So this week... was my last week of training.. what?! yes!! haha. tomorrow they tell us about cambios, if I stay, if I go, if I train... I´m kinda terrified to train I am SO not ready. But if that is what the Lord wants, I guess I will do it. and wednesday morning we switch! Its gonna be weird not to be with Hermana Espinoza and have a new companion, but I´m excited for a new experience. I´ll let you know next week what happens! dun, dun, dun, dun....
And the good news of this week is... OUR INVESTIGATORS CAME TO CHURCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3 of them!!!! One of them comes every week- they´re just waiting for the girls divorce papers to come so they can get married and he can get baptized. and another already knows its true and loves it all, she just needs 2 more times in church before she can get baptized. and the other is diligently searching an answer todavia...uh.. still
We were so excited!! and we found some more menos activos that want to come back to church and have her kids baptized. so we´re gonna work with them too! Well.. whoever stays here will work with them. I don´t wanna leave! And then again I do.. Change is good, and I can have like a new start but with more experience and the ability to actually understand and kinda speak spanish.. but i love the people here and I dont want to leave them! there is more work to be done here in Reducto. I´m so torn... the good thing is I will not be the one making the choice. I will go wherever the lord needs me, and be both happy and sad no matter which thing happens.
Well, thats it. Love you all!!
Talk to you soon :)
Hermana Urie
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Monday, December 9, 2013
Thinking in Spanish
¡hola familia!
alright, time is seriously flying by. in one week i will have been out for 4 months!! what?! yeah, thats loco. it`s basically great here. I was lying in my bed last night trying to fall asleep (unfortunately it still takes me like 45 minutes to fall asleep and i`m basically exhausted every day, but hey, at least i`m not falling asleep in the lessons like i did in that first week). Anyway, i was thinking... in SPANISH!!!! hahaha yes!! unfortunately, this morning i woke up thinking in English. . but hey, it`s coming along.
so i was thinking, and one thing i thought was, i`m gonna be really sad next week if they change me to a different area. I love it here, and we`re finally starting to find people that are ready for the gospel! i love it. i love the mission. it`s wonderful. oh and thank you my dear familia for the package. I have opened the box because i wanted the christmas decorations and the nutella, but the rest of the things are still in their packages, waiting till christmas. If there`s anything important that you want that I open before then, tell me and i will bust open the presents!! :)
So this week in Paraguay.
We were NOT attacked by any dogs this week! success!! but we also didn't practice the rock throwing thing in district meeting.. I was a little disappointed, but hey I`ll probably survive.
So I encountered a sad situation this week. we got the name of a less active family from one of the members this week, so we stopped by to talk to them. we found the mother and some kids outside of their house and started talking to them. and the mom was not at all interested in talking to us. and she started talking about how she doesn`t believe any of it anymore and that we are young and have no idea and no experience and one day we´ll wake up, etc etc. and it basically broke my heart. this woman learned so much, was baptized and everything, and then fell away. and nothing we said made any difference to her. I seriously almost started crying, I just wanted to say, please come back, repent, Christ can help you with all of this!! but she refused to listen. the sad part of missionary work.
but the funny part is that the elders were waiting for us to come to an activity during this and they called us to ask where we were, and hermana espinoza accidently answered instead of ignored and they listened to part of the conversation and told us later.. haha oops.
Anyway, back to spiritualness. so recently was some fireside or devotional or something by Elder Ballard. (I'm not exactly sure, we just go to the quote later on) and he says that if EVERY member of the church reaches out and invites ONE person to come unto the Christ and the gospel before Christmas, MILLIONS will feel the love of Christ this Christmas season. I don`t know the exact quote, you guys can find it, but its so true!! and how hard is that right. one person. and, they may not be a golden investigator and get baptized in 2 weeks. But they will feel the love of Christ in their life!! so I am reiterating that challenge to all my family and friends and whoever else happens to read this. Contact 1 person before Christmas. Invite them to church, to meet the missionaries, to learn more, to come unto Christ. Christmas is the time for miracles.
Alright, Teresa asked a question. No its true we do not have thanksgiving here in Paraguay. and not really any other holidays around this time other than Christmas.... EXCEPT....
Calcupe! hahaha. But as member of the church we do not celebrate this holiday. it is something about the virgin calcupe, its like the `saint` for catholics of Paraguay or something and there's this huge worship thing that happens December 8 in the city cacupe. so half our investigators couldn`t come to church this week because they were in cacupe :/ hey what can ya do.
