Week 13 - Asuncion Paraguay - Mariano Roque Alonzo

hola familia! 

thank you so much for your many many letters this week! I love you all so so much and I love to hear what you´re all up to. Dad and Sarah, that´s so cool that you got to go to Body Works. I´d heard a lot about that before and never really wanted to go because I´m super squeamish, but that´s awesome that you got to see it. Amanda and Mom, I´m glad the wedding plans are going well for you. Send pictures soon! teresa thanks for taking care of my dogs. And thank you Ashley, Laurel, and grandma springer for your letters. It´s such a comfort to know that you´re supporting me and are praying for my investigators.

this week I experienced my first real Paraguayan rain storm. It was insane. Seriously. Insane. I never knew it could rain like that before. It was like fake hollywood rain created by a fire hose or something. It was so thick and so hard. We weren´t initially caught in the storm because we were talking with an investigator, but when it seemed like it was letting up we ventured out, only to have it start pouring again. we were soaked to the bone and wading through puddles and getting mud in our shoes... way fun. No really, it was awesome. And it was a welcome relief from the heat. It gets so hot before a rain storm you just want to die. the rain did create some disappointments yesterday, though. We must have passed by for five different families to take them to church (don´t worry, Dad, we do try to personally get people to church) but they all had excuses about how they had to clear the water out of their houses or whatnot. I was especially sad for this one family we found that lives right next to the branch of teh Paraguay river that surrounds our area. they´re so humble and they love us already. they were so excited to come to church but alas, even with their tiny houses built on stilts, they had a lot of flooding and it was a mess. 

I´m just glad our house didn´t flood. Our walls sounded so thin on Saturday night with the rain pounding and the thunder and lightning threatening to bowl us over. It was cool but I was so tired. And then last night I was kept up again because the dog of our landlord/member friend had puppies the other day (no one knew she was pregnant because she´s really fluffy. they just thought she was fat). they were crying all night from their nest next to our doorway. Now today I am so beat. P´Days really aren´t relaxing days as some may think. they´re like Saturdays, where we work extra hard so that we can work normal hard the rest of the week. We do our normal studying in the morning and then P´Day ends at 6 so we only have eight hours to do all our shopping and then we need to take two hours to e´-mail because we each get one hour but I have to watch hna. stagg while she´s on the computer and vice versa. the five hours or so remaining are spent by me scrambling really hard to get all my journaling done. I really want to write all of your personal letters or figure out how to send more pictures but I really really really stress when I´m not caught up in my journal. Sorry. I love you!! (P.S. Dad, yes you would send me a package at the mission office, but I really don´t expect one so no worries)

So yesterday was la conferencia de distrito (we only have branches and districts here). It was really, really great. We had four young kid investigators with us which was nice, though we really wanted about eight other adult investigators to come with us. Our good friend in the district presidency who feeds us on Saturdays spoke, as did the Asunción temple president and his wife, and President Madariaga and his wife. It was all really great and the district choir did well (Paraguayans aren´t anywhere near as musically gifted as we Utahns, but they did really well). 

Everything is going pretty well in our little area. We taught a ton of lessons this last week despite two days being less productive due to teh rain (the country shuts down when it´s raining--literally), and we´re finding more and more people to teach. Our progressing investigators are doing pretty well. they´re not progressing nearly as much as we would prefer, but they´re trying. I never give up on them. Every time we talk I picture them as kings or queens in great palaces, because that´s what they will be someday if they look past their humble circumstances and actually are humble in spirit. Everyone who says they´re not interested or don´t have time or don´t want to continue is a king or queen giving up their inherited kingdom. It´s sad, and I´m doing my best to help that not happen.

