What? Three Months?!

I have recieved many emails reminding me that it was my this week has been three months... I think that it has gone by too quickly!! I swear that everytime I blink its a new day!!
So we had our first changes and I know your curious to know how it works (at least my mom is :))
But we met on a tuesday during our time for district meeting as a zone together in a chapel. We then have District meetings and after we get together as a zone. The zone leaders have a list of all the changes and stuff. So they call each companionship to stand up and they tell them if any are changing, what area they will be in, who their new companion is, or if their training. Then on wednesday If you have changes you go to the office. But I didnt have changes and Im still in the great branch of Kokuerè.

The work has been pretty slow. We are having trouble finding new investigators, having trouble with investigators not keeping their promises, and getting menos activos back to church.

Theres not much we can do about our investigators not keeping promises, they have their agency and they have chosen not to do it.

For the menos activos is a bit frustrating. theres a family that they know what they have to do (go to church) why they should go (The sacrament) and what they have to change to get there ( wake up earlier) and they still dont go! We are trying everything to get them there but once again, they have their agency. And we will keep trying.

The New investigators is a bright spot. I was looking through the our area binder and I found like 7 people that I thought we should contact. most of them have read the Book of Mormon and believe its true.. they just lost contact form the missionaries it seems. So we have a plan to contact them this week and I have high hopes of catching one.

On Saturday, we got a call from our branch president saying that a littler girl wanted Elder Torres to baptize her that night. So rushed to find a baptismal suit for her which was crazy fun. You would think that the missionaries would have the stuff, but we dont. haha. But it was super cool to see another baptism and confirmation.

For those of you that dont know, Paraguay has some way cool leather works, and so we bought some scripture Tapas (Cases)! I absolutely love mine (pictures attached) but the zipper already broke, so we are meeting the guy that made them on thursday and he will fix them. But they are so cool!!

One weird thing I have noticed about Latinos is that they smell everything! Like we had some lady come clean our house and she smelled our dvd player our tables, our freezer, even some dirty socks air drying. When we showed our Tapas to our investigators and other people they looked at them for a second and then they smell them. I dont understand it!

As for the weather, It keeps getting hotter and hotter. I have heard that it gets to around 120 in the summer... soo please pray that we can have our AC fixed soon... We are working on getting it fixed but not much has happened.

I love it here and wake up everymorning excited for a new day!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Jared

When Trials Turn to Blessings...

My goodness it is getting hot here. Like i think it was friday, we hit over 41 degrees. Celsius of course. so in farenheit it was like 105 with over 70% humidity... ouch. Its super hot and everything is sticky. But thats where the subject line comes in. Right now I am not to sad about the cold water for showers. It feels soo good after a hot night. Haha all we need now is some AC and we will be set!!

So, this week as been fairly good. The other Elders in our area had a baptism on saturday and we were able to bring our investigators (the ones with the date) to it! Im not exactly sure how they felt though, because they started speaking super fast and using words that I didnt understand. But anyway, we invited them to the sacrament meeting the next day for the confirmation and the recieving the gift of the Holy Ghost. But once again, they didnt wake up when we passed by. We seriously tried everything we could to get them there but they chose not to wake up. So Once again we were dissapointed.

But at that sacrament meeting, I realized how special reciveing the Gift of the Holy Ghost is. I havent heard someone on this Earth be confirmed and recieve the Gift of they Hohly Ghost since it was me reciving the gift. The gift is soo special, and so I have a challenge for you, when partaking of the sacrament and the preist says "that thy spirit may always be with them" i want you to take the place of someone that has just been baptized and is getting confirmed. What would you think and more importantly feel? Its a special gift that we have recieved and continue to recieve.

Another awesome thing about thos week was we had the primary program!! Although our Branch primary is a lot smaller then mine at home, It was still special to see them sing and bear testimony. And of theres always the kids that shout. Haha they made me laugh so hard...but the spirit of the little kids is so sweet.

