So much to do, so little time

Hola familia y amigos!

Ok. Time is flying and there is not time enough to do everything we do and even less time to tell you how crazy this week was and all of the miracles that passed.

To get some main events of the week down, I will go by days.

Monday: Had a normal p-day, afterwards on the way to a Noche de Hogar we met Isidora and two of her daughters, Monse and Milagros. Due to storms the electricity was out and the water was cut, so they were asking neighbors if they could fill a bucket and some water bottles they had. The daughters were a little embarrassed to ask for water so we, being no-shame, we meet everyone missionaries, asked some people for water and helped them carry the water home. We set an appointment with them for the next day. We met with Natalia, Sedden and Maria, our investigators preparing for their baptism on Sunday.

Tuesday, we helped with a birthday party for some members and it was very fun and there wasn't much cake - but we got hot chocolate. We met with Isidora and her family and found out that they have a lot of faith and told us si o si they were coming to church that next Sunday.

Wednesday, funny story: Sometimes I get really fed up with guys that just say hermosas or preciosas or rubias while we pass by. We passed an old-ish guy that said como se dice amor en ingles? and instead of ignoring him, I said No se un poco, ik spreken de Deutch. I felt bad for lying, but he didn't say anything to us after that. I think being german makes us seem more intimidating - we had a good laugh that day.

Friday we cleaned out the font again, luckily a lot less dirty than the week before, and the bishop got the drainer fixed! So we didn't have to use buckets, we just had a lot of down time in the chapel waiting for it to unload. We did weekly planning and then I got the cable for the electric piano to practice for the choir number we are helping with for Ward conference and when I went to plug the cable in I broke the piano.... I felt so bad. We told the secretario and he ended up fixing it easy, no cost. Phew.

Saturday we filled the baptismal font - no problem. It just took time, nada mas. On our way to the chapel though we ran into Isidora and her daughter looking for a new house to rent - their landlord had called and was kicking them out and they needed to find a new place pronto. We couldn't help them find a house, but we were able to give them a tour of the chapel. Natalia, Sedden and Maria - after much teaching and repassing of gospel principles - passed their baptismal interviews as well.

Sunday was a day of miracles.

First, Isidora and her daughters came of their own initiative - that NEVER happens!!! She also practically bore her testimony during gospel principles class. After church, while we were proselyting before the baptism service, I ran into the Familia Baes - the family I met in Asuncion - who were visiting some family members. Then came the baptismal service. Everything went super well. Lots of members came, we had organized it well enough where we didn't do a lot but run around and make sure everyone had their assignment. Natalia, Sedden and Maria were baptized and clean from their sins, and their mom - who works all throughout the week, including Sundays - was able to come.

Maria suffers from epilepsy and didn't have an epileptic attack until after she was baptized and in the bathroom, out of sight of the members - she just fainted on me. She said if she had to have an attack she wanted it to be after she was baptized. Elder Silva, the Elder that baptized her, knew what to do and she recovered really quickly and was able to hear the talks afterwards without anyone knowing what had happened.

After the baptism we saw that we had three missed calls from Isidora and so we booked it to their house. They told us they lacked 100mil, not much, but enough to cause them to worry and they had to come up with it by Monday, today, to cover the deposit on their rent. They told us their dad just had to come home because he had the money, but they didn't know where he was. As we promised them that they would receive blessings from coming to church and following the commandments, their dad walked in. At the end Isidora said a prayer that brought us to tears. It was a day full of miracles.

It's been a cold week, de hecho, but we've been going well with our gloves and jackets.

I gotta go, I'll send pics next week!

With love sent from Paraguay,

Hermana Carr

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

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

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

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

¡Felices Pascuas!

Hola Familia y amigos!

Happy Easter! Or as they say here, Happy Easters. We had a great Easter yesterday- we ate lunch with the Familia Ramirez, as normal, then we found a menos activa while contacting and she gave us banana-orange juice and torta and then later we had a Noche de Hogar/dinner with Andrea and her kids, a single mom in our ward. That, on top of the Easter candies and grandma's fudge, made us two very full Hermana misioneras. Earlier this week we also made chipa, as is the semana santa tradition, with the Familia Admen. It's been a very fun, junk-food full Easter week.

