Be Happy

Well Family and Friends:

What a crazy week!  It started out with divisions with the other elders in Posta ybycua, which was just fine.  I was with my last comp and also I could convince Javier, a teenager from Posta Leiva, to accompañarnos, which was a blessing in and of itself.  We had a great time visiting a couple of kids.

On Wednesday, we went and had a FHE with a family of recent converts, the Family Gomez, which, their lives are so sad.  They live in an 8 by 8 house, if you could call it that.  It was constructed by some Palm tree trunks and the walls are plastic bags.  I need to take a picture of it.  But they are awesome and had a friend there to teach, which was a pleasant surprise.

Thursday, we had divisions and I went and performed some interviews for baptism which were awesome.

Saturday we were able to teach the familia Flecha once again and Gloria is reading. Whew! some progress. We were debating on whether or not to drop her. But yes, little by little.

Sunday, it was still raining and almost no one came to church, but it was really good and the testimonies were strong.

My scripture for this week is D&C 88:74.  I love it and chose it because here it tells us what we need to clean, to permit Jesus to clean us, we have to lay everything on the table, so to speak, in the repentance process or we can’t be cleaned. We cannot try to hide anything.

I love you!  Thank you for your great support.  I love this Gospel.  It is true and WE CAN BE HAPPY IN EVERY SITUATION.

Love,
Elder Call

 D&C 88:74  “And I give unto you, who are the first laborers in this last kingdom, a commandment that you assemble yourselves together, and organize yourselves, and prepare yourselves, and sanctify yourselves; yea, purify your hearts, and cleanse your hands and your feet before me, that I may make you clean;”

General Conference

Dear Family and Friends:

The days long hoped for have come and gone in a majestic and beautiful way. This last weekend we had the privilege of hearing from our beloved prophets of God.  These men are truly ordained by God, the Eternal Father and His Son, Jesus Christ; to guide their beloved Kingdom here on Earth.  They have a great responsibility to share the gospel to all the world.  I was super blessed to be able to watch General Conference in the great language of Spanish and English.  I listened to Saturday in Spanish and Sunday in English.  I was saddened that all the great people we had invited to come and partake of this amazing blessing rejected the chance of knowing how they can find love, peace and joy in their own lives.  I loved the idea of “Ponderize.” One scripture every week and starting today I will share my scripture every week.  Mine is Micah 6:8 and I love it, because, it tells us three things that we need to do: work justly, Love mercy, Walk humbly.  If we are able to keep in mind these three attributes, the greatness and goodness of God will be over us.

I hope that all those that were listening to this great conference were able to feel the amazing love God has for everyone and the spirit testify that He has called three new Apostles to govern His kingdom.

I love you all and wish you all the blessings of the Lord to come your way this week
Love, Elder Call

Micah 6:8 He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

Horrible But Good Week

Dear Family and Friends:

Well, this week was horrible but was good. In other words it was crazy!!!  So, yea, the elders that I have had to deal with haven’t been the best of elders and I didn’t want to do divisions with them, out of fear that my companion and the other missionary wouldn’t work.  Well, we had to do divisions to go and perform a baptismal interview for Elder Rodriguez and Rojas.  I went with Elder Rodriguez and did the interview.   However, during the interview I received a ton of calls from the Zone Leaders with information that my comp and Elder Rojas were well out of their area, visiting some families from their previous zone.   So not to bad, but a couple of days back I had received a call from the assistants with other concerns; which I allowed to frustrate me the whole week.  Anyways, interviews with the President Wilson were Friday and Saturday.  I received a new companion.  My new comp is named Elder Ostler from Holiday, Utah and is really cool.  We are going to be able to have a load of success together.

Elder Call & Elder Ostler

Elder Salinas and Elder Call

We were blessed to be able to teach and have Gloria and her child, Alexajader, come to church this Sunday and they are making great progress.  They are super excited for General Conference.

Well that was about the week here.

I am so grateful that God blessed the earth with prophets to teach and testify of our escape plan, which, is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful to live in a time period where we have the blessing to have Prophets and Apostles of God living today, to give us the needed guidance in our lives, so that we can know how to return to the presence of God.  May we see that as we apply the counsel that the Prophets give us this upcoming General Conference, we will receive blessings.

May God Bless You Always!!!

Love,
Elder Call

Pray

Dear Family and Friends:

Wow what a week!! First of all, on Tuesday, we found some great people, they are from the Pentecostal Church and are really receptive. However, we have not been able to teach the head of the house, the Dad. The mother, Silvia, is really receptive but the first time that we shared with them, the grandma was sharing with us and she is Catholic and was not happy with the teachings of the baptism.  However, they still have not asked God if what we are sharing is true. I don’t understand why it is so hard for the people to pray and ask God questions.

On Wednesday, we found a nice, really active Catholic family which took us by surprise, Gloria, papa and mama and grandkid, Alexajador. We have to go in and teach about the prayer a lot better because the grandma only knows Padre Nuestro and in the first lesson she offered that to finish.  It was kinda funny.
On Thursday, we had divisions with the Zone Leaders and I had my first baptismal interview, everything went well.

The new area is good.  The ward has an average attendance of about 50 members and this week three inactive families, that we visited, came and we had an attendance of 73 people.  If the attendance is not raised, the ward will be cut down to a branch.

