It was so great to talk with you yesterday. You all look amazing. Seriously. I have the most beautiful family in the world. I´m so grateful that I get to have you for all eternity.
Sorry if I wasn´t very interesting to talk to. I tried to think of some cool things to tell you but I just wanted to hear all about you. You need to write me more so I don´t wonder so much. :) Also, that six-page letter I told you about had answered a bunch of the questions you asked--like my favorite conference talk, etc, so you´ll just have to wait until that gets to you and fill in the holes, I guess. I totally forgot that I could have shown you how I can awesomely roll my R´s now and say "Can we pray?" in GuaranÃ. And I wasn´t kidding when i said I was really glad that you couldn´t see me very well on the webcam. I have these lovely zits--two on my chin and one under each eye. If I played "Connect the Dots" with them, they´d make a perfect little rectangle. Lovely. Apparently every sister missionary Hna. Stagg knows (herself included) who showed up to Paraguay with perfect skin ended up having bad zits. I´m sure the fried food and dirty air and sweat contribute. Oh well. It´s worth it. And I´ll be resurrected someday so no worries. :)
I´m keeping a list of fun Paraguayan facts to tell you about someday. It all seems so ordinary to me right now, but I know you´re dying to know more and I want you to know how awesome Paraguay is. I´ll try to mention more fun things in my letters. No pictures today, sorry. I just tried to upload them and it said that my battery is dead which makes no sense because I just charged it but whatever. Next week for sure. :/ I really don´t have many pictures to send you. The rule is we can´t carry our camera except to baptisms or if it´s our last day in an area. Speaking of which, I can´t believe another Change is almost over. As much as I feel sometimes like i¨m so bored of Mariano, I really don´t want to leave yet. There are too many people that I care about--too many people whose baptisms I wouldn´t get to go to if I left.
Our new area is turning out to not be as lame as we originally thought. Lots of people there had shared with the Elders before, but the Elders gave up on that area so long ago that now that they´ve given it to us, people are ready to listen again. We´ve had a lot of good lessons with a lot of good people. Just Saturday we came across this large extended family where some were Catholic and some were Evangelical. Once we learned that about them, we immediately dived into, "Have you ever wondered why there are so many religions in the world today?" Usually people are just like, "Meh. To each his own. All churches are good." But this family was like, "Yeah, actually, we have. We´ve been reading the Bible and we can´t decide which church is right." Well, we read the Bible with them some more, James 1:5, and told them about the Restoration. We gave them a Book of Mormon and marked chapters that answered their questions. It was a perfect lesson, and it made me grateful that the Elders gave us that part of their area.
The absolutely best thing that that area has brought us is a woman named HermanÃa Sanchez. She´s part of another large extended family that lives in our new area. She´s in her late fifties and has never been married or had kids, but she LOVES her nieces and nephews like her own children. I imagine she´s always been an amazing lady, but for the past few years she´s had diabetes and now she can barely see. She has nerve problems in her legs, too, that causes her a lot of pain. She can´t easily go to church or work anymore, and so she´s felt abandoned by her friends and family. She has a new appreciation for the little things and is turning to God more. She was grateful for our visits right from the start, and yesterday after faithfully attending church with us and her niece, she shared with us that last week she´d been praying for someone to come help her follow God and brighten her days. Soon after, we showed up to give her a way to go to church again and come to her house to talk about spiritual things. She cried as she thanked us for answering her prayers, and while she can´t read on her own, she sleeps with her Book of Mormon over her heart and prays for guidance and faith as we teach her. Her baptism is set for the 28th. Thus, I REALLY don´t want to be transferred on the 23rd.
Veronica´s baptism is still set for the 21st, though. She´s coming to church regularly and is going to start going to institute after her exams. She really likes the church and us, and while she´s scared for the familial consequences, I know she´ll do the right thing and be baptized. Mariela is doing great, too. She misses us and stopped by our house this week to give us an awesome chocolate cake. She loves the new Elders, too, though. She comes to church more, now. Yesterday she came for all three hours. It may just be because she wants to be with us again, but her faith is really growing and thanks to the Elders´straightforward prodding, the marriage arrangements are quickly coming together. I hope she´ll be baptized at the end of this month, too.
We lost Teodocio, though. The Elders all lost their baptisms for this week, too, so our awesome triple baptism weekend turned out to be a disappointment. Teodocio really liked our visits and likes coming to church, but we realized this week that he has never once said anything that gives us reason to believe that he has faith in God. He´s also made it pretty clear that he has no faith in the church--he´d only be baptized if it meant financial benefits and more visits from us. We also think he´s been lying to us about keeping the law of chastity. It´s been a mess.