Anyway, that's all I remember right now.. so love you!! adios!!
hermana Urie
alright, time is seriously flying by. in one week i will have been out for 4 months!! what?! yeah, thats loco. it`s basically great here. I was lying in my bed last night trying to fall asleep (unfortunately it still takes me like 45 minutes to fall asleep and i`m basically exhausted every day, but hey, at least i`m not falling asleep in the lessons like i did in that first week). Anyway, i was thinking... in SPANISH!!!! hahaha yes!! unfortunately, this morning i woke up thinking in English. . but hey, it`s coming along.
so i was thinking, and one thing i thought was, i`m gonna be really sad next week if they change me to a different area. I love it here, and we`re finally starting to find people that are ready for the gospel! i love it. i love the mission. it`s wonderful. oh and thank you my dear familia for the package. I have opened the box because i wanted the christmas decorations and the nutella, but the rest of the things are still in their packages, waiting till christmas. If there`s anything important that you want that I open before then, tell me and i will bust open the presents!! :)
So this week in Paraguay.
We were NOT attacked by any dogs this week! success!! but we also didn't practice the rock throwing thing in district meeting.. I was a little disappointed, but hey I`ll probably survive.
So I encountered a sad situation this week. we got the name of a less active family from one of the members this week, so we stopped by to talk to them. we found the mother and some kids outside of their house and started talking to them. and the mom was not at all interested in talking to us. and she started talking about how she doesn`t believe any of it anymore and that we are young and have no idea and no experience and one day we´ll wake up, etc etc. and it basically broke my heart. this woman learned so much, was baptized and everything, and then fell away. and nothing we said made any difference to her. I seriously almost started crying, I just wanted to say, please come back, repent, Christ can help you with all of this!! but she refused to listen. the sad part of missionary work.
but the funny part is that the elders were waiting for us to come to an activity during this and they called us to ask where we were, and hermana espinoza accidently answered instead of ignored and they listened to part of the conversation and told us later.. haha oops.
Anyway, back to spiritualness. so recently was some fireside or devotional or something by Elder Ballard. (I'm not exactly sure, we just go to the quote later on) and he says that if EVERY member of the church reaches out and invites ONE person to come unto the Christ and the gospel before Christmas, MILLIONS will feel the love of Christ this Christmas season. I don`t know the exact quote, you guys can find it, but its so true!! and how hard is that right. one person. and, they may not be a golden investigator and get baptized in 2 weeks. But they will feel the love of Christ in their life!! so I am reiterating that challenge to all my family and friends and whoever else happens to read this. Contact 1 person before Christmas. Invite them to church, to meet the missionaries, to learn more, to come unto Christ. Christmas is the time for miracles.
Alright, Teresa asked a question. No its true we do not have thanksgiving here in Paraguay. and not really any other holidays around this time other than Christmas.... EXCEPT....
Calcupe! hahaha. But as member of the church we do not celebrate this holiday. it is something about the virgin calcupe, its like the `saint` for catholics of Paraguay or something and there's this huge worship thing that happens December 8 in the city cacupe. so half our investigators couldn`t come to church this week because they were in cacupe :/ hey what can ya do.
Anyway, that's all I remember right now.. so love you!! adios!!
hermana Urie
Monday, December 2, 2013
¡¡¡o´ky!!!
She sy porá, and the rest of my wonderful family as well (see bottom for translation),
Alright, this week... que paso... no recuerdo muy bien. time just FLIES.
So this week we had tons of rain. Going to ward council yesterday was fun. We live like 4 minutes from the capilla. So we left as it was just starting to sprinkle, it got worse, and by the time we got to the church, we were complete soaked. But hey, that's just Paraguay right? Oh and when we came home, our apartment was a little flooded because we forgot to strategically place the buckets, pots, and bowls around our house to catch the water from the leaks. But nothing was ruined, so todo esta bien!
This last week we had a zone conference! And not just like the monthly meeting with the zone. It was at the mission office with like 3 or 4 other zones, and we had a member of the 70 there! Elder Avila, de Argentina. It was so purete!! (Guarani for ´cool´- the missionaries use it all the time here) We learned about being guided in the work by the spirit and doing things the Lord´s way. How he wants it, not how we want it, because he knows better than we do. And then the other half was like major, spiritual pep talk thing. They shared a quote by Elder Holland that I really like that says ¨Salvation never was easy. It wasn´t for Him, it won´t be for us either." (something like that, mas or menos) and how the Lord is with us to bear us up. (it was a lot better than that but I have limited time and writing skills, so I can´t really do it justice right now.) Oh and they shared the thought that dad shared with me last week about how we can´t help people úp the mountain´(to salvation/Christ) without going there ourselves; taking the journey with them, etc. Muy poderoso, muy purete.
