Monday, December 29, 2014

New Area, New Companion

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from down here in Paraguay!

First of all, the last 24 hours have been harder than that of almost all my mission including the airport.  I had to say goodbye to the members and the people in barrio (ward) Oberro, which just sucked, because that neighborhood really grew on me and I found myself at home and amongst my family there.  I had to say bye for possibly the rest of my life.  Before I left we were working with a family called Flietas, the wife is a member, but her husband is not.  I am not sure how they are going to motivate him to come to church because a lot of missionaries have worked with him in hopes of getting him to come to church.

On Christmas Eve, our Mission President told us to be in our house by 7:30, so we decided to take this time to make cinnamon rolls for several member families that have helped us out a lot in our time there. On Christmas morning, we took them around to lots of people.

Anyways changes were today and I am now in an area called Leopardi, which honestly, I do not know where it is at, but all is good.  The church here is a ward and has an attendance of about 110 or so.  It sounds like a great place and the work is moving along well here.  I am here with Elder Davis from Phoenix, AZ.  He is almost done with his mission and still has a great attitude and spirit about the work.

I love this Work.  There is no other opportunity like this.  It really is a blessing.  God is our Father. He loves us and has prepared a way that we can return to Him once again.  This way is through His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, our Salvador (Savior) and greatest brother.  I hope that you do not take this gift in vain, but rather, be smart and do what He asks of you.

I love you all
Love,
Elder Call
disfruten  (enjoy)

Mom, this is the information from the medical doctor.  Have dad translate it for you. Thanks!  Love you lots.   I have not heard any more about it still.

Estos informes son normales a excepción de una pequeña hernia inguinal visto en la ecografia. La hernia necesita una cirugía, pero no es urgente. No recomiendo que esperar hasta que termine su misión (julio de 2016) para tener la cirugía, pero sería bueno que esperar hasta 3-4 meses. No se necesita ir a casa para la cirugía. Se puede hacer aquí en Paraguay a través de un telescopio en uno de los hospitales más grandes, como Bautista. Es necesario que tome una semana o 10 días para recuperarse de la cirugía, pero debería ser capaz de trabajar a tiempo parcial después de sólo 3-4 días.

For those that do not read and understand Spanish here is a general translation:
We are informing you that everything is normal except a small inguinal hernia. The hernia will require surgery and it is not recommended to wait until after his mission completes in July of 2016, but can wait for 3-4 months.  It is not necessary for Dallin to come home for the surgery, as it can be performed in Paraguay using a telescopio in a large hospital like the Baptist Hospital.  It will be necessary for him to take a week to ten days to recuperate from surgery. He should be able to work part-time in just 3-4 days following the surgery.

Monday, December 22, 2014

It's Christmas!

IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!! (Just to let y'all know.)

So this past month we have had the great opportunity to work with the movie, “He is the Gift.”  The whole message is so powerful and it is amazing how much more powerful it is when you read the words, rather than just hear the words.  I would have never thought that.
 
Anyways, this time of year we get to celebrate the genuine birth of our Savior!!  Two thousand or so years ago a babe was born, one person to affect the entire world for every generation to come.  His name is Jesus Christ, born in Bethlehem. He came to the earth, not to do his own will, but to do the will of his Father.  He suffered in Gethsemane for every trial, temptation, and pain that we will ever and could ever experience. The anguish He felt caused Him to bleed from EVERY pore.  Christ was given to us so that all that believe on Him and come unto Him with a broken heart and a contrite spirit may obtain eternal life.

I hope that all of you this day can spend time with your families, in remembrance of your beloved Brother, Jesus.  In Him, we can find the Love, Peace, and Hope, that everyone wants.  I invite all of you to open your scriptures this day and find who He is to you personally and what He means to you.

I love all of you and hope that you have a very merry Christmas!!!