thank you for all your prayers for Elber. he was so excited to come to church yesterday, as was his wife and their daughter, but then a family emergency came up and they couldn´t make it. grr. he still loves talking to us, though. We have yet to find his brother-in-law, who we´ve heard LOVES the book of Mormon because it makes all the mysteries of the Bible so clear. I´m excited to talk with him. Unfortunately, we learned last night as we were talking with Elber that he´s not married to the woman he´s living with. I´m devastated to say the least. that is such a big problem here. People are all about having families, but it seems like every family we´ve taught has a father who married someone else who knows how long ago and now he can´t get baptized, nor his señora, because they´re living in adultery. It´s almost impossible for people to get divorces here. Many of you have asked who to pray for for me. Pray for the Lord to soften the heart of the Paraguayan government. the fact that people can´t get divorces has slowed the work so much. yeah, people shouldn´t get married so young and then leave their legal spouses and start a family with someone else, but there are so many great, great families here who can´t be sealed together in this life because of their past mistakes. It´s so so sad. It´s sad to know that our progress with Elber can´t go all the way to baptism. At least, not yet.

Well, my time is almost up. I´m sorry I couldn´t send any pictures today. I haven´t taken any in a while. I´m trying to figure out how to send loads soon, but it´ll have to wait until next week at the earliest. And... yeah. I don´t know what much else to say about this week. the weeks go by so fast here. I can´t believe it´s Monday already. But just so you know my feet are pretty much all healed, I haven´t gotten sick despite my many, many mosquito bites, and I have many more freckles than before. 

I guess if there´s anything I want to say this week to you all, it´s that we have to give our all to the Lord. I still haven´t quite learned that lesson, even as a missionary. this morning I went through all the scriptures in the topical guide about prayer, and I´m going to try this week to really pray with faith--to counsel with the Lord in all my doings and trust in the Spirit to guide me instead of trusting in the things of man. I know it´s hard. Oh goodness, do I know how hard it is to remember the Lord at all times and in all things and in all places, and yet I know that if and when we do so, we are going to receive riches and blessings and happiness that we can´t fathom in mortality. Please, please, PLEASE don´t forget to pray together. Read the Book of Mormon together. Learn from the prophets of the past and the prophets living today. take a question with you to conference and let the Spriit and personal revelation help you find the answer. I love you all, and I´m so glad to hear whenever you tell me about what you´ve done to change and grow. We have the blessings and knowledge available to learn and progress every single day of our lives. Don´t miss a single opportunity to draw closer to the Lord. the time speedily cometh when we won´t have any left before our Lord and redeemer comes again. I hope you´re all in a state, or are working to be in a state, where you are ready to greet the Lord rejoicing. that´s my greatest wish.

Lastly, please forgive my spelling and capitalization errors. these Paraguayan keyboards are still weird to me. :)

I LOVE yOU!! 

--hna. Springer

Week 12 - Asuncion Paraguay - Mariano Roque Alonzo

Hey family!

Sounds like you´re all doing well and having a fun month of March. Thank you Grandma Springer, Dad, Mom, Sarah, Ashley, and Laurel for your letters. I love you all so much and getting e-mails from you on Mondays is definitely a highlight of the week.

Dad, I was going to send you a picture of the map of our area so you can pinpoint where you are but I´ve reached the limit on the pictures I can attach to this e-mail so I´ll try to explain it again. My area is north of Asunción, west of the airport, and east of the big road in Mariano Roque Alonso. I don´t really know how to explain where our house is. Eh. I´ll send you a picture next week. Sorry. :) Also, there are six of us missionaries here in Mariano, and there are two other sisters in our zone. One of them is Hna. Messina, who was in my BYU ward last year. Small world, right?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMANDA!! Sounds like you´ve been showered with love and gifts lately. And Happy Birthday Grandma Springer! I hope you have something fun planned!

Is everyone excited for conference? I so am! I can´t decide if I want to watch it in English with the other missionaries or in Spanish with our investigators. I really want to get as much out of conference as I can this year, because I really need the council of  prophet as I try to bring others to the truth. But at the same time, I want to watch the investigators´ faces as they hear from a living prophet for the first time. I love telling them about Thomas S. Monson and bearing my testimony about their divine calling. It´s an amazing thing. 

I´m also really excited for conference weekend because we missionaries get to go to the temple in Asunción the Friday before! I´m so so so excited. I didn´t think they had clothing rental there but apparently they do. At least, for the missionaries. It doesn´t have a visitor´s center though. I think someone asked me about that a while ago. Lots of people in Paraguay know about the temple, though. They think it´s gorgeous. And it is, especially for a really poor country like this one.

