January 5, 2015

hola this week was pretty swell. on tuesday i directed my first district meeting. i think it went pretty well. 

My new companions a hard worker so we had a lot of success this week. we werent able to bring anyone to church but we had a miracle. we've really seen the hand of God in our work, and that he blessed us for our diligence and obedience. on thursday we were finishing up our contacts a bit late (like 8 o clock) and we clapped in a house that had lights on, that usually doesnt have lights on. a lady (Sofia) came out, we contacted her and invited her to be baptized and she accepted. she also told us that she's usually only home on weekends, but that she was home that day cus it was a holiday. so we had an appointment for saturday and two members that had said they could accompany us werent able to, (we cant visit women alone) so we went to a family of members (family 1) that lives near her. the dad (who's on the high council) was sitting outside. we asked if he could help us and he accepted. we went, taught a little bit, then asked the member that was with us to testify a bit. he started talking and then she really opened up, more than she had done so before. she told us that she had had three surgerys in two months, and that she was alive cus a missionary (from our church?) had gone and prayed for her, and that she had then decided to join our church. that helped me realize that God has a perfect plan for the salvation of all his children that wanted to be saved, and that sometimes when it seems that things arent working out as we want them to, it's so that they can work out as God wants them to. if the other two members had been able to help us, we wouldnt have gone to the member that did help us, and the lesson wouldnt have gone the same. she couldnt go to church cus she went to help her daughter who was sick, but we went to visit her yesterday again. again, the member that had said he would accompany us couldnt come, so we went to another member family (family 2) that lives close to Sofia, where one of the daughters is a returned missionary. we asked her for help and that her brother or dad could also come. she wanted to but the men didnt. so we said we would go to family 1, get someone else to help us, and then come for her to go all together. in the walk to family 1, we found the daughter of the first member that helped us and her boyfriend. we asked if they could help and they accepted, so we all went. in that lesson i saw how much of a help members can really be in the lessons. we realized that Sofia had attended church before so she can get baptized earlier than the date that we had originally set. so we invited her to be baptized the 17th of January, and she said that she thought she should wait a bit more, but then she turned to the members and asked what they thought. thanks to the members that were there, we were able to resolve her doubt and help her to accept a date for the 17th. (lesson learned: go help the missionaries)

something that i was able to learn this week is that a lot of times when we say a certain time of day or week is harder to work, it's really all in our head and that our doubts and fears impede us from being able to find and teach the people that God wants us to teach in that moment. when we leave behind our doubts and our excuses God can help us grow and learn and work the miracles that he wants us to work. for example a lot of missionaries complain that on holidays in paraguay everyones drunk and dont want to listen to us. in the missionary handbook it says that holidays are great opportunities to find and teach families. we went out on thursday with that in mind and were able to find and teach a lot of families.

we also recieved testimony that the words spoken by Jesus in Matt 10:31 are true, when he said ''ye are of more worth than many sparrows'' and that if God cares for sparrows he'll care for us. on saturday morning the members that we had lunch planned with called and cancelled, and about half an hour later, while we were worrying about what we would eat, another member family called us and invited us to eat with them.

I get along pretty well with my new companion. also with my new housemate.

it's really hot here. also when people speak guarani, i can normally understand quite a bit of what they're saying, which is cool.

Elder Woodfield

December 29, 2014

hola! we had transfers today (theyre normally wednesday but were changed to monday this week cus there arent going to be any flights on new years). Elder Pacheco is on his way home, and my new companion is Elder Paredes. He's from Argentina, is 22 years old, and got to the mission at the same time as Elder Call (who i trained) (so then he currently has about 4 months in the mission). Also i'm a district leader now, which will be a great opportunity to learn and grow. also Elder Barahona (who was my district leader in my 2nd and 3rd transfers) is in the same ward as me, and we're living together again.

so this week was pretty crazy. on monday we went to clean the temple, which was cool, but then we didnt have much time afterwards to do much. on tuesday we had the Christmas activity, in which we played soccer, volleyball, capture the flag, and other activities. on wednesday (Christmas Eve) the district leader called and said that we had to be in our apartment at 7:15 and that after that we couldnt go out. he gave us permission to go buy something to make for dinner, and we wanted to buy some tortillas and some more meat to make tacos (which we had already been planning to make for lunch on friday) but none of the stores in our area had tortillas, and none of their ground beef was very good quality, so we ended up making hot dogs. all night there was a bunch of fireworks going off but i slept just fine. then on thursday we did skype, on friday we went to withdraw money that Elder Pacheco's family had sent him, and on saturday we went to buy a suitcase.

on wednesday everyone was giving us sopa paraguaya, and on thursday fruit salad. it was pretty cool.

apart from that, it wasnt really a very eventful week. we went to teach Marcos again, and he hadnt read and had started smoking again, and this week he didnt come to church again, but we're not sure why.

something that struck me this week was that even when we just went to the temple to clean it, it's still a place of peace and the House of God, and i felt the Spirit strongly while we were there. I know that this church is the Church of Christ, that this work is his work, and that He truly is our saviour.

Elder Woodfield

pictures of me and the life size nativity scene in the temple

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