WE already have the best present ever!!!  USE IT

Love,
Elder Call

Monday, December 15, 2014

Important Things

Hello to all

Alrighty, I will start off with the important things:

First of all, we found Liz and Jose on Monday night in their house and talked a little bit with Liz. She was super nice and was willing to let us come back on Tuesday because it was already 8:40 P.M.  and we still had a 35 or so minute walk to get to our house.  We could not stay and talk to her at that time, but Thursday we went there and we were able to convince her to let us into her house, because for this month we have the permission of carrying our dvd player around with us to watch “He is the Gift” with everyone.   For safety reasons we can only watch it, if they allow us to enter the house. Anyways, the video worked miracles in her heart and she realized her need to follow Christ.  Jose, well I am afraid, that he just does not have a desire to do anything of the sort. We were able to pass by again Saturday and we taught just Liz, because Jose, typical Paraguayan man, on Saturday and Sunday was Drunk!! We taught Liz how she can come to know for herself if what we are saying is in fact true. and how she can come to the knowledge of which church is the Church of Jesus Christ or if God even has a Church. We gave her a Book of Mormon.  She was going to come to Church but didn’t =(

We have tried to make cinnamon rolls. . . they Failed!!  They did not rise at all and were just plain ugly. haha So talking with some members we asked around as to why they would not have risen.  We found out that there are like 4 different grades of flour and that it was because we did not use the right type of flour, so we are going to try them again today to see if they work out!

Love you!

Elder Call

Hey, so about the hernia, I was finally able to get a hold of Hermana Agazzani this week and she said that she had not received the estudios (results) that I had sent close to a month ago, but that she was going to go to the officina (office) and find them and call me back within a week and if she does not, for me to call her back.  So I still have two days for the week to be up and then I will call her again. I am trying to be pretty safe, but I don’t like the idea of not working or helping out or exercising.

I just realized that my mission is 1/4 of the way over and I do not like that it is going by so fast, everything just kind of meshes in together.

Love,
Elder Call

Monday, December 8, 2014

Mission Life

Hola everyone,

Medical update really quickly. I am still waiting to hear back from Hermana Agazzani, so honestly,   I´m not so sure what is going to happen but vamos a ver anyways now to the important part.

Dad, Evan, Justin, Mom, Hannah, (and everyone else), how do you get people to allow you to visit them more than once?!!!! They just happen to be not there when we go back to visit them. I am open to any suggestions or advice!

Anyways, Elizabeth, our almost convert, once again did not come to church to be confirmed. We passed by almost every day this week and talked with her and she said that she was going to come yesterday for sure.  Then she went to visit her sister that is pregnant.  I am not sure what more we can do to help her come if she just does not want to come to church.

So Martin, the boyfriend of Gesenia, came to church!!!! He is hoping that by him going to church, it will excite her to also come so cross our fingers that one day she will want to marry him!!! It is kind of funny down here they just expect that the marriage is not going to work and so they do not get married.

Kevin, Jacky, and Brisa. None of them came  to church this Sunday, either. Kevin and Jacky went to a party Saturday night and did not arrive home until 4:30 in the morning; and Brisa, I cannot remember her excuse, but that means that her date of baptism is postponed another week.

I love the Gospel.  It really is the way to a better life. Christ lives and loves every one of us and has a plan for us to help His other brothers and sisters receive the good news that comes from the Plan of Salvation.

I love you all!  Study the scriptures and visit your neighbors.

Love, Elder Call

P.S.
HANNAH is home!  That is crazy, but it has been long enough, I think. Haha. That is good that you put her back to work. Has she picked up the job of cooking yet?  I always loved her cookies.  Every day, other than Monday’s we eat lunch with members. I have not been like bad with the food, so all is good and there is nothing to complain about.
Love you!

Monday, December 1, 2014

A Normal Week

Hi all you

This week has been pretty normal, nothing special happened.

We have done a lot of Family Home Evenings with active members and investigators, part-member families and inactivos, so that we can hopefully strengthen our ward and bring those to the saving ordinance of baptism.  The family of Kevin is changing.  The Dad, Peter, is a member already, but he works only on Saturday and Sunday.  He works in the hospital, but he wants to come back and attend once again because he has seen the change in the life of Kevin, as well as, Kevin’s sister, Brisa, now wants to be baptized and the Mom is a whole lot more open to us and the message, so hopefully, she too, will come.

Gesnia.  Well I do not know about her.  She does not want to get married anymore, so we are still working on that.

I love the video that the Church has made called ``He is the Gift.`` Worth watching.  You can find it by going to http://www.mormon.org/christmas

Elizabeth did not come to church once again =( so we are going to try to work with her every day this week and help her gain a testimony.

Paraguay is awesome, but just as Justin had said when he was down here it has so much potencial (potential), but the people do not take care of it and ruin it.  I really like Spanish. It is fun and although I have a weird accent and the Paraguayans in general do not like us Americanos, for some reason, it is all good.  It makes me sad that 95% of the people here do not know a thing about the Bible or even care to learn about the true and Living God.  One day they will wish that they had.

Love,
Elder Call