Yesterday I finished el Libro de Mormon and the spirit confirmed to me that it is true. As a mission we have been marking all of the words "faith", "repentance" and "baptism" to find all of the passages about the doctrine of Christ, but I also added the word "diligence" to my word/verse search, one of the Christ-like attributes I want to improve/develop. I was thinking there would only be a few verses on diligence, however there is a lot of verses on it. As I have been reviewing what I've read and learned I've been working to apply diligence to my work as a missionary. With anything, we can't be the best of the best tomorrow after deciding so today. It's more of an uphill process, little by little getting better and better, working consistently towards our goals that will get us to where we want to be.

On Thursdays I was having a rough diligence day - it was rainy, we'd been walking and contacting without much success and I was pretty tired, just one of those days you're just ready to throw in the towel. As we were heading towards our next visit I randomly thought to take a left and head down a street when we usually just go straight and take a short cut. Our appointment wasn't at a set time so, thinking why not, we turned down the street. Not two houses down I saw Limpia, a menos activa we visited a lot in Juan de Salazar, working at a house in our area. We talked to her for a minute and found out that she got a job and has moved in with her cousin here in Asunciòn! Turns out her cousin lives about a block outside of our area, but it was a great tender mercy to me that day to find her and invite her back to church. We're passing on the reference to the other missionaries and I'm hoping for the best for her! If we hadn't been diligently working we would not have found her or known that she had moved.

I love the Book of Mormon, I know it's true. I've truly come to know my savior and the importance of His redeeming sacrifice for us more than through any other source. Every time I read it I feel this kind of joy that's hard to describe - all I know is I want everyone to feel it and that's why I'm here, to share it. I also know that Christ lives! I am so grateful to know that He lives and is working, more diligently than we can imagine, to bring us back to our Father in Heaven. Hallelujah.

With love sent from Paraguay,

Hermana Carr

P.S. Here are some pictures to give you some insight into my life here in Asuncion.

My ironing board (my comp's bed)

My air conditioning (we call it R2-D2)

My washing machine 

My dryer

My dish washer (just like the one we take camping!)

Temple Day & Sick Days

¡Hola familia y amigos!

On Tuesday we were able to go to the temple and it was amazing. I love the temple so much! I feel the closest to my Heavenly Father in the temple and I am so grateful for these sacred places we have all over the world. It was a great spiritual experience to be able to attend again and after I felt ready to go share the gospel and invite people to have the same experiences I've had.

Sadly, Thursday my companion came down with a bad cough and lost her voice, so we've been in trying to help her recover for the last few days. As missionaries it's a little different on sick days - instead of staying in and having a "Netflix" day, we just stay in, study and maybe watch Meet the Mormons. Thankfully I've got the scriptures, Jesus the Christ and a book about the history of the church in Paraguay to read. The more I learn about Paraguay the more I love this country.

Cool story about the temple and our chapel: The chapel in Moroni was if not the first, one of the very first chapels built in Paraguay. It was built by the members and the missionaries in a central part of Asunción, calling a lot of local attention. Once built, it was used as a meeting house for the neighboring areas/cities as well as those who were here in Asunción. Though the members were few, the Paraguayan pioneers were strong. As the church grew the Moroni chapel was chosen as the grounds for the temple. There was a mansion next door that the church bought as well and instead of tearing down the mansion they incorporated it into the new chapel that sits next to the temple. In 2002, Gordon B. Hinckley and a couple of the Apostles came and dedicated the temple and were impressed by the unique chapel as well as the temple.

I am so lucky I get to serve in an area so deeply tied to the roots of the church here in Paraguay. It's a privilege to add my little bit of service to the countless missionaries that have come through here since the 1950s.

I love you all and hope all is well. We're coming up on Easter and General Conference!!! With regards to the Book of Mormon challenge: Endure to the end! We can do it! Two more weeks!!

With love sent from Paraguay,

Hermana Carr