Last Week in Paraguay....

¡Hola familia! ¡Les amo muchisimo!

Last week in Paraguay.... (haha)

So Jose Luis did NOT get baptized Saturday.. It was really pretty sad. We`ve been trying to help him so much these last few weeks, and yes he`s been making some progress, so we`re gonna keep trying to help him out, but I don`t know when he`ll get baptized. So Saturday we showed up a few hours before the baptism to make sure he was good and getting ready and, you know, remembered. And he definitely remembered, and was quite excited about it. However, he smelled like alcohol. And we`ve been having some trouble with him with the Word of Wisdom. He knows that he cant get baptized if he`s still drinking, and he really wants to get baptized, so sometimes he lies to us and says that he hasn`t been drinking for the last couple weeks. So we weren`t sure what to believe. So we just kept going with the plans and I was just praying all last week that he really had given up drinking and was changing his life and ready to get baptized... but also that if he wasn't actually ready, that God would do something--put something in our path to let us know or stop us so that he wouldn't get baptized unworthily. And he did. So after we talked to Jose Saturday we walked away and sat down a few houses down the street and just sat there for a few minutes. It was raining, so we just sat there and got wet. It was a really sad moment. But we couldn't just stay there so we got up and went to our other investigators` houses and taught them. Then we saw Jose that night again, and he had definitely been drinking a little bit. It`s just so sad how sometimes people let these things (like drinking or smoking or whatever) ruin their lives. Hopefully he will turn to God and let Him give him the strength to overcome.

Sorry for starting out so depressing. I`ll tell some happy stuff now.
So this week was Holy Week right. So basically everyone in all of Paraguay had work and school off Thursday to Saturday. You think i`m exaggerating.. I`m really not. The streets were fairly empty, lots of people had traveled to the campaña. Friday we were basically walking around a ghost town. Yeah, it was fun. And I guess in Semana Santa the Catholics don't cook or eat meat or anything? I`m not sure, but it has become a tradition in Paraguay that Semana Santa everyone basically just eats chipa and sopa paraguaya (that they cooked Wednesday of course). So Wednesday for the ward activity we made chipa! Yay! I have the recipe, I`ll share it at some point.

Also, Thursday night there was a HUGE rain and thunderstorm. Seriously, the thunder was super loud. It woke us up at like 11:30 or 12 at night, and it was LOUD. It sounded like the earth was being split open or something. Hermana Murguia was like "Hermana I`m scared.." So we listened to hymns until we fell back asleep. Talking to people I guess that`s a normal thunder storm in Paraguay, so that's fun.

And I`m basically out of time but next week I will tell you about cambios! (we don't figure out until tomorrow and then we change and Wednesday) Oh and we have an investigator named Leticia that is basically golden, but I don't have time to tell you about her today, so I`ll write a letter and send it.

Love you!!

Hermana Urie