. But I do want to mention that I´m reading
in Alma again about the Anti-Nephi-Lehis. I´ve heard that story a
bazillion times and appreciated it lots in the past, but this time
around it really struck home with me. I´m not really sure why. I just
loved King Anti-Nephi-Lehi´s explanation of why he and his people
should bury their weapons rather than kill again. Before, I thought it
was just, "Well, we´ve been super bad in the past. We probably
shouldn´t add any more black marks to our record." But really, they
didn´t want to sin again because it was so HARD for them to repent and
become clean again. They didn´t want to undo all of the hard work
they´d done and have to struggle again to  be worthy to enter God´s
presence. Similarly, after we´ve repented of something, we shouldn´t
let anything in the world undo all of our hard work and undermind our
sacrices. Instead, we should bury anything that would make us turn
back to bad ways. I love in the movie "Fireproof" how the husband
literally throws away his computer after deciding not to degrade his
wife by looking at pornography. I wish we all had the courage to just
cut the cord and do away with anything that would make us stumble
again. I hope I can manage to do that when I get home, because
honestly I feel a lot like the Anti-Nephi-Lehis. It was hard for me to
arrive at this point--this state of being--in my life. I don´t want to
let anything undo that.

I´m just babbling now. :) I hope you all had a great Valentine´s Day
and that you´re enjoying President´s Day.  Question:  Is President´s
Day to celebrate the CURRENT president, or to celebrate all presidents
in general? I was trying to explain to Hna. Fonseca what President´s
Day is, and I had no clue. Nor could i explain why we celebrate St.
Patrick´s Day (her birthday is March 17th, too). Anyone want to help
me get my facts straight? Thanks!

And thank you Grandma Springer, Laurel, Dad, Mom, Ashley, Amanda, and
the Blair Family for your letters this week! I love you all so much!
Take care!

---Hna. Springer



1-The  banner that Hna. Fonseca and I made (she visualized it, I did
the drawing and cutting)
2- The newly-sealed couple Zarate
3- The kids chowing down on hot dogs
4- What was going to be an awesome photo of me and Hna. Fonseca with
the whole Zarate clan...except the man taking the picture couldn´t see
very well so he cut off the whole top row, and then the Zarates
scattered. Sigh.

Week 59 - Asuncion Paraguay - Ybera

Dear Dear Ones,

Happy Valentine´s Day tomorrow! I honestly forgot that tomorrow is Valentine´s Day until you all wrote to me. They do celebrate that here in Paraguay, pretty much the same way we do, but since it´s a holiday limited to those with boyfriends or sympathetic best friends around, we missionaries are kind of oblivious to it all. Also, Happy Birthday to (insert your name here if your birthday is this week)! I love you and hope you have a special day! :)

Well, here I am in Ybera! Once again, I had nothing to worry about. Hna. Fonseca was in Marambure for six months before she came to Ybera, and she says that already after only one Change here, she loves it more than Marambure. I´m starting to agree with her, even though I never really knew Marambure very well in the first place.

Our ward is pretty small for a ward, but the people are so great. So many of them have been through the temple or are preparing. The whole ward is in celebration mode in behalf of a family of ten who´s getting sealed in the temple this Friday. I so wish I could go. We´re going to put on a big surprise party for them after they get back from Asunción. They´re wonderful people, and the significance of the temple ordinance isn´t lost on them at all.

The families here in Ybera are just a lot more unified than I´ve seen in any of my other areas. They´re all really sweet and determined to pray and read scriptures together every day. There´s this adorable young couple who struggle with the fact that the husband has to work late every other night. To keep their habits strong and stay more unified, the husband calls the wife every night when he´s on his break and they read out of the Book of Mormon and pray together over the phone. So cute!

We have a lunch appointment every single day except for Monday, and the members love to visit with us. They´re all really nice to me. They´re less impressed with the fact that I¨m blonde, because they´re closer to the city and are more used to diversity. But they just can´t get over the fact that I´m so tall. I feel like a skyscraper compared to Hna. Fonseca, who barely scrapes five feet. Yesterday we both gave talks in church. I went first, and I had to stretch the microphone up as high as it would go. Then Hna. Fonseca got up after me, and she had to pull it all the way back down to its lowest. The congregation cracked up.

