Monday, March 28, 2011

President and Sister Madariago, Elder Juhasz and Elder Adamson

Week 71 in Paraguay Change 12 Week 4

This week was a little more of a slow week, I really don't have too much to write about, so I'm just going to go through and answer some of the questions that mom sent me.
Well how is life as a missionary this week? Honestly nothing really exciting, we didn't have too much success this week finding investigators or teaching really. We spent a lot of time looking for more less active people we had been told about and trying to get references from members. I think we were really able to gain a lot more confidence this week with a lot of members though, and some of the less active members we have been working with went to church yesterday, so that is a good thing. On the side of investigators, nothing really. Monserrath got confirmed yesterday, so she is officially a member of the church now. That was really exciting, they called her up to the stand to get confirmed and she wouldn't go up because she thought she was going to have to speak. We had to explain to her quick that she just had to sit down and that was it, and then she went up.

How was the split off with Elder Levos? How did your companion do with Elder Neyra? Well, I'll tell you next week because I'm still looking forward to the division, the assistants had to cancel on us because President had a last minute special assignment for them because of the training meetings they have been doing. It was kind of our fault for trying to plan the division during the trainings, but after Wednesday all of the training is over so we are starting the division Wednesday evening and ending it Thursday morning, and this time it is for sure.

How is your companion's Spanish doing? It's been about two months he is probably a lot more confident now? He still isn't too confident, he understands a lot more but it is still pretty frustrating, it is a little frustrating for me sometimes because I feel like he doesn't even want to try, but I can't judge. I know how it was, and it is hard, and that was after I had 4 years of high school Spanish. The members and others too are getting kind of mad at him for speaking English and stuff. I'm pretty much the only one that talks a lot of the time in lessons, but we're working on it and we'll see how it goes. I'm thinking there are only about two and a half more weeks that we are going to be together, so I better train him well, just in case he's with a Latin next change.

Any great prospects? We have a few people we are working with that are progressing, but nothing super fast. We didn't have any investigators in church yesterday. It was tough, I think it was the first time in a really long time that has happened to me. We have General Conference coming up so it is a great oppurtunity for people to go for the first time with so many different times you can go and it being in the afternoon and everything. The first session doesn't start until one here, so it should be a really good way to get a lot more investigators in church this week.

Have you enjoyed the flowers and plants of Paraguay? From your perspective of working with so many flowers before your mission, do you notice them in Paraguay? A lot of times I do notice flowers I sold and things, but I can never remember their names, and there are so many more plants I don't know that are really different. It is really cool sometimes how amazing Paraguay is, but almost anything grows here. People with big gardens always say that it is super easy to grow things here, all you have to do is throw a seed on the ground and come back in a couple months.

Have you any pictures lately? I attached the picture of me with Elder Juhasz the day we left the office when he came. The truth is my camera is broken, the lens won't open, I'm going to try and get it fixed, but I haven't taken any pictures in a while because of that. Luckily my companion has a camera and I can just stick my chip in his camera to get some pictures, I have pictures, I just don't have any way of getting them off the chip right now, but they have what I need in the office, so the next time I go I can save all of them on my thumb drive.

Well, my time is just about up, I love you all so much. This week is going to be a really full week, tomorrow I'm doing a division with one of my district leaders, then Wednesday a division with Elder Levos, then Thursday in the area, then Friday the zone is going to the temple, then Saturday and Sunday we have General Conference, and then on Monday I have Zone Leader Council, so I should many things to share next time I write again, I love you all so much, Elder Adamson V

Monday, March 21, 2011

Week 70 in Paraguay Change 12 Week 3 A Baptism

Hey mom, thanks for the heads up on my mission deferment at BYU, that is just a little important. I am absolutely positive I filled one out and BYU should have it. What happened was my last week in school at the Y, I went to turn one in and they told me I couldn't turn one in until after I got my call, so I brought one home, filled it all out, and then once we got my call we sent it, maybe it didn't get there or something happened, but I specifically remember sending it. My president said I could do whatever I needed to do, so I'm going to print it out and send it this week, it takes about 4 weeks to be sure that it got there, so about this time in April we should check and see if they got it, if they didn't I'll try sending it again. Which reminds me, I sent you and dad an anniversary present, pretty much the best present I could have ever given you, it was supposed to be a suprise, but its been a really long time since I sent it, so I just want to know if you've got it yet, hopefully you have, or you get it this week or something, because it was such an awesome gift I hope it didn't get lost in the mail. I don't want to say what it is just to not ruin the suprise, hopefully you already have it, but I thought for sure once you got it you would have said something because of how awesome it is, so I thought I would just check. (Note-Dad and Mom have not received it. It has been over a month since it was mailed.)

