Friday, December 26, 2014
Monday, December 15, 2014
Feliz Navidad
Christmas is up at our house. I also convinced Hermana Escobar to buy Christmas lights. They were like $2 so we have them in our room. |
This is us with a member. All the youth are so sweet and love to come with us on Sundays. It kind of slows us down, but I like it. They help lots with Spanish. |
Monday, December 8, 2014
El es la Davida!!!!!!
Ok, first things first, I need to clarify something about
Hermana Escobar. Everyone seems to think she is this mean trainer and I don’t
want that at all. At first we didn’t really understand each other’s language
and culture plus fear of new things, she has never trained before. Anyway after
three weeks together we are best friends, truly. She helps me so much with the
language and I help her with confidence, I hope, I don’t know… Something I have learned is missionaries aren’t
magically perfect people and so it’s perfect. We both just help each other with
our weakness and it’s great. I love her sooo much. This week was her one year
in the mission, it was way fun celebrating that. Today is my two month’s, can
you believe it!!
Ok, now this week was really hard... there is a holiday, well it’s actually today, the 8th of Diciembre, called “The Virgin of Ca A Cupe”. It’s this huge statue of Mary in a city, ummm, I’m not sure which direction, but I don’t think it’s too far from here. Hermana Escobar served there and loved it. When I first saw a pic of the statue I thought it was Christ, like the one in Brazil, that’s what it looks like, but it’s actually Mary. Anyway everyone leaves their homes and jobs to make a pilgrimage to Ca A Cupe every year. It’s been really hard because most people are fairly religious here but are really open to what we have to say. But this whole week when they realize that we aren’t Catholic they are like “Nope, we don’t want to talk to you. We believe in the Virgin!!!” or when we ask “Can we pass by Monday?”, “Nope, Mary will be here so you can’t come.” Each time I told Hermana Escobar it’s ok. People need to be mean to us every once in a while so we know what it’s like. But each day it seemed they got ruder and ruder the closer today got.
Ok, now this week was really hard... there is a holiday, well it’s actually today, the 8th of Diciembre, called “The Virgin of Ca A Cupe”. It’s this huge statue of Mary in a city, ummm, I’m not sure which direction, but I don’t think it’s too far from here. Hermana Escobar served there and loved it. When I first saw a pic of the statue I thought it was Christ, like the one in Brazil, that’s what it looks like, but it’s actually Mary. Anyway everyone leaves their homes and jobs to make a pilgrimage to Ca A Cupe every year. It’s been really hard because most people are fairly religious here but are really open to what we have to say. But this whole week when they realize that we aren’t Catholic they are like “Nope, we don’t want to talk to you. We believe in the Virgin!!!” or when we ask “Can we pass by Monday?”, “Nope, Mary will be here so you can’t come.” Each time I told Hermana Escobar it’s ok. People need to be mean to us every once in a while so we know what it’s like. But each day it seemed they got ruder and ruder the closer today got.
Wednesday we had exchanges with the sister training leaders
and it was really hard in lots of ways. First off, I had to navigate us to the investigators’
homes. That in itself was a huge miracle! The other thing was that it was really
hard to teach with someone I had never practiced or really ever met before. The
whole day I kept thinking and realizing to appreciate Hermana Escobar and
everything she does for me. At the end of the day when I finally saw her again
we just hugged and I wanted to cry and never let anyone take her from me
again!!! The best part was she felt the same way or at least that’s what she
told me... jaja Anyway, the one thing about the sister training leader was she
was good luck. Everyone that never seems to be home, was, and they received us
and it was great. We had a lesson with Pedro and he recommitted to a new date.
A while back we got a referral to a part of our area that’s
really, really far away. The farthest we go is Las Mercedes and I wanna die. It’s
like 4 kilometers there and then in total after making our whole loop it’s like
10 or 11. But Pindty is 6 just to get there so then 6 back and also walking
around so in total it was going to be like 14 kilometers. I don’t really know what that means, I just
know that walking on these roads in the hot sun really takes a toll on you. But
I am learning to smile even when I am soooo hot. I read a talk this week about
missionary work and Elder Ballard said don’t just walk around like robots
saying hi to everyone. That’s how I am. I am sooo tired and hot! So I am
learning to smile and be happy, even when I am hot.
Anyway we decided that we need to go to the far-away place.
