Sept. 13, 2010

Happy Birthday to me! Happy Birthday to me!!! Man, can you believe it?! I am 22!!! HOly cow! And let me just go ahead and throw out a thanks to mamma wariner because she is the only one who told me I was still young, everyone else said they couldn't believe how OLD I was! Haha! wow so my first (and last) birthday in Paraguay!! Ha it was fun! The night before one of our investigators, Jose (who is like 45ish) bought me some alfajors (those are really a big deal here) and some juice and sang me happy birthday and then the next day for my bday we went to church, which was actually a disaster lol because we just had these crazy kids there and sacrament was oh so spiritual haha pero esta bein. Despues we went up stairs in the kitchen of the church and ate lots of cake! And then we went back to the house and Hna Kimball made roast and mashed potatoes for my birthday!!! It was SOO delicious!!! I was so excited, it's a good thing too because I missed out on that yummy chicken enchilada meal ayer! And then Emilio and Manu came out and worked with us all day! It was a blast. And then we came home and Hna Kimball made guacamole and ha I was telling them all about the 7 layer dip that you make! And then you wrote about that haha...next year for sure!! OH MY GOSH!!!! And that PACKAGE!!!! That was AMAZING! Ha I was SO EXCITED! Ha and so was my comp! All the candy is just about gone and ahh Alena I loved the photo colauge (ha yeah I can't figure out how to spell that) and all that FOOD! Yeah that was just the perfect thing...who knew I'd be so excited about getting food...oh and blasted, the cereal got broken, so that was all over the place and stale, but don't worry the rest is just PERFECT!!! I'm serious I could just go on and on about how much I LOVED IT!!!! And THANK YOU Sis Andersen for including that card and the food! Loved it! Oh and also this past week I got letters from Keri, Quickie Dickie, Flora (ha I LOVED the puzzle thing, that was so tyte!!! And yeah that took like 3 months to get here bc it got sent to the south mission- and ok Flora has got to be home now!!! Crazy!! ANd yeah I'll be waiting for another letter because I need your new address!) and the Bachelors (thank you- ha they are so awesome and their lil boy is so cute!) and from President Lyman! Oh and we got CAMBIOS!!!! I think we are going to start getting them on Monday's from now on, but I'm staying with my hija! We're happy! Pretty much everyone stayed together. Oh man and we still DON'T have a house! I don't know what we're going to do! This past week-let's see... well last monday we had an hermana activity and we went to mercado 4, which is kinda a big deal because nobody ever gets permission to go there...ha but I know how to work it hehe. And I bought a couple hammocks that are way sweet! And then Tuesday we went out to lunch with Hna Sherwood (who is another missionary that works in the temple and I guess she always takes the missionaries out to eat on the first Tuesday of every month) and we went to this really nice...like way nice seafood place, who woulda thought there'd be good seafood in Paraguay but I ate clams for the first time, ahh and shrimp is so good too! Oh and then today we went to Pizza Hut and there ended up being a ton of missionaries there, so we had a lil party and it was so fun to see everyone! This past week was actually pretty rough, I had a couple emotional break downs because Satan is just working a full on this area! We had some really AWESOME investigators (a family, who I had just come to love SO MUCH and who are just so perfect for the gospel and we've had family home evenings with them for the last 2 Mondays and they just went fabulous! THe first one we talked all about the family and they just loved it and then last week, we had a family from the ward come with us and we went to the church and just gave them like a tour- because they've never gone before-bueno, the mom has never gone before, so the point was so that she could go and see that it was amazing and feel the spirit and everything, but she ended up not even coming because she was sick...so sad! We wanted her to come so bad! But the kids just loved it! My comp played the piano and we sang and they just loved all of it and then we walked around the temple and everything was just perfect! And they all told us how excited they were to come to church with us) And then we passed by their house like on Wednesday to see how they all were, and their mom came out to talk to us and was super blunt and just said, look- we appreciate all you've done for us, but we are catholic and we aren't going to listen to yall anymore and we are not going to go to church with yall, and my kids are going to a catholic school and that is how we are going to raise our family and we are not going to go to the mormon church that has polygamy and blah blah blah. Basically, I just started crying. Ahh and I did NOT want to, but it just absolutely broke my heart. How is that possible? Ahh I don't understand but maybe one day later on they'll accept it and they will remember us and our love for them. I cleared things up with her misconceptions of the church and just bore my testimony and told them that we loved them. She apologized and she said she really loved us too but that she had told us from day 1 that she was catholic but she accepted us because she needed us in that moment but that now she was fine. Ugh. And then later we had another crazy lesson and I just bawled again. wooo, but now I'm 22 and everything is better! A new cambio! Whoo! Bueno, I love yall and am so greatful for all your letters and the package and the birthday wishes! Oh my gosh and I saw Nate's video!!! I almost cried! That was the CUTEST! Give him such big hugs and kisses for me! I love yall all so much! Have a great week!