So I have a couple of funny stories to tell you that happened this week. 

Story number one: The other day we were talking with these women with this young member boy with us. As we were talking, I felt something on my leg. I flicked it off and found that it was a gecko. I thought it was so cute and I didn´t want it to get squished by everyone walking around. At home, I would just pick it up, but here I´m forbidden to touch any animal because the vast majority are disease-ridden. So I just pointed it out. The women we were talking to immediately started freaking out. Apparently they´re both terrified of geckos. Everyone was shrieking and moving away from it, and then the member boy, Martin, just went up and stamped on it. There was a stunned silence. Even the women afraid of geckos were mortified. It was hilarious.

Story number two: Hna. Stagg and I encountered a man the other day who had once investigated the church and had read the Book of Mormon and testified that it was all true. He was an older man and he´d had tons of time to think about it, but he said he absolutely would not get baptized, and he definitely would never come to church with us. When we asked him why not, he said it was because we were Americans. We pretended to be all offended, asking if he was racist, and he said no, but he knew that we were government spies and so he wasn´t going to have anything to do with us. I´d heard that lots of Paraguayans think the missionaries are spies in disguise but this was the first I´d actually seen for myself. I had a hard time not cracking up.

Story number three: the day after we encountered the man who thought we were spies, we were walking to an appointment when an elderly lady stopped us in the street. She asked us what congregation we were from. We told her. She said that she wanted us to pray for her. We said of course we would, what did she want us to pray about ? She said she wasn´t going to tell us; that she was angry at the Virgin and so if we prayed for her and she got the miracle she was looking for, she would join our congregation without question. We gave her directions to the church and expect to see her real soon. :)


Last night we had Noche de Hogar with a really, really sweet inactive family, whose daughter is one of those girls about to get baptized. It went really well--they made us Paraguayan-style pizza, we taught the father how to conduct a typical Family Night and we missionaries shared a spiritual thought about prayer. The Catholic grandma was there, too, and it was a great opportunity to share the gospel and put her at ease about the Mormon spy missionaries. But then the father whipped out Jesus the Christ and started reading about how Christ taught in parables, which was great, but then he started arguing with the grandma, his mother-in-law, that we should always teach in parables. She argued that it depended on the person being taught. They both wanted Hna. Stagg and me to agree with one or the other. When we finally put a stop to that, the grandma volunteered to give the prayer. She agreed to say it the way we Latter-Day Saints say it, but she started off by saying, "Forgive me, Lord, for not praying the correct way, using The Lord´s Prayer..." Other than that, it was a perfectly sincere prayer. I gave her a Book of Mormon afterwards and we´ll see what happens with her. She´s a nice lady when she´s not Bible-bashing with her son-in-law.



We have several really great investigators right now, but it is SO HARD to get any of them to come to church with us. We had six of them sincerely promise us they would come to church. They went on and on about how much they wanted to know the truth and how they wanted to get to know the people better...then only one showed up yesterday. Hna. Stagg and I were so disappointed. Our necks hurt from looking behind us so much during the meetings, expecting someone to walk through the door. The man who showed up is named Teodocio. He´s been investigating the church for a while and he´s a really great man. Unfortunately, he doesn´t have much faith. He wants a miracle BEFORE he takes a leap of faith and is baptized. Last week he wanted the miracle to be a better job. This week he was whining about how he doesn´t have a wife. Finally we just cracked down on him and told him that the Spirit would be his constant companion, and he asked, "So when can I get baptized?" Yay. But now we have to wait until after conference if he wants to be confirmed the day after baptism because we have district conference next week. We´ll see how it goes, though. At this rate we should have at least three baptisms in April.
The ward is really stellar. We have about 100 people in attendance every week. Unfortunately, they are really, really bad about strengthening each other and the less active members. Visiting and home teaching is pretty much nonexistent. We can´t rely on any of them to do any fellowshipping for us. We´re pretty much the only ones who do any of that around here. I know that as missionaries our main priority is to find new people to teach, but I´m afraid that until we clean the inner vessel, we´re not going to have much success with the outer vessel. We´re not sure what to do to reanimate the ward and make people WANT to go to church.

