Week 41 in Paraguay Change 7 Week 3

I can hardly even remember what happened this week it went by so fast. We had our big training meeting all week long. We had to coordinate a lot of elders and things this week, and that made it go by faster. This next week should be pretty normal, we haven't been able to have a normal week in the office in a long time, so it will be nice to have a little bit of time to just get caught up on projects and really get things organized in the office.
Big news though, I don't know if I already told all of you, but the office staff is changing and the new elders are coming in tomorrow. There is going to be a new fichero and a new financiero, a new records guy and a new money keeper, that means tomorrow I'm going to be getting a new companion. Elder Gage will still be here to train him, for the next 2 and a half weeks, but I'm going to miss him when he goes, he has definitely been a great companion. Definitely a favorite companion. My new companion's name is Elder Daily, he came with me to the mission field, so we will be hitting the year mark together. I don't really know him at all though, we were in different districts in the MTC, and I've only seen him in passing since the day we flew down together. So I'm going to have to wait another week to tell you a little more about him. I do know he is a convert to the churc, the first member in his family. Baptized a year before he came on his mission, and he baptized his mom before he left, but they are the only members in his family still. That is pretty neat. It reminds me of a part of the blessing Dad gave me before I left, how I would have companions that were new to the church and I would learn from their simple faith, but when I heard that I just assumed those companions would be Latin, but Elder Daily is 100% American.
I guess I'll get to those questions and I'll tell you a little more about the new office elders next week after they have been in a while.
How's the missionary work? How many people are you working with? Are they coming to church? The work lately has been really good, we still really don't have too many people we are working with, but the people we are working with are really cool and are progressing. We are teaching this family, the mom, two daughters and a son, the mom and one of the daughters are separated from their husbands, the other daughter is 19 and the son is 17, and they are some of the coolest investigators I have had thus far in my mission. They always read and they actually understand what they are reading, they could do a little better on the prayer part, but at least they don't lie. I have been thinking about this family a lot lately, just trying to think about how we can help them more, three of them went to church and they told us they liked all of it until the last hour, sacrament meeting, the most important part of church. My companion and I have been trying so hard with them, we are going back again tonight to get them all ready for church. We have got to figure something out so they have a good time in church, this training meeting has been a big help with that too though. One of the eight focuses in the new curriculum is Revelation through church attendance, hopefully we can apply some of those things tonight to get a good commitment with them so they can feel the Spirit during sacrament meeting tomorrow. I want so bad for them to get baptized, right now their baptismal date is set for the 10th of September, we are a little worried for them though because they haven't been too excited about church this week, and if they miss just one Sunday, Elder Gage will already be gone before they get baptized.
How's the office? What have you been doing? How is driving in the city? The office has been great, it has been really hectic this week though because of all the missionaries that were in the office, it always seems like the office is just busy based on the number of missionaries just standing around, and it always seems like every one of them want to talk to President for some reason or another. But really honestly it has been great, recently my latest project was to re-make the change board so they are all individual magnets, instead of just taping magnets to pictures of missionaries. It is all in and cut and all I have to do now is put it up on the board now, so I'll be finishing that project this week. I've been doing a lot of flight plans lately too, I had to do the last ones a little bit earlier so we could make sure missionaries going home close to Christmas had flights. Driving is crazy, I am really glad you never have to drive in this country, it is a whole new world, but I am pretty used to it now. I just hope it doesn't show through when I get back to the states, because it really isn't the best way to drive, but I don't think it will, once I actually have big streets again and people that aren't trying to constantly cut you off, I think I will drive just like I did before. It is really good though that I learned how to drive a stick before my mission, I can't imagine trying to learn how to drive a stick on these kinds of roads, and I would not be able to do my job without being able to drive, maybe me crashing the car back in New York was really just a tender mercy so I could learn how to drive a stick and be a more effective missionary as a mission secretary, probably not, but it makes me feel a little better about it anyway. I attached a picture I found on the computer of the old office car, the one we drive now is almost exactly the same, same color and everything, just a newer model. I'll try to remember to take a picture of the real Randog, that's what we call it, for next week.
Have lots of new missionaries? New people in the office? Has your new President got things the way he wants? There will be a lot of new missionaries coming soon, and new people in the office soon, and I think President will be getting a lot of things the way he wants really soon. He already has changed a whole lot of things, but really just in the office, if I were just a regular missionary in the field not much would have changed. The new President is super smart with computers and he doesn´t really like the system we have been using, so he started making this completely new system and is uploading it to all of our computers, now we kind of use both systems, but soon it´ll just be the one he made.
Anyway, no more time, I love you all so much, can't wait to write you again next week, hopefully with news of awesome people going to church, finding new people, and preparing for baptisms. Love you so much, Elder Adamson V

