Monday, July 27, 2015

Life Goes On

Dear Family:

So transfers will be this Wednesday and it will be a coin toss to see who will be leaving the area. This week we spent contacting a ton, dropping almost all of our investigators, because they aren’t progressing and continue fighting against the Spirit.  Thanks to the tradiciones (traditions) that have been planted in their minds.  So we were able to find a bunch of new and super friendly people who all had the same excuse this Sunday, “I have to go vote, but the next Sunday, we will put our effort in going.” So thanks to elections this week many people had a great excuse to decide not to attend the reunions.

This past Wednesday, we had interviews with President Wilson which are always super good but very quick and I was able to receive a new temple recommend because I lost mine in the colectivo (bus), two weeks ago traveling to Asuncion.

The other day we talked to the mother of Evelyn.  It has been close to one month since we have been able to talk and meet with Evelyn, and her mom, Mirna, told us that she is concerned for her daughter and that she has fallen again and isn’t as happy as she was when she was meeting with us. However sad it might seem and the heartache that it gave when I heard that, it just might have been exactly what Mirna needed to see, to allow and support the decision of Evelyn to be baptized!!!! So, we will be talking more tomorrow and start sharing with her once again!!

The Church is led by God himself, who has called a prophet and given him the power to perform all of the saving ordinances of the gospel.  Only one man can possess that power on the earth at one time and his name now is Thomas S. Monson, the prophet of God in the latter days.

I love you and Life goes ON!!!! Christ is resurrected!

Love you all,
Elder Call

P.S.  We received the package.  It was an amazing surprise.  It arrived super fast.   Elder Vega was super excited to have his bottle of Mapleline.  So, thank you from the bottom of my heart and Elder Vega says hi and thank you as well.

Monday, July 20, 2015

One Year

Hello to my Mother, Family and Friends,

So, this week it finally stopped raining and Thursday, and we saw the sun.  Everybody has a ton of clothes hanging on their fences and anything else they could hang their clothes on to dry the things out.

Wow, so officially, one year has come and gone and now the life of the mission is half way over. The things I have learned greatly here in Paraguay, is that every blessing is inseparable tied to a law in heaven and if we complete the law we will receive the blessings!!!

Way too often, we as humans say to God, “Perfect, if you want me to go to church, then give me a job where I only have to work Monday thru Friday and then I will be sure that I won’t miss a single Sunday.'' Or, “if you want me to stop smoking, take away my life problems, so that I can find peace and comfort without having to rely on cigarettes, and then I will stop smoking.'' But that is the opposite of how the things work; because the blessings and miracles come after the trail of our faith. Really, the need to humble ourselves before the counsels (consejos) of the Lord is essential. If we exercise our faith, then we will become strong to the point where we will not fear.

Mom, my hernia just continues as it is, sometime bothering me, but the vast majority of the time without any pain.

I have looked into sending a package to you guys, but I have been told that to send 1 kg to the States, it will cost 450,000 Guarani’s, which is almost 100 dollars, so that isn’t going to happen.

The Paredes’ family told us this past week that they don’t want to continue or change religions because we don’t believe in Saints and don’t recite things.  We explained it all to them and they understood but still don’t want to change.

The Rojas family is doing great.  I allowed them to barrow the cartoons of Living Scriptures of the Book of Mormon and they really enjoyed them. We had planned and prepared for the baptism of the uncle, Mario, last Saturday, but he ended up not coming and hid from us Sunday. We will see what occurred there and how we can be of help.

We were able to find a family, the Arce’s, of which one of the daughters is already a member but isn’t active.  They are great and we will see if we can help get them to the Church. They are super nice and many missionaries have passed and worked with them but the last ones that had visited them were two years back.  So we will see what can be done.

I love this Gospel and all that it entails, because, it holds all the truth in the world, even to the point where Joseph Smith summed it up by saying, “Well folks, the thing is that us Mormons believe anything and everything that is true and that is what Mormonism is.  Really search for truth and learn from the greatest books on earth.

