Man Eating, Dinosaur Riding Blondes

So...yeah.  This week was pretty sweet.  We were able to see a lot of miracles and laugh a little.

First off, Thank you Jill and Family for the package!!  It was so fun to receive, and Ashlyn, you are so beautiful!  Thank you for sending me your announcement!

Second off,

We were nearing the end of our day, and all of our plans had fallen through, so we went to the main road and decided to contact everyone we saw until the end of the day...and...we got to the road and it was empty.  Not a soul, until we saw that there was a security guard in his little box thing, writing Jesús te ama (Jesus loves you) on the windows.  So we were like...okay, sign.  So we went to talk to him, and after we figured out how to get his attention, he came out and began to talk to us.  We talked to him about the Book of Mormon, and when we offered it to him, he declined by describing to us a dream that he had supposedly had.  In this dream, he had seen  2 girls, one with brown skin and the other a blonde, and that they were enticing all of the men to go to them and then they proceeded to eat them. And then rode off on their dinosaurs.  I kid you not, that is what he said.  While trying not to burst out laughing, we were like...if you don't want it, just say no, we won't bite.  We thought it was pretty funny:)

On the more spiritual side, we had a wonderful week.  Eduardo, an investigator from Palma Loma, was baptized on Saturday, and I was able to call and talk to him a little.  He has progressed so much and just goes to show how the gospel can change our lives for the better, it doesn't matter what we have done.

We have 3 people with baptismal dates for this weekend, but we aren't sure if any of them are going to make it, because Satan is working hard on them.  We have the Arrua Family.  The elders worked a lot with them, but could never get them to commit to a date, because the husband doesn't want his wife to get baptized.  We were able to put a date, and we fasted with them on Friday so that they would be able to reach this goal.  Yesterday, Ramona (the wife) still wasn't sure, so she talked with the bishop, who told her to wait until she had the approval from her husband. We were kind of ticked, but then we realized that it would be better that way.  We think. Keep them in your prayers!!

Other than that, we are just working hard, finding new people.  When we fasted on Friday, we tried hard to find new people that would accept the baptismal invitation.  We found 2!  Juana lives behind our house, and we had talked before with her mother-in-law, but we had never tried to talk with her. When we prayed before leaving to start proselyting, it came into my head that we should go and talk with her.  We went and were able to have a great lesson on the Plan of Salvation.  The other miracle was Joana.  We had contacted her house before, but she was way busy with her kids, so we finally followed up and had a lesson on repentance.  She had her first baby when she was 17, and since then has been involved with drugs.  She is awesome and is ready to start over.  Our last miracle was Jessica.  She was a referral from a member and we contacted her mom on Wednesday, and then we went back on Friday.  She told us that she would come to church, and she did!  She came because she has a friend who is member, and a wonderful example of how members should be.  There are lots of people who don't want to talk with us because of bad examples, but if they have had a good example, there isn't anything better:)

The time has gone by SO FAST.  Seriously, it seems like yesterday that I was crying my eyes out in the airport before leaving.  And now, everyone is asking me "are you ready to go??", and I am like...no.  Not even a little  bit.  Normally we don't receive our travel plans until our last transfer, so I think that is when I will be receiving them.

Anyway, on a more trunky note,  EVERYONE asks us if we have boyfriends.  It is RIDICULOUS. It makes me think that the main topic of conversation with the elders was their girlfriends, because the first thing they ask is if we left someone.  Eesh.

I hope that you all have a good week, thank you for all of your support, and now that Josh is in the field (okay, weird,) keep him in your prayers!!  I love you!

Love,
Hermana Farish

Tender Mercies of the Lord

This week has been full of lots of experiences, some good, some not so good, but from all of them I have been able to learn a lot about my purpose as a missionary and how I can listen to, recognize, and follow the guidance of the Spirit.

To start off, we found 2 atheists this week, which is really weird, because the majority of the people in Paraguay claim to be Catholic.  In my personal opinion, there is no such thing as a real atheist, because as we began to talk to them, we found one that believes in Satan, which is ridiculous because if Satan exists, so does God, and the other one was an inactive that was born in the church, but after her father commited suicide, she stopped believing in a loving God, which is reasonable, and we had a wonderful discussion about the tender mercies of the Lord, and how, every day, there is something, however small, that the Lord has given us.  Her husband isn't a member, and we look forward to working with him in the future.

We focused a lot more on following up on investigators and street contacts this week, and it paid off. We found Juana, a lady who lives in the chuchiest (fanciest) house that I have ever set foot in here in Paraguay.  I was totally out of my element:)  We talked about how faith is so important and how, through the gospel of Jesus Christ, we can become worthy to be in His presence again and be an eternal family.  Hermana Francani did the baptismal invitation,  I was so proud of her:)

Another miracle was that we found Paula again.  She was the lady who asked what she needed to do to be baptized, and set her own baptismal date, and then we never found her again.  We passed by late last night and found her:)  We shared a quick message on hope through the atonement. We will have a lesson with a recent convert who was a drunk before she was baptized on Wednesday, so that she knows that there is still hope for her son, who is trying to get rid of his drug addiction.

We were also able to meet with a family that was going to be baptized almost two years ago, but because of something that happened with the bishop and some other members, they decided not to, and since I arrived here in Palma Loma, we have been trying to meet with them, and finally they let us in on Friday.

Something interesting about all of these little miracles was that they all took place after a REALLY long day, and most of the time during the day is the hardest time.  I have really seen this week that when we work hard throughout the day, and when we have enough faith, Heavenly Father will give us blessings.  We talked with all of these people when we could have done something else that maybe wasn't as wise of a use of time, but we have seen the tender mercies of the Lord, like it says in 1 Nefi 20, that the Lord will shed His tender mercies on all of the people who have the faith sufficient to put in Him.

I know that the Lord loves us, and I know that He wants us to be able to achieve our full, divine potential.  I know that it is hard, and sometimes, it can be the last thing we want to do, but it is in these moments when we have to exercise our faith in Him and His ability to perform miracles.  I love you all so much, and hope you have a good week!

Love,
Hermana Farish

My "Hija", Hermana Francani