2-6-2012

Dear familia,


Sounds like a pretty quite week, but I’m glad everything is going well. Where is the new ward going to be dad? And no dad i have not been able to go to the temple for a very long time. During the Christmas season the mission took a hit and we think that some of the missionaries lost their focus so president said that is a privilege and we have to earn it as a mission but in these last few weeks we have taken off and i think we will be going in early march...... TIME passes quickly. But hey i totally can make German pancakes here! I don’t usually take the time to do it but i can. A normal breakfast would be egg sandwich or ramen or cereal. I don’t eat a very good breakfasts but my lunches are doing great. I have lost a little bit a weight in these last months and my exercises dad are pathetic! I sit in a chair trying not to die from tiredness doing curl with a soda bottle filled with sand ha! But i manage to wake up and do my exercises everyday. A month we average about 25 baptisms sometimes better sometimes worse. We had 35 the other week. There are many stakes here in my mission but i don’t know how many. My mission is very weird speaking of my area. Asuncion is about 75 percent of all the areas and has all the stakes. President for some reason has never let me go in Asuncion. That’s why i have gotten really good at guarani. I have been in every single zone outside of Asuncion, about 6 hours from the mission office. But I’m glad i love all my zones i hear that the people in Asuncion are a little bit hard. Wow family i really can’t describe the amount and awesomness of all the miracles i saw this week! This was a week of success and i am so thankful to my father in heaven. We did changes with the assistants this week. They both came here to Pilar and we did changes with them and the 4 of us work here in our area. We had a lot of success in one day. We found 7 familias this week that we are teaching!!!!!!! but the biggest blessing we had was the marriage and baptism of the family Servin! I love them so much. I cried at there marriage, they were amazing. We baptized the mom AND THE DAD. I had written before that the dad did not want anything to do with us remember and never in my mission have i seen such a change in a person from the gospel then i did with him! This dad did a 180 degree turn! He went to church and to the baptism of his children and Tuesday night we went to their house and had a very spiritual lesson. God sent him the spirit it slapped him in the face. At the end of the lesson we asked him if he would get baptized with his wife this Saturday. He looked at the floor for like 15 seconds then looked up at us and just said YES. It was one of the most spiritual moments in my mission. It was such a testimony strengthener that the gospel changes people. 2 weeks ago this man did not smile or laugh or talk to his family. Every time we go over there we are laughing and smiling and this guy has completely opened up. He only has one time in church so technically we were not supposed to baptize him but you have got to see the conversion of this family!!!! I love them. Saturday before the marriage we went over there to wish them luck and stuff and at the end we did a kneeling prayer and the wife gave it and we were all crying it was so nice. She was thanking God in her prayer for knowing us and for being in the church. This week was a miracle. I’m very grateful for this family. Easily my best converts, they will never go inactive. They walk 40 minutes to church in the Paraguayan sun and don’t complain. They get there with a smile. Don’t let the pictures fool you. Paraguayans just don’t know how to smile in pictures. They are happy people! Side notes
1. I ate huge cooked ants, like the size of walnuts. They tasted like hot sauce
2. My English is better (not spelling) but Spanish goes down, we should talk in Spanish more
3. Children can also be a tools to distract from the spirit (personal thought not doctrine)
4. God is awesome.
  Love you all and thanks for the letters they were very fun to read. Braiden and Caleb advice: keep the Sabbath day holy!!!! love ya 
elder shaw