Hola familia y amigos!
This week has been so crazy random and so crazy long.
Lately we have been having a hard time finding people who have time or are willing to receive us, so we've been walking a lot and doing everything and anything we can to serve and find new people.
We have an investigator named Liz who has been making a lot of changes in her life, including building/moving into a new house and working long hours at work. One night we came by to see if she had time to share, but we ended up helping her move her fridge and heavy cabinets into her new house instead. We are definitely working with our might, mind and STRENGTH hahaha.
We have been contacting a lot of people in their houses and finding all of the people in Juan de Salazar that don't want the restored gospel, so we decided to shake things up and inviting people to Noche de Barrio (ward night). This last Friday we made a sort of walk-through representation of Lehi's dream, and activity I remember participating in when I was in Primary. We had a string set up to lead people through a few rooms and past "temptations" and then a mini-Christmas tree we found in our house at the end for the tree of life. With the help of some of the youth in the ward, people passed by a game of soccer, juice (with salt in it) to tempt them and a "fiesta" right before the room with the tree of life and a small treat. It was fun for the ward members - our investigators thought it was weird - but the spiritual thought at the end was good for them. We had three potential investigators come, which is more than we've been able to meet in over a week of contacting! We are so excited to work with them!
Story time:
One day we contacted a lady and her nephew and she was FULL of questions - we felt like we were being tested - but we love people with questions because that usually means they're ready or might be ready to progress. While we were talking though she told us that in Guarani Hermana is Teletuvi (pronounced like telly-tubby). My compañera and I laughed so hard afterwards - somos Teletuvis! We are not 100% sure if that's the most common word in Guarani for Hermana, but it's still pretty funny.
On Saturday we came back to the house to use the restroom and my compañera saw Hermana Alceivia (our dueña and the Relief Society President) out in her yard with her husband killing two chickens and de-feathering them. We talked to them for a minute and were informed that those were the chickens we would be given to us for lunch the following day. Sure enough, we had a chicken, rice stew/sauce the next day. Only in Paraguay do you get food so fresh you saw it alive yesterday.
Today we went traveling a bit and went to a Ciclovia in San Lorenzo. We rented bikes for an hour and rode around the park's different areas. The bikes were super small and after a while my muscles got tired from trying to ride the bike, so I just ran next to my compañera for half the time. It was a very pretty park, great to stretch my legs and run and I may be going back there again in future changes.
Although it's been slow and going getting lessons and we've been walking and contacting a ton, I have a lot of hope for our area. The members are starting to really get into bringing friends/extended family to the gospel and our menos activos are slowly, but surely coming back to church.
The days are long, but the work is great!
Hermana Carr
P.S. Sorry about pics - the computers we're on aren't working with our cameras. Next week!