Hay Esperanza

Hermana Austin and I at the welcome party for President Wilson

ROUND 2 We took this our first week after transfers. I'm so grateful we are still together.

 

 

 

It is hot in our house some days. I was feeling really sick. Our bathroom door is broken so you can just see in from where we study. I guess I fell asleep and Sister Austin took this picture.

Pablo the Sunday he blessed the Sacrament. We gave him that tie. He was so happy!

My first meeting with all the sister leaders.

So to start off Pablo is doing sooo much better, the bishop has been really really great with him. He had an interview with Pablo and he told them that if Pablo’s mom, Norma, was going to kick them out then the ward could pay for an apartment for them for a few months and, cool story, we are the only ones that live in our apartment complex soooo.....I think we may be getting some vecinos this week!!! I’m stoked and we are going to be able to help them so much better with them so close. Pablo was at church yesterday with Wanilda and her son from Brazil tha’ts here to visit. Wanilda gave the talk in church about eternal marriage and it was so beautiful to hear her be able to talk about it so positively like she knows that she is going to have that with Pablo some day. Also this week she was supposed to have an interview with presedente de estaca (stake president) to get her recommend for the temple back. She has already been endowed, but she was inactive for a long time. But the thing was she needed a shirt to meet with him and she had come from her work so I offered my clothes, hahah so I gave her my clothes and I just sat in the bathroom waiting for her to be done hahahah. It was great. But she gave me the biggest hug after and she was like “this is why I love missionaries, they are so willing to do anything they can to help” and now she totally has her recommend!!! So worth 20 min in a stinky Paraguayan bathroom!! The best part is her other son gets here today and they are going to the temple tomorrow for him to receive his endowment to go on his mission!!!!! I am sooo happy. I think it’s hard for Pablo to not be able to go. She was so funny yesterday. She told him “you can wait in the waiting room” haha but he was like “thanks for trying to include me.”Poor guy, but I just have so much faith in the atonement and I know in a year he is going to be there. 

So this week was just kind of loco when it came to sister leader responsibilities. We had some drama, but the best part of the week was getting to see my HIJA (daughter) hermana paredes because we were doing divisions with the hermanas that live in her same house. I don’t know if I told you guys we got more hermanas this change and received Villa Elise and hermana austin’s first area, costa bonita. Oh ya, I think I did tell you because that’s why I also had hermana rozsa last week, but anyway it was so funny seeing my hija. She was sooo happy. I love her so much. In two weeks I will get to go back to Villa Elisa, I’m sooo stoked! 

All week we were just trying to be positive. We had some really great days. We taught a lot more this week then we have been. But Saturday came along and we had lots of people who had accepted baptismal dates but weren’t coming to church because of dia del niño, which was Sunday. Quick history lesson, a long time ago in Paraguay there was a bad war and all the men started to die so they made children fight in the war. More then 2,000 niños died. So it’s kind of like Mother’s day but it’s a day they celebrate the kids. It’s like Christmas, they get presents and cake. It’s really cute but it was also annoying because everyone was traveling to the country to visit family. So we had literally past for everyone and we were just sitting on the street out of ideas. A while back we got a referral from guys that are working here from BYU. There is an English company that is here called Elivate and they work with this girl, but it’s hard to find her. Her name is Ivana. Her family has a new restaurant and so we decided to go see if the guys were there and if they could introduce us to her and her family. So we get there (also we were fasting so we were like shoot how are we going to go about this, we can’t order food) but we decided maybe we could take the food home and eat it Sunday. So we go in and we tell them that the guys sent us and told us it was a good place to eat. They were really nice but then we just sit down to wait and we are like well what are we going to do. This is like a restaurant. Oh, also it’s like almost 8:40 at night, but we decided to eat the pizza and close our fast. I don’t know why but it was a miracle because when we got all done eating this Ivana shows up and she starts talking to us. She is like let’s sit down. So we go out and sit down and she just opens up to us and tells her whole life story. She is from Paraguay but she lived in California for a while, so she speaks English really well, which was hard for us to try and teach in English. But she is sooo great, then the guys showed up. Their names are Eston and Andrew. A little more about them, I always just feel like they are elders. They are always giving us advice and trying to help us stay positive. They are really supportive. We feel like they are our district leaders because we don’t really have elders in our area, so we barely ever see the elders in our district. They show up and I had never really seen them in real clothes and we were like, this is weird. They came and sat down and they were just chatting. At this point it’s like 9:30. I just realized in this moment how awkward I have become. I felt like I was just chilling with friends and it was a terrible feeling. We had to get out of there. We were so awkward leaving and we had them say a prayer before we left. haha Yes, a lesson with a member, but anyway, it was sooo funny. When we are going to leave hermana austin whips out a Book of Mormon and awkwardly gives it to her. It was soooo funny. The whole way home we were just freaking out how weird we were. I can’t fully describe in words how hilarious this moment was for me, but it was also a huge milagro (miracle). God took a sad Saturday night and gave us a milagro. Ivana didn’t come to church, but she is great and we are going to start working with her.

I love you guys. the other thing I wanted to say was a while back we had Pablo give his mom, Norma, a Book of Mormon. Afterwards she hugged me and said thanks so much. She loves us but she is just sooooo into her church. But yesterday I invited her over and we sang “I Know That My Redeemer Lives” for her and she was crying so hard. We were hitting some crazy high notes. I love singing with hermana Austin, even though lots of times when we sing all the dogs in the world start to bark. So I don’t know... maybe that means we don’t sing so good, but the point is she cried! I have a lot of faith in her too. She told me she is reading her Book of Mormon.

That’s all. We had a crazy week. Lots of intervambios (splits) and I spent a lot of time on crazy Paraguayan buses. Lots of fun. I love you all. It’s kind of gotten cold again which is good because our air conditioner broke. I hope it’s fixed before the heat comes back.

Love ya xooxoxooxoxoxo,

Hermana Ball