The Second Coming feels really close here, especially after the Japan disaster. We´re having a lot of people talk to us, sometimes because they get really excited about the "Latter-Days" part. Almost every investigator we have right now has asked us what the Apocalypse is going to be like. People recognize the hand of God here. They´re all really religious or at least superstitious. But very few of them are actually willing to change their ways. It´s like the Liahona or the Brass Serpant. I just want to scream sometimes, "JUST HAVE FAITH AND LOOK!!" They just have to look to the Lord. People believe in the Lord but they don´t think they need to do anything more than read a verse or two in the Bible every so often and say "Padre Nuestro" every night. And of course the Catholics have the problem of praying to saints... It´s just difficult to get them to open their eyes, but we´ve found a few who really have done just that and are really excited to learn. I LOVE talking to them, and I´m so sad that none of them have gone to church yet.

There´s a man in the ward, inactive of course, named Fulgencio who has an empeñada stand (it´s like a South American-flavored potsticker). We talk to him a lot about the state of the world, and he always asks about what life is like in the States. When we tell him, he always comments on how great people we and our families must be to be so blessed. We are SO BLESSED. I hope you all realize that. I don´t feel like I´ve done much to deserve all the blessings I´ve been given throughout my life, but it´s true I´ve had a ridiculous abundance of them. Count your blessings, everyone. Seriously. You don´t know how great you have it until it´s gone.

My favorite person to teach right now is a man named Elber, who I mentioned in my first letter (the one who was excited to learn that God and Christ are separate people). He´s hard to find because he works so much, but every time we see him he grins and stops what he´s doing to talk to us. He says "mi casa es su casa" every time, and always loves to learn from the Book of Mormon. He didn´t come to church either, and his face was the one I wanted to see the absolute most. But he´s a great, great person, and I know he´s going to go far. Plus he´s married to the woman he lives with, which is a rarety here in Paraguay and means that he´s a prime candidate for an unhindered baptism. Hna. Stagg says that he´s the most promising investigator she´s ever encountered in Paraguay--always friendly and always excited to learn more about how he can help his family. Anyways, when we talked to him on Saturday, we were disappointed to hear that he hadn´t been reading in the Book of Mormon. But then he told us why: the day we gave it to him, his brother-in-law saw it on his table and said, "Can I have that book?" Elber said, "No, it´s mine." "I will PAY you for that book." "I can´t sell it to you, it was a gift!" Apparently the brother-in-law has always, ALWAYS wanted to read the Book of Mormon, but he never managed to find a copy. Elber lent it to him, and from what we´ve heard he´s eating it up. I´m so excited for them both. Now we just need to make sure that they both have copies so they can both progress together.

Well, I´m out of time. Be safe, have fun, read the scriptures and rely on the Lord for everything!! Love you!!

--Hna. Springer

Week 11 - Asuncion Paraguay - Mariano Roque Alonzo

Hola familia!

 

I´m sorry I don´t have time to read all your letters today. I´ll read them tonight and respond to them next week. But how´s everything going in the States? We´ve been hearing scattered rumors about Japan being wiped out by a tsunami?? Please send details soon. All I´m hearing are snatches about "El fin del mundo!!" It´s both relieving and irritating that I don´t hear about world news here. Paraguay is so sheltered.

 

Mom and Dad, have you gotten my CD of pictures yet? I´m going to try to send some with this e-mail but I still need to know if and when I can delete the pictures on my camera. Also, just so you know, I´ve heard that packages are actually pretty reliable here. Hna. Stagg has gotten every package her family has sent her, and has successfully sent stuff to her family. Just FYI.

