July 5, 2010

HAPPY 4th of JULY!!!! Ha so I’m glad to hear that nobody blew off any fireworks that ended up causing a huge fire and burning down a bunch of bushes and almost a house. Ha love you Bobby. So we celebrated 4th of july a day early (on Saturday) and we all wore red, white, and blue and sang a couple patriotic songs of our beloved country… ok really we just wore red, white, and blue to have Paraguay Spirit because those are their colors too and they played against spain and unfortunately lost L but it was fun to get all decked out with lil paraguayo flags on our faces. Ok so this was just a FABULOUS WEEK! We did have the baptism on Saturday night and it was so perfect.. but I’ll tell you about that in a sec. First, haha I didn’t really I sent home so many pictures of dead animals, but turns out there’s a lot of dead animals lying in the streets of Paraguay. Ha and yall should be looking forward to a fabulous video that I took or someone killing a chicken! Bahaha it was so funny! It’s this menos activo (less active member) named Rufina who we’re really close too and who I’ve been begging to kill a chicken for like the last 2 cambios and finally she decided she wanted to show us. Ha it was hilarious… and next time, I’m going to do it J hehe it’s really crazy because killing chickens or pigs or w/e is just so normal for them. When they want to eat and don’t have anything, what do they do? They go out into their yard, sharpen the knife, grab a chicken by its neck and kill it! Ha that’s the truth. And then we helped pluck off all the feathers and cut the chicken apart and take out the insides. WAKALA (GROSS!). I never realized how much of the chicken they eat…eww! But unfortunately we didn’t get to eat it because there wasn’t enough time! But that was fun. Oh man!!! And also I got the package from the Wariners!!! AMAZING! Ha I was so excited! Fabulous! Oh and I don’t think I told you, but now that we’re in a trio (Yo, Remache y G) we are working in BOTH areas. You just have to understand that the area I had before was HUGE and turns out that their area is HUGE tambien, and now it’s combined. Crazy!!! So we are doing a lot of walking! Ahh and also last week in church we had 14 people in church! And if yall could please be excited about that, because the elders in our zone our lame and did not show very much enthusiasm, but that’s kinda a big deal especially when normally we’re excited if we have like 5 people in church. It was a straight up miracle, but it was AWESOME! Ok now- the BAPTISM. Ahhh I don’t know if I’ve told yall how much I LOVE these kids! They are just the best ever. And the little one (Ariel- I know in English that’s a name of a girl but in Spanish it’s of a boy) he’s like 3 and he LOVES ME. Ah and I love him too, he’s the cutest thing. Whenever we go there or he sees me, he just runs up to me and hugs me! And gives me besos (kisses)- because here everyone gives besos on the cheeks to greet eachother…haha so if I ever try to give yall besos in the states, please try to understand lol. Ha that was really weird for me when I got here, but I’m gonna miss it when I come back. Anyways… so he always is with me (everyone calls him my lil hijo-son) and everytime he sits on my lap he always takes his arms and wraps them around my necks and just hugs me really tight. It is the cutest thing! I’m such a sucker for lil kids. Ahh and I could just go on and on talking about these kids and how amazing they are but we’ll have to save that for after the mission! Ok so President Madariaga and his wife ended up coming to our baptism (he got here on Thursday I think and we found out the night before that he wanted to come to our baptism. YIKES. A lil nerve racking) but everything turned out so fabulous. Our new pres is really nice, ha it’s weird because he’s not pres wade and she’s not sis wade but it’s all good. I know I’ll love them just as much too! And there ended up being a good number of people there for the baptism and all the tortas (cakes) and cookies turned out good too! It was such a great night and then yesterday they received the holy ghost! Oh how I love this gospel!
Seriously, my mission and life changed the day I met them. I have truly come to understand the beauty of the message of the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is the most important thing in the world and has the power to change lives for the better. It has been such a privilege to see how the gospel has transformed this family and how wonderful it is that their lives will just continue to change and become better; that this is just the beginning for them! As we visited them in their humble home and situation I was always so close to tears. Every time I was just overwhelmed with the love Heavenly Father has for them, His precious children. And cada vez my testimony would grow stronger about how the gospel is one of the greatest gifts of God. Happiness is not found in the riches of the world, but in the tender mercies of the Lord that He offers us everyday. And witnessing their baptism, seeing them all in white, little angels, was such a sweet and special experience for me. I know that the Lord loves us. That He knows who we each are individually. He is so aware of our needs and concerns and I feel so blessed to have been able to be a tool in his hand, to be an angel for this family, to bring them the truth and the happiness of the gospel. I love it!!! Hope yall have a great week!
Love,
Hermanita Nelson
**be sure to check out the photos in the post below!