It is awesome to see the changes that take place in the lives of the people when they accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that through Him we as children can do all things which are necessary for the salvation of mankind.

Remember, repentance is a continual thing.  Every day it is required to kneel down before our Maker and beg for Mercy looking toward works of Justice.

Love you all!
Elder Call

New Area

Family and Friends:

Changes were this past Wednesday and I left the area of Coronel Oviedo.  Now I am in Posta Ybycua, which is a ward of about 50 active members.  It is about to drop down to a branch if we are not able to raise the amount of active and worthy holders of the Melchizedek Priesthood. My new companion is Elder Salinas from Nicaragua and we get along super well.  We are always laughing a bunch. So it is super fun, but we have a lot of work to do to make sure that this ward flourishes.

Yesterday, we had Stake Conference and sadly our investigators were not able to come or didn’t want to come.  So we have a lot of work.  In the past change, Elder Salinas wasn’t able to get anyone to come to church so we will change that up a bit.

I love you all and only wish that you all keep in mind the things that really are the most important, which is primarily the FAMILY. SPEND TIME with them and TEACH them how to appreciate the activities of God. Now read Alma 37:46 and remember to build the kingdom of God.  It takes WORK.  Go gettem boys!

I love you,
Elder Call
 
Grandpa is headed off for a cruise!!?? Please tell him that I love him and want the best for him.  Send him my appreciation that he was and is so faithful to my Grandma.

Also, please tell Grandma Jensen that I miss her homemade bread and that I love her for the daughter that she raised.

Hey, what do you hear from my cousins that are in the mission? Jackson, Cado and Carbon?  I met an elder today that one of his friends is being trained by an Elder Call in Guatemala.  I thought that it just could be Jackson?

Quite a Week

Dear Family and Friends:

This week was quite a week!  We started out good and ended well.  On Tuesday we had divisions and I stayed here with Elder Cosby and we were able to find a ton of people and one family that seems to be really good.  Their names are Gabriela Diego Verona y la mama.  They had moved not too long ago and are looking for a new church to attend!!!!!  Yea, perfect and the uncle of the grandma Gabriela is a Mormon!!  Well, even though they wanted to come to church they had an inconvenience and the grandma and the mom had to go and work, which is weird because, normally they do not work Sundays.

Wednesday, we went to Pindaty and visited everyone out there and also found a great family. However, I don’t remember their names. They are neighbors to some less active members and with some time, I believe they too will come to the church. The only problem is that they are more than a hours walk from our house and we only go out there on Wednesdays.  While we were out there we also did a little bit of Paraguayan fishing and ended up with 8 little buggers for lunch.  They make for great flavoring for a soup.  Justin, I don’t know why you don’t like the fish down here porque los caldos son riquísimo (because they are very tasty)!!! {Aww, that put my mind to work!! Haha}

The rest of the week was spent looking for new people and as a result we found Rosa and Liz, who are just awesome.  The mom, Rosa chose to join the church 7 or 8 months back.  They make empanadas of mandioca which were really good.  (Madioca is a root veggie like potatoes that are common in Paraguay.) The only problem that I can see in the future is that the step father does not like Mormons!!! Liz came to church, but Rosa was not able to get away.

Alan is doing really well. This week he worked, so next week he will come to church. However, we were still able to teach him yesterday the Law of Chastity and he is going to try, try, try, to live it. And best of all he still wants to join the church!!! Yea

That’s the report folk’s.  Hasta Luego.
(Elder Call)

Elder Call

Elder Cifuetes

Highlights

Dear Family & Friends:

This week was our last hard push with the Rojas family.   We work hard with them this week so that at least their kids can grow up and remain firm in the gospel.  However, they are not keeping the compromisos (commitments) so we are going to drop them now for good.

The highlight of this week was that on Friday Elder Walter Gonzales came to Paraguay and we were taught by him.  It was a great day where we learned more techniques and methods to teach and help our investigators complete their compromisios; helping them find their own solution to their problems and their difficultly of keeping the commandments.

Sunday was our District Conferences and we had the privilege to hear from Elder Richard Scott and Elder Quentin L Cook.  They were great talks and expressed their concern for this area because there are 33,200 missionary aged young men in this area and only 890 are serving missions currently.  That is less than 1 in 30 kids leaving for a mission.   Also, they talked a lot about the Sabbath Day and the need and manners that we can change to make this day holy.

Alan this week was not able to come to church because two of his family members were jumped and robbed this week and his parents called a family reunion, to set up some rules and guidelines to follow, so that things like this don’t pass again.  And this reunion just so happened to be Sunday morning.

And that is all folks!
Love you all,
Elder Call

Dear Dad:

This week was tranquilopa (tranquil)! Then Wednesday, we found a bit of service to do in the home of Juan Delgado who is an ex-president of Rama 1 (1st Branch) but inactivate. We are teaching a lady with her son, Naris and Lucas, who has a nephew that participates in Special Olympics and a few weeks ago he went to Miami to play for Paraguay.  It was the best, because participating in Special Olympics was one of the things in high school that I liked more than anything else,.

Thank you for everything.
I love you very much!
Elder Call