Week 8: Ndetav’y Chera’a

With that my first week as a Missionary in Paraguay is done! It has been quite a week! 


To start, Paraguay has the most absurd landscape of all time! They have palm trees, afircan savanna trees and then randomly your every day american forest type of trees. Altogether, the landscape is diverse and lush and green! 

This week we had alot of work to do! Since we are so new in the area and it was really our first week in the White Wash we did a ton of contacting! And wow the Miracles that we saw! We had 6 people after our first contact that agreed to be baptized! 6 people who have a sincere and humble desire to come unto Christ! Each of them is unique and have there own stories and trials but my love for them and my desire to bring them in the fold is unlike any thing I have ever felt. 

Now with those 6 people, there were alot of people who rejected us. Wouldn´t let us come in, or straight up ignored us. The rejection is hard and the walking and language is freakin difficult! But it is awesome to see the support we get from you guys, the members and the whole church! Something tricky about the Spanish is here is (1) everyone speaks quietly and slurred which makes understanding 10x more difficult and (2) Gurani just appears in passing phrases and throws everything off gosh dang! 

Wednesday was colddd! Which is funny because all of this week so far it has been toasty nice and warm. Wednesday, however, it rained! And it was frigid. And to make things worse we got told we needed to be in Cacupe an hour from when we left our pension (apartment). And the really difficult part about Piribebuy is that there are no buses out of here! They have no schedule so you just sorta have to wait and hope one comes. And so that´s what we did. And after 15 minutes of waiting we decided to pray because we really needed to get to Cacupe because President was waiting for us and he couldn´t wait for long. So, in the middle of the cold rainy paraguayan street we prayed and as we finished the prayer, just like that, a bus pulled up going directly to Cacupe. However, that wasn´t the end of it. Because getting buses to Piribebuy is just as hard as getting buses out of it. And so we had to wait again and this time we watied fo maybe an hour in the cold wet rain (fun fact we almost got struck by lightining aka the street light like 5 feet from us did) and finally a bus came... buttt turns out the bus couldn´t take us all the way to Piriebebuy so we got off again about 9km from home. And with no other option, with little to no money and no buses coming... we started walking, in the freezing cold rain uphill towards Piribebuy. Wet and Miserable me and my Comp trudged up towards town for nearly an hour and a half. Before a miracle happened. We had prayed for help and I had been sticking out my thumb hoping we could get a hitchhike for just the 15 minute drive to Piribebuy and miraclously two members driving by came and gave us a lift. God sent help!

My comp also loves calling people ndetav'y Chera'a which is Guarani for Crazy Friend or like your crazy essentially in English haha and he has called me that more then once for my habit of like 5 blankets at night. Causeee the rain has made eveything so cold!!! 

Finally since I don´t want to make this email a freakin essay haha I wanted to share how much Joy comes from sharing the gospel. This work would be impossible if the things we taught were not true. It is the simple truth. The miracles. The receptiveness of the people were teaching. The faith of the members is founded in truth. There is so much joy in sharing the gospel and sharing the things of your heart. In Matthew 12:34-35 Jesus teaches ¨ for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things.¨ I testify that there is joy and power that comes from sharing the gospel. Do not hesitate. Testify and teach from your heart!  We are living in a chosen era of missionary work and God want's everyone to be involved! 

I love you all! Join the Google Photos if you want to see pictures! Feel free to email me too I would love to hear from you! 


Elder Ralphs

1. Guarani Book of Mormon
2. PaTEO!
3. A picture we took after Sonia (one of our friends) agreed to be baptized! 
4. Piribebuy! 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

PaTeo!

Image
Haupei!! Wow what a couple of Days it has been, since I wrote home just this Wednesday I will do my best to keep this email short but my oh my have things been moving since then. We left Thursday Night at 9pm for Paraguay. It was´nt an awful flight since I had an open middle seat next to me and I was a window.. so I sprawled out and got some sleep.  We landed in the Morning in Paraguay and were meeted by President and the Secretary of the Mission. They made sure everything went smoothly getting into the country and we were driving and at the Mission office by 9a Friday. We all took naps at some bedrooms they had upstairs at the Mission Office and then we came down at 11:30 ish for our orientation. We also got to meet our comps for the first time and holy cow is Elder Webb (or Pa Teo as I call him (since he is my father/trainer out her on the mish)) is an absolute legend even after only living with him for two days I have grown to love and appreciate the man. He really has this genu...
Read more

Well You Guys Are In Trouble...

Image
What a final week it has been! We were planning on leaving Tuesday but thanks to a late transfer or a plane thing or whatever we got on final P-Day at the CCM. This week has been all out Spanish and Doctrinal sprint. The spirit has been strong and our district is so unfied. It will be really hard and already has been hard to say goodbye to Elder Vainoka, who left at 3 am Tuesday Morning. It was awesome because we all woke up for him and did the Hakka he taught us as a goodbye. It was a special moment.. 3 am 5 americans, a south afircan and a tongan just casually doing the Hakka at 3 in the morning! (Someone videoed it and I put it in the Google Photos)  Bishop Caussé the Presiding Bishop of the Church came thus week!! He did a devotional with us on Monday afternoon. It was an absolutely fire devotional and the atmosphere of the small packed room, with somewhere between 50 to100 missonaries and mission leaders, was so powerful. His message was about tasting the fruit and accessing t...
Read more

Shouldn’t Have Drank That Water

Image
Haupei Yall's! It's weird were already talking transfers this next week!  Not much to much to report this week but heres a few snidbits: --> Tranfers are next week!! I will stay in Piribebuy, but there are alot of rumors going around that Elder Webb my comp is going to be a ZL so stay tuned this next couple of weeks cause things could be changing! --> My comp got really sick Monday Night from drinking the water. Basically, the water here can give you parasites and tapeworm and all that nasty stuff so we were at the Pension all day Tuesday and Wednesday. Which was awesome for me to do somethings I have not gotten to do since I got here and I gotta study ALOT, even watched President Nelsons Birthday Celebration thingy which I thought was an awesome change of pace!! --> Sunday was amazing! I got to bless the Sacrament and President Calderwood came to the ward to reorganize the branch presidency. He said to watch out because either me and my comp will probably get called a...
Read more