What to do when nothing goes as planned

This week was amazing, the rain returned along with the heat which never leaves. We had Conferincia De ZONA this week. It’s with the AP’s and the President and we also had another zone with us. It was so great. I learned a lot. President is really hard to understand. Sometimes he speaks a really fast Spanish, but I was able to understand him so much better then when I first met him. There are lots of cool things happening in the Paraguay Acuncion mission. The technicalities I am not sure if you would really understand unless you served a mission. I will write Bridget and she can share with you if you really want to know exactly what we are changing, but it is great. This week we have begun to see the blessings of the changes. The reason my subject is what to do when plans go wrong is because the conference was all about planning and for the first time in my mission this last Thursday I loved our weekly planning sesson. We made plans and plans to make plans to talk to someone or teach or invite and it was so great and I was feeling really, really motivated. Then we started to actually attempt our plans and it’s really hard when you depend on others for your plans to work out. Members don’t have references, they can’t come to a lesson or give us a ride. I realize we ask a lot of the members, but it’s still frustrating when they promise to help and then flake at the last min. We had amazing plans for Justina and a lot of them went great. She is reading her libro de mormon every day. It’s hard because she doesn’t understand Spanish perfectly, so we got her a Guarani Book of Mormon but she doesn’t understand that perfectly either. Pure Guarani is really difficult and no one really speaks or reads pure Guarani but I think between the two books she is learning. Several times this week our plans didn’t go the way we wanted and we felt a little discouraged. But I am learning that when we plan it shows God what we are willing to do in order to accomplish the thing that we want. That’s what the quote by Bruce R McConkie was about. I know it’s in Spanish so it’s hard, but he is saying that we have to convince the Lord how badly we want something. I am working on showing the Lord how badly I want to learn Spanish and how badly we want Justina to be baptized. It’s a process. It’s not enough to just ask and have faith we have to prove to Him how much we want it. Justina didn’t get baptized Saturday as we wanted, not because we didn’t do everything we could. We literally walked the 30 min to her house everyday and we did our very best, but she isn’t ready. I know that she is preparing and we have great plans for this next week to get her in the water this Saturday, but again we are experiencing problems with the members. It’s so difficult. I just hope that things will work out. That’s the thing. When we plan and thing’s don’t go the way we want we just want to give up, but we have to learn to have a back up plan and back up for our back up. It’s hard when we have plans fall through. This also goes for goals, we are tempted to not plan or set goals because it feels like why try, they never go the way we want anyway. That’s what satan wants, but as we diligently plan and follow through we are showing Heavenly Father how much we want that thing and what we are willing to do to achieve it. 

Don’t think we aren’t teaching anyone other than Justina. We are trying to get more investigadors. It’s hard. We had an awesome mujer joven but we went Saturday to invite her to church and she said her family doesn’t want her to have anything to do with us. But she loves the Book of Mormon and she is reading. I know that she will be baptized someday. We are also teaching Justina’s family. haha She is such a missionary. She is always saying visit this person. We found out that she is always visiting the elderly in the barrio. She is turning 68 and she still walks all over visiting people, Paraguayans never die. She told us the other day she was going to visit her dad. He is 96. I was like what!!! Your dad’s alive? It’s crazy. We got a referral this week from the elder’s investigator. It was her mom. She is only like 30 and when we got there we discovered her mom was 92!!! and ONLY spoke Guarani. That was a fun hour in her house as the rain poured down outside and she jumped at the sound of each break of thunder and rambled forever in Guarani. It’s so hard. I love old people and their stories. I hate not being able to understand them. 

So this Sunday was golden. We have three sets of missionaries in our rama. In my district between all of us we usually have one maybe two sometimes none investigators at church. But this week we all had someone!!! Gospel principles was packed! One of the women in the rama was suppose to go get Justina. We saw her at church and no Justina. I wanted to cry!! Hermana Sanabria told us when she went to get her she wanted to take a shower and Hermana Sanabria didn’t want to be late for church. I don’t know why she didn’t talk her out of the shower but anyway we were literally running all over like crazy trying to find someone to get her. We find the president’s son, that poor boy, he is the chauffeur of the rama, but we didn’t have another woman so we ran back to the capia trying to find someone to come with us. We finally grabbed a young woman and off we went. I was praying so hard the whole way that she would be ready when we got there and she was!!!! It was so great!!!! She loves church so much. The whole time she was smiling so big and she even read a part in front of the whole class. The lesson was on the sacrament and it was so perfect. I learned a lot. I’m grateful it wasn’t our week to teach. At the end Elder Den asked me to bear my testimony. I felt the spirit so strong. I have never had such a strong testimony of the sacrament before I came here. As I was leading the last song te nessisitio si (I Need Thee Every Hour) I was just crying so hard. It was kind of embarrassing but the whole room was investigators so they were all focused on their hymn books so it was ok.

The best part was we went to see Justina. After church she visited her son and we taught them about the sacrament and we had Justina share what she had learned and she knew so much!!! I bore my testimony again and her daughter said I believe in the blessings you’re talking about. Your Spanish is so much better then when I first met you. I know the Lord is helping you. This is someone who has never been to church. Then this question just came to me. I asked Justina if she has seen blessings in her life from living this commandment and she said she has. She has more energy to clean her house and she never wanted to read before and now she can for hours. Then she said I have been a part of three different churches and none felt right before now. I got chills. It was in Guarani when she said it so Nina, her daughter-in-law, said “she has been to a lot of churches and she feels so good in this one. I have seen a change in her. She used to be so nervous all the time and now she is so happy. She has found the true church.” The spirit was so strong. I know that people really can change!!! I know that I am changing so much. I was reading my MTC language journal and I never knew what the heck was going on. Now when I read it, I know what it says, and I was laughing at all the little mistakes I made. Sometimes I think we just can’t see all the progress we are making. I love you all so much!!

love,

Hermana Pelota

Me and Hermana Escobar with our lamitos

It was raining really hard but we had no clothes to wear so we
treked to the ladies house in the rain.  We felt bad for the elders
so we brought theirs too.  They bought us lamitos. It's the thing
we had at Thanksgiving.

For fun Hermana Escobar and I ran to the cemetery last Monday.
It's crazy.  It's like a whole city.

This is an awesome quote, Maybe you can translate it. I don't know. Mostly it's for Cade.