Week 34 - Asuncion Paraguay - Loma Pyta

Hello Family!

 

Thank you Sarah, Ashley, Amanda, Chase, Dad, Mom, Grandma, Pam, Teresa, and Goompa and Nana for your letters this week. Goompa, I´m glad things are alright. I´m praying for you to get back to lawnmowing ASAP. Jared, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! And Ashley, too, of course. :) Goompa and Nana, I just got your letters on Wednesday. Thank you so much for taking the time to write to me. It really made my day, especially since the day I got them was very stressful--Changes.

 

That´s right, I´ve been Changed. I am now in Loma Pyta. Loma Pyta is Guaraní for "Red Hill," and the "y" is a very Guaraní sound. You shape your mouth as if you´re going to say "ee," but then you make a "oo" sound in your nose. So it´s more like "Loma Poota." Anyways, I´m here with Hna. Young AND Hna. Brittner. Yep. A trio. I never thought I´d be in a trio but here I am. And guess what? We´re all tall blondes from the United States. Hna. Young is from Washington (we´re not related, sadly), and Hna. Brittner is from California. It is very different. We draw a lot of attention and get whistled at every five seconds. Contacting in the street is so awkward with three really tall people. I had such bad contacting numbers this week, having to take turns with two other Hermanas and having lots of people reject us because we´re "yankees."  When we were in one lesson and we introduced ourselves, the man said to me, "You must be latina." Someone thought I was a latina! YAY! I´ve had a lot of people start speaking to me in Guaraní after they hear my Spanish, assuming that since I´m already a pro at Spanish, I must be picking up Guaraní, too. Um...no. Though this week I did start reading the Book of Mormon in Guaraní. I´ve learned quite a bit just doing that, but not enough to go speaking to people in Guaraní. My Guaraní is kind of limited to "and" ("ha") and "church" ("tupao"). :) I´ll get it sometime.

 

Anyways, being in a trio has been really different. I missed Hna. Tua´one so badly those first few days. Things were just so much FUN with her. Hnas. Young and Brittner are super nice and excellent missionaries, but they were already together before the Change, so they already have a way of living together and inside jokes and a strong friendship that made me feel like a third wheel at times. For example, today was our first P-Day together and I´ve been constantly asking, "So...where are we going?" "Um...what are we doing?" They already have their system down, and I´m so out of the loop. I have no idea where anything is, who anyone is, or what we´re supposed to be doing. Being in a new area is really disorienting. It was so hard to say goodbye to my friends in Mariano. Hna. Sanchez cried, as did Flopi and Blasida... Good news, though, is that I got to take LOADS of pictures. I´m printing a bunch today and sending them to you as soon as possible. Which means you´ll probably get them in October. :)

 

The teaching is going great, though. Hna. Tua´one taught me really well how to be friendly with the people and get to know them right off the bat. I don´t feel awkward around people at all. Loma Pyta is really nice. The people are super friendly and the area is just a lot nicer. The homes are well-kept, the people take care of themselves, there isn´t any livestock and a surprisingly small number of dogs running around. There are a lot more flowers and trees. The streets don´t kill my feet (the workers took more time to lay the shale down flat, apparently) and people actually put their trash in BINS instead of just tossing it on the road. There´s only kind of sketchy area down by a little river where there´s a neighborhood called a sentamiento (where poor people throw up houses in unclaimed land without having to pay for the property), but even that´s not very bad compared to Mariano. I really like it a lot.

 

 And the ward is AMAZING. There´s an actual WARD. Every single member I´ve met so far has been absolutely amazing. They all have such strong testimonies and you can feel the Spirit in their homes. They do visiting teaching, even! And they love the missionaries. We have a lunch cita every day, having to take turns with some families because so many want to feed us. I´m saving lots of money on groceries as a result. :) They´re also amazing at giving us references. Without us even needing to ask they´ll just come up to us and tell us about someone who needs a visit from us. It´s so great. I love it so much.

 

They seem to like me, too. On Saturday night, fifteen minutes before lights out, the Bishopric called and asked me to give a talk. Not just go up and introduce myself--give a seven-minute TALK! I said yes, of course, but I was kind of stressed and wishing they´d called me BEFORE I´d wasted an hour reading my Guaraní Book of Mormon to pass the time before I could snuggle under my bedcovers. Sunday morning I put together a fairly good talk, though, about missionary work and how much I love it. It went really well and was a good way to let the ward know more about me right away. They all welcomed me very warmly into the ward and commended me on my good Spanish. :)

 

The apartment is really nice, too. MUCH bigger, that´s for sure. We have our own little condo thing on an upper floor with a study room, a kitchen, two bathrooms (only one shower, though), a bedroom, and a room for our wardrobes. It´s perfect for three. I bet we could even fit four, actually. There are no bugs, no big shaggy dogs or pigs or ducks, and it´s in a really quiet area. The only issue I have with it is that it´s FREEZING. We have a heater, but it only heats up our bedroom, really, and even then I have to bundle up really well at night to sleep well. I´ve come to really love the long winter garments I though I´d never use. :)

 

Oh, by the way, Hna. Tua´one is training. We´d all heard a rumor that an Hermana had gotten an unanticipated call to Paraguay and was coming from Argentina. We all thought it was just a rumor, though. Hna. Tua´one and I were so nervous when Changes were coming up, wondering who was going where. Hna. Tua´one was terrified of being sent to an Hermana who she doesn´t get along with. Then we got the call. "Hna. Tua´one, you´re training the new Hermana from Argentina, and Hna. Springer is going to Loma Pyta in a trio." We both thought it was a joke. Hna. Tua´one never thought that President would have her train. She was so in denial, and so nervous that night before. :) Oh, and in case you were wondering, I just laughed when I heard I was going to Loma Pyta. Loma Pyta is RIGHT NEXT TO Mariano. Like, if I walk a little bit too far, I´ll be in my old area. We use the same buses (which is really weird and makes me very nostalgic when we drive though my old neighborhood). It´s like I went from Mesa to Gilbert.

