Hola Familia y Amigos!
What a wonderful week it has been! Buenisimo! It was so fun to Skype with you on Saturday, even though that seems like months ago. I thought maybe I wouldn´t have any emails today since I just talked to you and know you´re busy, so it was a very pleasant thing to see I had two emails, one from each of my dear, incredible parents. I love getting your letters so much! It´s especially nice to get emails from you, dad, because we never emailed before. Thank you both of you!
Dad, reading your email about mom definitely made me tear up in this little internet cafe. You are so right. Mom is our greatest blessing, and you are the luckiest man in the world. She is beautiful, loving, concerned, perseverant---but mostly dedicated to God, and everything else stems from that. I only hope I can be as hard-working and willing to sacrifice as she is. And mom, there really is no crown more glorious than motherhood, I can only imagine.
This week I feel like my motto of "You must do that which you think you cannot" was re-iterated in my life and I have renewed conviction for it. We were asked at zone conference to each contact 75 people per week. Not as a companionship, but individually. I thought, "I have to walk up to 75 complete strangers and naturally, cheerfully, invite them to come unto Christ somehow?! In Spanish?! How am I possibly going to do that?" The week before I had only contacted 35. And that was hard enough! But I internally resolved I would do this no matter what. And, a week later, I´m happy to report I contacted 79 people. And this week I will do it again. It truly gets easier the more you make yourself do it. Now, although I can´t say it´s easy yet, I am fairly comfortable at walking up to someone and casually talking to them and helping them want to learn more of Christ. Tons of people just sit in chairs outside their house drinking terrere (like iced tea) doing absolutely nothing, so that makes it easy to go up and talk to them because many of them just adore talking your ears off.
Also, on Wednesday night our branch president asked one of us to give a talk in Sunday. And even though I didn´t know how I would do it, I volunteered. I thought, "How am I going to prepare a 15 minute talk in Spanish that won´t be boring and that they can understand?" But I did, and I even had to cut some out because I was going overtime. I had a few stories and I felt like it was perfect for the investigator family that showed up....(coming soon in the next paragraph!) Oh I love preparing talks.
I just want to emphasize to everyone who reads this that when we think we can´t do things on our own, we´re probably right. But the Atonement of Jesus Christ blesses us with strength and abilities beyond our own. Somedays maybe you feel like you just can´t get out of bed, or you just can´t face another day of your normal duties. But I know we can ALL receive strength beyond our own as we pray and do something to show our faith in God. Our burdens in life will be brightened by our love for the Lord, as well.
So, we have been teaching a man named Juan Angel Meza. He is the friend of a member in the rama (branch), Alex Franco, who is less active himself, but who served a mission. Juan Angel has 6 kids and comes from an Evangelical background. Anyway, we´ve been teaching him and he is golden! He said he was going to go to church on Sunday and bring his whole family. We were so excited! Sunday came and we were supposed to have at least 3 other investigators at church but none of them were there. One menos activo did come, Gloria, who we have been visiting a LOT. That made me very happy. Anyway, Juan Angel´s family wasn´t there for the first hour, or the second. As I sat in sacrament meeting the last hour, I was thinking and praying, "Why didn´t he come? He is so ready!" But I was trying to be patient. Then, right before they passed the sacrament, Juan Angel and his wife and two of his beautiful little daughters showed up! Oh my heart! It just filled up faster than a baptismal font fills up on fast forward. My talk and the others that were given were all perfect for him and his situation. Everyone in the branch welcomed his family after church, I think he is pretty well known in the community because he does the announcing at the futbol games. Anyway, very exciting. I have a lot of hope for him and two other investigators I don´t have time to write about right now. But we have also had three people get very close to baptism and then somehow fall through, so it´s a little scary to get your hopes up, but I will have faith!
We were visting a recently-converted family one night, and they live in a very small house with a dirt floor. Their little three year old boy was playing around and went inside the house and brought out his dad´s nicely-ironed, clean white Sunday shirt. He put it on the dirt floor and sat on it and was playing with it. I was thinking, "Akk!! That´s probably your dad´s only white shirt and you´re getting it filthy!¨ But the people here, including the mothers, are so tranquilo, so easy-going. No one said anything while that shirt got dirty. That family is always so happy. I have a lot to learn from such patient mothers, haha.
An interesting thing here is that when you walk by people, you don´t say, hola, you say adios. It´s like walking by someone and saying, "Goodbye!" So if I come home and start doing that please remind me I´m not in Paraguay anymore.
I forgot to ask the other day on Skype how Mitt Romney is doing! Can someone update me in the politics scene por favor?
Also, have you heard from Brennan Jernigan how he liked Jerusalem? I would love to hear about some of his experiences.
Love always,
Your Sister Missionary,
Sister Faith Goimarac
Pics
1. Today is Paraguay´s Indepence day!
2. The branch had an activity...naturally it was an asado (a meat roast? How do you say that in english?) and played futbol. Doesn´t get more Parauguayo than playing futbol in the smoke of an asado!
