Pasta Omelettes and Beet Juice

Dear Family,

How is everything? Is it cold there? Are you excited for Thanksgiving? Christmas Tree hunting? I was totally oblivious to the fact that Thanksgiving is this week until I saw a sign for black Friday, because turns out they have it here. Weird.

This week was really weird. But good. We had interviews and zone conference on Tuesday, and I received your package mom, with...wait for it...PRETZEL M&MS AND OREOS. It was pretty epic. I was so happy. We sat around after planning one night and just snacked on M&Ms...it was great.

I walked in the kitchen and saw my companion mixing raw eggs with leftover pasta...it was SO gross looking. But, turns out, you can make omelettes with pasta and raw eggs. So, if you ever have left over pasta and eggs, try a pasta omelette. It isn't as gross as it sounds. Also, beet juice. Gross. We ate at a member's house on Sunday, and she gave us this HUGE pitcher of sweetened beet juice. I tried it...naive little greenie that I am, and lo and behold, it was disgusting. You can really learn self control when you have the person who made the food standing there watching you eat it...it was sad.

On Wednesday, we received a call that we needed to find a house...by Saturday. We don't live in our area now, and every day we have to take a bus for like 15 minutes to get to our area. But apparently that isn't good, so we spent a lot of time and energy just walking around and looking for houses that would be secure. We can't be out walking in our area after dark, so we needed to find something where we could just walk and be safe in our house. Annndddd....we found it. It isn't in our area, but we can walk for a block and alli està. It is really big, but we are going to be moving hopefully this Saturday.

On Friday, it rained SOOOO hard. It was sunny when we left our apartment, but by 2:30 it was raining and so windy. We were trying to find a house, but we decided to start proselyting, and so therefore the thunder and lightning began. I haven't ever really been in a storm like that with no place to go and no protection but my umbrella. It was crazy.

Something that never ceases to amaze me is that time is passing soooo fast. too fast. It just hit me today that Thanksgiving is this week, and in a month or so from today, I can see my family face to face. Que en el mundo. It is going by so fast...I end training on 3 de december, and cambios are the same day. With this new house and Christmas, Hermana Chempèn and I are hoping that we can be
together for one more change. Quien sabe.

We had an investigator come to church this week, her name is Carina Venegas. She was a reference from one of the members, and has a baptismal date for December 13. She brought her nine year old daughter with her, and now we are hoping that she can continue to progress and recognize the importance of the gospel in her life.

Something that we really tried to focus on this week was to use the Spirit to discern doubts and needs. And what do you know, it worked. Every person has a story, doubts, and needs, that need to be met before they can progress.

Anyways, it was a good week, with new things to learn every day and something that takes you out of your comfort zone. I don't think I have one anymore...is that a problem? No sè un poco. I love you all, and I hope that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Love,

Hermana Farish

Ready for rain!

Companions and Friends

Ready for rain 2.0!

BiPoLaR

Dear Family, 

This week, as very aptly described by the subject line, was bipolar. We had some fun moments, but some very not so good moments as well. On Tuesday, it rained all day, and it gave new meaning to a phrase that I have heard all of my life, but now I am going to apply it to mission life. My quotation mark key doesn't work, but it is, The mission isn't about waiting for the storm to pass; it is about learning to laugh, sing, walk, and proselyte in the rain. As missionaries, we can't really dance, so we do everything else instead. It was so cold, especially after Monday, when we felt that our faces were going to fry off.

One of the downer moments was a lesson that we had on Saturday. I am pretty sure it was the worst lesson that we have had thus far. We contacted the Centurion Family about 3 weeks ago, and they were really receptive and had a lot of questions. So, we came back and taught the plan of salvation, which went fine. But this last saturday...wow. It like blew up. We were teaching the restoration and all of the sudden he began to ask a lot of questions about gay marriage and other things that made us suspect that he had read anti-Mormon literature...yeah. When my companion began to bear her testimony to try to bring the spirit back and finish the lesson, the wife, who hadn't said a word at all, began to just rip on her. She was so...bitter and angry, we were suprised. We tried again to bear testimony, but again, she was just so angry and bitter...we didn't really know what to do...if the person doesn't let you bear your testimony, what can you do? So, we said a prayer, during which the wife left, and we got out of there. It is suprising how much of an influence one bad lesson can have. The Spirit was NOT there.

On that happy note, we had a really good lesson on Sunday with Synthia. Synthia is the girl who is 24 and whose parents are actually practicing Catholics. She called us and said that her dad doesn't want us coming to the house anymore, so we met with her and Shirley at Shirley's house. It was a really good lesson, and we know that the Spirit was there. We just hope that she was able to feel it as well. Something that I learned this week was that we are going to have changes in our lives. Sometimes, it is going to...em...not be fun. But, we can learn and progress from these changes and challenges. 2nd Nephi 2!!!! I love you all, and I hope that you have a good week!

Love,

Hermana Farish

It was very cold outside!

Tree Stars and Killer Ants

Hola Familia!