 

(So if you want to find me on the map, just go south down that big road that goes through Mariano until you reach Super Seis. When you see that road that passes on the north of the Super, go west four blocks and our house is a little white two-story thing on the northeast corner. To make sure you´re on the right block, it´s up and to the left of a little park. I´ll send you a picture of our map so you can pinpoint my location. :)

 

We don´t really have many investigators to talk about. Hnas. Young and Brittner opened the area for the Hermanas only four weeks ago, so it´s all pretty new for them, too. We do have one girl, though, who´s getting baptized on Saturday. She seems cool, but she only speaks Guaraní, so I don´t know her very well. :) We´ve done a few divisions already, which is so much easier with a trio--we only have to find one ward missionary instead of two! It´s super convenient. Our area´s not very big, but it´s always useful to be in two places at once.

 

So...yeah. Things really are going well for me. I knew Hnas. Young and Brittner before Changes so we get along just perfect. It´s just a little challenging being the outsider and having to learn everything from scratch again, but I trust President Madariaga, and I trust the Lord, and I know that this is where I need to be right now. I´ve learned great things from all of my past companions, and I know I´m going to have an amazing learning experience with these two, as well. Pray for me, and write me! I love you all so much. Whenever I´m challenged I´m grateful that I can just think about my wonderful family and be reassured that the gospel is true. It´s made us the greatest family ever. Thank you all for your examples of following the prophet and the scriptures. I hope that every day I become a little more like you.

 

I LOVE YOU!!

 

---Hna. Springer

Week 33 - Asuncion Paraguay - Mariano Roque Alonzo

Querida Familia Mia,

 

Por fin we had success with our asistencia this Sunday! Just like the last two months or so, Sunday was the only overcast day of the week, but thankfully I never saw a single drop of rain. Three out of our four progressing investigators came to church with us! I´m so happy. :)

 

It wasn´t easy getting them all to church. Hna. Tua´one decided that since I could very well have a lazy companion next Change, I should start practicing my leadership skills. She put me in charge of all the planning and had me make all the calls throughout the day--who we were going to teach, where we were going to do, what we were going to teach, etc. It was stressful. I´m such a sheep, but this week I did my best to be a sheepdog instead. It felt kind of weird. Hna. Tua´one didn´t talk as much, wanting me to be able to focus and not wanting to forget not to take the lead. It would have been easy if we´d had a lot of investigators to go see, but since we dropped most of them this week, we ended up doing a LOT of finding. But to my immense relief I found that God really is leading me to the right people. I tried to act instantly whenever I felt like we should stop and talk with someone, and as a result, we got rejected a LOT less than usual. There was one day where we did nothing but finding, and I was sure that we were just going to wander the streets hitting rejection after rejection. Instead, EVERY house we clapped at recieved us! It was amazing!

 

Two of the three investigators who came to church yesterday were Nasario and Junior. I don´t know if I´ve told you about them or not. Nasario´s been investigating the church since January, and we´d decided last week that we were going to drop him for sure. But then we gave him one last chance to attend a baptism on Tuesday, and he came! We went back to visit him and found that he´s been doing so much better with his goal to quit drinking. It was a real challenge for him to come to church because he´s very shy. He came on his bike so that he could have an independent escape route. We literally had to push him into the chapel and sit on either side of him to keep him from ducking out. In the end, though, he was attentively listening to the talks and wasn´t trying to escape anymore.

 

Junior´s mom is an inactive member with a drinking problem (she and Nasario are drinking buddies), and we´d heard that she had forbidden him to come to church with us anymore. We´d thought we were going to drop him, too, but then when we went to visit Nasario, Junior was there. He said his mom would let him come again if we asked, and so we did, and she said yes. He´s such a good kid. He always tells us the truth when the adults lie about their drinking and such, and no matter where we are or what we´re doing, if he knows the misioneras are in his neighborhood he´ll run to the nearest despensa and buy us gum unasked. He´s so cute.

 

We really had a great Sunday yesterday. Hna. Tua´one and I have really become like sisters. I love her so much. We had a great time together yesterday. My favorite part was when she taught me how to make her handmade Mexican tortillas. I am now a pro, and I´m still thrilled that I learned that. They tasted divine, and when we topped them with guacamole from avacados straight off the tree and Hna. Tua´one´s Mexican chicken, we were both in heaven. They were quite possibly the best tacos I´ve ever eaten.

 

AND, we´re officially teaching the Miga de Pan lady, whose name I finally learned is Carmen. We went in to visit her on Monday night and for the first time ever she actually closed the shop and sat down to chat with us. We talked with her again yesterday night. At first it was all casual. We weren´t quite sure how to start teaching someone we´ve known for so long. But as we talked, she would occasionally get more serious and reveal things like, "I have friends in the Mormon church." Last night, she told us, "I used to go to your church with my co-worker." It´s a slow process, getting her to open up about religion. She keeps getting calls from clients as we talk, so it´s hard to keep the discussion going, but I seriously feel like she´s going to join the church someday. She´s an amazing woman.

 

Oh man, so now we have three baptisms planned for this month, and I¨m most likely going to be transferred this week. I´m going to be so sad if I leave. We´re finally having success and I feel so close to all of these people here in Mariano. And seriously, I love Hna. Tua´one. I was so fortunate to have Hna. Stagg, then Hna. Tua´one...I kind of feel like I should be getting a difficult companion sometime soon. There must be opposition in all things, right? :) We´ll see. We already said goodbye to most of our district due to a Special Change last week. We were together for three months--longer than I knew my MTC district--and it was hard to break up our little dream team. But change is good. It can only get better as we gain more and more experience, right?

 

Our Area Seventy, Elder Arnold, is coming to chew us out on the 30th. I don´t actually know that he´s going to be harsh, but from what I´ve heard from others who have heard him speak, he is an intense speaker who makes all the missionaries squirm with guilt. I´m worried that I´m doing something wrong that he´s going to discover and call me out on. I don´t THINK I have anything to worry about, and I´m sure it´s going to be very inspirational and uplifting, but I´m still going to double- and triple-check that I bring all the materials he told us to bring.

 

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I taught Gospel Principles yesterday. It really wasn´t that big a deal--how many times do I teach every day of the week! But it´s different when you´re teaching a whole big group of investigators instead of being one-on-one and having a companion at your side to help you find the words you don´t know in Spanish. I only struggled a little bit, though, with the language. The lesson itself was on Charity, and teaching it was easy. I really felt guided by the Spirit, at one point stopping in the middle of the lesson to flip through my scriptures and find a passage of scripture that wasn´t listed anywhere in the manual. It ended up sparking a lot more discussion than any of the other scriptures we read. I felt really confident and happy to teach a subject that really means a lot to me--it´s charity that brought me here to Paraguay, after all.