 

So things are going really well here. The weather is SO NICE today. On Saturday, no joke, I thought I was going to die. It was hotter than I can even describe. I had no motivation at all to leave our air conditioned house. I had to walk around with my umbrella for shade but even that wasn´t nearly enough. I drained my water bottle, then bought another one, then bought ice cream, then accepted fruit punch from a member we visited. My stomach was so full but I couldn´t get cool enough. (By the way, helado and punch here is amazing. You wouldn´t believe the fruit flavors they have here. I´m definitely not missing any of that artificial stuff back home). But then yesterday it was all overcast and windy, and I was SHIVERING! It was bizarre, but I was so grateful for the reprieve. And now today it´s sunny again but it´s cooled down a lot. I´m so glad I got here at the end of summer. I´m not looking forward to next summer. I hear it´s awful. The people here know how to stay hydrated. Each person carries around a big jug of water and a cup filled with this herb they all love and metal straw. The jugs, cup, and straw are all personalized and have designs on them. They sell them like they´re cell phone covers or something.

 

The people are great. Flora was confirmed yesterday and the Spirit was so strong. We weren´t able to get anyone to attend church with us, though, and neither were the Elders from the other two areas who go to our ward. We were more than a little sad. But Hna. Stagg and I have some awesome investigators, and we for sure have two baptisms lined up for next month. We found two young girls, one eight and one nine. One is from a nonmember family and the other is from a part-member family. They´re both so sweet and so excited to be baptized. They´re probably just doing it because their friends are, but hey, that´s pretty much why I got baptized at that age and look how I turned out!

 

The rest of our investigators are being really good about reading the Book of Mormon and praying, but getting them to church is a pain. The chapel is kind of far away and it´s always hot. Plus lots of people here are getting dhenge. Denghe? I don´t know how to spell it. It´s transferred by mosquitos and makes you bleed from every orifice. Gross. I have like a zillion bug bites despite my preventative measures, and I seriously hope I don´t get it. Anyways, many people have to take care of their family members in the hospital who are sick, because hospitals here are pretty much pointless. They´re just a place for sick people to not get other people sick. So that´s a problem. We´re trying to get the members to come to church, too, not just investigators. A lot of people join the church just for the help. They expect the church leaders to give them what they can´t or won´t provide for themselves. And the ward is so spread out that it´s seriously hard for people to get together. There are so many inactive members here. Hna. Stagg and I bought this huge map from the municipalidad (whatever that means in English) and are using it to find all the inactives and chart where our investigators are. Nobody uses street names here. We have to draw a map to everyone´s houses when we fill out our area book. So we´re trying to get the few active members to be friends with the inactives so that we can have more church attendance and more friends for our investigators to have if and when they show up.

 

I seriously love the investigators we´re working with now, though. We have way too many for me to write about them all, but here´s just a sample:

 

There´s this 23-year-old girl named Olga who has been investigating the church for a long time but hasn´t been able to progress much because she´s too obsessed with her boyfriend. I didn´t meet her until this weekend. Her family would lie about where she was or they would say she wasn´t in the house when she totally was. So I was really excited to meet her when we finally found her sitting in her front yard. It turned out not to be a happy visit, though. Olga was in tears. Sobbing. Crying harder than I´ve literally ever seen a person cry in my life. She´d caught her boyfriend with another girl, and when she confronted him he threw her to the floor and hit her. Hard. She kept clutching at her heart and could not stop crying as Hna. Stagg and I just hugged her. I was crying, too. I´d never seen someone so completely miserable in my life. She was heartbroken and betrayed and confused, and she kept begging Hna. Stagg to just hold her. We obviously weren´t able to teach a lesson, but we had her kneel with us to pray, and her prayer to God for comfort and guidance was the most sincere, heartwrenching prayer I´ve ever heard. I felt so much love for her, and for a moment I got a glimpse of how God must love her, His lost daughter. I know we were sent to her to be here for her at this hard time in her life.

 

Anyways, Olga decided that she´s had enough of her problems here and is moving to Brazil this week. I´m sad that she won´t be continuing with us, but it´s better than her ending her own life as she was wanting to do earlier. And I have faith that she´ll continue to turn to the church in Brazil. We´re sending the missionaries there to her house. But now her sister, Justina, is investigating the Church with us because she saw how much good we did for Olga and she noticed how Olga would read the Book of Mormon when she was depressed. We´ve had two lessons with Justina so far, and both times she´s said she feels so good around us. She´s also accepted a baptismal date.