3. Some branch kids.
4. our kitchen
5. our apartment, where we study
What a wonderful week it has been! Buenisimo! It was so fun to Skype with you on Saturday, even though that seems like months ago. I thought maybe I wouldn´t have any emails today since I just talked to you and know you´re busy, so it was a very pleasant thing to see I had two emails, one from each of my dear, incredible parents. I love getting your letters so much! It´s especially nice to get emails from you, dad, because we never emailed before. Thank you both of you!
Dad, reading your email about mom definitely made me tear up in this little internet cafe. You are so right. Mom is our greatest blessing, and you are the luckiest man in the world. She is beautiful, loving, concerned, perseverant---but mostly dedicated to God, and everything else stems from that. I only hope I can be as hard-working and willing to sacrifice as she is. And mom, there really is no crown more glorious than motherhood, I can only imagine.
This week I feel like my motto of "You must do that which you think you cannot" was re-iterated in my life and I have renewed conviction for it. We were asked at zone conference to each contact 75 people per week. Not as a companionship, but individually. I thought, "I have to walk up to 75 complete strangers and naturally, cheerfully, invite them to come unto Christ somehow?! In Spanish?! How am I possibly going to do that?" The week before I had only contacted 35. And that was hard enough! But I internally resolved I would do this no matter what. And, a week later, I´m happy to report I contacted 79 people. And this week I will do it again. It truly gets easier the more you make yourself do it. Now, although I can´t say it´s easy yet, I am fairly comfortable at walking up to someone and casually talking to them and helping them want to learn more of Christ. Tons of people just sit in chairs outside their house drinking terrere (like iced tea) doing absolutely nothing, so that makes it easy to go up and talk to them because many of them just adore talking your ears off.
Also, on Wednesday night our branch president asked one of us to give a talk in Sunday. And even though I didn´t know how I would do it, I volunteered. I thought, "How am I going to prepare a 15 minute talk in Spanish that won´t be boring and that they can understand?" But I did, and I even had to cut some out because I was going overtime. I had a few stories and I felt like it was perfect for the investigator family that showed up....(coming soon in the next paragraph!) Oh I love preparing talks.
I just want to emphasize to everyone who reads this that when we think we can´t do things on our own, we´re probably right. But the Atonement of Jesus Christ blesses us with strength and abilities beyond our own. Somedays maybe you feel like you just can´t get out of bed, or you just can´t face another day of your normal duties. But I know we can ALL receive strength beyond our own as we pray and do something to show our faith in God. Our burdens in life will be brightened by our love for the Lord, as well.
So, we have been teaching a man named Juan Angel Meza. He is the friend of a member in the rama (branch), Alex Franco, who is less active himself, but who served a mission. Juan Angel has 6 kids and comes from an Evangelical background. Anyway, we´ve been teaching him and he is golden! He said he was going to go to church on Sunday and bring his whole family. We were so excited! Sunday came and we were supposed to have at least 3 other investigators at church but none of them were there. One menos activo did come, Gloria, who we have been visiting a LOT. That made me very happy. Anyway, Juan Angel´s family wasn´t there for the first hour, or the second. As I sat in sacrament meeting the last hour, I was thinking and praying, "Why didn´t he come? He is so ready!" But I was trying to be patient. Then, right before they passed the sacrament, Juan Angel and his wife and two of his beautiful little daughters showed up! Oh my heart! It just filled up faster than a baptismal font fills up on fast forward. My talk and the others that were given were all perfect for him and his situation. Everyone in the branch welcomed his family after church, I think he is pretty well known in the community because he does the announcing at the futbol games. Anyway, very exciting. I have a lot of hope for him and two other investigators I don´t have time to write about right now. But we have also had three people get very close to baptism and then somehow fall through, so it´s a little scary to get your hopes up, but I will have faith!
We were visting a recently-converted family one night, and they live in a very small house with a dirt floor. Their little three year old boy was playing around and went inside the house and brought out his dad´s nicely-ironed, clean white Sunday shirt. He put it on the dirt floor and sat on it and was playing with it. I was thinking, "Akk!! That´s probably your dad´s only white shirt and you´re getting it filthy!¨ But the people here, including the mothers, are so tranquilo, so easy-going. No one said anything while that shirt got dirty. That family is always so happy. I have a lot to learn from such patient mothers, haha.
An interesting thing here is that when you walk by people, you don´t say, hola, you say adios. It´s like walking by someone and saying, "Goodbye!" So if I come home and start doing that please remind me I´m not in Paraguay anymore.
I forgot to ask the other day on Skype how Mitt Romney is doing! Can someone update me in the politics scene por favor?
Also, have you heard from Brennan Jernigan how he liked Jerusalem? I would love to hear about some of his experiences.
Love always,
Your Sister Missionary,
Sister Faith Goimarac
Pics
1. Today is Paraguay´s Indepence day!
2. The branch had an activity...naturally it was an asado (a meat roast? How do you say that in english?) and played futbol. Doesn´t get more Parauguayo than playing futbol in the smoke of an asado!
3. Some branch kids.
4. our kitchen
5. our apartment, where we study
No comments:
Post a Comment