 

I´ve been doing a lot of good reading this week. I decided to take up reading the Bible again. I´m reading in the New Testament, though, since I feel like I just barely read the Old Testament. I´ve finished all of Matthew, and I think I circled about 80% of the verses. :) I thought I read the words of Christ all the time through the writings of the prophets, but to read about the actual mortal life of Christ is something I should have done a long time ago. I loved every single part, and I´m grateful that I read Jesus the Christ earlier this year to give me a greater perspective on Jerusalem and the people Christ helped. I feel like I can do a much better job about trying to be Christlike now that I´ve got Matthew fresh on my mind.

 

We also got the new LIahona on Tuesday and I´ve already read the whole thing. I never realized before the mission how much the Liahona talks about missionary work and those who change the lives of others by being pioneers in the gospel. It was so inspiring to read so many stories about peoples´ conversion, especially when it involved missionaries coming for AGES before the person got baptized. Many times I feel like I´m doing a lot of sowing instead of reaping, but I´m happy knowing that someday someone else will be able to enjoy the fruits from the seeds I plant for them.

 

Let´s see...what else... I learned that pigs are very, VERY vocal. The Gastóns got a pig this week. They kept it tethered in the yard for three days, and that was all we could take. It was CONSTANTLY grunting, and early in the morning it would start SCREAMING for its food. Hna. Tua´one joked every morning at 5:00 when it woke us up that if the Gastóns didn´t give it food soon, it was going to become food. Even when it was finally fed, it ate like...well, like a pig, with lots of smacking and slurping, making it hard to fall back asleep. Every time we saw the Gastóns, they were talking about how to get the pig to be quiet. They debated muzzling it, but decided that it makes most of its noise through its nose. One day we went outside to find them trying to shove the pig into a cardboard box. No idea what they were thinking. It just squealed all the louder. Finally I think all of the tenants had complained at one point or another, and the Gastóns sent the pig away to a distant relative. Por. Fin.

 

And the Gastóns continue to feed us weird food. Last week goat, this week duck. I thought duck was supposed to be white meat like chicken? Nope. Totally dark meat like beef (Why does everyone say, "It tastes just like chicken," when so far I´ve found that everything tastes like beef?). You learn something new every day.

 

I´m so relieved that you finally got my pictures. I was so worried that they´d gotten lost forever. Now I can rest easy. :)

 

Thank you Dad, Mom, Sarah, Ashley, Laurel, Grandma, and Grandpa Springer for your e-mails this week. I´m glad to hear that you enjoy reading about my mission. It all seems so every-day to me. :) Stand in holy places and be not moved! I love you all so much and I already can´t wait to hear from you again next week!

 

¡Cariño! (I just learned that word this week. :))

---Hna. Springer

Week 32 - Asuncion Paraguay - Mariano Roque Alonzo

¡Hola Mi Familia Hermosa!

How are you all doing? Thank you for all of your e-mails about your final weeks of summer. I hope you´re all super excited for school to start. I really can´t believe it´s that time of year again. It seems like just last week that I was hearing all about finals and being jealous of all of your trips coming up. Now all that is behind us already? Crazy! But anyways, thank you Grandma, Laurel, Clayton, Pam, Madison, Lexi, Cami, Dad, Mom, Ashley, and Amanda for your e-mails this week. It´s great to hear from my Texan relatives. Cami, what´s this about first place in a horse show? What kind of riding competitions do you do? Jumping? Dressage (sp?)? Tell me more! And thank you everyone for your words of counsel and support. I really feel so boosted up every Monday. It´s like Sunday is my day to recharge spiritually, and Monday is my day to be revitalized familywise. You´re the best family ever.

I feel really good today. Last night Hna. Tua´one and I finally managed to stay up until 10:30 (we felt like we´d been getting too much sleep by zonking out a half hour too early), and then we got up at 6:00 instead ot 6:30 to get some extra running in. It was exhausting, but at the same time I feel so much more refreshed today. Plus we went to the park to write letters and journal, instead of just staying home like we usually do. It´s amazing what a little difference like that can make. I feel like we actually DID something with our time, you know? And the park was gorgeous today with a bright blue sky, fluffy clouds, and flowering trees. Hna. Tua´one brought her little speakers and we listened to our usual Hilary Weeks Christmas CD, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. :)

I´m pretty satisfied with our past week. We worked SO HARD--I feel like harder than I´ve ever worked on the mission before. Our mission has been struggling lately, with frighteningly low numbers. President Madariaga asked us to focus our efforts on finding new people to teach, and that´s exactly what we did. I´m really really glad that my mission is a walking mission. I can imagine how finding new people must be seriously difficult when you´re riding a bike, or worse, driving a car. But when we´re walking every day, it´s so easy to greet people as we go or change our route according to the Spirit or run into interesting people. This week, no doubt because we were being better about being open to the promptings of the Spirit to find people, we had three people in as many days find US in the street and ask us about the church. That like never happens to us, yet it happened three days in a row! It was pretty cool. One of them was a young homeless guy who humbly asked us to talk with him about God. He seemed so hungry for words of hope and a better life. We had a nice lesson with him in a nearby park and gave him all the information he would need to find us and/or the Church again. It´ll be nearly impossible to regularly visit him, of course, but I feel like we really did what God intended for us to do--brighten someone´s day and perhaps start them on the path towards eternal life. The second person was a man who we´ve seen around the neighborhood before, but this week he finally stopped (he rides a bike) and asked more about what we do as missionaries. The last guy did basically the same thing, only he had some random question about where the Israelites´ promised land is on today´s map. He said he´s unsatisfied with every preacher he´s gone to, and he wanted to know if we knew anything about the Bible so he could maybe check out our church. I was very grateful for those maps in the back of the Bible so I could confidently answer his question. We´ll see if anything comes of that encounter. 

