December 22, 2014

hola

this week was pretty good. we didnt have any investigators in church but a few less active members came again, and we found a few investigators this week that have potential.

Pedro, that we started teaching last week, went out of town for a while. and a lot of other investigators did too.

we had a cool lesson with a guy named Jorge. we had contacted him before but he wasnt home when we went to teach him, but this week we went again and he let us in. he had a ton of questions about all sorts of stuff, about Adam and Eve, the plan of salvation, baptism, and a ton of other stuff. We answered every question he had with a scripture from the Book of Mormon, and after the lesson, we offered to give him a copy and he eagerly accepted, saying ''i had a ton of questions and you answered all of them with this book, sí o sí i'm gonna read.'' it was cool cus it helped me to realize a bit more the importance of using the Book of Mormon when we teach, and the importance of actively doing the things that we invite others to do.

also we went on thursday to teach a recent convert, and her son (Marcos) came to listen to us too. he went to church once before, but didnt get baptized cus he smokes. he had smoked one cigarrete that day (he normally smokes 6 or 7), but we left a chapter in the book of mormon to read and invited him to try to smoke less. we went again on friday and he had read, and hadnt smoked more on thursday, and only smoked half a cigarrete on friday. he accepted a baptismal date but he didnt come to church on sunday but we dont know why.

Merry Christmas

Elder Woodfield

December 15, 2014

hola

this week was pretty swell. we decided to change up a bit the way we've been working, and started looking for and visiting the less active members a lot more. we found a few good investigators and a lot of potential investigators.

we found a guy named Pedro whose wife is a less active member. he went to church twice before but didnt get baptized cus he was catholic. we saw the christmas video with him and he accepted a baptismal date for December 27th. we're also hoping to be able to teach their kids and help one or two of them accept Christ in their lives too. he couldnt come to church yesterday, but he had already told us that he wasnt going to be able to go, and he's excited to go next week.

we also found a family that are all members, except one of their kids that recently turned 9. they want us to visit them but we havent been able to teach them cus every time we go, either they're all not home or most of them arent home.

we also shared with a lot of other less active families or went to visit them and invite them to church, and a lot of them showed up yesterday, it was pretty cool.

also on monday there was a fairly comical occurrence. so last week i talked about the investigator who we had in church who only talks guarani. i know enough guarani to set an appointment (or so i thought) so i talked to her in guarani to set an appointment for monday. we went to her house monday with a member, and there was nobody there. she called us and said that she was in the chapel waiting for us. then i realized that i should probably try to improve my guarani a bit. i had set the appointment saying ''ikatu aju ko'eno'' which translates to ''can come tomorrow'' and means ''can (we) come tomorrow'' (when we're at someones house asking them). but since we were in the chapel when i asked that, it meant ''can (you) come tomorrow (here)''. but anyways her house is pretty close to the chapel so we want and had a lesson with her, the member taught her in guarani, and on wednesday she moved back to the interior for 6 months.

also it's starting to get a bit hotter, and today we went to Asunción for my companions final interview (he goes home in two weeks) and we ate mcdonalds.

and i think that's pretty much it.

Elder Woodfield

December 8, 2014

hola

this week was pretty great. we had a ton of lessons and found a lot of new investigators, and had one investigator in church.

a couple weeks ago i wrote about Elva, a former investigator that my companion and i had visited. we taught her twice and then she said she didnt want us to visit her quite as often (like once a month). but in the two lessons one of her relatives who is visiting from the interior was present as well. she almost doesnt speak spanish, but she showed up to church yesterday! i set an appointment with her speaking guarani, but neither i or my comp speak enough guarani to teach, so im not sure how we're gonna teach her. 

but anyways this week we basically just went out and watched the video ''He is the Gift'' with everybody. in one occasion we got to a house where we had previously contacted and set an appointment, the guy came out and said he didnt really want to listen to us. we asked if we could go in just for 5 minutes, we saw the video with him, and asked if we could come back another day and he accepted happily.

Agustin couldnt come to church again cus he's having problems with his ex girlfriend, but he's reading a ton in the book of mormon. every time we go he asks us to leave him a chapter to read, then he reads it, and rereads it, and then goes back and reads again chapters that we had left him previously. but he's going on vacation til january so we wont be able to visit him for a while.

on thursday we had divisions, and i went to the area of the District leader, and discovered that two of the siblings of Thalia (who i baptized in my first area) got baptized (she lives with her grandma, and the rest of her family lives here)

it's getting a bit hotter again

also i dont think i ever mentioned that a few weeks ago i ate a chicken heart. it was pretty good.

