Another great week in Paraguay!

Hey Hey!!! Ok another great week in Paraguay! Gotta love it. So sorry I’m writing so late! We went to Arregua again today for a zone activity! It was a lot of fun! We played some serious soccer and now I am so sore! But I scored 2 goals…that’s right…so it’s all good. Ah and tomorrow we have zone conference which I’m really excited about, but I’m really sad because it’s the last one we’ll be having with President and Hermana Wade… but I’m secretly hoping we get the whole mission together and have a huge conference antes they leave!!! Ah and yesterday Emilio got his patriarchal blessing along with Manu and Rafa. Ahh I was so so excited for him. How cool is that?!! And on Saturday we had a baptism!!! We’ve been working with this girl named Leticia who’s 22 (lol but tells everyone she’s 19…ha she is hilarious) for like the last 3+ months…antes Alcides. But she was always really nervous to commit to baptism because she felt like she didn’t know enough and couldn’t go to church every Sunday because she has to work. Her parents are menos activos (inactive) and we went to her house with Hna Case but never met Leticia and her mom, Rufina wasn’t always all that excited to let us come in and usually said “otro dia” but then after awhile she started letting us in..and we just kinda clicked. Ha she is so funny! She has the best facial expressions (which I love of course) and it’s just really fun to joke with her and she actually ended up going to church with Hna Case and I once or twice and before that she hadn’t been for over 7 months and probably more than that. Anyways one day Hna Remache and I went over to visit her on a Sunday night and her daughter, Leticia, was outside cleaning and she talked to us first and was like hey can I come to church with yall….UH YES YOU CAN…and ever since that we have been teaching her. Lol Leticia is hilarious too, I’ve never met anyone like her in my life; she kills me. We had to teach everything really simply with her for her to understand and feel confident in her knowledge of the principles of the gospel, and then all of a sudden she decided she was ready to be baptized and was just so excited about it and of course so were we! And it’s always funny because in church she’s always participating and she just loves it. And I’m really excited because Rufina has been coming back to church with her and I told RUfina the other day that I wanted to see her with her whole family at church before I leave…I gave her 3 weeks. So that’s our goal. It’s exciting! Ah and that other girl we were teaching, Belen… we went over there and she wasn’t home!! But we went again on Sunday and she was sleeping but her mom was there so we decided to teach her. Her mom is legit. I’m actually really excited for this family! They are so looking for the gospel, even if they might not know it yet. But it’s just awesome because their family is united and happy and complete lol…and there aren’t many of those in Paraguay. Falta the gospel no mas. Ok so we started teaching about the Plan of Salvation and our proposito (purpose) in life and it was all going really great until this man pulls up on a moto…and she tells us it’s her pastor from her other religion that always comes over to read the Bible with her. Lovely. Ha so he comes up and we just continue teaching lol. It was actually really awesome for me. I felt the Spirit so strong and like everyone was listening and attentive (which is not normal either…there’s usually distractions or if it’s a pastor, he is usually bashing us with questions and trying to argue about why our religion is wrong or cualquier cosa) and I just started to testify…testify about the restored gospel of our Savior Jesus Christ upon the earth today, and how we have a Prophet, Thomas S. Monson who guides us through revelation, and we have 12 apostles and the same organization of the church as when Jesus Christ came and organized it, and how we have the priesthood authority of God on the earth today…God is the same yesterday, today, tomorrow, and forever. He loves us and has blessed us with his gospel so that we can return to live with Him and with our families para siempre (forever). And how we have the Book of Mormon to help us find the correct path back to God, our Heavenly Father. Wow the Spirit was just there. And after we both got done testifying we asked if they had questions and the pastor said he just had one… Yikes!! And then he asked how much we were selling the Book of Mormon for. Wow. It’s free, handed it over and invited them both to pray to God about the things we had taught them and about the Book of Mormon and they both said they would. Ha crazy. Gotta love it. Ah I just love this gospel!!! Are yall doing the little things? All the primary answers… reading your scriptures daily, praying, going to all your church meetings, etc. I love the mission because it has opened my eyes! Ha I finally really understand why we’ve been taught that over and over our whole lives. That’s the key! If we’re not doing the lil things we’re not progressing…we’re allowing ourselves to fall. And how would we like to fall short of the kingdom of God because we failed to do the lil things. Yikes. Keep yourselves close to God and on high ground. Stand in holy places. Yall are always in my prayers. Love yall! Have a great week!!!

Love,

Hermanita Nelson