I love you all and hope for the best.
Elder Call

Monday, July 13, 2015

New Mission President

Dear Family and Friends:

This week we were blessed to travel to Asuncion, to meet our New Mission President. They are super awesome and the changes that he has made left the missionaries speechless there.  So the thing with this mission has been a huge focus on baptism, baptism, baptism; all about the baptisms, even to the point that the zone leaders had told us that the only thing that President Agazzani really cares about are the baptisms.  And so that was what almost everyone had in mind and heart. President Wilson, thanks to inspiration, is changing this attitude with focusing on the conversion of the people, not just leading them up to the waters of baptism.  So many of us have had to repent and are working on molding our minds to the better view of the Work.  On the bus ride home that afternoon/evening, Elder Vega and I were able to have the bus guys play the video, “The Testaments” on the bus TV, so that everyone could watch it.  After it finished there were many people who shouted, saying, “Hey, have you guys another one?  We would like to watch another.”  But, we didn’t have another one.  It was so great!  Tons of people liked it. And then, Sister Jenson took the responsibility of passing out the Book of Mormon to those who wanted it.

Hey, so the Paredes’ family is doing good.  The wife has dropped smoking now and is doing great.  This Wednesday, she is going to take us to the house of her aunt so that we can meet with her. However, Saturday night her sister gave birth and she had gone to help her with that and spent the night over with her.

The Rojas family (the little kids that were just baptized) all came to church yesterday even though it rained the entire time that we were walking and after arriving at the church it cleared off and turned into a beautiful day.

It rained a ton this past week and the roads were very pretty. haha

I love being a missionary and having this opportunity to help my brothers and sisters in all aspects of their lives.  The phrase that says “give a man a fish and it feeds him for a day; teach a man to fish and it feeds him for a lifetime,” can be taught similar, “You can give men a scripture and feed him for a moment, you teach a man to study them you feed him for a lifetime.” I love you all and hope that you are studying the scriptures with diligence.

With love,
Elder Call

The bio of Dallin's new mission president:

Paraguay AsunciĆ³n Mission
Sergio A. and Susana Wilson
Sergio Agustin Wilson Birriel, 53, and Susana Ramos de Wilson, three children, Centro Ward, Durazno Uruguay Stake: Paraguay AsunciĆ³n Mission, succeeding President Pedro D. Agazzani and Sister Maria E. Agazzani. Brother Wilson serves as a mission presidency counselor and is a former stake president, stake presidency counselor, branch president, bishopric counselor, and ward financial clerk. Maintenance official, air force. Born in Rosario, Colonia, Uruguay, to Edgar Noel Wilson and Ines Graciela Birriel.
Sister Wilson serves as a Gospel Principles teacher and is a former Relief Society presidency counselor, ward Young Women president, institute teacher, ward Relief Society teacher, and Sunday School teacher. Born in Durazno, Durazno, Uruguay, to Saul Ramos and Luisa Elsa Ramos.

Monday, July 6, 2015

Awesome Week

Dear Family & Friend:

That is super sad to hear of his (President Packer’s) passing away, but it was time, I guess. God has everything timed out.  It is perfect, because He is perfect.

As for the week and the things that made it awesome was, first, of all on Tuesday, we went to Asuncion to eat a lunch with President Agazzani and say goodbye to him as a mission. The whole event took the entire day with the bus rides and everything, so we didn’t have time to go and work. But, at the lunch everyone was there so of course I was talking to Elder Graves and he told me the best news I have heard in my entire mission.  I don’t know if you guys remember Derlis and Sandra whom we worked with and loved with all our heart.  Well, three weeks ago they got married and baptized.  I really felt like Alma when he found his brethren coming home from the mission and hearing of their success. The news put me on a natural high for this whole week.  It was so good to learn!!!!! and see the pictures!!!! They are such great people!!!!

This week we found the Paredes family and they are sweet!! Their names are Madre-Carolina, Papa-Marcos, 18-Marcos, 16-Cristian, 12-Octavio, and 7-Ayelin. They are super amazing we taught Cristian and Octavio the first time and the parents the next time.  They have never even heard of the Mormons which surprised us and we shared leccion 3 with the kids and leccion 2 with the parents and si o si they were going to go to church but then didn’t go.  We went to talk with them to see if everything was alright and it was, only the uncle and the oldest brother asked liked where were they going or what religion it is.  Marcos responded Mormon and they asked him what is a Mormon, what does it mean and he didn’t know what or how to respond and for that simple reason they didn’t go to church.

Marcos and Ramon and Jorge were baptized this Friday and Marcos and Ramon were confirmed Sunday. While walking with Marcos and Ramon to the church, three other kids, two of which I had no idea who they were, joined us and went to church. All was tranquilo.

Well folks, there you have the report from Paraguay.

Love,
Elder Call