Week 40 in Paraguay Change 7 Week 2

Down here everything is pretty relaxed right now. Just normal P-day fever. About the week, this last week seemed to just fly by, I honestly don't even really remember it starting, but a lot of good things happened. First of all, Zone Conferences are over, I got to go on Wednesday, there is this new focus with all missionaries all over the world on teaching skills. The church has come out with this whole new training program to help missionaries become better missionaries. It sounds like it is really going to help out a lot of things. With that the leaders of the mission are attending this 4 day training this next week, I think I already talked about it a little bit, I went out to Pedro Juan on a division for the last one, but now its my turn to go because this one is for young leaders. It focuses on eight specific points from Preach My Gospel to help missionaries focus more on helping their investigators understand their purpose and feel the Spirit. We have been applying just a few of the points recently in our area and the outcomes have been really awesome. Just this week we put five new baptismal dates for the 10th of September, on Justin's birthday, hopefully they go through so I have an awesome birthday present for him. Tonight we might be putting three more on the calendar, so eight to be baptized that day. We were planning earlier in the week with a map of our area because we pretty much have nothing happening right now, and we decided to contact these five secluded blocks on the other side of our area where we never go because it is a huge walk to get there. So we get out there and the very first house we contact we go inside and put three baptismal dates on the calendar, and have since then put another one in the house. There is a single mom that lives there with three of her kids, ages 23, 19, and 17 ish. The 23 year old is also a single mom, and all of them are preparing to be baptized. They are seriously some of the best investigators I have ever had in my mission, and they actually understand really well, which doesn't happen very often, well pretty much everyone in this area does. They read and discuss the Book of Mormon with us and all should be at church tomorrow. I think two of them will come for sure, the other two are a little iffy, but we've got faith. Then there is this other girl, Lurdes, that let us in and we shared the gospel with her and her two children and she is also one of the best investigators I have ever taught. She has so much desire to do what is right and look for what Heavenly Father wants her to do. She has a few more problems though, she is living with someone and they aren't married, and they have been together a long time, but marriage isn't a problem, except he isn't the father of the children and we aren't sure if she was married before? Divorce is a problem here because it takes a very long time and is expensive, so hopefully she never got married in the first place so we can just get her married and baptized. We haven't ever talked to her boyfriend yet. Her two sons, ages 9 and 11, both play soccer Sunday mornings, so getting to church might be a little problem. The other date we could put tonight is with this single girl named Alicia, she has already been to church once, but since then she has kind of fizzled out. We are going there tonight and we are going to either leave her with a baptismal date or we are going to drop her.
I am really excited though to be able to go to the training meeting this next week and start applying all of the points. We are having more success in our area right now than I think we have had since I got here in the office, and I really think it is because of these new things we are applying to our teaching. It still is kind of hard to plan from 4:30 to 9 though because of how few investigators we have. Generally the investigators we have are really awesome right now. It is really sad thought considering everyday before I got the office we planned from 10AM in the morning to 9PM at night without any problems filling the whole day, and now we have trouble filling more than 2 hours, and we just end up contacting the rest of the time. I am really excited for the near future, and I really hope we can get Lurdes to church tomorrow and prepared for everything, because if we can get her and her boyfriend married and baptized on the 10th of September, that would be a family before I hit my year mark so I might have a chance to go through the temple with them to get them sealed before I go home. If it doesn't go through that way, I think for sure we will be having baptisms again before the end of September.

