April 26, 2011

HII!!!!!!!!!!!

I have even less time today to write sorry family. One of these days I’m going to catch up! Dad this is the last letter before changes and I’m about to write president in the weekly letter and tell him I know changes come from the lord but there is a lot of success here waiting to happen so I don’t think we are going to leave ha! More then anything I don’t wanna leave! This area is a amazing and love the people despite the fact that thy are lazy! But I gotta tell you yesterday we had 2 familias in sacrament meeting!!!!!! They are so great, the same family as last week and another! The new family is not married and one is 17 years old and the other has 18 years old they have a kid that turns 1 the 4 of July (brynlee)! so we don’t know how we are going to work that cause we have to have the permission of the parents casue they are under age! So cool, they came to church on there own and love it and wanna get baptized! The other family wants to get baptized but their only doubt is that they might move and if they get baptized they don’t want to leave the church right after their baptism. I don’t think we will have a baptism this weekend but there is a possibility. Her name is Jessican Dabado. I love the people here, and ya dad my language is improving. I can say just about whatever I want now that isn’t slang. I was really blessed to have the language down so early it really helps to have a short fast speaking ecuedorian compenero. I still need to work on understanding everything. the weather is changing. When I arrived it was right in the middle of summer and then I thought to myself why the heck did Devin give me this pancho heavy coat thing! But oh my gosh I just about froze in the last rainstorm and I had a shirt, sweater, and 2 coats, the water is freezing! We don’t have hot water at our pension. Showers are horrible now. Its turning into winter and it feels like fall doesn’t exist!

Also with mothers day and talking on skyp....... no idea, the Mother’s Day here is the 15 of May so I think its going to be around that day or the day before or the day after. The district leader has not told us yet but in the next letter for sure I’ll ask and let you know. I’ve lost a lot of my tan already cause I haven’t seen the sun in 2 weeks! We had interviews with president this last week.... Being in his presence is like being in the presence of the prophet!! He is a powerful man!

Oh and we went to a buffet this last pday called golden buffalo and it was 6 dollars buffet which is really expensive!!!! I had my first green salad in Paraguay... it tasted funny. I ate stroganoff or something similar.

I love this work it really is a blessing. It’s very hard and tiring but amazing. The Lord has blessed us with a lot of wonderful people to teach. My patients and testimony grows everyday. Don’t forget to read your Book of Mormon every day family.

I love you

Love elder shaw

CHOUUUU!!!!

4/20/11

Dear Familia!

Wow. The wedding sounds fun, who all came? What the heck is wrong with Braydon? What is holding him back? Friends? Work? I remember that hamburger thing at seminary that was always fun, and that’s great you’re talking on that. I hate swearing but I have a funny story with swearing here. I asked someone the name of their neighbor to get a reference and he paused and thought for a while and then really strongly said puto (bad word) and I didn’t know what it meant so I repeated the word thinking it was the name and not knowing what it meant. He and my comp look at me really funny. I then knew I made a mistake ha! Thank you so much for praying for the families. I put in the last mail... but 4 baptisms fell through this Saturday cause they didn’t come to church... it was really hard when they didn’t come cause I really love them and they are ready just way lazy! We don’t know what to do with them because we have to drop investigators that are not going to progress so... hopefully they come next week! 
 Yesterday in church we had a family of 3 in sacrament meeting!!!!!!!!! They aren’t gold but hey put them through the furnace and out comes gold we are going to work with them. Its a mom and dad that have 65 years, both of them and daughter of 16 years old. They are called la familia Dabado. Oh and Saturday the bishop called me and told me that I had a 15 minute talk the next day in church so I gave a talk yesterday in sacrament meeting for 15 minutes on member missionary work. It went pretty well. Oh and one more investigator (we have so many amazing investigators just all of them ether work or a lazy and don’t progress to church) his name is Aldo and he works on Sunday so we are working with that but other then that he is perfect. We taught him the first lesson and he said wow this is what I have been looking for. We gave a BOM and thought wow he is cool after we left not perfect perfect. When we returned for our next visit he had prepared food for us, told us the Book of Mormon is true, and said can I leave with you to teach other people. He also wants to read the whole BOM in under 24 hours. We are praying for his boss to soften his heart so he can have Sundays off. He is perfect! 
I’m learning a lot of gratitude right now. As a missionary there is so much hope in every body and you always think the best is going to happen, but then when is doesn’t turn out the way you want it to turn out it can be very depressing! Yesterday we had 3 in church and that is awesome but I caught myself thinking, what the heck happened with the others when really I should be giving thanks for the people we had! 
And one funny story, we walked really far into our area this last Wednesday to see if we could find some inactive member there and we found a jail As we were walking past the jail (it was jail fenced and barbwire) there were about 30 convicts playing futbol. As we walked by almost half of them yelled out ELDERS!!!!!!!! We started laughing and said hi to all of them. Then one of them said I’m a member! It was so funny. But this last week was awesome. I learn a lot every day. Right now I feel like my ability to teach the gospel simply has jump 3 levels. The spirit is helping form my sentences better. I can feel it. I have also really learned that any sort of bible bashing drives the spirit away so fast! 
The average temperature is about 80 right now. Its cooling down here. I walk less then in my last area but in my last area probably ... wow i don’t know mutiple multple multiple a day. Here probably only 5 more or less. Mom I tried looking for my favorite scripture for the missionary plaque and that is impossible. I picked 3: 
2 Nephi 4 35-36 Alma 26 26-27 Alma 22 15-16.
Gotta go the jefe is kicking us out right now. Love you Elder Shaw
 P.S. Caleb I will write in Spanish next time to you promise.

