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
Monday, February 6, 2012
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Week 56 - Asuncion Paraguay - Villa Hayes
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
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 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
Monday, December 26, 2011
Week 52 - Asuncion Paraguay - Villa Hayes
Dear Family,
Wow. 52 whole weeks already. Can you believe that?? I remember last Christmas so well--it´s hard to imagine that I've been in Paraguay for ten whole months and only have seven more to go. The time is going to fly by so fast. April Conference is going to be upon us in only three months, then Easter, then Mother´s Day (and another Skype chat! Yay!), then I´ll almost be home! It´s going to go by so fast. Seriously. Months seem like weeks to me now. I definitely need to strive to make the most of it.
This morning Hna. deVries and I were talking about that--about using our time wisely. We´d just read that talk in the Conference Liahona "A Time to Prepare," and I told her about how this year has probably been the most fulfilling, rewarding year of my entire life, yet last year I was a total bum and I have little to show for it. I could never just waste years to come because this year was so awesome. It doesn´t work like that--you´ve got to make the most of every day. God´s given us options of how to use our time. We´re going to be accountable to Him one day for what we chose to do with it.
Anyways, I´m glad to hear that you had an excellent Christmas. I haven´t gotten any of your packages or cards or anything yet, but I´m sure they´re on their way. :) Thank you so much for your letters and everything. Thank you Grandma, Mom, Dad, Goompa, Laurel, Ashley, and Amanda. And Hna. Messina, if you happen to be reading this, thank you for your letter, too! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas at home!
My Christmas was a pretty typical holiday--a whole lot of hype leading to a relatively anticlimactic day. All week we´d been hearing, "Oh, la Navidad! I love the Navidad! We´re going to have such a blast! You´re going to get fed so much great food and see what Paraguay is all about!" I was really, really excited. But then when the actual holiday came, we saw nothing happen. Turns out they celebrate Christmas by having a big dinner starting at 9:00pm Christmas Eve and then shooting off fireworks at midnight and getting drunk and everything, only to sleep all day Christmas Day. So...we got no food (we had to go home before any food was ready to eat), hardly anyone wanted to talk with us because all their family was over or they were traveling, and we had a TINY amount of people come to church, even though it was only one hour this week to accomodate them. But honestly, I didn´t expect much else. :) I´m used to this by now.
I just felt bad for my poor companion, who´s fresh from the States (relatively) and was probably expecting something awesome to take her mind off of Christmas at home. I´m so unthoughtful. I didn´t do anything for her for Christmas. I was kind of trying not to think of Christmas at all so I wouldn´t get "trunky." She got to talk to her family on Christmas Eve, thankfully, but I could tell that on Christmas she was pretty bummed. So today, I made up for that. I called the Elders to come hang out with us today. We had a mini (late) Christmas feast at the chapel. We brought a cake, some deviled eggs, and sweet potatoes. The Elders brought drinks, and were supposed to bring some baked chickens. Turns out all the usually-reliable chicken stands were closed today, so we had hamburgers instead. :) It was pretty fun, though it was a lot more filling than I expected it to be. I think I´ve lost my ability to overeat. We had a lot of leftover food. We watched The Testaments, too, which made me cry, as usual. Hna. deVries had never seen it, if you can believe that!
Oh, P.S. I´m still with Hna. deVries in Villa Hayes! I was SO SURE I was going to get Changed, but nope. This will be the longest I´ve ever been with one companion, and we´ll get to spend almost the whole summer in one of the hottest Hermanas areas. How lucky are we? :) God was really nice to us, though, and gave us a perfectly wonderful overcast, drizzly Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It felt SOOO nice after all the hot, restless nights. Our air conditioning hasn´t been working very well. We bought some new fans and we sleep with our frozen water bottles. Then when the water bottles melt, we dump them all over ourselves in the middle of the night. You were right--it works! We´re going to be moving soon, though, turns out. Our landlady wants to switch us places. She lives in the house next-door on the second floor, and wants to move to our house because her husband recently had surgery on his knee and can´t climb the stairs very easily. She promised us a new air conditioner if we agreed to the new contract. DEAL!!