 

Next there´s Eduardo. He´s highly entertaining to talk to. He has a young wife who is going to have a baby next week, and he´s very eager to find the truth of the gospel so he can be a good father. He loves to learn from us, but he´s a very logical person and he loves to talk A LOT. We never teach an organized lesson with him because he goes off on the most random things like how the Church leaders are organized and why God sends angels to the earth and stuff like that. He´s always said what we teach makes sense and nothing we´ve said is against what he believes, but Hna. Stagg and I are a little worried that he´ll miss the mark. He´s going to learn every single thing there is to know about the Church, but we´re not so sure that he´ll really BELIEVE it, you know? We´ll see. First we need to get him to church. Right now he doesn´t trust any church, so he has his family come over and they have their own church time together.

 

Finally there´s Clarice and Luz. They´re cousins, and they´re Catholic but not whole-heartedly devoted to Catholicism. I´ve come to learn that there are three types of people here: people who are Catholic and won´t listen to a word a non-Catholic says, people who are Catholic but don´t know why and are willing to listen, and people who hate Catholics and are willing to listen to anything anyone says that is against Catholic teachings. Clarice and Luz are in the middle. They both loved the story of the Book of Mormon and were touched to learn that Christ visited the Americas and loves all His people, not just the Jews or the Catholics. Sadly, Clarice called us last week to tell us that Mormonism wasn´t for her, and Luz told us she´d talked to her father about us. We think there may be a correlation there. But now Luz AND Clarice know about the gospel, and they´re still super nice and always receive us. I know they know we´re bringing truths to their door, and I expect that they´ll both come to accept the gospel of Christ. Maybe not during this change, but someday, they will.

 

Well, I want to figure out how to send pictures so I have to end this letter here. Please write me a lot. :) I love you all and I can´t wait to tell you more next week. Stay safe and be strong and remember to be missionaries wherever you are. You´re the best!

 

Love always,

Hna. Springer

Week 9-10 - Asuncion Paraguay - Mariano Roque Alonzo

Hola from Paraguay!

I can´t believe it´s been two weeks since I¨ve written to you. Thank you so much for all of your letters and love and support. It totally made my P-Day to read letters from home today. Thank you Dad, Sarah, Ashley, Mom, Teresa, Chelsy, Holly, Laurel, and Grandma and Grandpa Springer.

Please forgive any grammar errors, random Spanish words, or just plain weird things I may type today. I´m on a Spanish keyboard in a little internet cafe and I´m trying to write quickly so I´m probably gonna make tons of mistakes. And the keys are all weird so my life-long typing habits are all wrong.

Well, here I am! The trip was SO long. It was so surreal as we got off the plane at Miami and then hopped right onto a plane to Argentina. We had to like...give our passports and stuff! We were leaving the country! It was bizarre. The plane was huge. Elder Vance, the Elder I sat next to, kept calling it the Inception Plane because first class was ridiculously nice like the one on Inception. The seats were uncomfortable but the food was good and there was a nice interactive map to watch throughout the trip. But since it was at night, I couldn´t really compute that we were actually flying over Cuba. And then the Caribbean. And then Brazil. But when we landed in Argentina, I definitely could tell the difference. The health codes are definitely lacking in Buenos Aires and everyone spoke Spanish. Luckily the Church had a travel agent lady waiting there to tell us what to do. She took us through ¨"security", which was one metal detector with a guy who didn´t even watch the monitor or make us take our shoes off or anything. She left us at the gate for Paraguay where two Elders from Uruguay and Guatemala were waiting, and we were really glad to have them there to interpret for us.

When we landed in Paraguay, after being severely confused on a Brazilian plane where people spoke Portuguese, German, and YIDDISH, but not English, my first impression of the country was that it was SO GREEN! It had been raining all last week and there was long green grass and thick green foilage everywhere. I was instantly in love with it. The tiny airport was decorated with flowers and all these exotic birds were flying around... it was awesome. I was so excited.