The family we ate with yesterday like us so much that they named their puppies after us! There´s a fluffy dark one that they named Fonsequito (after Hna. Fonseca), and the other one has short fur so it seems slimmer, and it´s yellow. They named it Springer. Awww! They all call me "Springfield," though. I have so many nicknames. People hear me say my last name and hear something completely different. My nicknames include "Springfield," (where the Simpsons live), "Hna. Aire Condicionado" (after an air conditioning brand that actually is Springer), "Pinguino" (translation: penguin), "Pringles"  (like the chips), and "Sprim" (a brand of juice mix here in Paraguay).

Anyways... Hna. Fonseca is absolutely wonderful. I love having a latina companion. She´s so great with the people. She says the most inspired, spiritual things at the drop of a hat. I on the other hand am second-guessing my Spanish way too much around her. With "gringa" companions, it was easy to get away with grammar errors. Now I´m super aware of how sloppy my Spanish actually is. I feel like I´m completely re-learning the language. My accent is going to be awesome after our time together. We had a very quiet few couple of days as a result of my sudden shyness in speaking Spanish, but now we´re a lot more comfortable together. She´s so fun. She comes from really humble circumstances and just makes the most of every day. She also really loves to clean. We´ve offered service to so many people this week. Paraguayans never let me and my blonde companions lend service. Ever. But with Hna. Fonseca they all just throw us their brooms and we get to work! It´s really nice. I love cleaning, honestly, and it gives us a nice break from all the walking while still doing something productive and Christlike. :)

Sadly, though, Hna. Fonseca has some health issues. We were in the hospital all day Friday and we´re going back tonight to see what the doctors have to say about all the x-rays and stuff that she had to get done last time. I don´t think there´s anything seriously wrong with her. She didn´t lead the healthiest of lifestyles before the mission (she´s lost like 40 pounds and still weighs more than me, almost). But I don´t want to lose another companion! I don´t know if Hna. Greer is ever coming or what. It´d be nice to know how long I¨m going to stay in one place with one companion. But what can I do? Just enjoy each day as it comes, right?

We have some great investigators, too. We have two couples who are both working on getting married and being baptized this month. It really IS the month of love! :)

The only gripe I have about Ybera is the apartment. It´s TINY and on a very loud street corner. And there´s no air conditioning. And my first two nights here were the hottest of the summer so far. It was miserable. Yet, I actually slept okay. Maybe I am adapting to the heat after all, or maybe my body just gave up when it was known that there would be no respite all night. If you´re mentally prepared to not have air conditioning, it´s a lot easier to live without it. Thankfully it rained almost every day this weekend so now things are a lot cooler. I hope autumn is on its way.

Oh, and P.S. I gave my talk on charity and forgiveness, using Luke 6 and Moroni 7 to share my feelings on the matter. The mission is the training ground for learning to turn the other cheek. If I got all upset every time somebody said something ugly about me or about the U.S. or about the church, I´d have died from sheer depression by now. But since I´ve learned to just leave all the insults and offenses behind and move forward with faith and cheerfulness and enjoy all the good things that happen. As a result, I´m more at peace now than I´ve ever been in my entire life. And it makes me sad whenever I see someone in the ward or otherwise who´s holding a grudge and letting it ruin their life. Keep moving forward!

That´s all for this week. I love you all so much and hope you have a wonderful Valentine´s Day! Take care!

---Hna. Springer

Here´s a picture of me with my new companion, the adorable Hna. Fonseca! Also, here´s a photo of the map of Ybera. The stickers at the top of a temple and a star are the chapel and our apartment, respectively. :) At least this time it´ll be easy for you to find my house on Google Earth. It´s on the same corner as the church! Let me know if you have trouble finding Ybera, though. It might be spelled Yvera or Ibera. They´re not too good at spelling around here so I´m not sure which it is. :) Also, here´s a random picture of our shoes. Can you guess which are mine?

