Temple

HOLA! Como esta mi familia?!

So this week we went to the temple!! It was beautiful and gorgeous and this time I could actually understand what everyone was saying!! (because when I went in the MTC en Mexico I still didn't know any Spanish) So I love the temple and it is gorgeous and everyone`s goal really should be to get to the temple and be married and sealed there as an eternal family!!

So this week has been pretty great! Though now that I`m trying to remember, I have no idea what happened... All the days and weeks just kinda blurr together and fly by really fast now... but I`ll try to remember..

So Monday I randomly got sick. No idea why or how, but i just got sick. So I spent my whole P'day sleeping. Tuesday morning we were able to go to the temple, but on the way home from there, standing up for a long time in the collectivo, I started feeling sick again. So when we got home I slept for a few hours and then we went out and worked for the last couple hours of the night.

Wednesday we had Noche deRama (Ward/Branch Night). I don't remember if I ever told you guys about Noche de Barrio/Rama. But here in Paraguay, they have Ward Night. There aren't usually enough active members to have young women's, young men's, the primary activities, etc, every week. So they just have Noche de Barrio every week, where the whole ward gets together. Usually, it ends up being the guys playing futbol (soccer) super intensely and the women just watching (that's how its been in all my areas so far). But in my first area there were also pretty good at doing an activity for the people who didn't want to die playing soccer. In my second area, not as much, but we were starting to get more organized activities there before I left as well. And here, they also dont really do any other activities, but we are starting it up here as well. So this week we played games and had cake. Not sure yet what we`re gonna do for this week.. we`ll have to think of something... If anyone has super fun, easy to put together activities for people of all ages, please let me know!!!

And this week has been FREEZING! It rains. So its wet, its humid, and it is cold. But hey, we`ve still got a month until the real cold starts, so that will be fun. I will say I have learned the wonderful concept of layers. I never believed that before, but I`ve tried it here and it is the only thing that will save you. I just miss having heating systems in the houses....... haha sorry, started daydreaming for a second there.. I`m back.

Anyway, my fingers and freezing and my time is up. I love you all to death!! Sounds like you are all having fun swimming and mission and DC adventures!! I wish you all well!!

Love you
Hermana Urie

Paraguayan Independence Day!

Alright, so I sent lots of pics so I don't have a lot of time, but I love you and have a good week!!!

Love, Hermana Urie



.... haha just kidding :)

But really this actually will be pretty short.
So this week was MOTHERS DAY!!!! Loved talking to you all! And here mothers day is always the 15th of May. So we made some brownies and took them to all of our favorite moms here in Ità. So mothers day here is kinda big. No one goes to school or work, every travels to wherever their mom is, and everyone is inside their houses with the fam- as in practically every store and market thing is closed that day. The town felt so deserted it was like Semana Santa all over again!

Also, the 14th of May is Independence Day, where everyone is out in the streets and celebrating- so big contrast there. We saw the drum lines and dancers and fun stuff in the park. It kinda reminded me of Oak City days :) Oh and apparently the crocodiles I saw before were the babies, I found the bigger ones this week!

Anyway, sorry no more time! But I hope you all enjoy the pics and your crazy lives and know that I love you!!


Hermana Urie

Beautiful Paraguayan sky (way better in person than on a camera, but hey, what can ya do)

Me and my comp in our area!!

Paraguay Independence Day!! (May 14th)

 Dancers for Paraguay Independence day!!

Drums for Independence day!

Procession thingy for Independence day!

Lucy got baptized!!

This picture is just great.

My area!!! Okay, so only half my area is like this. the other half is regular town and houses and stuff.

My CCM (MTC) trio, together once again (during changes we all found each other)

So remember how I said this crocodiles were super small... I may have lied just a bit..

Half-way through...

Hola from Ità, where the crocodiles run free

Hello from Ità!

So I got transferred to a new area and I am now in Ita. It`s kinda like a small town out in the middle of nowhere. I`m not longer in the main city. Ita does have a little "main street" type of area that you would call "downtown" but it very quickly becomes campo (field/out in the middle of nowhere), so we`ve got the best of both worlds here.

