August 29. 2011

Waz up fam?
 Thanks for comparing me to the Grinch mom, ha i wasn’t so bad before my mission but yes i am changing. Wow a lot has happened and this week starts school! Good luck I’m so stupid now with math. I don’t remember anything. This week’s letter is going to be a little short cause there is only one computer and my comp. wants to use it also. So this last week was very short short short because Friday we had zone conference and we listened to a 70 for 6 hours talk to us. I swear that this man has seen Christ. He was a very powerful man and had every single missionary crying even the disobedient ones. He talked a lot about remaining active after your mission and not being an inactive missionary. It was really great. It is very easy for the missionaries to be disobedient in the area i am in right now because the members ask to take you places, waste time, and watch movies. It really is a trial but i think we are doing all right. Also this last week we spent 3 days in the apartment cause either my comp or i was dying from a Paraguayan bug. Yesterday i almost died of head and neck ache so i took a bunch of weird looking Paraguayan pills that a member suggested and i feel really good today. I don’t know what they were but they worked. I feel like our last week was not very productive because of the sickness and just the lack of time we had preaching so i really want to work hard this week to find some new people. I love you all and thanks for your letters. I will respond longer next week promise. Thank you for the scriptures mom or dad that sent me. I will read them. I recommend you read Moroni 7 and try to apply every principle to your life personally. Love you and pray for you. 
jajatopata!ª!!!"·$!"·!"·
chou 
elder shaw

August 24, 2011 part 1

What’s up! Wow Tiffany is a mom, that is awesome! And Nicole and Devin are in town. Sorry Caleb i think i wrote last time thinking that you were in high school but now you’re top dog in middle school. What classes are you taking? This letter might be a little short cause my fingers hurt from being so cold. Here it is Alaska but even though it feels cold enough in Paraguay the snow doesn’t fall. I’m a little sick and cant talk well but this last week was a week of great success and the other way. We found a lot of great new people to teach and we are super excited to work with them. There is a minus active woman we found with 5 kids of the baptizing age! They all want to go to church. But the family that was going to get baptized this Saturday, she just found out that she doesn’t have legal papers so they have to get them which takes 3 months so they can’t get married which is a bummer. I have a story that actually brings me to tears because i was apart of it. roberto y nilsa, the couple that was going to get married, they came to church with a couple member called felipe y bernarda. They were their example and we always used them in lessons asking them and how has the gospel blessed your lives so that our investigators heard it from their friends. This last week we got a call at 5 in the morning from her asking us for money but couldn’t tell us why. We then called her back later that day to figure out if everything was all right and she said yes. Then Friday we called to ask if we could come over Saturday and she said yep come. Then Saturday president called us and said that bernarda the wife had taken off with one kid and all the money and left felipe at home with the rest. felipe came to church with our investigators. Later when we talked to him he started crying and was saying how he feels so bad for being a bad example for his friends that are investigating the church and he had talked to them telling them that they’ll be happy every thing will go well in their family. He completely forgot himself and his own problems that his wife had left him and worried about them and animated them for there marriage. He is going through a really hard time but still continues to fight for our investigators. This guy is a stud. You probably didn’t understand that or the situation completely but really this guy is amazing how he can completely forget himself and serve other. We still have two weeks left till the change. I’m not looking forward to it. I really would like to stay how we are. This area is amazing and i am learning a lot right now. I’m learning mostly about forgetting myself and trying to help and love my comp. I think he struggles a little with thinking about his home, which is hard on him, but he’s a great person. I never knew how to show the love i had for others before my mission and still am far from were i should be but its a lesson I’m learning. 
We struggled a little bit with getting people to church. I think it is for the rain, seeing as how Paraguayans are like a creature from the movie *bugs life* or *ants* that run from the raindrops because it will kill them. It’s really funny.
Oh and bad news the cd player you sent me broke.... doesn’t spin anymore. We are without tunes (motab)
love you thanks for the letters, they are always fun to read! Elder Shaw

