The Wheels On The Bus...

Hem...this week was amazing.  I have never been so tired in all of my life.  We have been working so hard to open our mouths and make quality contacts.  We set a goal to give out 2 Books of Mormon every day, and so far it has made a difference.  We contacted a house on Friday, and we clapped and then looked at who was inside.  We saw a little old lady in a wheelchair.  She couldn't talk, but motioned us in.  We asked her her name and she (obviously) couldn't tell us, so we had to change up a bit and go with yes or no questions.  She accepted the Book of Mormon, and it was so interesting to share with her; not through words but through the Spirit.  This week we are going to follow up and see if she was able to read.

Another contacting miracle was on Thursday.  We were struggling with investigators, because there aren't many who are progressing, and we prayed to find a family.  I know that answers to prayers like that aren't really supposed to come so easily, but an appointment fell through so we decided to contact the entire street.  The third house that we contacted had the windows open, and the mom was ironing.  Normally, that is a pretty good excuse to say no, but she looked out at us and stopped what she was doing, came out, and accepted a Book of Mormon (we were so confused...:)).  We will be heading back tomorrow to see how it went.

Also...We had our first Family Home Evening Guazu (Guarani for "big") and we had 50 people come!!  That is like half of sacrament meeting.  Our plan is to do one every week, once in the elder's area and once our area.  The members did their part, and some of the people received 5 visits in one week!  It was such a miracle.  We were hoping that the attendance would go up, but it went down....dangit, but we are praying and working hard.  We are going to start English and piano classes this week, and we are hoping to find quality new investigators through them.

Today my companion had to go to immigration, so I was stuck in the offices all morning, and I was able to see my old companion, Hermana Francani!  She had just come out of an interview with the Mission president, who told her that her grandma had died.  She had been listening to the missionaries and was planning on being baptized.  Hermana Francani was so strong, she was crying but she bore such a powerful testimony of the plan of salvation, and said that it was another test and that Heavenly Father will help her through it.  It bore me up, I was so proud of her and her ability to press forward ,even with all of the trials that she has.  She came to the mission with her mom inactive, and just lots of things like that that have strengthened and refined her.  I love this gospel, I love how it refines us to be more like Christ.

I hope that you enjoyed the package.  It isn't a lot, and there wasn't any other color of ties.  I hope that red is okay.  As far as the weather goes, it is beautiful.  All of the trees have purple, pink, or yellow flowers.  I love this time of year.  Thankfully, my raincoat isn't too heavy so I can wear it most every day.

I hope that you all have a good week!

Hermana Farish

p.s. oh, and the subject line.  We were coming to the offices today and we had to ride in collectivos (city buses) for almost 2 hours.  standing up.  so fun.  and the greatest part is that our driver was like off-roading to go faster, so we almost tipped over like 5 times.  Life is good....Paraguay at its best:)

Noche de hogar guazu!!!

Small but tidy

Kitchen area

Empanadas!