A Happy Ending (perhaps) to Ca´acupé

"BAPTISM PHOTOS!! We have Silvia, who FINALLY GOT BAPTIZED! I have been working on convincing that girl for almost four months. Haha, well we weren´t teaching her that whole time, but it´s been quite the wait. She was even a little unsure right before entering the font, but it all turned out well. We also baptized her ex-boyfriend-who-she-wasn´t-

talking-to-but-are-friends-again-and might-possibly-starting-dating-again (teenagers...), Alex!! He is great."

Email from Sister Keller, senior missionary in Elder Morgan's mission: "We had a great weekend here in Caacupe.  Your son is such a gentleman:-)  The missionaries sang Donde Hay Amor= Where Love Is:-)  and it was lovely.  I wanted to do that song in case Elder Morgan gets transferred.  He looked at me today and said, 'How's my Mom?'  I thought that was so funny.  I told him though that I thought I would send you the pics.  Enjoy :-)"

"Here are a few of the photos I took at our district activity last week. We went to 'El Mirador,' a small scenic hill in Tobatí. It takes about a minute and a half to hike, and then you can walk around on top to see the city. So we played a few group games--Zip Bong (makes me think of Aaron Densley) and Signs (don´t know if you know that). Fun stuff!"

I am sure you got my other letter about the baptisms. I am so so so happy. In this last month we have found a lot of wonderful people who have let us down, and my one plea to Heavenly Father was to help Silvia get baptized and complete the Melgarejo family before I left. We still don´t know if I´m leaving, but....we are pretty sure. It´s now the norm to be in an area for 3 transfers. I have been here for 3, and there are 3 left in my mission--makes sense. I have already started to conditionally say good bye ("If this is the last time I see you, thanks for everything"), which could make for funny moments if I stay here. We´ll see!

We actually just had a great Leadership Council where President Agazzani encouraged us to focus on how we serve, not where (including leadership positions), using Alma 13 and D&C 121:34-46. Very spiritual. There are a lot of changes in the mission, and this month wasn´t quite as fruitful as were hoping, though the last week we had 58 confirmations (6 in our Zone!), a record for President Agazzani´s time in one week. Also, to clarify, the numbers of 1400 baptisms were just for this mission, and there are two and a half (Posadas Argentina takes half) missions in Paraguay. So each missionary (200) baptized about 7 last year, but that´s actually 14 per companionship. Now, with about 250 missionaries, if we baptize 8 each (16 per companionship), we´ll reach 2000 baptisms. That´s pretty much how President Agazzani thinks--he´s a business man. But, combined with the gospel, it works! Like I said, this mission is growing incredibly fast.

Speaking of President, he finally read my letter and gave me permission to do the ecclesiastical endorsement for BYU. Still waiting for it to load. He also, for the first time, sends his greetings specifically to all of you (the family).

And, most of our attention was focused on the baptisms in our area and the other areas. Oh, the missionaries who came to split my area finally had their first two baptisms, too! Like I said, we are finding great families or groups of young adult men --they are usually willing to chat--but no one came to church apart from those you saw in the pictures. We are having trouble with reactivation--the Castro family, whose daughter we baptized a couple months ago, told us they don´t want to come back to church :( --but with a fully armed Elders Quorum, the branch councils are now going to implement the 5-5-5 plan that all wards here are supposed to use to focus on reactivating 15 families.

I do love the chapters about the sons of Mosiah. There are many, many things there that led to their success. Some are their spiritual preparation, their love for the people, their simple form of teaching according to the needs of those they taught, and their focus on important doctrines like the Atonement. They also taught people who were willing to be converted and sacrifice anything to accept the Gospel. Those are great chapters to analyze again and again.

As always, I enjoy hearing how everyone is doing so I can pray for all of their individual challenges. I, too wish I knew the transfers. I´ll let you know next week!

-Elder Wesley Morgan