De TODO un Poco

¡Hola familia y amigos!

Holy cow... where to begin. This week was pretty rough for us. From not having water in our apartment for 3 days, to getting pique in my toe (again), to collectivos breaking down on us, and even my faithful Iron-man watch literally falling off my wrist, it seems that everything has passed us this week. There were various moments where I just wanted to give up, collapse in my bed, sleep and then start over the next day- however somehow I didn't (with some help and self-motivation from Hermana Noorda) and I learned a great lesson.

On Thursday we had a multi-Zone Conference where President McMullin and Hermana McMullin gave their goodbyes and final testimonies. I had the chance to sit and reflect on the life of the Savior a little more and felt the spirit helping me realize our problems are so small. Christ suffered everything and did so with love and long-suffering. Our challenges this week have been fleeting, who am I to complain? We also received the General Conference revistas (finally!) and I read two talks from the Women's conference that changed my perspective. In the talk by Cheryl A. Esplin she gave account of a lesson example using a mirror and a window. I have found this week that the more I "looked in the mirror", or looked on our problems, the more I wanted to give up. However, the more I "looked through the window", or focused on the work and our investigators, the more I was able to forget about what was happening to us and feel satisfied and happy with the day. The following talk, by Neill F. Marriot, helped me realize how I could direct my thoughts even more outward on others and continue to work and become the woman I want to be. At the end of the week Yanina Mongelos was baptised and confirmed and the Mongelos family became a full-member family.

We are grateful fhe McMullins and all they have done for us- during the conference I could really feel their love for us- and are awaiting the arrival of the Evans as our new mission president.

With love sent from Paraguay,

Hermana Carr

Single and Ready to Contact

¡Hola familia y amigos!

Another humid-cold week has come and gone in a blink of an eye. Even though Hermana Noorda is going home in a few weeks we've been putting our all into everyday and that makes time fly.

We've had a great week finding new people to teach, finding and working with menos activos and visiting our recent converts. We were going to have a baptism this Saturday, but Adrianna came down with pneumonia and figured it probably wasn't a good idea to get her wet head-to-foot quite yet in this cold. We're waiting and praying for her recovery.

This week we are looking forward to the baptism of Yanina, another 9 year old from a reactivating, part member family. She is SO cute- will be sending pics next week- and very ready. Yesterday we taught her about tithing, fast and offerings and she told us that she wants to pay her tithing once she gets money. She also told us that she has been reading her book of Mormon and when she prayed to know if it was true she felt super happy and good. This touched my heart- I had a similar experience with the book of Mormon before I was baptised as well. We feel she is ready and we are happy to see her family members so animated for her baptism.

Funny story of the week: So yesterday was "Día de los Padres" here in Paraguay. As with most días feriados, it was a little difficult finding sober people to talk to in the streets. We were about to leave Cuarta Etapa, a distant part of our area, when we decided to contact a girl studying/reading in her front yard. As we were talking to her her intoxicated relatives/family friends came out. One of them had a Spain-spanish accent and came up to us asking if we were from some organization. We said yes, said we were missionaries and he turned around to his friends and said (roughly translated), "Are you guys ready to sign a contract with the monk Mormons?". We then corrected him and said that ours was just a simple invitation to learn more about Christ. He very animatedly accepted a contact card and then skipped to behind his friends to watch as we proceeded to testify a little and extended the invitation to come to church. Afterwards Hermana Noorda and I walked a little ways and just burst out laughing- he was SO funny. We're probably not going to go look for him again, but it was a great contact story.

I hope that your Father's Day was a little more tranquilo and full of great family time. I'm very lucky and definitely have a great Dad who acts as my "sherpa" through life- and, if I was hiking, through the backtrails of Yosemite and the Western USA (He's currently on an insane backpacking trip from what I hear). Mateo 7:7-11

With love sent from Paraguay,

Hermana Carr

Camping in Skirts

¡Hola familia y amigos!