But yeah, this week has overall been pretty good. Hna. Stagg and I have really been doing well with completing our goals. We cumplired six days this week, when previously our record was 4 out of 7. We were one new investigator and one lesson with a menos activo short of cumpliring our weekly goals. We feel so guapa (that means "hard-working" here in Paraguay). We had a zone conference this week that really got us determined to succeed. It was a fun day. I met a lot of cool Elders and Hermanas. One Hermana has only been here for three weeks and she had dhengue for the first two. Pobrecita literally contracted the disease her FIRST DAY in Paraguay. She´s all good now, though. There´s also this native Elder I met from Guatemala--Elder Che Xol. Spanish is actually his second language. His native language is Mayan! How cool is that?
Anyways, at the zone conference, Pte. Madariaga showed us the talk by Elder Holland that he gave while i was in the MTC. It had really touched me back in January and it made me cry hearing it again from in the Field. I love Elder Holland´s talks. It made me so scared, though, because President had asked me to give a talk in Spanish at teh conference, and after Elder Holland moved us all to tears, I felt like I had nothing to say. But a native Elder had also been asked to speak in English and he went before me. He literally just read a scripture, said, "I know the church is true" and that was it. I felt a lot better about my three-minute talk after that. :) The scripture I spoke on was Mosiah 24:15--this Change´s theme. It´s about the Lord strengthening Alma and his people in their captivity and how they cheerfully submitted to the will of the Lord. It´s a great scripture for us Latter-Day Saints to learn from. I think I¨m gonna try and memorize it.
Oh, before I forget, thank you so much Nana for the letter and talk you sent me. I got it on Tuesday and I really, REALLY loved it. Thank you! It means a lot to me that you thought of me and took the time to send it.
And Grandma Springer, thank you for that big fluffy purple robe you gave me all those years ago. Last weekend it got SO COLD. We could see our breath and I wore gloves and a sweater and a scarf and coat. At night I slept with the robe for extra warmth. Our heater hasn´t been working super well so it saved me from a few nights of lost sleep. Thankfully at conference we received thick winter blankets (Hna. Stagg and I slept SO WELL and were so happy and rested after that first night with our new bedding), but I still sleep with the robe because it´s super comforting. Also, thank you Laurel for the long, striped socks. I love wearing them around the house and last week I only wore my tall rainboots, not because it was raining but just because I wanted to keep wearing warm, colorful striped socks outside the house. :) And thanks too for the summer shirts you sent me in the MTC. They´ve been awesome.
Hna. Stagg is doing well. WE have a lot of fun together. She´s getting a bit trunkie (meaning she talks about home). Today they called her to ask which airport she wants to fly home to. She wasn´t happy to realize how close her "death" is. She wants to get sent out to the chaco before she dies. She was "born" into this zone and has only been outside of it for two Changes. So she´d like to see someplace else. But at the same time, she´ll REALLY miss Mariano, and I´ll miss her when she goes. She amused me this week with a pilates class one morning, putting on a cheesy, high-pitched pilates instructor voice ("one more ladies! Good! Keep it up! Feel the burn!") and made me laugh so hard that I couldn´t do crunches. Today she spent quite a bit of her P-Day time playing "Called to Serve" on our cell phone and making it so that it will play that whenever someone calls us. Now she really wants the people who annoy us with their constant calls to call us. :)
Have I ever told you what it´s like to ride a bus here? I know I´ve mentioned how crazy the roads are thanks to no traffic laws, but it´s even worse when you´re in a colectivo. There are no bus stops. When you want to get on you´ve got to be watchful and just stick your arm out when your bus comes speeding down the road. Then you have to hold onto something quick because the driver floors it as soon as you´re on the steps (they don´t even bother closing the doors). People pack into buses like sardines, and a lot of the time I feel like Ping the duck, terrified to be the last one on because if the bus is full it means that I have to stand on the bottom step the whole ride down the crazy road. Being further inside the bus isn´t much better, though. You´re crammed between people you don´t know, and because the bus brakes and accelerates so randomly, you have to be careful not to lose your balance and barrel into everyone else. It´s really crazy. I have pretty good balance now (I think I could make a good sailor in the future) but that first week, when we stepped off the bus after my first ride I just wanted to kiss the ground ("LAND!! SWEET LAND!") and never get on a bus again for as long as I lived.
Well, that´s it for this week. I hope you all had a fabulous mother´s day weekend. Thank you to Nana, Grandma Springer, Chelsy, Holly, Pam, Lucie, Teresa, Shelli, Laurel, and of course my own amazing Mom for being such wonderful mothers and great examples for me. I hope to someday be as incredible as you.
Take care, everybody. I love you so much.
---Hna. Springer
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