We did another division this week. Hna. Tua´one went with Isa to one half of our area, and I went to the other half with a girl from our district named Lilian. She just returned from her mission to Salt Lake City four months ago, so she was VERY fun to work with. A) she knows English, B) she loves Utah, and C) she´s an excellent missionary. She´d actually been a missionary in Hna. Tua´one´s home stake, and she says she worked in the Holladay area, too. I was hoping to hear that she´d met some Springers, but she was mostly in Spanish branches so no such luck. Still, it was fun to talk about snow and Temple Square and all that fun stuff. As for our actual lessons, even when I´m not in charge on a division, I´ve been doing a lot better about taking charge in the lessons. I´m a lot more talkative now and a lot less afraid of being rejected. I´ve learned a lot this week with all of our finding that if someone is really a nice person, I can easily be their friend and get a first lesson with them. It´s the outright mean people that I still have problems with, but after being cursed at twice this week for being a "JANKI!" (= "Yankee"), I´m learning to just forget what the non-understanding people say to us. It´s still no fun to be rudely turned away, but it makes all the accepting people all the more wonderful to talk to. :)

After working SO HARD this week, we were expecting to be able to top off our excellent numbers with some great church attendance and quite a few baptisms planned for the end of August. Then...it rained. No, I´m just kidding. For ONCE no rain on Sunday. The weather was gorgeous. But, our investigators still failed us. Not a single one of them showed up. We were SO depressed. For so long we´d been thinking that only the rain was keeping these people from pulling through for us, but it turns out they just don´t really have true interest in coming. Last night and this morning we focused our study time on pondering what we can do better to have more success (as Dad is so fond of saying, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results."). We made the hard decision to drop a lot of people. With a lot of time and effort, I´m positive that we could get them to change their lives. But looking back on this Change, we spent too much time and effort on them when there are probably people out there right now praying to find the Truth. We prayed about our decision, and we feel that it´s best to just keep looking. We´ll keep visiting our investigators, of course, but we need to teach other people. Satan would have us use all of our energy doing "good" things, when there are AMAZING things to be done. Another thing, when I was studying I felt impressed to change our teaching tactics quite a bit. Usually we´re so desperate to get in a first lesson that we´re kind of afraid to mention baptism or the Restoration in the first visit because they´ll turn us away. But we´re not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, and I know that if we open up about that more, we´ll truly find the people who are ready to hear. Perhaps our numbers won´t be as great, but the quality of our lessons will be a hundred times better.

On a less sober note, I ate goat this week! It was weird. It looked and tasted a lot like beef, but it was a lot more tender and just felt foreign in my mouth. Plus I couldn´t stop thinking about all those cute little billy goats I pass on the streets every day. True I pass cows and chickens all day, too, but I think i´m more used to ignoring the fact that I´m eating cow when I chow down on a hamburger, or a chicken when I eat a drumstick. But to just be handed a hunk of meat and be told, "This is goat," it was impossible not to picture it with fur and a face. :) We had some pretty great "American" food this week, too, though. It was Elder Carter´s birthday this week and the youth made him pizza. Usually Paraguayan pizza is WEIRD, but they did a great job of replicating marinara sauce, using mozzarella cheese instead of queso Paraguayo (whatever that is), and putting pepperoni on it instead of just chunks of ham. Elder Carter ate like six slices, and he must have thanked the youth a thousand times for giving him a "taste of home." Hna. Tua´one and I ALMOST had the chance to eat at a really chuchi restaurant this week. We have a friend at a little restaurant called Miga de Pan (I think I´ve mentioned her before), and when we stopped at her place for the first time in months, she was like, "I was so hoping you´d stop by today! I wanted to invite you to my son´s birthday party!" We were so flattered, and really hopeful that her thinking about us meant that she wanted to hear our message (we can´t teach her in her restaurant and we´ve never had the chance to talk with her outside of it). We excitedly told her of course we´d come...and then we learned that the restaurant where the party was to be held is so far into Asunción that it´s not even in our MISSION let alone our zone. Bummer... But we´re still really flattered, and we´re gonna have to find a time to go talk with her and her family at her actual house. I have no doubt she´s going to join the church someday. She loves us missionaries too much and is really an amazing Christian woman.

To end this week´s e-mail, just a little insight I had this week--in the past I used to get kind of depressed thinking about the Last Days. The scriptures make it sound like everything´s going to be in chaos and there will just be wickedness EVERYWHERE and we´ll all just be cowering in our chapels hoping not to be destroyed. I used to get really sad, thinking that my kids won´t have the kind of happy childhood that I had. Then I thought about it, and I realized that yes they totally will. Most of the world is already in chaos with wickedness abounding and the righteous fearing for their lives--EXCEPT (pretty much) in Zion where the Church gathers together to uplift and aid and cheer. With the way the world is, I shouldn´t have had a happy childhood, either, but I did thanks to a righteous family and the Church´s support. As long as I stay righteous and strong in the gospel, my children will have an even BETTER childhood than mine. The future for the fold of God just keeps getting better and better. Nothing can bring us down unless we let it by letting go of what great things we already have.

Well, it´s time to go again. Thank you for everything! I LOVE YOU ALL! Write me!

---Hna. Springer

Week 31 - Asuncion Paraguay - Mariano Roque Alonzo

Dear Family,

 

I am really tired right now and a little flustered because we left the house like three times today trying to find an internet cafe. All of them were closed and it's very cold and misty today. Right now we're typing from the Elders' area because all three of ours failed us. Now I'm tired from all the running around and I feel like I didn't do much with my free time and the weather is only encouraging me to sleep. P-Days can be way too short sometimes. :)

 

But I really really enjoyed reading all of your e-mails today. Thank you so much Ashley, Sarah, Dad, Mom, Grandma, Amanda, Lucie, and Marcus Oliver for checking in on me. It sounds like your summers have all been fantastic. I can't believe how many different fun trips you all went on. It's so cool that you could find so many activities to fill your time and entertain your kids. :) Amanda, I can't wait to meet my new "niece." Sarah, I hope you have a blast at Lake Powell, and thanks for the pictures. Lucie, thanks for your summer update--I love hearing about my little cousins. :) Dad, you're kind of scary when you're in pain. But I laughed SO HARD reading all about your scorpion massacre, and Hna. Tua'one did too when I showed her what was so hilarious.

 

Did you guys ever get the pack of pictures that I sent? I sent it out towards the end of June so I hope you get it soon. Let me know as soon as you do. I deleted those pictures on my camera after I printed them, so I'll be really sad if the hard copies get lost in Bolivia or something.