April 12, 2011

Hey!!!!
Wow the world is still moving. I feel like it hasn't changed and that everything is the same... I mean all that stuff happening is awesome but what really hit me was, A TRAMP what the heck I want a tramp, those don't exist here! That is so cool about Jordan and Michael; man so far almost all of us are Spanish speaking. As for Michael and Guarani no he won't hear a word of it. It really is only a Paraguay thing. Like the Brazileros here hate it when the Paraguayans speak Guaraní. I mean they fight ha! But that is so cool Matt Burnett is in that mission he is a great guy. I really want his address. If any knows how to get on to my Facebook his addressis under the mail. Jordan wow that's so cool he is coming here. He is going to love it! You have to tell Jordan that he has the best job in the world! Make sure he saves the picture on the computer at the office. I have a better picture that is kind of like it that I want to send to Bro Grieves. I think I will mail it home or something so that Jordan can take it to him! Can you tell Jordan to pass my love to Mike the funny one!

Thank you so much for sending a package, I haven't received anything for like 2 .. 2 and half months nobody loves me. But that's all right I’m going to write my comps sister in Ecuador as a joke and see if she will write back.

This week was a huge success and failure at the same time, Bueno, it's never a failure. During the week we had 17 with a baptism date after Sunday we have 4. I don't know what is going on or what we are doing wrong but none of the investigators will come to church. I know we are doing all we can, maybe exercise more faith. We decided to focus on faith (1 Nephi 12 7) and this next Sunday wel will have better success. 3 of our baptisms fell through this upcoming week because they didn't come. They were suppose to get baptized this weekend but I don't know, they didn't come out of their house, we clapped and clapped and clapped to accompany them (I thought of throwing a rock like Devin's comp did ha). Other then assistencia we were blessed extremely with finding people. I love the people here, honestly if you walk up to someone standing in the street and say we are representatives of Jesus Christ and have a message for you can we walk to you house and share with you they love of the Saviror, everyone will listen. Later we find out that they are in love the virgin Mary and worship her but most people are still so nice. Yesterday we had a very spiritual lesson. Yesterday we found a 15 year old kid named Rubin. We were walking and he yelled my last name from his house! I don't know how he knew but he did, so we went over there and he said he asked his friend who is a member how to get a hold of the missionaries and he told him my name. We taught him the first lesson and at the end he said, "ya i know the Book of Mormon is true I read it every day right now I am reading about Amulek in Alma.... wow it was so cool! We challenged him to be baptized and he paused (we were thinking oh crap) but he said I don't know.. We said what would impede you from becoming baptized. He said I don't know if my family will follow my example. I'm willing to get baptized but i don't know if they are going to follow me! It was so cool, he is ready! It is like that here; people are just begging to hear the word of God. Most won't change from the Catholic religion but they want the word of God!

