September 8, 2014

this week we had faith and we had a miracle, it was pretty cool. so on thursday we had companionship study as a district and talked about how the success of a missionary depends on the faith of the missionary, and not on anything else (see Ether 12:14-15). so then we were doing everything we could to invite everyone to church and to work our hardest and to not speak or think doubtfully about the people. on saturday we went to visit sergio and we got a phone call from a number that wasnt in our phone. i answered and the person asked ''are you guys missionaries from the mormon church?'' i replied yes, and she asked us to visit her the following day (sunday) in the afternoon. she had told me her name but i hadnt heard it, so i asked where she lived, she told us, and i realized it was Bernardita (previously mentioned in the emails on july 28 and august 4 as the woman we contacted who had a lot of questions). we had taught her on two occasions, one explained in the email of aug 4 and the other was two weeks later. in neither occasion she accepted an appointment to come back, just left us saying im gonna read and when i want to ill get to church. this week we passed by one day and talked to her cousin, told her we were gonna pass by another day but couldnt make it. then she called us and even though she asked us to come on sunday we passed by saturday night to invite her to church. she said she was gonna try but didnt commit (which almost always means no in paraguay). then on sunday she came to church! theres a couple over family history in the stake whos assigned to our branch to help the branch grow a bit more and do more family history and when bernardita got to church the hermana saw that she was new and a bit timid and invited her to sit with her. she had to go right after and cancelled the appointment for yesterday but we're gonna visit her someday this week to see how she liked it. but anyways i know that if we have faith God will work miracles.

but apart from that it was mostly another pretty slow week. on tuesday we met a cool catholic DJ who speaks a bit of english and understood really well the restoration. on wednesday we taught a pastor from another church, and thats always fun. 

on saturday we went and taught sergio, and we went with an older brother from the branch. we ended up having a really long lesson (hour and a half, more or less) where we actually almost didnt talk, but the brother invited sergio to come to his house to keep talking about more stuff so thats pretty cool. sergio believes firmly in the church, he just doesnt have quite enough faith to be able to give up his job on sundays until he has something else for sure. when we left the house on saturday it was hot and sunny and clear but when we were teaching sergio it started getting a bit cloudy. then after we left him it started raining a ton, and everything else we had planned fell through. we basically just tried doing the contacts and passing by a bunch of people we know to invite them to church.

then sunday was a pretty great day. we went and ate lunch after church with my favorite family to eat lunch with and got super full. we went and were doing some contacts and we contacted a family who just said no from their porch. a good contacting tactic in paraguay when its hot is asking for water, as you get the chance to at least talk a bit with the people, so we asked them for water and they brought us sprite which was pretty cool. then we ended up being able to get to know the guy and set an appointment with him. then we went and contacted and taught another family, then we had to rush to another appointment we had. we got there and they were all sitting outside and a few of them were drinking and i just thought dang it theyre not gonna recieve us. so we went up to the gate and said hi and they told us to come in and offered us asado (paraguayan barbecue). we were super full so we didnt eat any but then we taught the whole family the restoration. a lot of them were just visiting (there was a birthday) but we got their directions for the missionaries where they live. when we finished they offered us asado again which we denied, but we did end up eating a bit of cake and singing happy birthday in english. we were in the pictures too so there may be a few pictures of me on an unknown facebook account. so then on sunday we were able to double the amount of new investigators that we had gotten from monday to saturday, and if a lot of the people we taught on sunday actually lived in our area it wouldve been even more. it was pretty cool.

but yeah i know that this is Christ's true church and that God is a God of miracles - today, yesterday and forever.

Elder Woodfield