Miracle of Miracles

Dear Family,

We have had a good week here in Paraguay.  Really, it is so awesome to see the Lord's hand in these things.

First off, Hilda.  Hilda is 67 years old, and has diabetes. Something is really, really wrong with her foot, and it is hard to walk.  The sisters who were here before found here, and Hilda always used her foot as an excuse to not go to church.  But now, she is so ready to be baptized.  Last week on Sunday, we were walking to bring people to church, and we had the feeling that we needed to go to get a less active (the bishop's wife), so we went, were rejected, and when we were walking back to go to church, we found Hilda walking with her grandson to go to church with us.  We wouldn't have found her if we hadn't gone to find the less active, so even when you have impressions, and you don't know why, you need to follow them , becaue who knows, just like Elder Hughes said.

On Monday Hilda told us that she had woken up on Sunday morning with so much pain in her foot, and wasn't feeling well.  She said that she prayed to the Lord that she would be healed so that she could walk to church.  She told us that the pain just left.  WWHHHAAATTTTT???  We were so incredibly happy.  The second miracle with her was this Sunday.  We tried to call her, and she didn't answer, and we didn't have time to walk and find her, so we went to church really depressed.  But at 9 am, she walked right on up with her grandson!  She told us that she woke up a little late and began to walk, even with the pain in her foot.  Then her grandson found a 2 thousand guarani bill so that they were able to take a bus and not walk so much.  This really showed me that we have to act on our faith, which sometimes is really hard, but when we do, our loving Heavenly Father will help us to bear our burdens and will bless us beyond what we can imagine.

We had a wonderful gift this Sunday.  The Sisters Linda Burton (President de RS) and Neill Marriot (2nd counselor YW) came to Paraguay!  We got a colectivo for the ward and we all went to the chapel next to the temple to listen to them. We were like 4 rows away from these wonderful women.  It was such a wonderful experience.  They really are called to bring relief to those who need it, and I want to be as loving and as humble as they are when I grow up. 

They truly have charity for every single person.

Seriously.  It was so amazing.  From Hna. Marriot, she told us 5 things that we need to do to keep our spirits from diminishing and protect ourselves from temptation:

1-Pray always:when we don't have the Spirit in our hearts, STOP what you are doing AND PRAY.
2-Read and STUDY the scriptures.  Pray for inspiration and revelation.
3-Take the Sacrament every Sunday.  When we don't take the sacrament, we lose power from God.
4-SERVE others with the love of Christ. Mosiah 2:17
5-Go to the temple often.

From Hna. Burton, she asked the question, "What kind of woman am I?  Am I prepared to meet Jesus Christ beyond the veil?"  That was SO deep.  It was like...oh flip.

The heat wasn't all that bad this week.  It is getting easier, but wow, I am getting some really, really, really weird tan lines.  LIke BAD.  We have air conditioning in the room where we sleep, and it is such a downer when we go outside the room the next morning and the heat just melts all of the protective ice that you built up during the night.  My companion is fine, we have a pretty good relationship now, and I am really trying hard to develop charity.  The conference of the Relief society last night really showed me what an incredibly powerful tool it can be in the power of conversion.

Oddly enough, my favorite thing to eat here is a salad made up of salt, cucumbers, lime, and tomatoes.  It is SO good and fresh and healthy.  There is this thing called milanesa that is like fried chicken but it is slices of beef.  It is so, so good with rice and this salad.  Something that I thought would never happen is that something really good with rice is mayonnaise, with corn and peas.  COLD.  Weird, but true.  Almost everything is better with mayo.

Anyways, that conference was such a wonderful blessing, it was like the pep talk of the century.  And I have 6 months in the mission..que en el mundo.  Time is going by WAY too fast.

I love you all, and I hope you have a wonderful week!  Stay happy and know that you have a Heavenly Father and an older brother who are at your side at all times!

Love, love, love,

Hermana Farish