Our mission president and his wife were there to greet us. They´re so sweet. They said my SPanish was really good compared to most newbie missionaries. I wonder how long they´ll think that´s true... I got to hang out with them that first day because I was the only Sister to arrive so they had me drive with them and stay in their¨air conditioned house while the Elders piled into a van and spent the night who knows where. But anyways, they´re super nice and have emphasized all the great things I´ve learned in the MTC about obedience and loving the people. I promised them that they would never have to worry about me, and I´m determined to keep it that way.

My companion is Hna. Stagg. She´s from Colorado and she is seriously awesome. I feel like such a baby sometimes, which is appropriate because here we call our trainers "Mama" and they call their trainees their "Hijas." But seriously, I know I must be such a pain sometimes asking so many questions, doing things wrong, not being able to teach very well. But she´s so patient and nice and hard-working. She´s definitely a realist, but she is always so positive, still and very determined to meet all our goals.

You will be happy to know that our apartment has both a flushing toilet AND air conditioning! You have no idea how happy I was to realize that. We can´t flush toilet paper, though, which is weird but actually it isn´t as gross as you might think. Our apartment is actually quite nice compared to some of the houses I´ve seen. Many houses are just there to sleep in and some people are just happy to have four walls and a roof. We have bugs and it´s dark and it does get hot, but I seriously don´t mind any of that at all and I feel very much at home there. Oh, and I do NOT have to wash all my laundry by hand. A woman in the ward does that for us. I feel bad having someone else do it, but it´s good work for her.

Our area is Mariano Roque Alonzo but there really aren´t street names or house numbers or anything so sorry, Dad, you´ll have a hard time google earthing it. But if you go to the LDS maps and go to my area, you should be able to find the LDS chapel and that´s my general area, only it´s on the other side of that big road. There´s a school called Ebenezer and a place called La Metro nearby if that helps you find the general area. Ours is the only house with three stories in the general area. Anyways, our area is really nice. It´s kind of like the suburbs of Asuncion. There are only branches here, but we´re trying to make them into wards, and in Concepcion they´re sending the best missionaries to form a stake. My goal is to be sent there because then I´ll know I´m doing well.

There are only 14 Sisters out of all 197 missionaries in this mission. So yes, we are the minority. It´s fun, though. And from what I´ve seen, many of the missionaries here are from the states. I´ve met very few natives, actually.

Oh gosh, there´s too much to say about this past week... I tried to keep a list of cool things to tell you, so in random order, here are some fun facts about Paraguay:

The roads are crazy. Everyone warned me about the cobblestone streets, but I was picturing like London cobblestone streets or something because I did not expect them to be so rocky here. Our area only has one paved road and the rest are just made of broken up rocks placed relatively flatly and held together with mud. And of course there are a lot of roads without stones at all and they were SUPER muddy when we first arrived. They´ve dried up some since then. Driving is crazy, too. That first day here we got to go to the Paraguay temple (so pretty!) and it was raining. There are little to no traffic laws, and no speed limit, so driving to the temple in roads covered with water felt more like Splash Mountain than anything.

My feet hurt so bad and I´m so tired but I´m getting more used to it now. Those first few days, though, I felt like I was hiking Flat Iron. Twice. Every day. It was ridiculous. I have great shoes, but Í´m not quite used to wearing them yet, and they each have straps that rub in different areas so I have about six sets of blisters. My Mama is taking good care of me, though. She taped up my feet really well yesterday and I was SO grateful. I shouldn´t have too much of a problem in the future.

There are animals EVERYWHERE, but I´m not allowed to touch a single one of them. Most of the time I´m not tempted. Dogs are like rats around here. There are packs of them all over the streets. People don´t pay them any mind or they give them a kick if they become too bold. But there are house dogs, too, and sometimes I´m sad that I can´t give them love. Most Paraguayans I´ve met don´t really treat their pets like Americans do. Apparently it´s baby animal season here because there are so many adorable puppies, kittens, calves, foals, and chicks running around. And when I say running around, I mean they are literally everywhere. We never go down a street without passing a cow or chickens or something.

