July 28, 2014

on saturday we had the baptism of Cristina, and her confirmation on sunday. it was kind of lame cus only 8 people came to the baptism (her, her three kids, her sister in law, the first counselor of the branch president, and us) but we got to eat a lot of cake. Paraguay kind of shuts down when its cold, and it's starting to get a bit colder. nobody wants to leave there house. it was even worse cus she's come to all the other baptisms in the past few weeks and seen all the people in all of them and then in her baptism there was barely anybody. but everything turned out pretty well.

kevin and edgar are gonna get baptized this saturday. we havent been able to teach them a whole lot cus of weird schedules and having to work in two areas, but we're gonna visit them a lot this week and finish everything. kevin accompanies us sometimes to appointments where we need another male but i dont think he really pays attention in the lessons but igual he likes helping us.

then for the next saturday we have nelly, whos super prepared. she went to church a lot when she lived in spain, but never got baptized cus she didnt have time. now she wants to get baptized, she just has to get married. also miraculously she's divorced, cus in paraguay divorces are a huge impediment to baptisms. people often get married, get separated, and then get with someone else. then if they want to get baptized they have to get divorced and married again, and divorces are ridiculously expensive. there's another investigator who always comes to church and pays tithing and everything whos not baptized cus shes waiting for a divorce. but anyways it doesnt seem like much but its actually quite a miracle.

not a real lot of stuff happened this week, apart from that. we had interviews with president Agazzani, and the flood waters going down a bit. 

also yesterday we were out contacting and the first 5 or 10 people we talked to rejected us, straight up (which doesnt happen a whole lot here, sometimes you can do 5 contacts without anyone rejecting you when you're lucky). i got a bit tired of that, suggested another house but kept walking past it but my comp stopped and clapped. a woman came out, said she had gone to our church once on a friday or saturday cus she wanted to learn more but it was closed. she started to ask us about Joseph Smith, and then about how we do baptisms, and then about what happens with people who die without getting baptized. the truth of the words of the Lord to the sons of Mosiah rings true - suffer with patience your afflictions and you will be blessed, and be able to bring many souls to repentance.

also when we took the bus to get back to our area from interviews, i saw a member from my first area. she was a recent convert when i was there and now shes a temple worker. half my converts from that area have moved, but the other half are active still and diana is secretary of the young womens presidency! it was pretty cool to hear about everybody.

but anyways everythings going pretty normal in obrero. i feel like this week if we work hard we'll be able to see a lot of miracles, so the next email should be a bit more exciting.