LOVE YOU!!

---Carly

Week 58 - Asuncion Paraguay - Marambure

Dear Family, Friends, and all variations thereof,

I really don't know how to begin writing about this week. It was kind of crazy, and now things are all crazy still and my mind is all jumbled. I'll do my best.

On Monday night, we got the long-anticipated Changes Call, and it was revealed that Hna. deVries was to stay in Villa Hayes with my old companion Hna. Brittner, and I was leaving to a place called Marambure, where I'd be opening an area and TRAINING AGAIN! That was super emotional. I'm not gonna lie, I was kind of happy to get a change of scenery, but training again? I really didn't think that would happen. I definitely wasn't as scared this time as last time about "raising" a new missionary, but opening an area with a new missionary? THAT was a stressful concept.

But turns out I really didn't have anything to worry about. Marambure is actually split into two Hermanas' areas, so there are four of us and we all live in the same house.  Hna. Peel, who came one Change after me, has already been here for three weeks, which is super helpful, except she's training too so she was just as stressed as me. Her new companion is the Hna. Quispe, from Peru. She's by far the most tranquila Peruvian missionary I've ever met. She's so sweet and so craftsy and just loves the work already. I keep forgetting that she's new because she already speaks Spanish so well. It keeps throwing me off whenever she hesitates to do contacts or something. Hna. Peel is from Mesa, Arizona, and she's a composition major. She sings and draws and speaks Spanish really well and gets along great with the people.

As for my trainee... Her name is Hna. Greer. She's from Maine. And I've never met her. Last week I went to the training meeting and everything at the mission office, but my new companion was still in the States due to a health complication. So I've been going around with Hna. Peel and Hna. Quispe in a trio all week, getting super lost in Marambure but getting excited to show a new missionary how the work is done. I even made her a little welcome-to-Paraguay card. But then yesterday Pte. Madariaga called to tell me that Hna. Greer's health isn't getting better, so she's been reassigned to Denver, Colorado. We have no idea if that's a permanent assignment, or just until she gets better. But in any case, this means that I'm now leaving Marambure tomorrow and working in the neighboring city of Ybera instead, with a Honduranean named Hna. Fonseca.

*Sigh* I very much dislike being in limbo like this. I just barely unpacked and now I have to repack. And I really, really like Marambure. It's BEAUTIFUL, with lots of trees and much nicer houses than any other area I've ever been to. The house we live in is so big. We call it The Bat Cave because it has huge high ceilings. It has two showers and air conditioning. Enough said. We don't actually live in Marambure, but in Luque, which is way more city-ish. The entrance to our apartment is squeezed between two little shops on a busy street lined with shops. After four months in Villa Hayes hunting for anything I needed, now I can find everything I need on the same block I live on. It's awesome.

Except...I'm leaving.

The ward is so awesome, too. It's much bigger than any of the others I've seen, and the Spirit was much more present. This fast and testimony meeting Sunday was so great. All of the youth had just gotten back from the first ever Paraguayan EFY (They call it "Effee"). They all talked about how much they hated it when they first got there--how they weren't allowed to just sleep and drink terere with their friends but had to *gasp* split up from their friends and be roommates with *gasp* ARGENTINIANS! Oh Paraguay... :) But then by the end of the week they loved EFY so much and they loved their roommates so much, and they all came back KNOWING that the Church is true. I never went to EFY, but I definitely have a testimony that it changes lives. What a wonderful program. I hope many more Paraguayans go next year. I know not a single youth in Villa Hayes went this time.

We didn't really accomplish much this week besides just getting to know the members (who I'm now leaving). We got a slow start what with Hna. Quispe and I having to unpack and buy food, and Hna. Quispe needing those extra training study hours, and us getting SO LOST. We kept accidentally getting on the wrong buses and getting hopelessly lost way too far away from where we wanted to go. It happened almost every day this week. It was a mess. But I'm determined to work so hard in Ybera with Hna. Fonseca. I'm going to be super happy and positive and reliable. It's going to be great. I'll let you know all about it next week.