 

We had a pretty good week. Nothing much to report, really. We're still trying to find the next golden investigator. Right now we're working a lot with some people who we've been working with since I got to Paraguay. They're good people but they're not very willing to break away from their addictions. We do a lot of fun lessons with the less active members, though. We used to only have five assigned families per companionship in our branch, but now that's changing to fifteen families EACH. That's 45 menos activo families that are going to be visited by the missionaries. Sadly, that won't even come close to covering all of them.

 

This week we had FHE with an adorable little menos activo family. The mom's name is Clara and she has three little kids. Sofi is the nine-year-old who got baptized along with Hna. Sanchez, and she has two sons named Axel (six) and Alex (one and a half). Sofi is very mature for her age but still super fun-loving. She always tells us how much she wants to go on a mission someday, and she loves to try on our nametags. Axel is a little show-off and is addicted to candy. He always raids Hna. Tua'one's bag looking for treats, and when we played Bingo for FHE using Rocklets (Paraguay-style M&Ms), it took all our effort to keep him from eating all of the candy while we were trying to play with it. Little Alex only ever says one word when we're around--"Amana!" Translation: Hermana! He just says it over and over, louder and louder, until we turn to him and say, "Hermano!" He's already very good at fist-bumping us goodbye. Anyways, after we played Bingo, Sofi wanted to play Hangman. When the first three letters were found to be E-S-P, everyone guessed, "Espiritu!" But she just laughed and said, "No...ESPRINGER!" It made me laugh really hard. We spent a little too much time with them, and when it was time to go the streets were pretty quiet and dark. I was a little nervous because we were a ways away from home, but as we were leaving Clara's big dog Tuki slipped out of their gate. At first Hna. Tua'one and I tried to shoo him back to his house, but we were late so we just kept walking. Tuki followed us wherever we went. All the dogs that we passed (and there are a LOT of dogs) got really mad at him for trespassing on their turf, and we were irritated that we had to keep protecting him. But as we got farther from Clara's and were still far from home, in dark silent areas, we found that we felt a LOT safer with a big old dog by our side. Suddenly we didn't mind protecting him--he sure was being a good protector for us. He took us all the way to our front door, where we patted his head in thanks before he turned and headed back home, this time without us to keep the other dogs away. We prayed that he would get home safe and were very glad to see him back in his yard the next day. Hna. Tua'one hates dogs, but even she smiles when we see him now.

 

For the third week out of the four this month, the weather was perfectly beautiful all week, then on Sunday the clouds moved in and the excitement of all our investigators died. Nobody came to church and all of their baptism dates have fallen so far that I probably won't even be in this area for their baptisms. I'm sensing a trend here. In April I had two baptisms, then none in May, then two in June, now none in July. That should mean that next month will be awesome! Sweet! No idea if I'll still be with Hna. Tua'one or in Mariano anymore next Change. I think I'll be leaving. I'll be super sad to leave this branch but I'd love to see more of Paraguay.

 

In the meantime, "By small and simple things are great things brought to pass." I know that every day I spend here, every person I talk to, makes a difference in the Plan that God has for us.

 

This week we got to go to Asuncion for interviews with President and a little training meeting. It was so nice. I always feel right at home at the office. President is so nice and encouraging, and the training meeting was a definite animo booster. We talked a lot about we need to be close to the Lord if we are to bring others closer to Him. I recently read King Benjamin's speech about something similar. He said that we need to serve Christ to know Him, and how happy we are when we do! God won't let us be happy in sin, but when we keep the commandments...Have you ever heard anyone say, "Man, I'm SO UNHAPPY because I'm not an alcoholic!" or "Man, I HATE how many problems come with keeping the Sabbath Day holy and strengthening my family!" Hmm...

 

Friendship Day wasn't quite as big a deal as Hna. Tua'one and I expected. That, or nobody in Mariano has any friends. We made cute little cards with D&C 130:2 on them, and people were like, "What is this for?" On Sunday the branch youth gave us little notes, which was nice, but yeah it wasn't as similar to Valentine's Day as we'd been told. :)

 

So yeah, this week was pretty nice. The weather is lame, but Hna. Tua'one and I feel good about how much work we put in. I feel extra good, too, because this week I (FOR ONCE) managed to plan my meals and snacks. I felt so much healthier. It's seriously so hard to eat a balanced diet here. No joke. Even when people (rarely) give us shredded cabbage, it's usually swimming in straight oil or mayonaise. When you step into a Paraguayan supermarket, you can tell what they do and don't live off of. There's like a little corner for all three types of cereal, then you turn the corner and there's a whole aisle just for mayonaise. The same with oil, noodles, and herbs for their terere. Oh, and today they had pig heads in the meat cases. Totally appetizing. :)

 

Well, since we had so much trouble finding a computer today, we're really late so I've got to sign off. I love you all. Thank you SO MUCH for your nice long letters. Keep them coming!

 

---Hna. Springer

 

P.S. Dad, you're probably right about "humidity sickness" just being dehydration. Except people here always carry huge jugs of water around with them and I can't imagine them being dehydrated. I surely was, but I'm curious what this humidity sickness thing is then

Week 30 - Asuncion Paraguay - Mariano Roque Alonzo

¡Hola todos! ¿Cómo están?

Happy birthday Dad! And a very happy Pioneer Day to everyone! I´ll admit I kind of forgot that yesterday was a holiday. Earlier this month I was totally planning on talking to all of our investigators yesterday about being pioneers in the gospel for their generations to come. I forgot to do that, but I think I´ll make that my theme for this week.

There was a major Paraguayan holiday yesterday, though. Paraguay played futbol against Uruguay for the Copa America. Apparently it´s a tournament they only have every four years, and Paraguay hasn´t won in 32 years. Man, you should´ve seen this place when Paraguay beat Venezuela and Brazil, meaning that they would be in the finals. It was like a war had been won or something. The partying went on all through the night. Hna. Tua´one and I were actually in a colectivo during the last few minutes of the game against Brazil, and it was like being back on BYU campus during football season. The bus driver had the game playing loudly over the radio, and several people in the bus had little portable TVs. All of these complete strangers on the bus were best friends when Paraguay made that final goal and made it to the finals. There was lots of cheering and hugging and it was all very fun. The hype built up all week long. It was almost impossible to get people to commit to go to church. "But I have to watch the game!" said one of our investigators, "The game´s only gonna last a few hours. Christ will be around forever! He can wait!" When we asked if there was anything we could include in our prayers for our investigators, the vast majority of them said, "Pray that Paraguay will win!" People were buying and selling flags and jerseys and kites and fireworks... and then they lost. You´d think there hadn´t been any game at all the way the excitement just DIED and absolutely nobody was talking about soccer anymore. It was so sad. I kind of hoped they would win. Soccer is pretty much all Paraguay does for fun. But at the same time I´m glad we didn´t have to worry about all the drunkards and parties.