We keep meaning to go and then something goes wrong, like it rains or I don’t
know, we just talk each other out of it. We keep waiting for a member to take
us, but he is always busy, so finally we decide to go Friday. But, like always,
things start to go wrong. The zone leaders need us to submit numbers. We don’t
have the numbers, we had to go home and then go to the cyber, the internet
place I am at now, and then enter them. So we got off to a late start - half
way there we are so tired and we don’t wanna go any farther and we start
thinking maybe we won’t go today. Then Hermana Escobar is like “No we are going
to always come up with a reason not to go.” So we got up and sang hymns and
laughed and practiced Spanish and before we knew it we were there. It didn’t
even feel like that far of a walk. We start contacting, we knew there was
someone there that really needed us.
The first person is like “Ya I´m Catholic” and he was just
kind of being rude. We were like thanks and left. Then we come to a lady and
she says “si... esta bien passar otro dia?” (yes, come back another day)
uhhhh It’s not like this is super far away from where we live. Sure, we
can come back another day... Then I said
we need to say a prayer because I really want to find someone here.. So we do
and we haven’t even taught a lesson all day and it’s like 4 by now. My comp is
like “Ok, we are teaching a lesson at the next house!”
So we walk up and it’s a lady and two kids and they are all
sitting drinking mate and she just motions for us to come. We sit down all
sweaty and she offers us water and things are going great. I compliment her garden
and her house and then … I didn’t really know what happened. Hermana Escobar explained
later that she thought we were with this group of kids that come and learn Spanish
and do humanitarian work. But Hermana Escobar explains no we are missionaries
from the Church of Jesus Christ..... then all I see is her jumping up Mormones
and spills her pitcher of water, kicks her hat under the table, almost falls
over her chair, all the time saying I DON’T WANNA TALK TO YOU! I don’t want to talk to any Mormons. We believe
in the virgin. Get out of my house.... soooo we awkwardly get up and I´m like
buen dia. hahahaha Then we leave hahah
and I just start laughing sooo hard, to keep from crying probably. hahah It was
so funny. She just turned on us like that. Needless to say, the next two
lessons weren’t quite that bad but you could tell they were just thinking about
the virgin the whole time. One lady said “Yaaa we are all having a party Sunday
for the virgin so I can’t come to church with you. I will be at my church for
the virgin! ah It got so annoying. It’s like the one time of the year that everyone
is super actively going to the Catholic churches. Anyway, then we planned to
find our contact, but when we started that way hahah.
I don’t even know how to explain this but there was a man on
a horse and Hermana Escobar is just sitting there writing in her planner and
the man has a rope tied around the horns of a cow... I am learning so much
about animals. I thought only bulls had horns but like every cow here has horns
and they are all female. I don’t get it. Anyway his son is hitting the cow with
a stick and yelling. Apparently the man on the horse is yelling “Get out of
here, it’s dangerous”. Hermana Escobar is like it’s just a cow. We need to go
that way. hahahah I am like ummm I think we need to move.... finally she sees
that the cow is jumping everywhere crazy and running right at us. Ok so every
house has a fence and the cow was running all over the road and the sides so I
was scared to just stand on the side and hope it passed us. So we start running
down the road away from this crazy cow and every time we would stop running and
look back, it would stop. Then the man and the horse and the cow and the kid
with a stick would be running again so we would have to run for our life again because
there was nowhere to go but back down the road!! It was sooo embarrassing. One
time I really thought we were going to die. They seemed so close and the cow
was running so fast and Hermana Escobar was so slow. I was about to leave her.
hahha I look over and this whole family is just watching from their porch, two girls
in dresses running from this crazy cow. They don’t offer to let us in their
yard. They just watch as we try and run away. It was seriously so terrifying.
Anyway, needless to say, we left Pindty feeling a little discouraged, but I
know that the Lord needed us there for some reason and we are going back Wednesday.
I know that we will find someone waiting for the gospel there.
Ok, I hope you all have been watching and sharing He is the
Gift. It is so amazing. We share it in every lesson, so I have watched it a
million times. Each time I am filled with a spirt and love of Christmas! They
always ask if we get to go home for Christmas and they feel so bad when we say
no, we are here... but that video brings the spirit instantly to every lesson!