As for leaving Villa Hayes... I'm really missing Hna. deVries. She was an excellent companion. But she'll get along great with Hna. Brittner, and the members all love her. She was always just as capable as I was there. She could be Senior companion already. I'm really satisfied with what we accomplished there together. Maybe it doesn't look too impressive on paper, but we worked hard, and we slept well every night knowing that we could face the Lord with clean hands and pure hearts. :)

Oh, one last funny food story for this week. Hna. Peel made some cornbread for one of our lunch appointments, and she mentioned to our host that it was good with honey. Our kind host went and got a big bottle of honey that she'd gotten from the chaco. We were excited to try it on our cornbread, but instead she brought out bowls and spoons and gave us each a whole bowlful of honey! Dad, after all those times you told us, "Want some steak with your A1 sauce?" or "Want some pancakes with your syrup?" I just couldn't help but crack up as we literally ate cornbread with our honey instead of the other way around. It was disgusting, really. WAY too sweet. But apparently that's actually how they eat honey here.

Oh, and thank you Teresa for your package!! It was so sweet. And thank you Mom and Dad for sending me our Christmas card. It's gorgeous. And Jenkins, I got your Christmas card, too. I have such an adorable family. You all rock my socks. :)

I LOVE YOU!! Have an excellent week! You'll hear all about Ybera next time!

---Hna. Springer

1-Me with the Hnas. Quispe and Peel
2-Some pretty scenery
3-Saying goodbye to the Irala Family
4-My crazy district (the Elder next to me put brownie in his teeth)

1-The hilarious card that the Benjamin Elders made for me.
2 - Estefania and Sol, my favorite Villa Hayes Paraguayans
3-A map of Marambure--the yellow spot in the corner is the chapel. Good luck trying to figure out where I'm actually working. I have no clue. :)

Week 57 - Asuncion Paraguay - Villa Hayes

Dearest Familia,

How are you all doing? I hear that winter is finally setting in back in the States. How weird that it hasn´t been snowing much this winter when last year it was crazy snowy. Which do you prefer? :) Everyone keeps asking me if summer is almost over here in Paraguay. If so...that would be so weird to have spent a whole season in one area. I can´t tell if Fall is coming or not. I don´t remember it being terribly hot when I arrived in Paraguay in March (almost a whole year ago!!). I guess maybe summer is winding down. We don´t feel too overwhelmed by the heat lately, but we´re scared to let our guard down and then be fried by a heat wave later. All the Paraguayans keep telling us that the worst is yet to come. "It´s so hot today." "Oh, just wait until FEBRUARY! You´re going to DIE!" Except...they said that about December. And then when December came around they said that about January. Now we´re not sure what to believe. :) They were the same last winter, too. "Oh, this is nothing! Wait until August!" We´ll see...

Time is passing by so quickly. We have Changes again this week. Last Change went by like a blur. I have no idea what´s going to happen with us. There are three new Hermanas coming in (2 from the States and one from Peru), so there´s a possibility that I might train again. I wouldn´t mind training, but that would mean that I´d spend like seven months here in Villa Hayes. That´s a long time. There´s also the possibility that Hna. deVries and I might just stay here together another Change. That would be fun. We´ve got a great groove going, and I really love her.

We did a division with the Hermanas in Mariano this week. It was so weird for me to go back and work in my old area, and Hna. deVries was terrified to work with a different Hermana, especially a latina Hermana. It went pretty well. It was short, but refreshing for both of us. And we now have a greater appreciation for working together. Working with Hna. Estigarribia in Mariano, I was so aware of how young I was back in those days and how inexperienced I was at missionary work. She seemed so uncertain about what to teach and how to contact and all that. It was bizarre being back there with the Senior missionary perspective. Hna. deVries and I have really refined our way of teaching, and I´m so grateful for that. The work is going along so much better because of it. And she´s still a new missionary! I can only imagine how stellar she´s going to be this next year. SHE could train next Change. :)

Contacting was always my greatest weakness as a missionary. I would always walk past a house and think, "Should I contact it? I should contact it. Oh man but there´s a dog. They´re busy with their family. I should contact it. They won´t listen. I should just--dang, now we´ve passed it." And then I´d be upset with myself for not just going for it. Those days are now behind me! Thanks to Hna. deVries´ fearlessness, I don´t find contacting that scary at all anymore. It´s still not very fun walking around all day and facing the possibility of getting rudely rejected, but it´s just part of life. It´s necessary. Just like how you can´t find a hidden treasure unless you spend a few hours searching. You can´t find a ripe mango unless you go through the lot and feel if they´re ready to eat or not.

