Week 93 in Paraguay Change 16 Week 2

Mba'echapa che familiakuéra? Asrivíhina pe carta katu peikuaa haguâ la ohasáhina che vídape ko'anga. Aipota otermina haguâ che misión Santanípe. Che a'aprendese guaraníme gui, a'aprende chupe hasyeterei! Well, there's a little bit of jopará for all of you, I'm learning Guaraní, but I really don't know how to speak it all that well. The people here don't really either, they just speak what they call Jopará, which is a mix of Guaraní and Spanish. For all you that speak Spanish you can see the Spanish in what I wrote. I wrote, "How are you my family? I'm writing this letter so you can know what is happening in my life right now. I want to finish my mission in Santaní. I'm learning Guaraní, but learning it is really hard!" It's coming along, but the progress is slow and time is really winding down fast. I still don't speak it well enough to hold a conversation, but I can teach simple things, like prayer and things like that, it really helps to get into houses, everyone loves someone that speaks Guaraní. I'm kind of sad that I've never really been anywhere they speak Guaraní a lot until now. It would have been nice to be where I'm at now before I got here and go off of that, but what can you do, I've been and I'm at exactly where the Lord wanted and wants me to be. Speaking of which, President gave us a little heads up that there are going to be a lot of special changes this next week to get ready for the real changes, because changes this time is going to be really crazy. Luckily I'm not in the office anymore to take care of that, in this change when I go home and the last change combined there were 46 new missionaries, which means 46 new trainers because trainers have to stay with the greenie for two changes, and 18 zone leaders went home, which means in just two changes there is going to have to be 46 new trainers, 18 new zone leaders, and the mission has to open 5 new areas, that is a lot of weight on a lot of young missionaries and a lot of stress for a Mission President, so he wants to do a lot of the moving people around next week, which means there is a good chance Elder Felix might leave. Of course we don't know, but I've got the office Elder blood and it's always fun to speculate and think about who will be going up and who is going to be leaving their area. But anyway, that probably doesn't interest you much, the real news of the week is that we moved houses, we are living now on the second story of a really nice place that is a lot cheaper than where we were at before, some members showed us the place and we have known for a while that our old owner was charging us way too much and taking advantage because we were American, so when they showed us how nice the new place is and told us the price we accepted and moved. It worked out really well too because we are right at the end of the month so we have two houses until Wednesday and we have the big zone conference with Elder Arnold tomorrow, so the Assistants are going to stay in our old house tonight. My interview with the Area President will be tomorrow during lunch, 66 people are going to be in the conference, among which there will be 8 zone leaders, all the other missionaries are going to a restaurant to eat lunch while the 8 of us stay at the church alone with President Arnold to eat and have interviews. It's just a little intimidating but I'm really excited, it will be a really great opportunity to have the interview with a General Authority. He gave a conference talk either last year or 2009 if you want to look him up to see who he is, he is one of the most powerful men I have ever heard speak, he's the one that came back in March. It should be fun. His full name is Mervyn B. Arnold if you want to look that up, it was a great talk. Anyway, I'm out of time, the time on P-day always goes by way too fast, but I love you all sooo much. Elder Adamson V

