Monday, April 25, 2016

Wedding planners

Hola familia y amigos!

This week has been CRAZY.

To start out, Tuesday we had changes and I left the Moroni crew to come back to my "birth" zone Luque A, to work with Hermana Noorda in Salado, Limpio. I am sad to leave Moroni - it was a really cool area and my companions and I had some good times - however Salado is awesome.

To start off our week Hermana Noorda and I finished teaching the missionary charlas to Noelia Gauto Benitez, an investigator of about 2 months and on Thursday she had her baptismal interview. Friday morning we came to the capilla to empty out the baptismal font in preparation for Saturday and, get this, the font had floating, rotting mango, orange peels and a living frog in it. WAKA-LA (gnasty in guarani). That night Hermana Noorda and I put up fabrics, blew up balloons and got everything set up for the wedding of Noelia and Juan Fransisco, her marido. We had a great turnout and had more non-members than members show up to the wedding, some of their relatives coming up from Ciudad del Este. It was a great gathering and Noelia, Frans and their three kids were super happy. It's something special to see a family united in marriage.

Saturday morning we participated in a Zone "Rescate" and went to barrios Huiguito and Emboscada to visit menos activos with the members there. Hermana Noorda went to Limpio with Hermana Rodriguez and I got to do a few visits with Hermana Pisco and the members just drove us around in their car to all the visits #PrincessMissionaries.

After we ate lunch as a zone we went straight to the capilla to fill up the baptismal font and do weekly planning - however about 20 minutes after it started filling, the water was cut in the area and we had no way of filling up the font. Noelia came at 3pm to be baptized and all we had was about 1 1/2 feet of water and the water dripping from the faucets that we collected with our water bottles and threw in. Noelia really wanted to be baptized Saturday and had an appointment later that evening, so we went for it. After two tries and having to have her lay down in the font, she was completely submerged and cleansed of all her sins. Sunday she was confirmed and received the gift of the Holy Ghost.

It has been a crazy, spiritually, physically and mentally exhausting weekend - I've had to use skills I never even thought I had #wedding planner - but we did and Noelia is now on the path to Celestial glory. We will be working with her and (hopefully!) her husband more in these coming weeks. We also have some baptisms planned for these upcoming weeks and we are working to help barrio Salado grow and be strengthened.

It's been crazy, but I love it! There's nothing like working for the Lord.

With love sent from Paraguay,

Hermana Carr




Monday, April 18, 2016

Fanta Floats

¡Hola Familia y Amigos!

This week has been crazy!

Everything was normal, slow and going until Wednesday when we had a really cool lesson with a contact we'd made a while ago. Martha lives about two blocks from the temple and told us she'd always been drawn to the Mormons and wants to better her life spiritually. Inviting her to be baptized was the most natural thing in the world - we have high hopes for her and are looking forward to seeing her progression in the gospel.

After a great day Wednesday, we had a few sick days. Hermana Lundberg came down with a flu bug and we were in the house Thursday and Friday.

Saturday we got back out and on our way to our first visits we ran into a group of proselytizing Jehovah's Witnesses. We greeted them and they were all friendly - it just got awkward when we arrived at our first visit who couldn't attend us, then we went to our recent converts house down the street; top-ten mission story: playing leap-frog with the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Later that night we passed by a members house and I met my Paraguayan twin! Cecilia is 14 years old - the familia Ramirez has been wanting to see us together since I got here. Now I see why!

On Sunday we had lunch with Familia Ramirez and introduced the parents to Fanta Floats- with the lack of Root-beer we improvise. ¡Riquisimo!

Changes are coming up on Tuesday and we're anxious to see what'll happen. Whatever happens I'll always have a piece of my heart here in Moroni.

With love sent from Paraguay,

Hermana Carr





Monday, April 11, 2016

Post-Summer Denial: HEAT WAVES

This week has been a crazy, HOT, awesome one.

Coolest things this week: not the climate, a member calling us and bringing a new investigator to the temple grounds for a lesson, showing "Meet the Mormons" at the high school of our recent convert, 5 completely random, new investigators coming on Sunday, divisions with the Hermana leaders.

Weirdest things this week: signs of "witch-craft" going on in the cemetery a few blocks from our house, showering with buckets because our shower only works 1/2 the time, seeing pictures of famous people randomly around town.

This week, as I've studied and prayed, I was reminded of our purpose as missionaries: to share the gospel of Jesus Christ by inviting people to come unto Him. Every now and then we get caught up in the little things and forget that what we do now is a means to an end. (Alma 12:24) Our goal is eternal life with our Father in Heaven and our families- everything that we do now, as directed by the spirit and according to the scriptures, will help us get there. Even after all we can do, we can only get there through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

With love sent from Paraguay,

Hermana Carr




Saturday, April 9, 2016

Hump-Daay

¡Hola Familia y amigos!

This week has been a good one here in Moroni - we've been working hard and we have some new investigators! It makes things go by a little faster and easier when we are working, studying and thinking about current investigators. We've got high hopes and we've got hope at least one of them will progress to baptism!

General Conference was amazing - as always. I received answers to the questions I came with and a few questions I didn't know I had. Along with the new instruction, I received confirmation from the Spirit that this is the true church, Christ's church, and that by keeping our covenants, following the counsels of the prophets and living the gospel daily we will return to the presence of our Heavenly Father with our families.

During the Saturday afternoon session of conference a miracle happened. The power had gone out in Campo Grande, so a lot of people came to the capilla in Moroni to watch conference. A girl came in and sat down on the back row by us and I thought nothing of it. About mid-way through one of the talks she leans over to me and asks, "so, is someone going to talk to us from here or is there going to be a mass or something?". Turns out she always walks by and just decided to follow all the people coming in to see what was going on that day and to see if she could go to the temple. Trying my best to play it cool I got her info and we have an appointment with her next Saturday. She left after the middle hymn and I immediately turned to my companion and told her all about what happened. It was a little harder to focus on the talks after that. Sometimes we have to work and work and work to find new people to teach, but sometimes Heavenly Father sends them to us.

This week I was also able to brainstorm some ideas with our mission president of how we can find new people here in the city. We walk the streets and ring a lot of doorbells, but we're having few fruits from our hours of effort. Taking his suggestions we went to the high school of our recent convert Liz and scheduled a "meet the Mormons" event this upcoming Thursday and Monday. I guess they don't have as many restrictions on talking about religion in school here, so the directora told us we could come in and talk to the students about what we're all about and show the movie "meet the Mormons". We're also going to go to the colleges in our area and see if we can do the same there. I've got a lot of hope and am very excited to get to work on these events and help invite more people in a more comfortable environment to come unto Christ.

Funny stories from this week: while we were sharing with some investigators in the street a man named Alejandro came up and tried selling us perfume from Lady Gaga. Another day, a collectivo full of Olimpia fans on their way to a game started shouting/chanting/singing to us as we walked by in the street. Yesterday at lunch and our dinner appointment glass dishes broke - the one at dinner was so comical I cried laughing - the boy was trying to grab at the dessert before everyone was ready to eat and so my comp pretended to "bite" his hand, he pulled back his hand but did it so fast that it hit his empty glass and it went FLYING, hit the wall and shattered. The look on the boy's face and the face of my comp was priceless.

The heat is doing a comeback- so that's not as great- but other than that everything is going well!

With love sent from Paraguay,

Hermana Carr