This week´s Paraguayan culture lesson: never complain about how early you have to get up for school. Many of the schools here start at 6 am! Just about everything here is earlier. Church is at 8:00, but sacrament meeting is last. We meet in a regular chapel, and there are about 100-150 active members in the ward, though with the rain not many people came to church. It has rained a lot today and yesterday. Anyway, to answer your other questions, I only spoke once to introduce myself to the ward, but I play the piano every other week (which is sometimes rather interesting). I have not dreamed in Spanish yet. There are 10 missionaries in our district, making it one of the largest. In my apartment, the only rooms we have are the ones I showed you, but that was about half of each. We share a bedroom (as is required by the Missionary Handbook). We have a stove, oven, pots, pans, and some measuring cups in metric and English measurements.
Well, as I said, with the rain, not many people came to church. We have also been doing a lot of baptismal interviews (that is what the District Leader does), so there has not been much time to teach our own investigators. Aníbal finally came back to church, so it looks like he is well on his way to baptism. We are hoping to see more progress this week, especially with Chilo, the Herrera Family, the Aguinaga family, and Junior and Perla. We also have found a lot of new investigators, some with a lot of potential, like Zunilda, whose husband is very inactive. Then there is Francisco. He is the reason for the title of this email. He was a reference from a member, and the lesson started off great because he had already read a bit of the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately, we could not get him to understand that this book means that we are the only true church of Jesus Christ; he was stuck in the mindset that all you need is Jesus. We testified and taught the best we could, but we had to get to an interview, so we asked him if he would offer a prayer before we left. Lesson learned: even if you are in a hurry, take the time to teach your investigators to pray....it´s worth it. He stood up and went back and forth between recited prayers (which his family would say with him), and dramatic prayers, which were not all just to God the Father. This lasted for about 15 minutes. It was so hard not to laugh when he started to SING to the Holy Ghost in a weird melody he made up as he went. I still laugh when I tell other missionaries about it, and now every time they see us they sing "Espiiiiiiiritu, Espiritu Saaantoooo." Yeah, the mission is an adventure.
To close, I want to share an experience in Spanish I had during companion exchanges that meant so much to me. *Estábamos enseñando la Familia Da Silva, nuevos investigadores. Intentábamos a enseñar la primera lección, pero ellos estaban hablando sobre lo que ellos creyeron en su iglesia. Éso es un problema que he tenido varias veces en la misión, pero sabemos que hemos sido llamado para enseñar, no para ser enseñado (DyC 43:15). Finalmente, cuando la madre dijo que pensó que solo estábamos allá para decirles cuales partes de la Biblia ellos deben leer, yo dijo,"No, estamos aquí para mucho mas de éso. Estamos aquí porque hemos sido llamado por un profeta de Dios." Expliqué mas de nuestro propósito, y testifiqué la historia de José Smith. Ella preguntó como podía saber si es la verdad, y leímos Moroni 10:4-5. Ella lloró un poco, y sabíamos que, finalmente, el Espíritu ha testificado de este mensaje de la Restauración.
Little by little, I am becoming the missionary I know I can be. I love you all and thank you for your support. It means so much to me. :)
Elder Wesley Morgan
*We were teaching the Silva Family, new investigators. We had planned to teach the first lesson, but they had been talking about what they believe in their church. That is a problem that I have had several times on the mission, but we know that we have been called to teach, not to be taught. (D&C 43:15). Finally, when the mother said that she thought that we were only there to tell them which parts of the Bible they should read, I said, "No, we are here for much more than that. We are here because we have been called by a prophet of God." I explained more about our purpose, and I testified of the story of Joseph Smith. She asked how she could know if it is true, and I read Moroni 10:4-5. She cried a little, and we knew that, finally, the Spirit had testified of the message of the restoration.
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