Anyway, the week turned out to be a pretty good one, but it turned out to be kind of a let down, we had so much success finding new people and teaching Tuesday and Wednesday, and then as the week went on and we were preparing people to go to church people began to dismiss us and it started to get a little more difficult. On the happy side, Monserrath got baptized yesterday! It was really exciting for her to finally get baptized. We told her over and over and over again to invite friends, and she brought two of her friends to church and they stayed for the baptism after. Today we are going to try and meet her friends families and see what they thought about the baptism, hopefully we can get a lot more people to teach that way. All and all things have been really good as of late, the week before this one was really tough, and we are still kind of just coming up off of that, but we are going in a good direction. Tomorrow I'm going on a division with one of the assistants, Elder Levos, one of my really good friends from the office days, so I'm excited for that, it should be a really fun day and it should help me out a lot figuring out how to work as a zone leader with the zone and get some good training. Elder Neyra, the other assistant, is going to be working with my companion, it should be a good day for him, since Elder Neyra doesn't speak any English and my companion is just kind of getting to know the area, hopefully he doesn't get too lost and he can remember people they find, but it should be a good learning experiece for the both of us.
Anyway, I really don't have too much more to say, the big highlight of the week was the baptism, I'm really glad we were able to get it done, she'll be getting confirmed next week in church so we've still got a week to teach her how to listen to the spirit. I love this work so much, its been really hard lately, especially with all the new responsiblities on top of training a new missionary, but it hasn't been overwhelming, and I am trying hard to exceed expectations. I know the Lord will help me as I put my trust in him. I love you all so much, I can't wait to hear all the great things that happen this week next week. Elder Adamson V

Monday, March 14, 2011

Week 69 in Paraguay Change 12 Week 2

It sure has been a crazy week, almost everyone has been telling me about the tsunami in Japan. I was looking forward to today though because I knew that you would tell me what really happened. I have heard so many different things from the people here. My favorite was this one member that told us a 2000 meter wave hit Japan, but the Japanese people were ready and waiting for the wave, so they all got on their rooftops and only 1200 people died, after a wave more than a mile high hit the country. So I'm glad to have the correct information now.
Anyway, about the skype call thing, I don't know if it will even work this time because it will be Sunday and the only place we have internet here we have to pay to use it, so the phone call will probably just be a regular phone call like all the other ones. We'll plan it well before it happens, we still have 8 more weeks to worry about that though, but really only 7 more letters after this one if you think about it, but that's still a lot of time, we'll get it all figured out once it gets a little bit closer.
Well to answer some of your questions, Monserrath still hasn't got baptized, Wednesday for sure the baptism is happening, we just wanted to wait a little longer so she understood a few more things. Other than that the missionary work has been a little slow lately. We have been doing a lot of planning and ligistical things lately, getting references and things, this week should be the pay off week. Hopefully we can really get a lot going, it has been really good working with members and trying to start to work a lot more off of references. It really is a lot more effective, and it helps the members, especially less actives and recent converts, it is exciting to get them excited about sharing the gospel and hearing all their stories about people they taught in that past and people they brought to church. Last week we were able to contact a few of the references we got, but this week is the big week.
As for the zone, I'm over 5 units, 4 wards and 1 branch. The branch has sisters so there's one set of sisters in the zone. It has been good so far being zone leader, its a lot more work, but luckily I've got a pretty small zone, so its not too bad, and its fun to teach and train them, plus I'm still training Elder Juhasz, so I've got a lot to do.
Anyway I better get going, don't stop sending the BYU news, its fun to hear about, and honestly I don't even think about it during the week, I just miss it on P-day and then I forget about it until the next Monday, go Cougs, I love you all so much, Elder Adamson V

Monday, March 7, 2011

Week 68 in Paraguay Change 12 Week 1 Zone Leader

I didn't know you were all into the skype phase of life, I'm going to have to confess something, we got a letter from Salt Lake while I was in the office that said all missionaries now have permission to skype their families for their Christmas phone calls to cut down on the cost of calls. I didn't tell you because I thought you would have to install it, even though that only takes about 5 minutes, and I kind of thought it would be cool to be able to say I didn't SEE my family for 2years, but if we wanted to for Mother's Day we could probably do it, I don't know, I still think it would be kind of cool the suprise in September after having not seen each other for 2 years. Anyway, just had to make that little confession now that you have been talking so much about skype.
Anyway, to answer a few of your questions, I am still with my companion, Elder Juhasz, but we did, get a little change, I went up to zone leader, I'm over all the missionaries in the front half of Capiata, a zone of 12 missionaries, and I'm the only zone leader. It's been pretty fun so far, I haven't really had to do anything much different yet, but we'll see what happens. As for the little girl, she is supposed to get baptized this week, but we've been talking about it and we want to wait until next week. She's only 9 years old and her parents aren't members and she doesn't understand really yet the questions for her baptismal interview. I mean I know she's only nine and she won't be able to respond as intellegently as an adult, but I don't want to baptize her just because her aunt wants her to and then she goes back to live with her mom and never goes to church again. I think we should at least wait until she understands how to pray on her own, so I'm pretty sure it might get postponed a little. I think it will work out well too, because her cousin, that is the daughter of a member, just turned 8 and we can plan a baptism for them to get baptized together, so the girl will get interviewed by the bishop on Sunday, and then Monserrath by one of my district leaders (I like how that sounds) on Tuesday and we'll do the baptism next Wednesday. That way we'll have another week to get her more prepared, we'll go over there and teach her everyday to make sure she's good and feel a little better about it.
As for the letters you sent me, thank you so much for the pictures, I can't believe how much everything has changed, the mission is really weird in a way that it feels like everything has just kind of been put on pause and will be the same when I get back, its kind of weird to accept the fact that the world moves on without you. I can't believe Nick is married! No one ever told me that, I guess he's been home for 6months now, which is also just insane to me, I've been gone a really long time, and I've still got quite a bit left. It was just a weird kind of reality check.
Anyway, we're going to be going, I love you so much, sorry I didn't write much today, I spent a lot of time reading things over again, but I love you all so much, can't wait to hear from you again next week, Elder Adamson V