Another cool experience we found a familia that was really searching for the truth, they said they would read and pray to God. We returned the next time and they threw the Book of Mormon at us saying leave my house! We calmed them down and said what happened? They explained that some neighbors were making fun of them, and they didn't want that. We then challenged them to pray on their knees with us to ask God and not their neighbors if it was true. The husband gave the prayer and after the prayer nobody talked and the spirit was so strong my comp started to cry and gave his testimony and I followed. They said they felt the spirit but wanted to continue praying like this for another week! It was such a spiritual moment! There are great people here.

I really hope that president leaves this area open because I don't want to leave. It is weird to think that we are already through half a change, man the time flies! Mom as for the plaque ya I will find my favorite scripture and send it with the next email but that's a hard question because my favorite scriptures changes like every single week.

I love p-days, like I love working and preaching and stuff like that but really missionaries would not last 2 months without their p-days. We want to go to some waterfall this next week and that would be so cool I could get some good pictures however it’s 2 hours away. We usually play volleyball or futbol... and eat! I love the food here. Oh and I bought a sweet Ferrari watch like the 2000 dollar watches, for 3 dollars. Thank you so much for everything and the emails, and the package. Oh and Tiffany I don't think I will be talking with an accent, but I will be talking very weird due to formation of words and phrases. The missionaries here speak a mix so I have forgotten English phrases and words. I already have to think when writing you sometime ha.

I LOVE YOU AND CHOWWWWW!
Elder Shaw

April 3, 2011

Hi family!
Conference was awesome and I totally would have won in the NCAA picking if I would have picked. Ii got to watch conference on Saturday in English too! The session were 1 to 3 and 5 to 7 and then 9 to 11 for the Peisthood and weird enough they let us stay out that long. You would have thought that I would have died. I just about fell asleep 5 hundred times and had to have Eder Arias slap me a couple times when he wasn't asleep. I think that I have adjusted to the schedule now because I was beat!!! I was so tired the next day Ii never want to do that again. I loved the talks! Elder Holland is such a stud. But I think my favorite was just listening to the prophets voice. It is so weird to how big the anticipation was when all we do is talk and preach about him!

Ooh and guess what I saw Aunt Carol Aunt Noreen and Ashlyne sitting together in the Saturday morning session in the crowd! But hey mom I took my notes and I want my king size candy bar. Symphony blue kind! (maybe CTR rings in Spanish and a CD player, mine broke) sorry for asking for stuff but that stuff doesn't exist here. You can send it whenever convenient.

Dad, the language is coming along great. I understand everything except for the one liner jokes those always go over my head and I just laugh not to look like a retard but that's how it is for most the North Americans here. My companion Elder Arias talks like Tiffany when telling a story, without breathing or stopping haha! Some of the Paraguayans ask him to slow down, oh and guess what I have a little humor now in Spanish. We get along real well. E thank the Lord every day for his help with the language. If I could improve anything its catching the quick stuff, but I'm improving every day. As for success, yes we are finding success here. Paraguayans are little bit lazy but that is their culture. The only thing that would impede us is lack of faith on our part, like they talk about in the conference really it's on our shoulders and our faith! That is the attribute I am working on again this week is faith! One thing I would ask is prays for the familia Margarita Monica Renet and Daniel. They are so close and need a little push! The family is amazing, there is a 21 year old girl that is very hard to teach because she never wants to join the lessons but she is coming around.

Oh I ate something interesting this week I thought you would like to know, we went to a member to eat (yes there are 3 member in our area) and what we ate just about killed me and if not now it will kill me later. Bbut we sat down and she put this stuff called Mndioka in front of us which is really like soggy potatoes and then stuck a whole cow foot cooked on the plate with pretty much no meat and said suck on the cooked foot bone after eating the Mandioka for flavor, because Mandioka doesn't have flavor! And... wow I sucked on the whole cow foot a couple times to make them happy and then just pounded mandioka.

Every day, my faith grows more and more and I realize how much the gospel blesses the family, the entire conference focused on the family. I read a chapter this week alma chapter 5 and it is very strong and direct and the last scripture in the chapter is my favorite right now. Thank you for all, I love you fam. and remember to always think of how you can bless others it more fun that way. the church is true, and your in my prayers
Love Elder Shaw