Speaking of mangos, mango season is over already. Shortest. Fruit season. Ever. Now it´s guayava season. I think those are called guava in the States? I could be wrong. They´re okay to eat right off the tree, but I´m honestly not too fond of them. They have kind of a grainy skin. They make for good juice, though, once you strain out the teeth-breaking seeds. :)

Oh yeah! Two of our old investigators, young girls named Jasmín and Soledad, came back from taking care of their grandma in another city, and they´re super excited to start progressing towards baptism again! It´s a miracle! They have friends in the branch and everything, and I know they´ll be great members. This weekend they´re going with the youth to the botanical gardens/zoo in Asunción. The primary is going, too. They´re all so excited. It´s sad how this is probably the only time most of these kids will ever get to go to the zoo. Their parents either can´t afford to take them or don´t have time. I hope they all have a blast. I wish we could go. :)

Sorry that I don´t have any photos again this week. I lent my camera to a member who´s leaving the country soon to go back to Chile (where he served his mission). How sad that whenever we get an RM or a really well-off, intelligent member in our branch, they move away to make their living or study somewhere else. But anyways, thank you Grandma, Laurel, Dad, Mom, Sarah, Ashley, Amanda, and the Blair Family for writing to me this week. I loved your letters and I´m glad to hear that you´re doing well. (P.S. Laurel and Teresa, I still haven´t gotten your packages, but they should be getting to me soon).

And because I don´t have much else to talk about today, I´m going to finish by giving you A Day in the Life of Hna. Springer (my sisters have asked me about that a few times). Here is my typical daily schedule:

6:30am--wake up, roll out of bed, land on knees to pray (without falling back asleep) get up and jog or else do yoga and struggle not to fall asleep again.

7:00am--shower, get ready for day, eat breakfast, try to catch up in journal

8:00am--personal study--Preach My Gospel, a few chapters in the Book of Mormon, a chapter in the Pearl of Great Price, etc.

9:00am--companionship study--recite Mission Purpose, read a few pages in the Mission Handbook, share what we learned in personal study, discuss plans for the day, etc.

10:00am--language study

10:30am--leave the house and get to work

10:30am to 12:30pm--try to score a few visits before lunch without rushing to the lunch cita too early

12:30pm--either return home for lunch, buy lunch off the street, or go to a lunch cita with members (happily chow down on milanesa or miserably force down noodles with beef, then struggle not to fall asleep as the members tell you all the latest gossip)

1:30pm--go back out to work

1:30pm to 8:30pm--fight to stay under the shade of the umbrella without getting it snapped back in the wind that comes from the opposite direction as the sun, dodge cow droppings in the street, beg people for water whenever they let you in, clap lots of houses, try to catch investigators at home, ignore whistling from men on the streets, have a few AWESOME lessons, have a few bummer lessons, meet some great nice people, meet some anti-Mormon people and note where they live so you can avoid them later, try not to look at the watch too much, stop to buy water, swat mosquitos, bear testimony, share scriptures, strengthen families, sing hymns, pray for the people, enjoy the sunset (and thank God that the sun is finally going down)

8:30pm--return home, eat dinner, plan for the next day

9:30pm--wash garments, journal, or write letters (choose one only)

10:15pm--get ready for bed, kneel and pray to thank Heavenly Father for another perfectly wonderful, amazing day as His servant in Villa Hayes, Paraguay.

10:30pm--drag yourself into bed and fall asleep immediately. :)

I love you all. Have a wonderful week.

---Hna. Springer