Ita is beautiful and I already love it here. They actually have some sort of community clean up system going on here, so the streets are pretty clean and nice- a bit different than I`m used to. Oh and speaking of the streets, there are actually real streets here!! You know, like flat concrete streets with lanes and everything! (once you get to the outskirts of town you go back to the classic rocky roads of Paraguay, but we are usually in the city). It kinda reminds me of the United States. There is also a beautiful little lake thingy (called la laguna) with crocodiles in it!! I`ve only seen one once so far (and don't worry mommy, they are small and there`s a fence that goes all around the lake so they cant get out and DON'T run free- haha, tranquilo`pà :)  ) But we go running around the laguna practically every morning, so its great.

My companion is Hna. Walker. She is from New Jersey and she is amazing!! I love her so much already! But we are probably only going to have 1 cambio together because this is her 4th cambio here already (which will make 6 months here in Ita). She is so loving to all of the people and has such a strong testimony. I really love teaching with her. She is 20 years old, about to turn 21 in May. She is awesome! And other good news... remember Hermana Thacker (one of my companions in the CCM)? She is now in my district!! Super excited about that!

So our investigators here are awesome. There are so many prepared people here, its super exciting! and the members here are all amazing! I already love them so much!

So funny experience last night. We went to a house to teach an investigator, Victor, (the husband of a member). And before he didn't want to know anything about the church, but now his heart is softening and he really wants to follow Christ and go to church and get baptized (and he`s the one that keeps bringing up baptism, not us). So now to the funny part. We were over there to teach a lesson, and they have a parrot. So while we were talking to them, the parrot crawled up onto my shoulder. So I was just teaching with a parrot on my shoulder. haha its paraguay! and then later I felt super sick and almost fainted, so we called a member with a car to come take us home, and I went to bed and woke up in the middle of the night and threw up. So that was fun. Today I still feel a little tired and sick, but its P-day so we are gonna rest a lot. Apparently there is some bug going around. Who knows...

Anyway, I am tired and hungry, so I`m gonna end this now. But I love you all tons!!!!

Love, Hermana Urie

The Perfect Investigator

¡Hola famila!

I am finally writing a letter! My companion es sick & taking a nap, so I’ve got a bit of extra time.
So I said I’d write about one of our investigators from La Floresta – Leticia (Lety). She is AMAZING. So here’s the story.
Remember the story I told about how we found a girl on day as we were getting ice cream at Amandau (best ice cream place in Paraguay). She was the worker & she had found a pass-along card with a picture of the Salt Lake temple & started drawing it. Well her name was Lorena. We taught her once & then never could find her again (she got a different job). But we kept going back & trying to find her, but it was always this other worker guy – and finally he figured out she had a new job & wasn’t coming back, and he told us, so we invited him to church (yes – classio missionary response, right).
Anyway, a couple weeks later (we had talked to this guy in passing a few times now – really nice guy) but he hadn’t come to church yet. So we decided to pass by & invite him again (& get some ice cream while we’re there, of course). BUT, he wasn’t working that day – it was some other girl we’d never in anyway. And we started talking to her, got some ice cream & sat down, and she came & sat with us. And we started talking to her about churches & Christ, etc.
She said that she had been in the Catholic church growing up, but she left because she realized that in the Bible it says ‘Thou shalt not have any gods before me (God)” & that we shouldn’t make or worship images, which is what the Catholic religion does, so she left. Then she went & looked at a couple other churches, stayed for a while, but again, ended up leaving because she didn’t find what she was hoping to find in the church. Basically, she was searching for the truth.
We shared the message of the Restoration. She was prepared. It was amazing. In the next week we managed to go to her house & teach her mom a couple times, but we could never find her because she was always working at the other Amandau location, which is not in our area. But finally on day about 10 days after that first time, we decided, hey let’s go try again & see if Lety is working here today. So we went & we found her.
She was really busy at that moment so we sat down to wait, but people kept coming in for ice cream. And then we remembered that we hadn’t brought a Book of Mormon. Well, we lived really close, so we decided to go get it while she was busy with customers. So we left, come back, & sat down again. She was free now, so we taught her a little about the Book of Mormon, talked about church, etc. And then she told us that something strange had happened to her. The day before she has been working in our Amadau, and she thought maybe we would pass by (because the other worker guy had told us she might be working that day) but we hadn’t stopped by. And that night as she was falling asleep, she remembered us. So she prayed to God, and asked him, that if this church was really the right one, that we would come the next day at some specific time. Well, we did come that day – the 1st time a little too early. But remember that we left to get the Book of Mormon & came back – and that time it was at the exact right time. So she was like “Okay, I’m definitely coming to church this Sunday.”
That happened Friday night. Saturday we taught her again. And Sunday she came to church. She even called us in the morning and asked us if we were coming (because we got there a little later than we said we would). So she went to church, and that night we stopped by again & had another lesson with her & we brought a member. And he asked her how church was, & she said she really liked it – That she felt something that she’d never felt before in any other church or anything. She said she didn’t know how to describe it except to say it was a feeling of peace. And that she’d just felt so happy & peaceful all day. She also said that she knew that since she was doing the right thing that the enemy would be right there trying to distract her, but that she wouldn’t give in because she knew it was right – she knew where she was going. The lesson was so amazing and the spirit so strong. We invited her to get baptized on the 10th of May and she accepted.
She is really amazing and prepared. She basically bears her testimony to us in the lessons – how she believes in present day prophets & Joseph Smith, that the Word of Wisdom is good because those things (including coffee) aren’t that good for your body, that the Book of Mormon is true & necessary to clarify & support the Bible & because there were people here in America as well during that time & God loves us all, et.
I would not be surprised if she became a missionary. Seriously – she’s already inviting her family & friends to church! So perfect investigator – and I got transferred…
But I’m already in love with Itá (my new area) & the people here, and I have faith that she’ll be baptized, even though I won’t be able to see it.
But I’m out of time, sorry no literary endings. Love you!