Thank you so much for the package, Mom! I just got it on Tuesday, but I¨m pretty sure it got here earlier this month. Packages get to Paraguay in about four weeks without any problem. It´s getting them out of the office and to the missionaries that takes forever. But I absolutely love the socks. They´re PERFECT and got to me just in time. Thank you! :)

And thank you for your e-mails Shelli, Lucie, Dad, Mom, Sarah, Ashley, and Grandma! I´ve said it before but I´ll say it again--I LOVE YOU! 

I´ve had several people asking me if they can e-mail me or if that would take too much of my time to read. Um... YES E-MAIL ME! I don´t have much time to RESPOND, but I can never have too many e-mails to read! I print them off in the morning on P-Days, then read them in my free time before writing the weekly e-mail at the end of P-Day. Never ever ever ever feel like I don´t want to hear from you, because I appreciate every single word you guys send me. The more the merrier! And it´s a total myth that your writing to me from home will make my homesick. In reality, I feel MORE homesick if I DON´T know what you´re doing. But when you tell me, it´s almost like I was there with you and I´m not homesick at all. And yes, Goompa, I got your last e-mail loud and clear. And no, Dad, Hna. Tua´one doesn´t read all of my e-mails. I hear missionaries used to have to e-mail one at a time with their companion looking over their shoulder during their hour of e-mailing, but now all we have to do is make sure that we´re on neighboring computers and can see each others´ screens. It saves a lot of time and it´s a lot less stressful. I hate it when people read over my shoulder.

Paraguay has a holiday on the 30th of July called "El Día de Amistad," which I´m excited for. Everyone gives gifts to all of their friends to express their love. Hna. Tua´one and I are planning little gifts to give to the members and our investigators. I wish we celebrated Friendship Day in the States. I guess that´s what Valentine´s Day if for, though.

People keep telling us that winter´s over now. If that´s true, that was the most anti-climactic winter ever. Yeah we got cold, but whenever we had a cold day people would say, "Oh, just wait until winter! Then you´ll REALLY freeze!" And now they´re saying that it´s over already! I was expecting it to get so bad and instead it´s getting hot and we´re wearing t-shirts again and suffering from humidity sickness. People are also saying that this summer is going to be incredibly hot. Oh joy. Maybe they´re wrong about that too? Hopefully? 

Hna. Tua´one and I had another great week. We didn´t meet our goals every day, but only because we didn´t work on Tuesday due to humidity sickness (which was just headaches and nausea that needed sleeping off). We still did really well, though, and made up for lost time by doing my first ever division on Saturday. I was worried at first when Hna. Tua´one suggested that we do a division, because I´ve never had to do anything without my trusty Senior Companion before. But it turned out to be a really great experience and really refreshing for both of us. I went with a 16-year-old convert named Dihana, and she was excellent at sharing her insights and testifying at just the right time. She really has strong faith in the gospel and could really connect with all of our investigators who have problems living the gospel. That´s not to say that she carried the lessons. That was my job, and I did it just fine. It´s easy to be a leader when you´re left virtually on your own. :) The only real challenge I had was with Mario. Hna. Tua´one is a lot better at charades than I am. Dihana did well with him. I just started getting kind of frustrated at the end because earlier this week Hna. Tua´one and I had written out our testimonies and given them to him to read on his own. He told me that he´d read them and that he really admires us for serving missions. But, we´re just young girls from a "problem-free" country and have no idea what life is really like--we should learn from him and see that all this faith stuff is nice, but it doesn´t solve problems in "real life." I was really put to the test there. Had I been able to speak Spanish, I probably wouldn´t have been able to explain myself well. Having to speak Spanish to someone who can´t hear? That was hard. I couldn´t write fast enough as he went on raving, and nothing I wrote was adequate to get him to understand. Finally, I just sat back, let him finish his shpeal, and said a silent prayer for help. I still wasn´t able to get Mario to realize that he needs to exercise faith, but I was reassured by the Spirit that I AM right about the Gospel helping people. I may not be a poverty-stricken Paraguayan with four kids out of wedlock and three jobs and an addiction to alcohol, but I HAVE had problems, and I HAVE had them fixed through faith and prayer and keeping the commandments of God. God doesn´t give us commandments so that He can boss us around, no más. They´re His guideposts for us to be happier. Anyways, I was reassured of that, and Dihana and I said a closing prayer with him in which I prayed that Mario could understand that we CAN help him with his problems. Mario may not have felt the Spirit--maybe he did--but Dihana and I sure did, and we left feeling happier for having shared our testimonies.

The rest of the day went perfect. We visited a lot of menos activo members and they were a lot more open with Dihana there to share her personal experiences about being a member in Mariano Roque Alonso. We also had success finding new investigators to teach, which Hna. Tua´one hadn´t expected me to do without her. She was very impressed, and by the end of the day I felt confident that someday I will in fact be able to be a Senior Comp. :) It was a really great day, and we have plans for a branch missionary to come with us every day this next week so that should really help us a lot.

As for me personally, I´ve reached Mosiah in the Book of Mormon. I love how the prophet Enos must have had so many amazing life experiences, but the one that he found most important to put in the records was his experience with prayer. I love how when God assured him that He forgave him of his sins, Enos immediately felt happier because he knew that God will never lie. I love how even after having been relieved of his own burdens, he continued in prayer in behalf of his people, and then in behalf of his enemies. I also really enjoy the story of King Benjamin. The part I recently read from his speech to his people is about how good leaders should work for their own support and not ask for the people to give them money. He was also confident that he had been a good leader and wouldn´t have to answer for the sins of his people because he´d done all he could to never permit his people to sin against God. Enos, too, said something about how he was excited to face God with a clean conscience. How many of us can say that?