Next thing... So we´re having a little difficulty getting our investigators to come to church right now, BUT. tons of menos activos are starting to come back!! And the members are getting more excited about helping out with missionary work, and building each other up and doing home teaching and visiting teaching. So that's good (cuz seriously we have a ton of less actives here-gotta fix that).
Well that´s basically it. Except that we almost got attacked by dogs AGAIN on Wednesday, but I tried the ´pretend to throw a rock at it´ thing and it worked this time!! Elder Oscco (district leader) says we´re going to practice tomorrow in district meeting.. I´m not sure if he´s kidding or serious, but I wouldn´t be surprised if we did. haha
Oh and there are some weird sounding animals here. I´m not sure if they´re birds or frogs or what (did i tell you about the HUGE frogs here?) but its strange. I love it!
Anyway, eso no mas. Love you all hope everything is going splendidly!!
Until next week :)
Hermana Urie
p.s. o´ky (the y in Guarani is pronounced by shaping your mouth like you´re gonna say ´eeee´ and actually making an ´ooo´ noise) is Guarani for rain :)
She sy porá is Guarani for "my beautiful mother". The y is that same "ooo" sound and the á (supposed to be a squiggly line like ñ not ´ but I don't know how to do that on the computer) is really nasally (pronounce up in the nose). This is difficult to explain, find someone who knows guarani to show you! haha love you!!!
Alright, this week... que paso... no recuerdo muy bien. time just FLIES.
So this week we had tons of rain. Going to ward council yesterday was fun. We live like 4 minutes from the capilla. So we left as it was just starting to sprinkle, it got worse, and by the time we got to the church, we were complete soaked. But hey, that's just Paraguay right? Oh and when we came home, our apartment was a little flooded because we forgot to strategically place the buckets, pots, and bowls around our house to catch the water from the leaks. But nothing was ruined, so todo esta bien!
This last week we had a zone conference! And not just like the monthly meeting with the zone. It was at the mission office with like 3 or 4 other zones, and we had a member of the 70 there! Elder Avila, de Argentina. It was so purete!! (Guarani for ´cool´- the missionaries use it all the time here) We learned about being guided in the work by the spirit and doing things the Lord´s way. How he wants it, not how we want it, because he knows better than we do. And then the other half was like major, spiritual pep talk thing. They shared a quote by Elder Holland that I really like that says ¨Salvation never was easy. It wasn´t for Him, it won´t be for us either." (something like that, mas or menos) and how the Lord is with us to bear us up. (it was a lot better than that but I have limited time and writing skills, so I can´t really do it justice right now.) Oh and they shared the thought that dad shared with me last week about how we can´t help people úp the mountain´(to salvation/Christ) without going there ourselves; taking the journey with them, etc. Muy poderoso, muy purete.
Next thing... So we´re having a little difficulty getting our investigators to come to church right now, BUT. tons of menos activos are starting to come back!! And the members are getting more excited about helping out with missionary work, and building each other up and doing home teaching and visiting teaching. So that's good (cuz seriously we have a ton of less actives here-gotta fix that).
Well that´s basically it. Except that we almost got attacked by dogs AGAIN on Wednesday, but I tried the ´pretend to throw a rock at it´ thing and it worked this time!! Elder Oscco (district leader) says we´re going to practice tomorrow in district meeting.. I´m not sure if he´s kidding or serious, but I wouldn´t be surprised if we did. haha
Oh and there are some weird sounding animals here. I´m not sure if they´re birds or frogs or what (did i tell you about the HUGE frogs here?) but its strange. I love it!
Anyway, eso no mas. Love you all hope everything is going splendidly!!
Until next week :)
Hermana Urie
p.s. o´ky (the y in Guarani is pronounced by shaping your mouth like you´re gonna say ´eeee´ and actually making an ´ooo´ noise) is Guarani for rain :)
She sy porá is Guarani for "my beautiful mother". The y is that same "ooo" sound and the á (supposed to be a squiggly line like ñ not ´ but I don't know how to do that on the computer) is really nasally (pronounce up in the nose). This is difficult to explain, find someone who knows guarani to show you! haha love you!!!
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