After a really hard week we had high hopes that Pedro and
others would come to church. We had 4 with a date to be baptized so they needed
to come to keep their date. The elders have been having the same problem
getting people to church so we all shared our investigators’ names with each other
and prayed for each one individually. Sunday came and we get to church and no
one’s investigators came. Not one. The elders hunted down a boy from one of
their families, but that was all. It was really hard. I was feeling really,
really bad and church is always hard because they only speak Guadani so I never
have a clue at all what’s going on. But in Relief Society we all had to go
around and say our testimony. When it came to me I just started bawling, looking
around at these 10 women in this little classroom in a church in Paraguay, speaking
two languages I don’t know. I just said it was really hard for me to decide to
serve a mission and be away from my family. I didn’t realize how hard it is
until I was here, but I know that this church is true and that’s why I am here.
(it probably didn’t really come out like that, but that’s what I tried to say).
I just started crying so hard as I listened to everyone’s testimony in this psycho
language because I could feel the truth even though I couldn’t understand. The
woman sitting next to me, who I love a lot, was going to be sealed Saturday and
when they announced it I was sooo excited! They have two little kids that are
so sweet and I kept thinking of the missionaries that baptized them. One of the
women I love feeds us every Friday. After Relief Society she grabbed me and
hugged me and told me she knows it’s really hard but she loves me so much and I
am like her daughter (she reminds me a lot of Dianna Greene). I just was filled with a love of my members.
All Sunday I kept thinking of how amazing they are. They all love us
missionaries so much. They feed us and accept us in their homes so much. Anyway,
then I go in to sacrament meeting and they announce that our building is being
expanded. They are starting in one week and I just cried and cried because I
know that the Lord loves his children in Paraguay so much. We seriously have
the smallest church ever. Our Relief Society room is just one of those tiny
classrooms. We had 95 in attendance at church on Sunday and my whole heart was filled
with love for each of them.
Sunday night we found an amazing woman, Elba. After another
hard day we were just trying to get our contacts and we felt we should share
the video, which turned in to sharing el Libro de Mormon. It was so cool. She
accepted a date, not at first. She said she was baptized already and then we
explained to her and she said that makes so much sense!!!!! and accepted a date
and el libro de Mormon. In her prayer she thanked the Lord for sending us. We
left feeling sooo hopeful and thinking that even though this week was really
hard there are moments and lessons that go perfect. And that’s what we are here
for. Each time we have someone that is mean we think we just have to work that
much harder to find the one waiting for us. I truly believe Elba was waiting
for us! After one really hard lesson Hermana Escobar just wanted to sit down
and cry. I told her that during the lesson I always think about their conversion
story. The lady’s niece was listening. I told Hermana Escobar that one day that
little girl would say “I remember the first missionaries came when I was at my
aunt’s house. They were really happy and gave me candy. I remember my aunt
laughed at them and I felt really bad. Years later two Elders came to my house
and I let them in. As they taught me, the truth filled my heart and I remembered
those first sisters who bore similar testimony. I will always be grateful for
them.” haha We don’t have real conversion
stories yet, so we make them up. But that’s what I always think about. You
never know how the gospel will come to someone.
Lastly I want to FOLLOW UP on my challenge to do the 30 day
Scripture Question (see the entry in November titled “If Elle Wood Can Get In”).
Are you doing it? The most important
part is writing it down. This one thing has been the main faith builder for me
since I have been here. Each day when I am struggling and I think maybe I don’t
even have a testimony, I ask my Father in Heaven and I am always answered. It’s
crazy because some days I turn to the same page as the day before and I think “ugh,
I have been here before”. But I start reading and I find my new answer a few
verses below the other. Or, sometimes, I ask a question and my answer has
nothing to do with what I asked. It’s like the spirit is saying “That’s not
really what you needed today, here is your real answer.” I know that all of
your answers are found in the scriptures. I know that God listens to our
prayers. I have learned that so much these past two months. I feel your prayers
so strong and I hope you feel mine. I love you all and I hope you all
ACCEPT the gift Christ brings. Accept His commandments, His
love, His guidance in our life.