August 9, 2011

Familia,


Thank you for your letters. They are always really fun to read, and thanks for the advice. Some of the things you said helped me. It’s always very important to look for the things that will better me, because no matter what, the spirit always gets the message to you even though a lot of times we have no idea what we are to learn. That is awesome that Nicole and Devin and Brynlee are in town. ... well were in town. I would love some pictures but i don't have much room to ask, because i haven't sent pictures in a long time sorry about that i will bring my camera here the next time and send a couple. i should take more fotos. I was thinking about it and your summer is almost over for Braiden and Caleb. Live it up. Isn't Caleb in high school already? This week was a week of personal lesson learning. To be sneaky about it, the success that we had was in ourselves. It was a little hard with the investigators, we had to drop a lot of them and we are struggling to find new ones right now. The Lord always gives us success in some way or the other but we just have to recognize it and even thought we didn’t have many lessons or investigators we had some very powerful moments this week. I’ll probably share one or two of them with you. The first was we found an inactive sister that told us she wants to come to church but has been very sick for 4 months and has not been able to come and we had no idea she existed! We got there clapping houses and she told us to come in and asked for a blessing. I really cannot explain the feeling that was in the room but my comp did the anointing and I gave the blessing. It was a very powerful moment and she was crying. We came two days latter and she was outside washing her clothes and yelled at us that she has some people she wants to bring to church this week. She was completely healed after 3 months of being sick! The other was a learning lesson for me that my comp gave me. We have an investigator that the missionaries have been teaching for 4 months cause he doesn’t want to leave his old church but knows every thing is true, which is way to long, and i was a little frustrated with him so we went to the lesson and i went with the intent to lay the cane down and help him understand lets say and basically i destroyed his church with the bible ( i did it with out saying his church or referring to it but shared what the church of Christ needs to have) and did it to make him doubt in his church so he will accept the spirit that is feeling and change religions.... about the end of the lesson i knew the spirit wasn’t there (he was doubting though) but my comp jump in at a pause and basically gave his testimony with out scriptures or doctrine about the Book of Mormon and how important this message is in our lives and the spirit was very strong. It really helped. I understand and know that we can share doctrine and knowledge but if they don’t have the spirit they will never follow this message. It was a mistake on my part and i have even warned him before hand but really the two most powerful tools that any missionary has is the spirit and the Book of Mormon and that is it!!!! With these two things you can change the life of someone. I really love my comp Elder Heiner. We have defiantly learned from each other. He has a strong testimony, and it grows every day. i know that if we follow the rules together that the lord will bless us with a baptism here and as his trainer i put a lot of pressure on myself if we don’t have that success. I know it’s hard for a beginning missionary with them just getting started. I feel like I’m changing a lot this change, like i feel more responsible. (Mom i made my bed and mopped) but really I’m learning a lot every day. This area is amazing in spite of the difficulties. The members feed us well. (The same old chicken, noodles, manioka, or fried flour) but its always good and they are very nice. It’s finally warming up dad but ya it was freezing at the beginning of the week. I’ll take some pictures this week. I love you all, and am thankful for your support. The church is true. I read a talk from Elder Holland on the Book of Mormon that was really powerful. He said a line something like ¨this book has been attacked for 180 year and held its own, no one has been able to prove it wrong and nobody in this last dispensation can really come to know Christ and this blessed work without having a firm testimony in this book.... no evil man could ever write this... and no good man would write it, if it were not true¨ 



elder shaw

August 1, 2011

Hola familia,

Wow sounds like a lot is happened back there in the house. But even more has happened here! This last week was hectic. First i would like to say that i bet Aunt Michelle is very happy about the changes in the stake. And i envy your heat. If i have to suffer another rainy night walking i know for a fact i will develop that lung disease from cold that i have no idea how to spell. Mother you don’t have to worry about my health in my new area. I eat at the members house every day now. (Love the memebers) Sounds like you are all doing great. Don’t forget to not forget me in your parties when the family gets together.... I don’t know if that worked. Hey what’s the address of the mtc? I want to write Jordan in Spanish. ha?! Maybe a little Gaurani. (I’m getting pretty good. My goal is by the end of this change to be able to teach the first lesson in gaurani)
So first off last week about Tuesday morning i got a call from presidente and he told me that a elder that trained this last trained is becoming a zone leader and his new missionary is only half way through his training so he called me and ask me to take over his training. So this change i am training a missionary that is from Melba Idaho like 40 minutes from our house. His name is elder Heiner! He has 6 weeks in the mission. He is really cool and has a funny white gangster lingo (it might be cool when he left or i might have become dumb) but i have learned a lot of English from him already. It is really fun to train. Your English gets better and it really tests my vocabulario of Spanish. I left cuidad del este and came about 3 hours towards Asunsion to a place called Caaguasu (i gaurentee you don’t pronounce that right it cowuasoo, gaurani) to rama 4. I cannot tell you how amazing the members are here. They are amazing and love to work with the missionaries. They like the leave with us to work and give us references. This last Sunday, without asking, a familia brought another familia to church and we met them there. We are teaching them right now. Also there is a man in the ward here that speaks Chinese, English, Spanish, Garuani, and Japanese perfectly. He always makes fun of the members in English and is hilarious. I love this place. Every body is really nice. We don’t have many people to teach right now cause the comp of my kid right now wasn’t fantastic so they didn’t do much and now I’m making him follow the rules ha! But we will start this next week looking for people to teach. There is one man that knows everything is true but has trouble going to church cause he is paralyzed from the neck down and i believe he will get baptized soon. His name is Evelio. My comps Spanish is.... well he is new. He knows a lot of words but can’t conge gate very well. We are trying to speak only Spanish in the streets (that’s’ hard for me cause i prayed to get a white person for my comp cause i get along with them better and so now i have one and i want to speak English) but i understand he needs it. I don’t have a good story with investigators this week but next time i will. We are going to find a lot of people to teach. I love you all and i can’t stress the importance of the gospel. Nephi 13 put the gospel fist and everything will go well. Dad is a perfect example of the familia with his calling. Read and pray always. I’m learning a lot of responsibility right now in my situation... I’m really exited to work with Elder Hiener. Try and find his familia. 
I love you and thanks for the letters.


Elder Shaw