Week 92 in Paraguay Change 16 Week 1

Well, one more week has gone by in Paraguay, I can't believe how fast time goes, I woke up a little early today before the alarm went off and I just sat there thinking and I started to think about all my old roommates from BYU, and it hit me that every single one of them are home now, pretty much everyone I know that left is home now, they're all just waiting for me now, and now officially I am in the oldest group of missionaries in the mission, we are the next ones to go home. It's really exciting, but the truth is it's a pretty sad thought, Santaní is really starting to get going now and we haven't had any baptisms yet, the members are so excited and it looks like things are really going to blow up here, right as I'm about to go. We have so many people we are working with and each one of them are so close to getting baptized, but they are just have these little doubts, but we are getting through it, we have been bringing so many people to church and they just aren't committing to baptism. It's a little frustrating because throughout my whole mission in every other area if I brought a person to church more than once they got baptized, but here we have some investigators that have gone to church multiple times and still don't want to make a commitment. I really think we'll be having some in September though. We are working with some couples to try and get them married, two couples specifically and in both couples the wife is already a member, so we are trying to get them married and the husband baptized. We are really close with one of them, but they don't speak hardly any Spanish, I try to teach them with my broken Guaraní, but they don't understand much, but members have really been helping a lot with that. I have been learning so much Guaraní here to try and teach people. I told you about Cintia, well she still hasn't missed a Sunday since she first went with us and we are trying to baptize her mom. She doens't speak much Spanish either. She has been my motivation to learn Guaraní. I really want to be able to see her baptized, she went to church with us the week before last, but yesterday she went to her old church again, so we are going to keep working on that. Her daughter bore her testimony in the testimony meeting she went to and I think that really helped her a lot. She said she had a dream that she went out working with us one day and was teaching the gospel with us, she told us before that she would pray and seek an answer if she should get baptized, so I thought she was telling me about the dream because she thought it was an answer. So I asked her, "You're going to get baptized now then, right?" and she just said that in the dream we didn't say anything about baptism, that we were just talking about God, so it has been pretty frustrating, but I think I will be able to see her baptized, hopefully. It's going to take a lot of faith, but it will help Cintia out soo much, she cried and cried when we told her that one of us was going to leave at changes, and then we got changes and we're staying together. Oh yeah, I didn't tell you yet, Elder Felix and I are still together, it looks like he might be my last companion, but he has been here a really long time so we are thinking there might be a special change before changes. We'll see. Anyway, out of time, I don't know how that happened. Anyway, as for the airport stuff, being able to my sister in Atlanta, I'm sure I can leave and I don't need a comp, I'm flying to spokane alone and I always travel alone here. I'll ask my mission president, but I'm sure it won't be a problem as long as I don't leave the airport. I'm just a little worried about making flights, I only have an hour and 40 minute layover in Atlanta and I have to go through customs because I'm coming into the country on that flight, in Utah it might be easier, I already sent a letter to Andrea asking her to see if she could get permission to pass security in Atlanta, we get permission here, but I don't know if its going to be the same in the states. I love you all so much, Elder Adamson V

Week 91 in Paraguay Change 15 Week 6

So, we still haven't gotten our changes today. We always get them Monday at night so we should be finding out what is happening tonight. It will be kind of funny if Elder Felix stays and I have to leave because we already went to a few peoples houses and Elder Felix said goodbye and told them he was leaving when we really didn't know. We told them we weren't sure but that it was more probably that he leaves and not me. This week has been a really great week. There were some special changes on Wednesday and one of the missionaires from the other companionship here in Santaní got changed (transferred to a new area), and since the changes were so close to the actual changes we just stayed in a trio, Elder Felix, Elder Aguilar, and I. We have been working a lot with members to go on divisions and what not, to be able to work both areas. This branch is changing so much, we haven't had any baptisms yet, but the Branch is so much better than when I got here, the members are visiting a lot of people without us even asking and things are a lot better. We have a lot more people to teach and people are progressing a lot quicker than they were before. It is kind of sad that all this is happening right as we are getting changes, but the Lord knows where he needs us and what the work is that we need to do. As for the trip to the waterfall last week, I'll just have to tell you the story in a few weeks when I'm home, I don't want to take too much time talking about it right now. I attached a few photos for you to look at to see what it was like.

