Changes

Hey, Family and Friends!

Well, this last Tuesday we waited for the new missionaries to arrive and then we showed them the area of Pirayu and told them of the successes that we had experienced and who we had been working with.  They seem excited to continue and harvest what we had seeded.  I arrived to Puerto Pabla Tuesday and I have to say the members here are great.  There is a great friendship between the quorum members.  At last a ward that functions well.  It really motivated me to get to work and we have continued with one progressing investigator and we found another that came to church this Sunday!!!

My new companion is from my group in the mission and is from Rafeal Castillo, Buenos Aries, Argentina. His name is Elder Luis Paredes.  He will be going home six weeks after me and is super excited to get to work and baptize.

So the two that we had in the meetings this week are:

1) Griselda and Cristian!! Cristian is a member that had parted from the church for some time due to the breaking of the law of Chastity.  Elder Paredes had found them about 2 months ago and they have now attended for 3 week in a row.  We had been planning the marriage and baptism with them for this coming Saturday.  However, Cristian received a job on a boat this last Thursday and will be headed out for around 20+/- days so the wedding and baptism will be postponed until he returns.

2) Carlos and Sonia!!! Sonia is the niece of an amazing member and she is also a member and has two children. Carlos broke his leg during a moto accident on Christmas and will be operated upon tomorrow, if he is lucky!!!  On Tuesday, we ate lunch with the aunt and she told us to come back latter to teach them.  So we did and we watched the movie of John Tanner and he loved it!! We went back Saturday and taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and he really opened up to us and learned a lot.  We arranged so that he could come to church and he came.  However they live in Concepcion and are only here  for the surgery and for some time after, so we will be teaching him and passing the reference to the missionaries up there and they will have a real milagro (miracle)!!!!

The Gospel is true and when people accept it and actually apply it in their lives they change, we change and the world changes, one person at a time.

I love you all.  May we all serve the only true God!

Love,
Elder Call

We Can Repent Every Day

Dear Family and Friends,

This last week sure has been interesting.  It started out with Satan winning and me being frustrated and lacking desires to go to work.  However, we did see some beautiful mercies of God as we taught some great people.  On Thursday, we had a great lesson with Milciades, who we thought had just stood us up at church the last week, and found out that he had just been confused as to where the church was at.  We taught him of the Sabbath Day, which he understood very well.  We then asked him if there was anything that we could do for him and he expressed that he does not need any temporal things and that he doesn’t worry about any of that, but that his only worry/desire is that we continue teaching him and that he can be baptized!!!!!! It was like a red rose in the middle of a dry desert.  My heart rebosed with joy as he arrived at church Sunday all by himself and as the members showed him so much care.

On Saturday, Milciades sent us to the home of his daughter and we have a lesson planned for tonight at 6!!!  They seem like great people that will be a huge strength to the church here in Pirayu!!!

The interview with Presidente was amazing.  It was a huge changing point in my week as the Spirit of God helped me clear up my mind and erase the big lies that our opposition had placed in there.  We talked a lot about what we thought could be done there to help the church grow.  Also, during this time I realized that I have no need to let myself complain neither that I could allow myself to give up, but that I had to work and push through it and be happy.

We had a great day Saturday and Sunday filled with just a solid feeling that we were doing our part.

WHY is it when at last we have someone come to church that can be baptized, they take me out?!!!!!  I will be going to the Puetro Pabla Ward with Elder Paredes.

The Gospel is great and I love the chance we have every day to repent and become better people.

Thanks,
Elder Call

This is Dallin's new area:

https://www.lds.org/maps/meetinghouses/@-25.376514,-57.674303,12&x=find&id=ward:249610

An Alright Week

Hello Family and Friends!

This week was alright!! Super sad, because we heard that Koki fell into the temptation to smoke and the trip to the temple has been canceled until proven that he can conquer this addiction.  He is still fighting against it and we will be encouraging him along the way to the temple.

On Wednesday, the elders from Ypacarai came and the four of us worked here.  Elder Lopez and I had some great success and set appointments for almost all of Friday, which made me super excited. However, Thursday we went to Ypacarai to do the same thing and we also had a great time there teaching.  But, Elder Evans has had a rash in his armpit for the last two weeks or so and showed it to Elder Lopez and he call and made Elder Evans go to the hospital on Friday, which really was a bummer because I wanted to show up to the appointments we had made.  Nevertheless, we went and he has an infection in his armpit that is spreading up to his neck!!!  So it was good we went.  We passed by all of the people we had set appointments to meet and the majority of them were not at home.