How are you all? My enter key doesn’t work, so this is going to be formatted a little weird. I had a good week, it was really long, but good. You might be asking about the subject line, but it is for real. For those who have seen the land before time, you remember the tree stars? Well, they exist. Here in Paraguay. They are really big….Who knew? Just thought you would want to know. Also, there are killer ants. And they fly. They have these huge wings and so so big and gross…and they like divebomb you. Because it is so humid, they can’t fly very well, so sometimes during a lesson a huge ant the size of your bottom thumb joint drops into your lap or on your hand or your Book of Mormon…yah, we only freaked out once…

We had a good week, mostly because this week we really focused on the commitments to read, pray, and attend church. Because we didn’t have any investigators attend church last week, we really felt like we needed to step it up and focus on the importance of and the blessings that come from fulfilling the commitments. We did that, and lo and behold, we had an investigator come, Aileen Frankhauser. Aileen is 9 years old, and what was awesome was that her REALLY pregnant aunt brought her. Her aunt is a less active. The problem with this family is that they live really far from the church in the poorest section of our area, and they have to walk a ways to be able to find a bus. But they came. We taught them Saturday about obedience, using DyC 130 22-23, which basically says that when we obey a certain law, we receive the blessings that pertain to that specific law. Apparently it helped, and it was so cool to see them walk up and have them be there with us.

Something that I have really started to appreciate like never before is the Sacrament. It gives us a chance to look back over our week, see in what we need to improve, repent, and basically start over. With every week, I am beginning to appreciate it more and more. It is amazing the things that Jesus teaches us…everything has a purpose, and everything was planned to help us reach our potential as children of God. I love this gospel, and I love the hope and purpose that it gives us every day to be able to do all of the things that we have to do in order to return to live with our Heavenly Father. I am so grateful for my parents who taught me to love the Savior and to work hard to be able to gain my own testimony. I love you all, and I hope that you have a wonderful week.

Love,

Hermana Farish

How we dry our clothes

Ummm...not sure what this one is about

Tanned feet

¡3 MONTHS!

Dear Family,

3 months ya! Can you believe it? Because I can't. There have been so many experiences packed into the last 3 months that it is like a blur. This is going to go by so fast!

To start off, I experienced my first real rainstorm this week. It was so loud, with thunder and lightening like a strobe light. We were all awake at 4:30 am because it was SO loud! It was gorgeous though, and for the rest of the week, it has been nice, cloudy, and less hot, with plenty of mesquitoes to make it perfect.:)

Another awesome thing is that we lost our only progressing investigator. Why is this awesome? Because we fasted on Saturday and Sunday to be able to discern the true desires of our investigators, and that is what happened. Her name is Miguela, she is 17 years old and has 2 kids. Crazy right? We haven't been sure from the beginning about her desires...Does she want to be baptized or does she want welfare? On Tuesday we changed her baptismal date to the 22nd because she hadn't attended church, and on Saturday she dumped us, because she needed to work. Apparently she needed help before the 22nd. It made us sad, but now we know of her true desires. That same day, we found 2 new families that are of oro. We contacted a lady, who told us to come back (OTRO DIA! is my least favorite phrase of all time). So we went, taught another lesson, returned, and then a random girl told us that the same lady who had rejected us wanted to talk with us, and we had an excellent lesson with her and her husband. Our goal is to take advantage of this and really help them to progress and make covenants.

I honestly believe that fasting is one of the best ways to be more sensitive to the Spirit. We found lots of new people, and we are hoping to be able to work with them to get them to church.

We taught a girl named Synthia on Sunday with a returned missionary from our ward, Wendy Sanabria. The cool part about this thing is that they are both studying English and business administration and are in the same year at the university, so they were able to bond. We also had the parents of Synthia with us in the lesson, both of which are hard core Catholics. We taught the Restoration and halfway though the dad had a question about the different bibles. We had already read in our bibles during the lesson, and theirs was WAY different then ours. However, Synthia asked a question about the statues and images of the virgen Mary (here in Paraguay, almost every house has a statue of the virgen mary and some sort of altar thing).She wasn't sure if it was something that was right or not. Right off the bat, her parents began to say, oh it says in the bible that it is okay and we believe in the bible because it is of Jesus and stuff like that. So, we read in Exodus to help ease their minds. hehe;) Little do they know that the Bible of every single decent Christian church explicitly says, in the 10 commandments received through Moses, that statues and idols are insults to the Lord. It was even more purete because in the spanish bible, it uses the word imagens, which just happened to be the word that Synthia had used when she asked us. Awkward. So the parents were like, well, it isn't true, it is a mistake...we just rolled our eyes. But Synthia understood, which is what we wanted!

em...que màs. Nothing really, just working hard and trying to live up to the standard of the Lord. I am beginning to feel really inadequate, in that how on earth am I going to be able to convey the importance of the gospel of Jesus Christ to these people who couldn't care less? Then I think, well, it isn't me who is conveying it, it is the Spirit. And THAT, ladies and gentleman, is how missionary work is. Everything is through the Spirit.

I love you all, and I hope that you always remember that you have your Savior right next to you, helping you through those things for which He has already suffered. Alma 7: 11-13. Whenever you feel alone, like no one on the planet can help you, remember that He is there and that it is His purpose and His glory is to help you achieve and fulfill your purpose as a loved child of God.

Love,

Hermana Farish

Me, rear + Jungle

Me, front + Jungle