Week 39 in Paraguay Change 7 Week 1

This week was such an extremely week with office stuff, there is a lot of mission drama going on right now. That is one of the cool things about the office, you are in on everything and you get to know about all the changes and everything before they even happen. It looks like pretty soon, as within the next 5 weeks, I will have more time in the office than everyone else in the office except one person. Then six weeks after, that one person will be leaving the office and then I'll have more time than anyone else. It's weird, everyone is getting out the office and I just got in, and I can't believe I have been in here for a whole month and a half already. Anyway, about the week, we had zone conferences this week, so just because of that it has been very busy. President's wife wanted to try something different for the lunches at the conferences too, so the good news is I had free food all week, bad news I ate the exact same plate of food five days in a row, salad, some good rice, a roll, chicken milinesa, delicious fruit juice, and a green Jello desert. It was really good food, but it was a little tiring having it every day. Then, I have been scheduling so many things for President. It seems like right now, all at once everyone wants President to do something for them so my phone is just ringing off the hook, even though it doesn't have a hook because it is a cell phone, but you know what I mean. I got to drive a whole lot this week too, I'm getting used to it now, Paraguayan driving is really different, people are crazy here, but don't worry, I'm being very safe. Just this morning I had to drive a sister to the airport, she went home early because of some difficulties she was having in the mission, she had a really early flight too so I haven't got a very good nights sleep.
We are kind of thin in the investigator pool again, we were supposed to have another baptism yesterday, but the girl getting baptized talked to her family and kind of got cold feet. She comes from a really Catholic family and her grandparents are really against her getting baptized. We talked to her last night and set up another baptismal date for two weeks from now, but she is not going to be able to go to church this week so I don't know what is going to happen. I hope she is able to overcome everything and do what she knows is right, she has really changed, just a week ago she was always really excited to meet with us and really happy and now she is just different, we think she may have broke some commandments and is having trouble now because of that, but every time we try to verify she seems like she is keeping all commitments, the desire just isn't there anymore.
Luis is doing really good, we confirmed him last Sunday and ordained him to be a priest, hopefully we can get him blessing the sacrament soon, but he doesn't want to wear the white shirt I gave him to church because it is too big, so we are going to have to exchange it sometime so he can start blessing the sacrament. Other than that we are just trying to find a lot of new people, we found some good people last week, but we don't have very many people right now that are progressing and keeping commitments. We are working hard though and a lot of things are going well, we just need to get the members a little more involved in the work instead of just doing contacts all the time, anyway, got to go.

Week 38 in Paraguay Change 6 Week 6 in Mission Office

This last week was probably one of the busiest weeks in my whole mission, the office is just a busy place to be during changes, but I made it through it. Six more weeks until I've got to do it all over again. I am officially alone here in the office, no more trainer, Elder Peterson, to help me out, move me along and get me doing what I am supposed to be doing, but I'm alright, it really isn't too much to handle, and he trained me for 5 weeks, so if he hasn't showed me it yet it must not be that important. It is just Elder Gage and I tracking out Campo Grande A. The office is really changing, within the next six weeks it'll probably be a whole different staff, all people that never were in the office with President Wade. President Madariaga really wants to change a lot of things up and I think he kind of wants his own staff, willing missionaries that never knew how it was done with President Wade so he can get the office accustomed to his way, which in a lot of ways really isn't that different, but I wouldn't really know either, I was never here with President Wade. This week was a week full of activity; sending old missionaries home, getting new missionaries here and to their areas, and making sure that all of that was done legally and without any problems. We had the biggest adventures with the new missionaries coming in. All the missionaries, Latin or American, are all supposed to arrive here on Tuesday of changes and there is a whole plan and schedule for everything so they can be sent out to their areas and working by Wednesday afternoon. Well, there were about a lot of flight problems for the Americans, and to make a long story short, instead of having to go to the airport once as was planned, we ended up going to the airport five different times to pick up new missionaries, four of which some new missionaries actually showed up. It was a really confusing and stressful week because of all the flight problems, but looking back on all of it, everything actually went really smoothly and everything is finally in place. And, Luis was finally baptized, after working with him for five weeks now, we were able to baptize him Tuesday night, and for some of the new missionaries that had arrived, they could see their first baptismal service in Paraguay. Everything is going really well with him and we are preparing to confirm him tomorrow and give him the Aaronic Priesthood. Next week we should be having another baptism, this girl named Fatima, the girlfriend of a less active member in our ward, we have been trying to activate the family and Fatima is going to get baptized. After that it doesn't look like we will have anything for a little while, but we are going to keep on looking for good people in our little area.
Anyway, I don't have much time today, we've got some fun P-day plans for today and we haven't even done our shopping yet. Sorry to cut the communication a little short. Thank you, for the article, I really like it, I'll be thinking about that this week.