Dec. 6, 2010

DECEMBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wait a second, aren´t we still in like August? Ha that is when Hna Messina got here and that seems like yesterday! 3 changes ago, and I have 3 left...que pucha cherrá! and December means it is ALISA´S BDAY!!!! FELIZ CUMPLE!!!! That´s so fun!!! And Happy Bday Rick tambien. Hahaha I loved the story about Nate and his firetruck haha and Kylee and her lil cheer, what cute lil sobrinos I have!!! I´m so proud! Ahh and Ty, holy cow, I love how you so calmly told that story about you almost dying and running into a ditch! But I´m glad you are good! Ok a couple stories... Ok so this morning we put up our cute lil christmas tree and window decorations and my comp made these sweet snowflakes! And yeah mom I want the pics of yalls decorations! Ok haha there is this one lady, menos activo, who we´ve only seen a couple times but the first time we saw her and were saying goodbye, I went up to give her kisses haha and she kissed me and then pulled me into this super tight hug and just clung onto me and said, "ah chulina!" haha and she does that everytime she sees us, it is hilarious. And want to hear an embarrassing story? Ok so yes, I´ve been in Paraguay a year, but ha my spanish is apparently not perfect, we were teaching this family about the plan of salvation (el plan de salvacion) and so I´m starting, and I´m like ok ok, what do yall think el plan de salvacion is? and they were like uhh... and so I repeat it a couple times and phrase it differently... yeah Heavenly Father has un plan for each of us, what do you think that plan is? haha and the guy just keeps giving me the weirdest look and I could tell he was thinking like so hard, and then I said it one more time, el plan de salvacion- and you can just see the light bulb click and he starts laughing and he was like ohh I thought you said, el pan de salvacion- the bread of salvation- haha so the whole time he was trying to figure out what I was talking about and he like thought I was talking about the sacrament or something, good times. que verguenza! ok and yall should all look up la virgen de caacupe, every year on dec 8 they have this HUGE misa and they go and worship the virgen that´s in caacupe, and caacupe just happens to be right past our area, and the thing is the people go WALKING from all over Paraguay to go and worship the virgin, they could just take a colectivo but they walk to show their love and sacrifice for this virgin, and so yesterday we started seeing the people that were starting to walk there a couple days early, but tomorrow it´s going to be crazy and there´s going to be a TON of people!!! ha everyone keeps inviting us to go and walk with them to caacupe to worship the virgin- we´re like here, let me tell you a lil something somethin about the restoration of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints lol, gotta love Paraguay! Ok want to hear another good story, so yesterday was Sunday- which means OF COURSE it RAINED again, justamente at 7:30 when we left to go and get our peeps and continued raining all morning- of course it stops raining right at 11:30 when church gets out and doesn´t rain for the rest of the day, ha whatever it´s cool. but we have a MIRACLE story!!! Seriously, straight up miracle from our loving Padre Celestial. We met him on Thursday night at like 8:45 by complete coincidence, we had just randomly decided that we would change our plans a lil bit to come back and work around our house and to stop by for a menos activo family, so we walked up and went and shook their hands and we met a man named Gregorio. We were just going to share with the mom because the dad had his friends over, but one of his friends (Gregorio) came up to us and told us he had met with the missionaries in Argentina when he was living there and that he knew all about Joseph Smith and the first vision and loved it, and so we invited him to share a lil bit with us, and he just talked and told us about how God had been preparing him to receive this message, and how it was such a miracle because he had just been back from Argentina for like 2 weeks and had lost contact with the missionaries because he suddenly had to come back to Paraguay and that he didn´t know there was a mormon church here, but bueno everything he was saying was just an answer to our prayers, we have been praying so so hard to find someone who will just accept the gospel and be excited about it and understand it and have their own desires to learn more and to go to church, etc. well wow, he told us, I know that I am an answer to yalls prayers and that I am the fruit of your labors and that God loves yall and your are angels in His work and that this is true, and he accepted the baptismal fecha without problem and then told us that he wanted to come to church so that he could prepare himself for his baptism and that he was going to try and bring his son and that he was going to help reactivate that family and that God has a work for him to do and he just kept praising us and telling us that all of our hard work would be paid off and we would recieve blessings and that he was just one of those blessings that we were receiving. I think my mouth was just wide open the whole time he was talking. It was incredible. And he came to church and tried to bring his son, but his son didn´t want to because of the rain, but he even got up at the end of church to bear his testimony and told everyone that he knew this was the true church and he knew it without a doubt and that is why God had sent his angels otra vez to bring him the restored gospel. It was amazing! We were so excited! Man, and I just feel so blessed to witness this miracle and to be able to be an instrument in the Lord´s hand in leading Gregorio into the waters of baptism.ahhh it is soo so sso cool!!! Man and it was just such a sweet tender mercy of the Lord to us, that he loves us and is watching over us and that his hand is in all things! And he was all excited about going to church and being there on time and everything, we actually got there a lil late, and it was a lil sad because when we got there, there were only 7 people there, and we had 3 investigators. It was kinda frustrating bc all of the amazing classes we told them they were going to have, there weren´t any because there weren´t any other youth there (we had 2 teenagers with us too) ahhh but by the end of church there were 36 (they all came for the sacrament for the last hour), ahhh there is soo much work here to do! pray for us!!! I love yall so much and am SOOO thankful for your prayers and emails and love! I hope yall have a great week!
Love,
Hermanita Nelson
haha and yeah the people still call us elderas!