The food here is really, really good, but there is just so much of it. Hna. Stagg has no problem cleaning her plate at every meal, but I definitely do. We don´t eat a big breakfast or much of dinner. Lunch is the big meal here, and they feed us SO MUCH. Whenever I first taste the dish I think it´s so good and I´m gonna have no problem finishing it. But by the time I´ve forced myself to clean my plate, I think I never want to eat again. That first day with a member cooking for us was the worst. I think I´ve done better since then and I hope I won´t offend anybody in the future.

The people here are super friendly for the most part. They love having people over. Their properties consist of a big front "yard" with some kind of shade, like a tree or something, and they usually just hang out there on their front porch all day. They also usually have a back yard for more intimate gatherings, but it´s too hot to go inside except to sleep, so generally they´re out front. It´s very easy to contact people. Their culture is such that they never say no to letting us sit with them unless they´re genuinely busy (or if they come up with a good lie...). Since their front yard is basically their living room, the correct way to "knock on doors" is to clap outside of the gate, and then say "permiso" when they say we can come in.

Apparently there´s been a kind of religious revival of sorts going on here. People are very used to the missionaries, whether from our church or from another. I´ve come to find that they seem to expect us to just read to them from the scriptures and then just leave, so they´re not too suspicious. But when we invite them to come to make steps to know that the Church is true, they generally dig in their heels and say, "Soy Catolica." It´s hard to find people who are actually interested in finding the truth. Most of them are SO uneducated. They just do what their pastors tell them to do on Sundays and that´s it. It´s kind of pathetic sometimes when we try to teach people to pray and they literally cannot comprehend what they´re supposed to do'--what they have the privelege to do, really. Nobody understands that God is a loving Heavenly Father and that prayer is a communication, not a way to earn points on Sundays. But we have found a few really great people who are looking for the truth. The three that we´ve found this week that I´m thinking of in particular are younger and better off and have room to make changes in their lives. I was SO excited to find them. One was a young father who was like, "I love having missionaries over but nobody has ever satisfied my questions. They all just say that the Bible is perfect and tell me to accept what they´re saying. But the Bible isn´t perfect! They say there was only one God before the creation of the world, but then it says "Let us make man in OUR image". What´s with that?" My heart instantly started pounding, and when he sat back and let us talk, expecting us to be the same as all the others, we delved into the story of the Restoration. When Hna. Stagg had me recite the First Vision (that´s usually my job), I started crying a little when I read the part about God AND Jesus Christ appearing. The investigator got so excited and kept looking at the sky and saying, "Thank you! Finally it makes sense!" It was awesome. I really, really hope he progresses. I really do. Not many people here are willing to take the steps.

We had our first baptism yesterday. There´s this really amazing family here who we just call The Chicos. There are five kids, four girls ranging from 11 to 4, and one boy who´s 14. They live with their grandma, Flora and a friend who they adopted named Isa. She´s 18. They´re super poor. They have nothing but the clothes on their backs, their tiny house, and daily food. Oh, and cell phones. Everyone has cell phones here. It´s funny. And computers aren´t uncommon either. Anyways, they are teh sweetest family I´ve met. I thought they were crazy at first because they´re loud and they live right next to the paved road so it´s hard to hear anything and I¨m often confused. But the older kids are all baptized and Flora was baptized yesterday. Last night we had ham and ketchup sandwiches and punch to celebrate. I almost cried seeing how happy Flora was with the gospel and virtually nothing else but that and her family in her life. She thanked me for visiting her, even though I´ve only been here a week and did practically nothing to give her the gospel. And she told me that I can come to her if I ever need anything, that she doesn´t have much but she´s willing to give anything. She is a saint. No joke. She actually found the church because after the Chico´s mother died she came to the members and asked for help, and afterwards she let Isa stay with them when she got kicked out of her house for being a member. I´ve never seen someone so Christlike in my life. She´s amazing. I love her and the Chicos so much already.

Shoot, I´m almost out of time. The language is coming great out of necessity and I´m learning the customs really quickly thanks to Hna. Stagg and trial and error. I´m happy and safe and loving sharing the gospel with those who are open to receive it. I know the Church is true and I promise I´ll write more in depth next time. I won´t have nearly so much to cram in next week. I love you!!

Hna. Springer