I feel bad, though. Our house kind of has some problems. We have the one room still without a light bulb, our shower head still doesn´t work, and now we have a mouse problem. The stupid thing ate half my bag of popcorn kernals! We bought a trap the other day. The thing snaps so violently whenever I so much as nudge it, and yet for five nights in a row the mouse has escaped unscathed. Last night, the bait was half-eaten and everything! We´ve never actually seen the thing. Maybe it´s a rat so big that one time it got caught in a trap but was so big that it wasn´t killed, and now it knows better than to touch our enticing peanut-butter-and-popcorn-kernal bait. We´ll see. I want that thing to die, though. Before, I used to be all for humane traps. Now, after it´s smelled up our house and eaten my beans and popcorn, I want it OUT! :)
But anyways, this was definitely a Christmas that I´m forever going to remember. It was definitely lacking on the whole charitable, Christian, peaceful feeling. Most of the people we shared with on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were listening to loud rap music and could have cared less about the birth of our Savior. But the messages that we shared sure touched MY heart. We used Luke 2 the most. I love the part where the angel comes to the shepherds. They´re afraid, but the angel tells them not to fear, because he brings good news that will be for all people--that the Savior has come! So many people here see God as something to be afraid of--someone who, if they don´t recite "Padre Nuestro" every night, will rob them of their basic necessities like health, work, and daily bread. But the coming of our Lord wasn´t something to be afraid of--it was something to give us hope and joy! The birth of Christ was the moment when God, out of infinite love for us, sent His Son to redeem us from our sins. With the members, we shared out of 1 Nephi 11 (I think...) where Nephi is learning the interpretation of Lehi´s dream. When he wants to know what the Tree of Life stands for, the angel shows him the birth of Christ. Nephi is so moved by the vision that he recognizes that the Tree of Life is the Love of God. Showing him Christ´s birth was the angel´s best way to show Nephi the love of God. We should all see it that way, too.
On Friday we had a little mission party at the Mission Office. We got an amazing lunch, of course, and then we watched those video clips that apparently they showed at the Christmas Devotional this year. They were really brilliantly well-done. Are they making a full-length New Testament movie from those or are they purely online clips? I just bought the interactive Doctrine and Covenants study guide DVDs from the office, and they´re so great. I love the videos on that, too. I´ve learned so much already. Anyways, after watching the videos, we went to the huge, scary public hospital to sing. I never wanted to set foot in there, but it was much better without the fear of actually being worked on by a Paraguayan doctor. It was nice and cool in there, too. The patients really loved our caroling. Several people were moved to tears. I love that our mission presidents had us go do service to celebrate Christmas instead of just partying at the office or something. It was really nice.
Well, I´ve got to go now. Merry Christmas again, and never forget to have Christ in your hearts all year round! I LOVE YOU!!
---Hna. Springer
Hey family! I know you just saw my beautiful face and all, but here are more pictures of me from this week. It was SOOOO good to talk with you this morning! I´m so happy. :) I LOVE YOU!!
1-The Elders with the stockings we gave them for Christmas (those are the fishing lines that I bought when I was with the latinas--we won't ever use them again probably.)
2-We had a mini-party last Tuesday where the Elders gave us whatever gifts they found on the way to the church. Ha ha!
3-One of the many adorable nativities in the neighborhood.
4-Caroling in the hospital on Friday.
5-Me trying to cool down before another loooooong hot night.
6-Our little Christmas feast
7-Another picture of our Christmas dinner
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Week 51 - Asuncion Paraguay - Villa Hayes
Dear Family,
¡Feliz Navidad (almost)!
I hope your Christmas weekend is full of family, friends, laughter, carols, fudge, and charity. Thank you all for your Christmas wishes and your prayers, and for helping me to remember that even though I´m thousands of miles away from any snow or sleigh bells, the spirit of Christmas is still here with me. I swear I can feel your love. That´s the only thing I could ever ask for this year. :)
Thank you Grandma, Laurel, Jared, Mom, Dad, Ashley, Pam, Clayton, Madison, Lexi, and Cami for your e-mails this week. You´re all so sweet. Clayton, I especially liked reading about your armadillo. Who knew all this time I just had to go to Texas to see exotic wildlife? I really enjoyed the picture. Thanks for sharing that with me.
I´m still not entirely sure what´s going to happen this Christmas. I´ve heard rumors of a mission party on Thursday, but we have Changes on Wednesday, so I might get transferred to an area that has already done their Christmas party. That would be sad to miss it. I´m really scared for Changes. Part of me would LOVE to be with a stronger branch, and in a cooler environment, but there are so many people who could get baptized in January and I wouldn´t want to miss that. It would also be sad to spend the holidays with complete strangers instead of a branch that is at least loving if not active in the church. I´d also really miss Hna. deVries. We get along so well. The prospect of a new companion is always scary. We´ll hear tonight (hopefully--tomorrow morning at the latest) what Changes are going to take place in the zone. I can´t believe my time as a Trainer is already over. This was a fast three months. I can´t believe I only have seven left! I can count the number of Changes i have left on one hand! That´s psycho.
I´m not sure what to expect for Christmas no matter which area I´m in. All I´ve heard is that on the 24th they stay up until midnight, then set off fireworks and honk their horns and get drunk and stuff to celebrate the birth of Christ. Then on the 25th they sleep in (we´re only having one hour of church, from 10 to 11 so they can all sleep) and have a big dinner I´ve heard. They don´t exchange presents until January 6th, which is when they celebrate the Wise Men coming to give gifts to Christ. That´s where the 12 Days of Christmas comes from, after all.