Elder Woodfield

December 1, 2014

hola

this week was pretty good. the first few days were a bit slow but then things started picking up a bit. we were teaching a bit but not really finding anybody really great. 

then on friday we went out with a member, we were walking around after all our plans had fallen through, and a little kid said hi to us. we decided to contact his house, and his mom came out and went back to grab her keys, to open the gate. we taught about the Atonement and baptism and she accepted a baptismal date but then didnt end up coming to church.

on saturday we were also out contacting and we contacted a guy (Agustin) and let us in and said he had a friend that was a member. we taught him about the Atonement and the Gospel, and he asked us if he could get baptized again. we explained how baptism should be done and he accepted a date too, but said he wasnt gonna be able to come to church. yesterday we visited him again and he had read in the book of Mormon but is gonna go on vacation for Christmas so he wont be able to get baptized this month.

on friday we had a zone training about the iniciative that the Church is doing for Christmas, ''He is the Gift''. (christmas.mormon.org) we watched the video and talked about everything the church is doing with this, and it was an incredibly edifying experience. the video is quite powerful, and even when we werent watching the video, i felt the Spirit testifying strongly to me that this is the Church of Christ, that the Church exists to grow and help more people become worthy of attaining Celestial glory, and that God is hastening his work in preparation for the Second Coming of Christ. I invite you all to watch the video, think a bit about how you can embrace a bit more fully the Gift that God gave us of his only begotten Son in your lives, and then to share that Gift with others.

Elder Woodfield

November 24, 2014

hola

this week we had someone in church! wooo! a member brought his friend, carlos, who we've taught once. he's gone to church a lot, but doesnt want to accept a baptismal date cus he says he wants to learn more.

also we found a few great new investigators this week. on thursday the other elders here gave us a reference (speaking of that, i dont think i ever mentioned that Elder Pacheco, who was my companion in reducto, is now here in obrero) that a member gave to them. we went to find him and he came out and just let us in, and told us that he had asked one of his friends who is mormon on facebook how he could find out more about the mormon church. said friend lives far away, but told him to go visit her so he could go to church there. he said it was too far, and she said there was a church here too. so he went to church here (during the week) and found it closed but a member saw him and went and talked to him. then we went and he said he wanted to go to church and get baptized, and we had an awesome lesson. on sunday we went before church and clapped a ton but he never came out, and then he wasnt home in the afternoon either so we dont know why he couldnt go but i'm pretty sure he's gonna get baptized. that also strengthened my testimony that the field truly is white and ready for harvest. theres a lot of people that we can find and teach and try to convince that the church is true, and we can spend a lot of time trying to help those people, but there are other people that actually want to get baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, that we just have to find and invite them to do it. so sometimes we teach the people we want to teach and as ourselves why we're not having success, and it's because sometimes the people we want to teach arent the people that God wants us to teach.

on thursday afternoon we had planned to do a service with Martin but he called us during lunch and cancelled, so we had nothing planned for most of the afternoon. we prayed to go out and i asked God to guide us and help us find things to do, and a person that i had contacted 3 months ago who we were never able to teach came into my mind. we went to their house and contacted their mom. we couldnt teach cus there were no men, but we invited her to baptized in the contact and she said she wanted to. then i told her that the devil was going to put obstacles in her path so that she couldnt be baptized. she said she was going to go to church and that we could go to teach her sunday afternoon. she didnt come, and we went afterwards and she said that she had gotten really sick, and then remembered what i had said. so now she's planning on going next week sí o sí, and she wants us to teach and baptized her 12 children (8 of them are adopted)

also on sunday in the class of Elders Quorum we talked about prayer, and how God is so courteous that he's not going to stick his nose in our business and change stuff up unless we ask him too. so i realized that a lot of times when i pray fervently for other people and nothing happens, it's not because i dont have faith or because God's not listening to me, it's because that person isnt praying for or doesnt want the thing that im praying for. so im going to start inviting my investigators to pray so that God will help them to read and go to church and get baptized - cus then God will be able to change them and help them, when it's something that they want and something that they ask for.

also my companion isnt contagious

Elder Woodfield

November 17, 2014

hola

this week we had someone in church! wooo! a member brought his friend, carlos, who we've taught once. he's gone to church a lot, but doesnt want to accept a baptismal date cus he says he wants to learn more.