Love, a missionary doing her best to serve the Lord in Paraguay,
Hermana Ball
Monday, December 1, 2014
It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas
So I feel way dumb for thinking when I wrote last week that I had missed Thanksgiving. After reading all the emails I realized I hadn’t. haha But good news is my district leader is not so dead to the world and he arranged for us as a district to go out to eat Wed night. I will hopefully have time to send more pictures. It was way good. It was like some kind of burrito(they don’t really eat much food like that here) so it was a good change of pace. On real Thanksgiving my comp, who had never heard of it before, and I had chicken stuffing I made from a box from Charlsie, raw potatoes, haha (I tried to make mashed potatoes in the microwave, but it didn’t work) and bread. It was great. haha I told her she had to say what she was thankful for and she said me and I just started crying so hard because I didn’t even realize how much I missed all of you till she said that and it made me feel good that someone was happy I am here.
I totally forgot to say last week my greatest blessing!!! so when our President got to the mission he was not pleased with the conditions of the pentions and he has been working hard to get new pentions for us to live in. They have changed almost all of them. The week before I got here ours changed and my comp says the old one had twice as many cockroaches. She thinks the ones we have came in the move. ugggg haha Anyway, our pention is nice and...... we have an air conditioner in our bedroom!!!!!!! It is heaven when we come home soooo sweaty we sometimes just sit in that room. haaha One day we were so hot after walking back from zone conference (30 min there and back) we just ate lunch on our beds ha. But ya it’s really nice. Also all the faucets here are just one temp. You don’t have two faucets even when you are showering. I was telling my comp that I’m not use to the cold showers and she just looked at me so weird. “Did I not tell you about the light switch?” “What light switch????” ummmm She proceeds to tell me there is a magic light switch that makes the water hot!!! hahah She said she is just use to cold showers so she forgets to turn it on.. haha Anyway, so if you were feeling bad for me, don’t. I have cool air at night and a hot shower in the morning. When I shower at night I don’t turn it on, though, because it’s soo hot. You have to shower before bed or its so gross. You will see why after seeing the pictures of my feet
I forgot also to mention the rain. It rained twice my first week and three times this week or two (I can’t remember). Anyway I have never seen anything like it. Leading up to rain it is so hot and there are no clouds and then they come and it just starts pouring rain, like buckets and buckets of rain and all of a sudden the whole road is a river. It’s crazy! It rained last night, so now the whole road is full of puddles. I love it. The first time it rained it was in the afternoon and we had to walk home at 8:30. I kept jumping in all the puddles and getting all muddy. haha My comp just thought I was crazy. hahah It’s hard for me not to act crazy sometimes, like one time we were walking and the Macarena music came on. I started to dance and she looked at me and said Hermana we are representatives of Christ. ha So I have to remember that sometimes. Most of the time it’s not hard to remember, just sometimes, like when I want to play with the kids ....
So to help my pronunciation she makes me read from El Libro de Mormon with a pencil in my mouth repeating after her. This is after I have already read it for 30 min on my own. It’s so hard and my jaw starts to really hurt, so if you want to feel like a big looser put a pencil in your mouth and try to read Spanish its hard and entertaining.
This week we kind of got a little discouraged because every lesson seems to go the same except for the fact that each lesson I feel more confident to say more in the next. So this is pretty much how each lesson goes: we walk to a house, we may know them or may not, clap, they come or we just smile and wave because most the time they are outside all ready, they open the gate, let us in, pull up two chairs, offer us terere (Cold Mate), we tell them no, and then we talk to them a little, get to know them. They are always so chatty. Most of the time they don’t even give us a chance to say we are missionaries. Then finally we bring it in to the convo (AHHH it just started raining again!! hahah I am so happy. My comp said we should bring our umbrellas with, but I talked her out of it. She just looked at me ahhh we will be wet! haha) anyway, then she asks if we can sing. Yep we sing a hymn every lesson in Spanish, no piano, while they stare at us. At first it was hard for me but lately we sing Christmas hymns and I love it. One time they gave us this fruit to eat and I really didn’t want to eat it because they just picked it off the ground, anyway, I put it in my mouth and I had never seen anything like it before. It’s like an orange ball and I am trying to chew and there is a pit and I just keep swirling it around in my mouth. At this moment my trainer says “Let’s sing.” So I sing a whole hymn with this huge pit in my mouth and then when no one was looking I quickly put it in my hand and sat it on the ground next to me. Next we ask to pray and usually they want my comp to say it, which is great. ha But sometimes I say it and I am pretty sure they don’t understand, that’s ok. Then we share the first lesson or