Sunday morning, we passed by Milciades before we went to church and he said he was going to go, so we went to set up the Sacrament and do all the other preparations for the meeting.  He didn’t make it to church!!  We did have 22 people in church this week so that was nice to see and the Spirit is being felt more among the members now than it was when we arrived here.  They seem to have a bit more Hope that things will be alright.  Here we speak at the least once a month, both of us and I have become very comfortable in front of them teaching in Spanish.  I think it would be difficult to teach in English because all of the scriptures that I know are in Spanish.

We will be going back to the hospital in this next week and we have interviews with Presidente on Friday.

Love you all tons!
Love, Elder Call

Some pics of a beautiful sunset and of the district at the House of the Mother of God, Tupasu Roga.

Highllights

Hello, to all you friendly folks.

Hey, so this week I will highlight the things that went well.  We have earned the confidence of the Bazan Family and we have been preparing them for the temple.  This Saturday, they will have their interviews with the Mission President and on the 20th, we will be going to the temple with them.  That is if they pass their interviews.

A long time ago they had told us how all of their neighbors had met and shared with the missionaries a lot and never progressed.  However, we had been doing quite a bit of tracking and telling them of the situations of each of the people we were meeting with and they started talking about several other neighbors whom we had not yet visited.  One of them lives in the nicest house in that zone and they told us how they had a really old Book of Mormon and they had read it completely, which caught our interest a lot.  So last Thursday, we passed by them and they received us really well, but there are no men that live in the house so we didn’t stay long,  just long enough to see the book and understand a little about how they came in contact with the church and planed a visit for tomorrow in the afternoon. She told us how she likes the Book of Mormon but just can’t accept Joseph Smith, so we asked her to be prepared with questions for us to answer and she said that she would and she would like us to come with the answer if Joseph Smith practiced polygamy.  So we have been preparing to be able to help her understand why it was necessary that that practice was restored.  (This is the only point of the Restoration that I DO NOT like!!!)  Well, I hope that we can explain it well to them and their minds are opened so that the Holy Ghost can confirm the truth of the Gospel to them.

Yesterday we passed by an elderly man named Miciades that we had visited before and dropped because we weren’t sure if he understood us and he received us super well and now would like to come to church. He told us that he likes this church a lot more than his current church.

 Last Saturday, we had a devotional from the area of South America South where they expressed their concerns and helped us see the things that God has asked us to do as blessings in place of homework.  It was really good.

This church is true.  The Gospel will move forward and there is no force in this world or out of it that will stop it. The truth will always prevail.  May we seek diligently for the truth!

I love you all,
Elder Call  

A Honey of a Week

Hello family and friends:

So this past week was good, in which more people were brought to church and a ton of people felt the spirit and love of Christ for them.  So on Tuesday, we had divisions with the elders in Ypacari and most importantly from the day, is that we set a lesson with an inactive member that we had not visited for some time and she was happy to see us again.  We talked about our great debt to God using the words of King Benjamin and she about started to cry and told us the reasoning why she doesn’t come to church anymore, which is a crazy story and quite sad. But she wants to go to church a ton and this next week I believe that she will do just that, because next week is when another member does not go to church!!!!! Ahhhh

Also that day, after teaching the next lesson of temple prep class for the Bazan family they gave us some fresh honey and honeycomb, which was the first time I tried that.  It was super sweet!!!

Honey Removal

Wednesday, we had a zone conference where we repassed the mission rules and standards.

Thursday we were out in Costa Jhu doing some good ol’ tracting, when we saw that the Brother Bazan was already home from work, so we stopped by to say, “Hi” and he asked us if we wanted to see how the honey was removed.  So Duh, we went and watched and really gave that family a laugh!!!=) oh, I wanted to get pictures and so I was up there close by him when I thought I probably shouldn’t be so close, it was already too late.  Hahaha, needless to say I am glad I am not allergic to bees.

Elder Evans on the right

On Friday, we found the husband of Romi, a lady that we have been working with and shared with him and he liked it a lot but when the time came; he did not go to church.

Elder Evans eating the honey comb

Well this week the only endowed member here became pist off at the Branch Pres. and all the leaders here in Pirayu, because they asked him to sign and do an analysis of needs before they extended to him the Bishop’s Storehouse, because of this the ex-presidente also turned red and they both have vowed to take down the church until there is a change here in Pirayu!!! AAAHHH y bueno.

On Sunday, at 9:00 am, there were only eight people in the church one of them being Jorge Ortiz, our eternagator, but right before we started several more came and a YSA member brought like six of her member friends from Asuncion, so that was nice to see.  Elder Evans and I both had talks and they went really well.

The Gospel is true and this work will go forward whether or not the people fight against it or not. They may as well join to it because it really is the only intelligent thing to do.

I love you all!  Keep up the good work and always look to improve.
I love you tons,
Elder Call