When I was with Dihana, she chose the opening hymn in a lesson and picked "Count Your Blessings." At that point I wasn´t sure what I wanted to share with our investigator, so I looked at the footnotes of the hymn and opened to the reference there--DyC 78:17-19. That´s now one of my favorite scriptures--about how we have the understanding of little children when it comes to us knowing what amazing blessings God has in store for us. We don´t have the faith to live our lives problem-free, but we can be happy knowing that God will guide and bless us as we learn and grow. We need to be grateful for all that He has given us and do all we can to draw closer to Him so that we can have more and more happiness. God gives us riches after He knows that He can trust us to use them for the good of others. If we have God, we have EVERYTHING. 

Y...eso no más. :) It´s been a good week. It´s been a good mission. I´m very happy with how things have been, and I´m excited to see how much better things get. I hope you all are counting your blessings and doing all you can to draw closer to God so that He can help you with all of life´s challenges. Never forget that the blessings are always there waiting---we just have to reach out and take them. 

I love you all. Have a great week! 

---Hna. Springer

Week 29 - Asuncion Paraguay - Mariano Roque Alonzo

Dearest Familia,

Thank you Dad, Mom, Laurel, George, Goompa, Nana, Grandma Springer (and Teresa), Sarah, and Ashley for your e-mails and the fun pictures this week. I feel so loved. :)

I just spent almost my whole hour writing individual e-mails so I´m sorry if this one is short and/or makes no sense. And sorry if I´m not very descriptive or interesting. How about next week you guys send me some questions so I can know what would interest you?

The weather here in Paraguay continues to be completely unpredictable. Earlier this week it was beautiful and sunny. Then later it got too hot. Then towards the end there was a wind so strong we could barely move if we were walking into it. Then, of course, on Sunday it poured rain AGAIN! Is that crazy or what? Two weeks in a row where every day leading up to Sunday is just perfect for church attendance, then WHAM! Apparently people here need to learn to humble themselves and go to church no matter what the weather, and THEN the weather will be perfect to go. We actually had pretty good attendance this week, though, compared to last week. Hna. Tua´one and I successfully got two VERY menos activo families to come. They hadn´t come in so long that the Elders (and many of the members, sadly) thought that they were new investigators, not old members. We were very proud of them for coming. 

But yeah, the rain was a mess yesterday. It poured so hard that after we dropped off some members and had to make our way back up the hill to home, it was like climbing a waterfall. The streets literally become rivers. There´s no dry path to be seen, and if you´re not careful you´ll get swept away. Thanks to boots and buses, we manage to get from place to place just fine, but Paraguayans are not very willing to leave the house when the neighborhood is in such a state.

Today marks one year left of being a missionary. Accordingly, I´ve made several "New" Year´s Resolutions. Mostly I want to become a much better listener. Hna. Tua´one often calls me a space cadet because I tend to zone out during lessons. :) She and I also started jogging as a new goal for exercise, and I want to read the entire standard works in Spanish and learn to bear my testimony in Guaraní before the year is through.

I feel like I´ve changed a lot already, though. I´ve especially become a lot bolder than before, thanks to having my testimony challenged so much by misunderstandings and just blind prejudice with some people we contact. Hna. Tua´one thinks I¨m going to become a lot more violent, too, because lately we´ve been working with a girl named Isa. I think I mentioned her in like my first e-mail from Paraguay. Anyways, she´s a newer convert and she likes to come do lessons with us, which helps us a lot in completing our goals. She´s cool for the most part, but sometimes she gets into these temper tantrums. One minute she´s smiling and helpful in Gospel Principles, the next she´s throwing her book and storming out of the room saying, "i´m never coming back!" Anyways, she´s taken a liking to me, and this means that she punches me a lot because she likes to play "Slug Bug." So I play, too, and at first I was really whimpy with hitting her, but since she never holds back, I´m getting a lot better at punching. Not good, I know. :) 

We got to watch "The Testaments" twice this week. I LOVE that movie! First we watched it with the Flia. Granado for FHE on Monday, and then on Tuesday we had another FHE with the Flia. Bogarin. Last week, in parting, we´d asked the nonmember dad of the family if there was something we could do for them. He said, "Make us dinner!" We laughed, an he was like, "No really. You asked what you could do. If you´re good missionaries you´ll make us dinner." He likes to tease us Mormons. So on Tuesday we went to their place an made tacos for them. They loved it. Hna. Tua´one knows how to make home-made tortillas and they are super good. They also really liked the movie. None of them had ever seen it before, an I was especially happy for how entranced the oldest Bogarin was. He´s 18 and was planning on serving a mission when I first met him, but lately he´s been having doubts. He couldn´t take his eyes away from the movie, even when his dad came home and started teasing us again, and in the end his eyes teared up as Hna. Tua´one and I burst into tears (I can´t help by cry every time). We really felt the Spirit together, and I now feel a lot closer with the lot of them.

So far this has been a perfect Change. We met our goals every day this week, too, and we had some great quality lessons. With Rosana we talked about the living prophet, and she almost cried as we told her how much our lives have been blessed because of God´s guidance. She loves reading the scriptures. Mario is also doing well. Before we could even mention church, he told us that he´s planning on coming with us next week. We read the testimony of Joseph Smith at the beginning of the Book of Mormon the other day, and he really liked it. I honestly think he believes it all.

He´s so funny, though. I wish you could all meet him. Whenever we go over there, he knows that I´m the shyer one and that Hna. Tua´one is the one who always tries to communicate and get him to do stuff. So when we show up, he arranges the chairs so that he sits next to me and far away from Hna. Tua´one. Then he vents to me while Hna. Tua´one is trying to get his attention. Whenever he sees her mouth move, he just says, "Shush!" and goes on. And when she gives him a piece of paper with info or an invitation or something on it, and he´s not done with his story, he´ll just hold onto it and not read. If she tries to take it back, he pulls it away. He´s very controlling, but can you blame him? It must be hard being deaf.

Shoot, I´m out of time. I had other things to tell you about but they´ll have to wait until next week. Sorry. I LOVE YOU ALL!!

---Hna. Springer

Week 28 - Asuncion Paraguay - Mariano Roque Alonzo

Hola mi familia!!