sometimes the second, depending, and when it’s the first I say the first vision and sometimes I say it right and mostly I say it wrong. But its magic because the Spirit is always there and I can feel it so strong and we lead them into the baptism invitation and they say “No, I have already been baptized (did you listen to what we said? It didn’t count. It wasn’t necessary. You were a baby ugh) and then we bear a beautiful testimony and the Spirit is there and I tear up because all I can think is they are going to say yes, I know it and I picture their family in the church. We ask again and they just stare at us and don’t answer. It’s so weird. Actually throughout the whole lesson we ask questions like what does the atonement mean to you and they just look at us and say nothing. It’s so weird. I don’t know why some people answer, but for the most part they don’t. Anyway, then we ask if we can come again and share more and we invite them to church and 50 percent say yes and then we give them a pamphlet to read. We say “Can we provide any service for you today?” and they always say “No, I have lots of kids to help me.” and then we ask them to pray (after explaining prayer) and they say they don’t know how and we explain again and then we ask again and they stare at us like we never asked a question. Finally one of us offers and we leave and I want to die. Lots of the time I think the lesson went great and I am like whaoooo they are coming to church and my comp is so discouraged. Anyway that’s how it goes. Oh, I forgot. When we ask if we can come back, they always say “We can see Christ in you girls. We love what you are doing here. I bet lots of people turn you away. We will always receive you in our home, feed you, listen to you, but we have our own church we go to on Sunday. I read the bible every day. My family is all Catholic, this really is not for us.
It’s really hard. We never know who is worth going to see a second time because we never know if they are going to progress. Anyway, we had one golden investigator, Pedro, and he was all set to be baptized this coming Saturday. He just needed to go to church one more time. We have taught him everything, he has accepted all the commandments. We get to church Sunday and no one comes. No one. We invited 18 people to church and no one came, not even Pedro. I felt soo bad. When we call him he doesn’t answer. We don’t know what we are going to do. We just have to remember that when we are rejected they are rejecting Christ, not us. It’s just hard because everyone seems to be so religious. One man asked me this week, “If I came to you and said will you be baptized in the Catholic Church would you?” I thought he was asking what I knew about the Catholic Church and in bad Spanish I said I would need to be able to speak better Spanish to answer that. He started laughing but apparently my comp told him that if God told her to, she would. I thought that was a good answer. That man we were trying to contact said we could come to his house anytime but if we want to share messages from the Bible, like the ones before, he didn’t want to hear it. It was really weird. We were like “Aren’t you Catholic? Don’t you believe in the Bible! The people here are so confusing!!!
I like it though. The more we teach, the more people know us. It’s crazy how much people already know. We say our name and they say “Mormones, ya I know you guys.” and most have listened to missionaries before. When we walk down the street I recognize so many people and we always wave and they are so nice and polite to us. I love it here. I love how laid back the people are and friendly and willing to listen.
One thing that is hard, we will teach two different families that live pretty far apart and then we go to one’s house and the other family is there. This happened last night. We went to Pedro’s house to see why he didn’t come to church and his sister, who accepted a date but also didn’t come to church, was outside with a woman we had taught this week and also invited to church. They both said sit and we did. Then when we tried to share a lesson they wouldn’t even look at us. This morning I was reading in John when Peter denies Christ. That’s what I felt like. I was like, earlier this week you loved us, what happened!!
I love it in Paraguay, though. It’s so beautiful and out in the compo there is this sweet smell in the air. It always sounds like the 4th of July fireworks go off day and night all over. haha Sometimes it makes me jump because they sound like they are right next to you.
Ahh, this is such a long letter and I haven’t got to the best part. The church campaign for Christmas is “He is the gift”. The video is so great, watch it! We are sharing it with everyone. We carry this old crappy dvd player and show it in every lesson. It is so powerful. You should all share it on Facebook with your testimony.
I love how it’s so hot but it’s still Christmas. There are nativities and lights on houses and they will have like a tree in the front yard with ornaments and tinsel. haha I love it.
I love you all. Sorry if this is so scatter brained.
Hermana Ball
Doing the pronunciation exercise |
My desk |
Our kitchen |
Look How Tan I Am! |
Just Kidding. This is after washing them. |
Thanksgiving with the district |
Us smelling the sweet smell of Paraguay |
The meal I made for us. |
My first zone conference. I had no idea what was happening. |
We made the cake that Charlsie sent and inside the oven all the cockroaches burned. It was gross!! |
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