We have been traveling so much lately. I went to Puente Kyha, then to Concepcion, then to Saltos del Guiará. Our zone is so huge it is kind of fun to travel and work with missionaries, but it is so tiring. This week we have changes so we are going to have to get up in the middle of the night again, all the trips we make are 4 hours or more and the bus always comes at about 3 in the morning. Luckily the buses are really nice and its pretty easy to sleep. All except this bus to Concepcion, it was worse than a school bus and it was a 5 hour trip one way. Anyway, that is about all that is happening, we are going to have our zone conference with Elder Arnold in two weeks, I'm going to have a personal interview with him. I love you all so much, Elder Adamson V

Week 90 in Paraguay Change 15 Week 5

So this week was probably one of the most tiring weeks in my mission, we did a lot of traveling and lost a lot of sleep on buses, but we got a really good nights sleep last night and we're ready to go for a new week ahead of us. The bad news is that today we went to this waterfall in our area because this is the last chance Elder Felix and I were going to have together to see it because changes are next week. We have other things to do next P-day, so we went to the waterfall and it was a lot further away than we thought and it took a very large chunk out of our P-day, so I really don't have any time at all to write because we still have a lot of things to do and we have to get to work at six, sorry, but we got a whole lot of really awesome pictures. The big news of the week is that yesterday we went to Concepción for our district conference, Elder Ávila was there, and area seventy, and we had 11 investigators in church! Concepción is 5 hours away so we left here at one in the morning yesterday and didn't get back until 7:30 at night, it was a long trip, but a lot of people went with we hadn't even met until yesterday, probably really to get to know Concepción, but we were able to talk a lot to them and we have plans to visit them this week. Anyway, I really love you all, sorry for the really short letter, I'll send a better one next week, but I better not promise because everytime I do it seems I can't, anyway, I love you all sooooo much, Elder Adamson V

Week 89 in Paraguay Change 15 Week 4

Santaní is really teaching me a lot about hard work and dedication, we are finally starting to see a lot of good things happen here and it is because of the work that we are putting into it. I don't think I have ever fasted more in my life, I really am gaining a testimony about the power of a fast. When I got here Elder Felix told me they had been fasting once a week for Santaní, for the members and for the work, he invited me to join him and I gladly accepted. Each week we think of a specific thing that would help the work and we fast for it, and we are really seeing the miracles. A lot has changed in Santaní just since I got here, pretty much everything but the church attendance, but now I think the leaders are really ready now to help people come back to church. All the active members are finally learning to visit people and the work is really moving forward. Yesterday there weren't that many people in church because it rained pretty hard, and you know how Paraguayans are when it rains, but it really is going a lot better and I think soon we will be seeing changes here. I love the mission so much, I don't know if I'm going to want to go home when the time comes, I mean I could easily go another two years without seeing the family... No, that really would be the only reason I would want to go back. Right now we are in the terminal again in Asunción, we just had zone leader council at President's house and we are going to be heading back to Santaní pretty soon. The next couple weeks we are going to be going out doing a lot of divisions with the zone to help people out, the zone is really not doing to well right now, so I talked to President today about what we could do and presented him the idea and he thought it was a good idea to travel the both of us, Elder Felix and I, to do divisions in one day with more than one companionship because of the distance we have to travel. So this week I'm going to go out to Puente Kyha and Elder Felix to La Paloma, and then next week we are both going out to Saltos because there are two companionships there. It's going to be pretty fun, but we have to work super hard too though. We want to leave a real good impression with the missionaries to help them work a little bit harder from now on. Anyway, as for our investigators, we are finding some really cool new people recently, the girl that had fecha for the 13th didn't go to church because of the rain, she is still pretty solid though. We just have to check on some things because she has a boyfriend, and it doesn't matter how old you are, here in Paraguay we all know what that means, so we moved her fecha yesterday to the 20th, so she can still go to church two more times before her baptism. Anyway, things are going great really, I am really happy, I saw a lot of old mission buddies today at concilio and we sat and talked for a while, it was a lot of fun, but don't worry, I'm focused, I'm feeling the spirit a lot everyday, and just all around I'm happy, its a funny thing because I don't think I have ever been so tired or worked so hard my entire life, but I really am super happy, I love you all so much, I can't wait to see you at the end of next month... Love you! Elder Adamson V