This week has been an awesome one.

Hermana Noorda and I are still working a ton, finding new people to teach and working to help our current investigators in their progression. We've had a few baptismal dates fall and have dropped a few investigators, but we are finding new investigators and still have a good handful of investigators progressing. We are tired all the time, but it's a good tired. We've also had some great lessons this week where we felt edified with our investigators and both of us are decided we never want to leave the mission. (so sad for Hna Noorda)

I've either become accustomed to the heat or it's gotten really cold here because these last few days I've pulled out my leggings, sweaters and coat. This morning we looked at what I was wearing while getting ready and we figured out it was a camping outfit with a skirt - so we took a picture. The mornings are the hardest getting out of bed because it's so cold, but after we come in from running we're fine.

Today we had our Zone activity and we used face-paint to paint our flags and faces and then we played capture the flag. Funny story: So we got to the activity SUPER late. We had to take two collectivos to get to the location of the activity and when we got off the first collectivo we ran into other Hermanas from our zone and decided to go with them because we weren't 100% sure where we had to get off the second collectivo. We followed the other Hermana's lead and ended up getting on the wrong collectivo and having to walk about an hour from Parque Ñu guazu to the Garden Club on the shoulder of the highway road to the airport. It was an adventure getting there, but we made it. We even saw some ostriches (the birds that bury their heads in the ground).

Things are good and we are working hard. I am still loving my matte dulce every Monday night and the chipa wasu members make us. I also made a homemade- experiment soup that turned out great and lasted me the whole week.

Quick thought: This week we studied the Christ-like attribute "Knowledge" and I learned a lot. One of the things that stood out to me most was the principle of learning "grace to grace" like our Savior (DyC 93:13). We don't have to "mess up" to learn from our mistakes, we can diligently search the scriptures and keep the commandments so that we can gain further light rather than falling into deeper darkness to get back to the light. That's the easiest, least painful way we can learn and gain spiritual knowledge.

With love sent from Paraguay,

Hermana Carr

Camping in skirts

The Same Old Same Old

¡Hola familia y amigos!

We've had another great week here in Salado. Changes were this last Tuesday and we found out that I will be "killing" Hermana Noorda (she will be finishing her mission with me :) ). We are happy and excited to keep working hard, keeping the momentum in our area going.

This week was again, refreshingly normal and somewhat slow. Even though it was slow, we've been putting 100% into everyday which lets us feel satisfied looking back. We've been finding a lot of people who are not quite ready to receive the restored gospel. A lot of people are willing to let us share with them, however they are unwilling to pray or read to know if what we share is true or come to church to see how it is. We've heard time and time again, "if God tells me to come to your church, I will". Even though we're not angels dressed in white sounding trumps with giant wings, we are two blonde Americans in skirts with plaques knocking door to door, talking with everyone in the streets inviting all to come unto Jesus Christ through the restored gospel. I think we often ask for revelation and direction in our lives but stay waiting until a great sign or clear vision comes before us when really our Heavenly Father is gently urging us to take a few steps of faith. Once we take make a move He then has the opportunity to correct our path or to confirm our decisions; if we stay put we neither move forward nor give our Father the ability to fully guide us. The more I study, the more I find that humbly and diligently moving forward doing our best to follow the whisperings of the Spirit and staying away from the things that will do us harm (aka following the commandments) is the best way to go. (DyC 98:12, Isaiah 28:10, 2 Nefi 28:30).

On a lighter note, we have a young, progressing investigator named Adrianna. Her older brother returned home from his mission about a year ago and, with his support, she wants to be baptised. Unfortunately her brother lives in a different ward, so he just drops her off and picks her up and we end up having to play parents trying to keep her, their younger brother and her friend in line during church. It's a challenge, but we are figuring it out little by little and are recruiting members to adopt them into their family bench during sacrament meeting.

Working hard and still having great times here in the land of chipa, carne and palm trees.

With love sent from Paraguay,

Hermana Carr