January 13, 2014

this week was a week of miracles! i'm gonna start with saturday cus that was the coolest day. we started out going to visit an investigator, but he was busy, so we just contacted while walking towards lunch (every saturday we have lunch with the coronel family, who have been members for quite a while. brother coronel is blind but also super funny and super chill). they always give us pasta with chicken, cus saturday is their pasta with chicken day, and it always fills me up completely. after lunch we went to an appointment that we had set with a contact that we had done. we had talked to the daughter and the mother, but when we got there only the dad was outside (in paraguay all the houses have fences and gates and patios out front and people often just hang out on their patios, and if the person outside doesnt want to talk to you youre not going to be able to get anywhere). i said hi how are you and he said bad; i asked why and he said he needed money. i thought to myself dang it this appointments gonna fall through too but then the mom came outside and invited us in. we sat down and started talking and eventually taught baptism, and they said that they think thats exactly what they need right now. after the lesson we got up to leave and they said ''you're already leaving? arent you going to stay for lunch?'' i was already completely stuffed but said okay and sat back down, and they had prepared asado which is basically just throw a bunch of big cuts of meat on the barbecue, and they put the biggest piece in front of me. it was super good but i could barely eat any because i was already so full. we committed them to go to church and passed by on sunday morning to bring them but they said they were still getting ready. the mom and the daughter showed up 10 or 20 minutes late, and loved everything. the dad couldnt go because of work but should be able to next week. there's a relief society activity on wednesday, and raquel (the 1st counselor in the relief society and the sister of the branch president) told me that graciela(the mom) was more excited for the activity than anybody else. also the young womens program is thriving here (thanks in part to diana and joana) and leticia seemed to enjoy herself too.

The Fonce family (javier, nilda, diana, joana and angelica) is doing well for the most part. we werent able to talk with the whole family at any point this week, as nilda wasnt feeling very well and had to go to the hospital a couple times, but diana and joana are going to all the youth activities and everything. on saturday we tried visiting them and nilda (their mom) asked ''are you going to francisca's house too?'' (francisca's the first counselor in the young womens, got baptized last june i think, and has a super strong testimony) and told us that her daughters were currently there. we went and they were all doing their nails and their hair for church the next day but we didnt realize until we had gone in and sat down. we ended up watching 'how rare a posession', a movie about the book of mormon, and it was cool because in the movie it relates the story of a man who had found the book, read it, and acted on the invitation in moroni 10:3-5, and it described how he received his answer. after diana recounted that she had prayed and felt exactly the same thing, so the movie was like a reaffirmation, and francisca told her testimony and committed joana to pray and ask too (which she did, and also got an answer) they're both gonna get baptized the 25th (likely my last saturday here).

also a part member formerly inactive family came, and said they're going to keep coming which is cool but doesnt really do much for us, cus the dad is a member and all the kids are members but to baptize the mom we would have to marry them, and the dad has a drinking problem so we dont want to marry them for the sake of the kids in case something happens in the future, cus the other area has a situation a bit similar, where a woman got married to get baptized but is now working on getting a divorce and getting her husband kicked out of her house.

we also started teaching a couple teenagers this week who are cool. we had known jorge for a long time but just started teaching him this week, and it turns out he just stopped doing drugs like 6 months ago, and now is working on stopping cigarettes. in the middle of the lesson he brought us his special pipe and taught us how to smoke the drug that he did (not sure exactly what it's called) and then he broke his pipe to show us that he was done with drugs.

we also met axel, who stutters pretty badly and is super catholic. his first question was ''why dont you believe in the virgin mary'' and we explained that we do, we just center our worship in God and Jesus because that's what God commanded us to do, and he said ''i always put the virgin first and then God.'' we explained a lot of things including the correct  manner of baptism, and at the end he said he was really confused because he felt we were telling him the truth, but it went completely against his beliefs which he holds dearly. they both said they were gonna go to church but neither one did, but i think they both just need a bit more help to be able to progress well.

also i have red itchy spots on my feet which is kind of lame but i'm using the foot powder i have and i think they're getting better.

cant think of anything else so pictures:

a lizard jumped on our desk when we were studying, we threw him out the window (he survived)

homemade super panchos (hot dogs)