<3 / Hermana Urie

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

Scarves and cigarrettes..

So this week has been fun. It`s finally starting to get cold!! yesterday we were FREEZING and wearing our jackets and scarves and stuff. It reminded me of October in Utah :) But today is sunny and hot once again.. very short-lived. But apparently that's how its gonna be for the next 2 months (hot a few days, cold a few days). And let`s be honest, its only really about 50 or 60 degrees, but compared to our 115 that we had from December to March, its pretty cold.

Answering mom`s question about cambios. You are right, it is about time for cambios, but not till next week on Wednesday (and I wont know till that Tuesday) so I won`t be able to tell you about it for 2 more weeks. But I have been here in La Floresta for 3 cambios now, the last 2 of those with Hermana Murguia, so I`m probably leaving and she`s gonna stay another cambio (but you never know). I`ve really come to love the ward here, so it`s gonna be sad to leave when I do. And we`ve been finding tons of awesome people this week that are basically golden, so I kinda wanna stay for them. But that's what happened right before I left Reducto (my first area) as well, so who knows. Igual, no mas. I`d also like to get to know somewhere new though. So I shall go wherever the Lord wants me to go and I shall do it with a smile and a cheerful heart.

So we are working a lot with Jose Luis this week. He`s having some hard trials comin his way. First of all, last week, his sister died. So he left for a couple days to go to her funeral. Apparently all his siblings have passed away now except for one brother, who has Parkinson`s. So we shared a little about the Plan of Salvation, but we didn't go very deep because he was leaving to go to the funeral and we were without a woman so we couldn't have a legit lesson, but we talked to him a little in the street. Then he gave us a pack of cigarrettes to throw away for him. That's happened a couple times the last couple weeks. The first time we caught him with cigarrettes, we made a trade- the cigarrettes for an apple. He agreed, and then later gave the apple to a little kid that was hungry. So good trade overall. Get rid of the cigarrettes and serve a child.
Then yesterday was some more drama. We were on our way to Jose`s house when we found him on the corner. He told us his son was over by his house and that we should go ask his son where Jose (himself) is, and see what he says. So we are like... "um okay, why not.." We went over to his son and his son`s friend and started talking to them. And his son started telling us how they have lots of problems in the family and the problems that he has had with his dad (Jose) in the past because of his drinking and such. We tried to tell him that his dad is changing little by little and that we just have to keep having faith and being there to support him and such. And after a while of us talking, Jose comes up and starts yelling at his son, so his son is basically like "I told you, you cant reason with him" and drives away on his motorcycle. And then we had to calm Jose down and try to reason with him and teach him about Christ and how to forgive and be an example and such. Anyway, crazy family drama. Jose knows all of these things. He knows what will help him and what he needs to do- he just has trouble actually DOING it. Though I guess that's how most of us are. That's probably why we learn the same things over and over again, year after year. We just have to learn to apply what we know. Those are the people that will be blessed and received into heaven (see 3 Nephi 12 or 13, don't remember which. But they are both great, so you could just read them both)


Anyway, I`m out of time. But I love you tons!

Hermana Urie