I love Mondays. I love getting to write to you and read your e-mails and hear about life outside of Mariano. Thank you Grandma Springer, Dad, Mom, Sarah, Ashley, and Amanda for your e-mails this week. You make my weeks so happy.

Not that life isn´t awesome here in Mariano. Seriously, it´s been amazing lately. First of all, as I predicted, I´m still here with Hna. Tua´one! Yay! I knew I wouldn´t leave. Everyone kept telling me I would but I never felt like it. Now i get six more fun-filled weeks with my awesome companion. Then, yeah, I´m pretty positive I´m out of here. Funnily enough, nobody changed in our whole zone. Everything is exactly the same. It´s kind of weird, but luckily we all love each other.

We had SUCH a great week, the two of us. We made goals for this new Change and we put all our effort into achieving them this week. For the first time in my history as a missionary, we met our goals every single day. It was so hard but so worth it in the end. Today we got to report our numbers to President and feel like a million bucks. 

There were two days in particular where everything just went perfect. First was Wednesday. We´d been going from investigator to investigator all afternoon and they all lived far apart. We were dead tired, but we still needed to find two new investigators to meet our daily goals, and we only had about an hour to do it before our next cita. Finding news is SO hard and often very discouraging. And at the time we were in one of our least friendly areas. So Hna. Tua´one said, "Alright, if you feel like we need to go to a certain house, go for it." We´d only been walking for a few minutes when she suddenly veered off the road and clapped at the only house with an open door. The woman inside was Catholic but ended up being really humble and polite and said we could come teach her anytime. One new down, one to go. It was my turn to do the finding. We wandered around a bit more, not really sure where we were headed. Then we passed a house with a little salon in the front. There was a little kid playing in the yard, and it was the first sign of life we´d seen on that street. I felt compelled to go and clap it. I wasn´t sure if I was allowed to contact a business, but I made myself clap before I talked myself out of it. Hna. Tua´one confirmed, "You can´t clap here! It´s a business!" but then the woman who came out, as soon as we told her who we were, opened her gate and said, "Bienvenidos!" with a warm smile. She was so great. She loved our singing. She loved our pamphlet. She loved the fact that we´d given up school and such to come serve in a strange country. She loves God. New investigator number two found. We only clapped two houses, and both were exactly what we were looking for.

Then there was yesterday. After all of our hard work with a record nine progressing investigators, it POURED rain Saturday night and Sunday morning. Paraguayans don´t go to work or school when it rains, let alone to church with virtual strangers, so all of our investigators (and most of the members) flaked out on us. All of our attendance goals failed and our baptism dates fell (they need to come at least three times before baptism), so we were bummed. I was especially sad because I gave a talk yesterday. I spoke about families--our mortal family unit, our branch family, and the human family, and how we all have an important role to play to help all of our spiritual brothers and sisters make it back Home. I enjoyed preparing for it, and I was sad that hardly any of my branch friends were there to hear it. 

Anyways, after church everything went great. The rain stopped (RIGHT after church, of course...) and left a beautiful blue sky in its wake. We got a member friend to come do visits with us and ALMOST get all of the nine with-member lessons we needed to meet our weekly goals. We got five lessons in only two and a half hours. It was awesome.

We only had two and a half hours to go teaching because tonight there was an activity with all the ward missionaries (aka, the youth). It was such a great evening. The youth split into three groups and each pair of us missionaries taught them key doctrines from Lesson 1--The Restoration. Hna. Tua´one taught about the Book of Mormon and prayer. The youth in this branch are so amazing. Almost all of them are converts, and they have such a light about them as they enthusiastically talk about the gospel. We had some fun practices with them, and with the last group we had a mini-devotional. One boy asked why we need a Mediator when God knows everything about us. The Spirit was so strong in the room as we explained how Christ will be by our side during Judgment and be our Advocate with the Father if we´ve repented. The same boy later asked why God blessed Hna. Tua´one and I with the gospel from birth but left the Paraguayans to find the Truth for themselves. We had a powerful discussion about how there are no coincidences in life and how God sets all of us up to be amazing. We commended them for being so much stronger than us--for changing their lives to live the gospel instead of just doing what their parents or friends did. I think they were just as touched as we were.

This week I studied the New Testament a bit. I love reading the Joseph Smith translations, especially in the Sermon on the Mount. There are so many plain and precious things taken from Christ´s teachings. It´s sad. But I´m so grateful that I can read those missing scriptures about how God always gives personal revelation and how we are commanded to be perfect, not just obedient. 

Our deaf investigator Mario still won´t come to church with us, and it frustrates me so much because he keeps saying, "You two understand me, but nobody else will." I try to tell him that we´re just REPRESENTATIVES of the Church. We´re just a teeny tiny piece of the love and understanding to be found in the Kingdom of Christ on the earth. If only he knew that there´s a whole family of kind, wonderful people in the Mariano branch, waiting to accept him with open arms, hearing or no hearing. 

We just got word today that we missionaries won´t be allowed to go to the huge expo going on this month. It´s something i´d heard a lot about from past missionaries, but apparently President Madariaga changed the rules about it when he came. It´s probably a good thing. We hear a lot about how people go into the expo, buy something awesome, and get it stolen from them before they even make it back out the door. I was hoping to blow my money on some souvenires, but it´s probably not the best place for some obviously-well-off American girls to be hanging out. 

Just another random observation before I sign off--reading the Book of Mormon every day of your life is seriously vital if you want to stay active in the church. It truly is the keystone of our religion, and if we can´t feed our testimony about it, the Adversary will have a much easier time of convincing us that we´re wrong. I try to encourage every member, inactive or no, to read the Book of Mormon every day. Every inactive member we talk to tells us that they don´t read anymore, and I have no doubt that there´s a correlation there. 

After being disappointed so many times by inactive members, I´m determined to stay strong in the gospel and always be there to support my leaders and my family. Each member is so important. I just read a passage of scripture about that in the Bible the other day--how the head can´t live without the feet, etc, etc. So true. We need to be strong together.

Thank you so much for being such a solid family and an unconditional support for me. I love you all so much. Sounds like you´re having a great summer, and I´m happy that everything´s going well with you. Don´t forget to write, and read the Book of Mormon every day. :)

I LOVE YOU!

---Hna. Springer

P.S. No nasty bug stories this week, and I can finally wear my boots again now that the sand fly nest is gone. Yay!