June 7, 2010

Ok so first off!!!! Grandma, I finally got your package!!!!!! And I was SO SO EXCITED! It was perfect. Seriously. Thanks so so much!!! It's already almost gone lol. And ok ready for a funny story. Bueno, so as a missionary in Paraguay you have to have the 5 things to be successful. Well i've got 2 down. One of them is...you have to biff it really hard and another is have lice. Yeah I'm pretty sure I have lice, but that is completely normal here. People will just sit out in their front yards and pick lice out of each others hair..you think I'm joking. I'm not. And then the other day.. bueno they have a lot of like barb wired fences that you have to like crawl through to get to the other side. So we were leaving our lunch cita the other day and we were going throught the backyard through the fence thing. So I'm like bending over to adjust everything (my bag, my skirt, my jacket) and I'm like half way through the other side and I'm starting to stand up but somehow my skirt got stuck on the wire and I completely fell over and flashed everyone around me. AWESOME. And then a couple days later we were in a part of our area that we've never really been before and we were trying to find our way back to the routa and my comp handed me the phone to talk to someone, so I was just following her and talking on the phone. And up comes another barbed wire fence but there was like a door in this one, and so my comp had just passed through the puerta and I'm following her, but then all of a sudden my forehead runs right into the top of the barbed wire fence and I like shoot backward. Ah it hurt so bad!!! Oh and it was the night of the baptism..and so I had this huge red mark right in the middle of my forehead which later turned into a nice blue/green bruise. Real cute. Haha gotta love it. Lol not a big fan of these barbed wire fences. Oh and today I made boiled cookies (no bake cookies) and they turned out soo good! Maybe it's just cause I've been in Paraguay to long, but I thought they were really good! Thanks for the recipe Alena. And then this week has been pretty interesting; we've had a couple different experiences with pastors from different religions. So remember last Sunday night when we were at Belens house and as we started to teach her, her pastor shows up. And how at the end of the lesson he just asked us how much it cost for a Book of Mormon! So we gave him the book and invited him to read and pray about it. That's pastor number 1. Later this week we were contacting and we met this man who told us he was a saint and that he was already saved. And we're like perfect, can we come in and talk about the palabra de Dios and he's like yeah yeah, do you have your Bibles? Oops..no. So instead of course we brought out the Book of Mormon and this guy just went absurd on us and telling us how we couldn't have that kind of book in his house and just went off about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and all this “false doctrine” that we are teaching and told us we should go home and burn our books and then to go around and tell all the people what we had been teaching them was false. This makes me cringe just writing this. But it was unbelievable how strong the Spirit was in me, just burning inside me, testifying how true the gospel really is. And after listening to this guy ramble off for like 30 min on us about how wrong and childish and innocent we are, my testimony was being strengthened! And I just felt so much sorrow and pain for this man who is just so confused! And just hoping that he could open his heart just a little to receive this beautiful and pure message of the gospel. And as we tried to testify (between him and his other pastor friend interrupting us) I just knew once again how true this gospel is! So that's pastor 2 and 3. And then last night we went over to Belen's house otra vez and otra vez her pastor came. I don't know if we need to go at a different time or if we were there at that time for a reason lol. But this time he was different. We started to read from the BOM again and he tried to prove us wrong with quoting scriptures from the Bible, etc. And ahhh I am just PRAYING that something that we said will ring to them. Especially for Belen and her mom, they are looking for the truth! They want to find it and now they have the confusion from their pastor. But once again we bore simple and powerful testimony of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and how they could know for themselves too. Isn't that just amazing? Wow the power of prayer. God is the same. He loves us. He will answer the prayer of those who are sincere and are truly seeking for an answer and are commited to follow the answer they receive. And he's the only person with the whole truth. He is the fountain of all righteousness. James 1:5. Ask God if you have a fault of sabiduría (ok I can't think of it in english). But wow please pray for them. And wow I just feel SO BLESSED to be raised in a family with the gospel. Amazing! Love it. And we have our last interviews with Pres. Wade tomorrow! How sad!!! Oh and the zone conference was amazing as always and sad because it was their last one. And we only have 2 more weeks of this cambio! Crazy! Ha I still don't want to leave this area. Ok bueno, I love yall! Thanks for all the letters, keep them coming! Oh and Alisa's dog is so cute!!! And mom and Alena give Tyler and Kylee lots of kisses when yall go see them...and Bobby and Angela tambien. Mom I'll be thinking about the birthday package and let you know. Love yall so much! Ah and send Ty my love! He's such a stud. Have fun!!!

Love,

Hermanita Nelson