March 24, 2014

the weather was something else this week. on monday when we were out and about during the day, it was incredibly hot. it rained a little bit and then got hotter because of the humidity. on tuesday it rained a ton. we left our apartment and spent the first hour trying to manuever around all the puddles and rivers to keep our socks dry (paraguay is a labyrinth when it rains), but after a while our socks got wet just from the rain falling on our pants. we went to visit a less active member, and couldnt take the path we usually take because it was a river, so we went in a big circle. as we were going to their house, we were easily able to walk on the streets without any problems, but on the way back 15 minutes later it had started raining harder and we were literally just walking in a river. we had given up on staying dry and couldnt take a step without being 3-6 inches underwater. there's a street in our area where there's a mango tree in the middle of the street, and a big drop down after the mango tree, and usually when it rains there's a river/waterfall of about 5 feet of width and considerable depth on one side of the tree, but on tuesday the river encompassed the entire street and was on both sides of the tree. it was incredible, and i wanted to take a picture, but didnt have my camera. if it rains like that one day on a monday i'm gonna go take a picture. but anways towards the end of the week it started to get a bit cold, especially at night. also there was a time change saturday night so what was formerly 10 pm is now 9 pm, so it's even colder at night and harder to work in the last couple hours before going home. Elder Pacheco's been suffering quite a bit from the cold, but it's not super bad yet in my opinion.

but anyways, we had three investigators in church yesterday. Derlis came without us having visited him at all this week, and sister statunato and her daughter (brother statunato is a member, and they both came to stake conference too). we visited her this week and she said she wants to get baptized but said she doesnt want to accept a date yet, so i'm not sure if she'll really progress very well (that's the same problem we're having with juan, he knows the church is true but doesnt want to accept a baptismal date until he feels more ready, but doesnt realize that he'll be able to prepare himself more easily if he has a baptismal date). (and with derlis, but he just wont accept a date cus he doesnt want to get married until december). 

a couple weeks ago, we did a contact with a couple and set an appointment, but the day that we went it was raining and they had left. this week we were waiting to meet up with a member to visit an investigator and they walked up and asked if we had gone that day, and asked when we could come again. we went a couple times to teach them, but the husband was always sleeping (he works night shift security)  but we finally were able to teach them on sunday. afterwards, the member that went with us (he used to go out with the missionaries a ton) told us about an old investigator, who hadnt gotten baptized cus her boyfriend was in jail, and we went to visit her and taught her and her boyfriend and her mom. the Lord truly blessed us that day, as we were able to find 6 new investigators to be able to achieve the goal that we had set for the week.

there was a zone conference this week too which was pretty swell. Elder Viñas, a seventy, came and taught us about the atonement. i also saw elder barahona, and he told me that three of the investigators that elder chale and i had been teaching got baptized the last transfer! lujan got baptized, yamila (the daughter of a less active) got baptized, and sara (the cousin of diana and yohana) got baptized.

there was a stake training meeting too for all the ward mission leaders and ward missionaries, so we should be able to work more effectively with the members. our branch mission leader is a convert who got baptized in november, and was ordained to the melchizedec priesthood and called as branch mission leader this sunday. he works on sundays but this calling should help him have motivation to get sundays off or find a different job, and he's excited to learn and help more in missionary work.

i cant think of anything else exciting that happened this week, so here you go. enjoy!

Elder Woodfield