also we found a few great new investigators this week. on thursday the other elders here gave us a reference (speaking of that, i dont think i ever mentioned that Elder Pacheco, who was my companion in reducto, is now here in obrero) that a member gave to them. we went to find him and he came out and just let us in, and told us that he had asked one of his friends who is mormon on facebook how he could find out more about the mormon church. said friend lives far away, but told him to go visit her so he could go to church there. he said it was too far, and she said there was a church here too. so he went to church here (during the week) and found it closed but a member saw him and went and talked to him. then we went and he said he wanted to go to church and get baptized, and we had an awesome lesson. on sunday we went before church and clapped a ton but he never came out, and then he wasnt home in the afternoon either so we dont know why he couldnt go but i'm pretty sure he's gonna get baptized. that also strengthened my testimony that the field truly is white and ready for harvest. theres a lot of people that we can find and teach and try to convince that the church is true, and we can spend a lot of time trying to help those people, but there are other people that actually want to get baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, that we just have to find and invite them to do it. so sometimes we teach the people we want to teach and as ourselves why we're not having success, and it's because sometimes the people we want to teach arent the people that God wants us to teach.

on thursday afternoon we had planned to do a service with Martin but he called us during lunch and cancelled, so we had nothing planned for most of the afternoon. we prayed to go out and i asked God to guide us and help us find things to do, and a person that i had contacted 3 months ago who we were never able to teach came into my mind. we went to their house and contacted their mom. we couldnt teach cus there were no men, but we invited her to baptized in the contact and she said she wanted to. then i told her that the devil was going to put obstacles in her path so that she couldnt be baptized. she said she was going to go to church and that we could go to teach her sunday afternoon. she didnt come, and we went afterwards and she said that she had gotten really sick, and then remembered what i had said. so now she's planning on going next week sí o sí, and she wants us to teach and baptized her 12 children (8 of them are adopted)

also on sunday in the class of Elders Quorum we talked about prayer, and how God is so courteous that he's not going to stick his nose in our business and change stuff up unless we ask him too. so i realized that a lot of times when i pray fervently for other people and nothing happens, it's not because i dont have faith or because God's not listening to me, it's because that person isnt praying for or doesnt want the thing that im praying for. so im going to start inviting my investigators to pray so that God will help them to read and go to church and get baptized - cus then God will be able to change them and help them, when it's something that they want and something that they ask for.

also my companion isnt contagious

Elder Woodfield

November 9, 2014

this week was a bit slow. we had to go to the hospital a couple times for my companion, and on thursday we had a zone training, so we didnt have quite as much time to work as normal.

but anyways it was hot this week, and the most exciting things that happened were last monday, and yesterday. on monday we went to contact a reference that a member from another ward had given us, of a family whose daughter was supposedly possessed with an evil spirit. we went and visited them, but the daughter didnt want to come out. but we taught them and left them a book of mormon and it was interesting. then after that lesson we had a family home evening scheduled with an inactive family that we had found the week before, in the house of a relative. we went and found their apartment building, and there were people moving out, with a big truck full of stuff. i thought to myself ''oh hey there's somebody moving. it's a good thing we have a set appointment and that it's not the family that we're going to visit.'' then we rang their bell and they came down and said that they were, in fact, moving. their next door neighbor is getting into black magic stuff, like reading cards and stuff, and is talking to the kids of the family too, so they decided to move. so then we were walking around with nothing to do, and we saw a guy (Mariano) enter into his house so we decided to contact him. we ended up going in and teaching him. he visited the church a few times a long time ago, and accepted a baptism date. but then he couldnt come to church yesterday cus his sister went to the hospital. on thursday we went to visit the family with the possessed girl again, and when we got there we found Mariano there too, so we taught him and Irma, who was the most interested out of the three people that we taught in that family, and he actually helped us teach Irma about baptism (not everything he said was completely correct, but it was still pretty cool).

on wednesday we ate lunch with Martin and Giseña, and they said that they had talked about getting married, and were thinking that December would be a good time. we told them that there's gonna be transfers next week and they said that they were gonna think about getting married earlier (this saturday), but when we went saturday they werent there and Giseña's still pregnant so they didnt come to church on sunday, so we're not sure what they decided on.

and then yesterday we were out proselyting and all our plans fell. in my second week in this area, when i did divisions here, i didnt really know anybody so we spent a lot of time just looking for inactive members and we talked with the secretary of one but after that i forgot when she had said that we could find the member home, so i never went back. then when we found the other inactive family last week that we had the family home evening scheduled with for monday, we talked a bit with him about music and playing piano in sacrament meeting. his daughter plays piano, and i mentioned that we were looking for someone who could play piano in sacrament meeting after i'm gone, and he said that in that family who i had previously looked for there was another girl who also played piano. so then they came to my mind on sunday so we went to visit them. Maxima (the mom) came out and greeted us warmly, and invited us to come in. we asked if there was a male older than twelve and she said her son had just turned twelve on thursday! it was pretty cool. so we went in and ate cake and had a cool lesson. we invited them to come to church on sunday, so that her son could get the aaronic priesthood and pass the sacrament and her daughter could play the piano. 

and i think thats everything exciting that happened this week. chau

Elder Woodfield