Everyone keeps asking us why we haven´t made a little nativity on our porch yet. I sent you a picture of all the stuff they sell on the highway for it. I think it´s a very cute idea, but we don´t have time to weave palm flower branches together, and buying the little ceramic figures is way too expensive. Our house is actually quite un-Christmas-y now that I think about it...Oh well. :)
We are LOVING mango season. So far there aren´t too many, but some of the trees further into the forest are just dropping them like crazy. They´re really small and very stringy because they don´t bother to prune the trees, but they´re still pretty darn yummy. And we have a tree by our house (see attached photo) with some HUGE ones that are so much better. So far we´ve only found one on the ground before the cows got to the rest. Every day when we come home we check to see if any more fell for us. We made mango juice with one yesterday (just mango, milk, ice, and sugar) and it was so yummy. I´m definitely a fan of this authentic mango stuff.
The work is continuing to go well. STILL no baptisms, but I´m honestly not upset about that. Numbers really don´t mean anything--I´ve never been more convinced of that before in my life--but it would be nice to end my mission with more than just seven baptisms on my record. I´m sure my President understands that I´ve helped so many more people than that, but still. Something I´m really learning though is that success isn´t mine to control. I know I´ve already written about that before, but this last week our Zone Leader, Elder Argyle, shared a story with me that has pretty much changed my whole outlook on mission work.
The story goes something like this (sorry if you know the story already and I tell it completely wrong): A man one night is visited by the Savior, who tells him to go push against this huge rock in front of his house every day. The man obeys, of course, and day after day goes out and pushes against that rock. It doesn´t budge at all, but he keeps trying. Years go by, and still the rock is exactly where it was before. Satan sees that the man is starting to become disappointed in himself, and so he whispers to him, "It´s impossible. You can´t move that rock. You might as well not even try." The man becomes discouraged, and starts to just do the bare minimum every day--going out, pushing on the rock a bit, then going home. Finally, he decides to make it a matter of prayer. He asks God´s forgiveness for not being able to move that rock--for not being good enough. The Savior appears to the man again and says, "My son, I asked you to push against that rock every day. I never asked you to move it, I just asked you to obey. Now look--you are stronger than you have ever been before. You have grown so much. I only asked you to obey, and you have. Now I will move that rock."
That hit me so hard, and I´ve thought about that every day since then. It´s so true--the simple act of obedience has made me so much stronger physically and spiritually. God never asked me to get more than seven baptisms. He simply asked me to obey. Now look how much I´ve grown! I can only imagine how much more I will grow as I keep "pushing against the rock" every day for the next seven months (and beyond).
We finally got the November Liahona too, so those amazing Conference talks have helped me loads this week, too. I LOVE conference. That was a Christmas present enough, just getting that and being able to re-live those talks. I especially love reading those by the apostles, whose voices I know so well. As I read, I can still remember them saying it, and the Spirit comes so strongly. I loved finally getting to read the Priesthood session, Relief Society session, and a few other talks we missed when the power went out. So beautiful! I´ve already read the whole copy, but now I´m gonna go back through and take notes and stuff.
Our English class continues to go fairly well. We played Jeopardy this last time to review all the things that they´d learned. It was so much fun. We don´t usually have non-members show up, though. If we can´t get others to come, I think we may have to discontinue it. I´ll be sad if we do, but it´s been fun, and we´ve at least helped one person a lot. There´s this recent-convert kid in the branch named Sergio who is very shy and a little awkward socially. He lives with just his dad and his four-year-old brother, and we get the impression that his dad can be kind of mean to Sergio sometimes. When I first met him, he never smiled at all. He was the most serious kid I´d ever seen. Now, though, after the English class, he´s gained so much self-confidence. His dad praises him for his intelligence and Sergio´s made friends in the branch. He smiles so big when we show up at his house, and he loves greeting us in English. He´s also the Deacon´s quorom president (because he´s the ONLY deacon). Yesterday the district presidency came to the branch, and we did the sustainings of everybody, and when they proposed that we sustain Sergio as president of the Deacons, his face lit up so much. He felt so important. He has a place in the church. That´s what the work is all about.
Well, time to go again. I´ll be talking to you (Mom, Dad, Sarah, and Ashley) on Skype hopefully on Saturday at 3:00. I´ll tell you on Friday if that changes. I´ll only have 40 minutes, so I´d like 10 minutes with each of you individually if that´s cool with you. I can´t wait to hear all about your pre-Christmas week!
I love you all so much! Thank you again for everything, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
---Hna. Springer
Here are some more photos! Enjoy! I wish i had more.
1-The mango tree by our house
2&3-Better pictures of the baby coati
4-Nativity stuff salesmen alongside the road
---Carly
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)