So some new investigators, the situation is really strange. Techincally the family lives in the south mission, but each weekend they come to Kokuerè. They stay with a member and they all attended church before reciving the first lesson (4 in total) but the odd part is that the other elders in our branch are teaching them with us... but its awesome because they get to hear the testimony of 4 elders and 2 converts.. Its extremly powerful. There was a point in the lesson after we talked about the Book of Mormon, and each of us pulls out a copy for the investigators. I swear it could have been like a movie it was so perfectly timed and the best part is that we didnt plan it. So that was 4 missionaries tuned into the spirit. oh and PS, they have a date for the 15th of november. They seem alot more ready then our other investigators.

So thats how my week has been. and I would love to hear from each of you if you have the chance!

Love,
Elder Jared

Elder Jared meets a friend of Kimball's

The scripture case engraver!

Family note:  This picture came from Kimball -who is in contact with his friend via facebook.  We believe that Brandon contacted this friend of Kimball's who engraves beautiful leather scripture cases.  We think that Brandon realized this would be the farthest south he would get (which is where Kimball was) and that he wanted to get a scripture case for himself.  Wonder if he did!

Another Quick Week!

I seriously can’t believe another week has come and gone. It’s going by to fast!! We have changes next week but I’m 99 percent sure I’m staying put. I am glad that I am practically guaranteed two changes here. The work here is finally starting to progress a little bit. By progressing I mean we found another family that we have started teaching. But we can only meet with them once a week because the dad actually works. But other than that there haven’t been any major changes. Minus the fact that we got a DATE FOR A BAPTISM! The people we challenged haven’t even gone to church yet and they have a lot of doubts and they say that they haven’t gotten answers to their questions yet. SO we promised them that if they did everything they could to prepare for baptism by praying and reading, then God would answer their questions. So they just have to do their part and God will do the rest. Oh by the way, its two sisters that have a date and the date is November 8th. We have taught more than the two sisters, but some just aren’t as interested in Eternal Salvation. But the two that have a date are always there. 

That’s really all that’s new according to the work. But in other news I was pretty sick Saturday with a fever. But it passed quickly and I am completely fine (seriously mom, no need to worry I am all good. I still take the giant nasty multivitamin so it was just a freak thing) Ha-ha. Our little branch swelled up to sixty five this week. Usually we have like 50, but a giant family came and boosted our numbers. 

Here’s your word for the week:

ñañembo´eta. Good luck pronouncing it because it is super hard but it means we are going to pray. haha so we use it every now and then. It’s the only one this week.

You know you’re in Paraguay when you’re walking down the side of a street (because they don’t have sidewalks) and a motorcycle passes seriously 6 inches away from you. Supposedly that’s how they rob people. They just rip off their backpack and ride away. But missionaries are safe because they believe we are men of God and don’t want anything bad to happen to them.

Also the weather has been super odd this week. Like on Friday morning, it was so hot. We had to walk to a zone conference in it. With a suit jacket it was absolutely miserable. But after the Zone Conference, we walk outside and it’s freezing. Like we were glad that we had our suit jackets. So it was cold all day Friday and Saturday. So on Sunday we all get in our long sleeves and sweaters for church because it was still freezing and after church it was seriously 100 degrees!! It was like it was back home with the weather changing oddly and quickly!

Another odd thing that happened during our Zone Conference. We were practicing extending a date for baptism and who de we get to role play with? that’s right, President McMullin. So I got to ask my mission president to be baptized. Haha. When you role play you feel sooo stupid but it helps out a lot!! You seriously only get better when you role play. 

I love you all and I hope you are enjoying the coolness of fall because it is starting to get super hot (if it’s not freezing its super hot) here.

con mucho amor. 

Élder Jared

Conference Weekend!!

Oh how great this weekend was! The best part was that they had a small tv in a different room with the conference in English for all the gringos! So I went on a ´division´with Elder Wheeler who is from Vernal! That made me soo happy! It was such a special conference for me. I learned soo much this weekend and It was a little bit odd being with many missionaries form the south mission, but it was fun to get to know them!

I hope you all had questions in mind as you listened in General Conference. I specifically had the question of "What do i need to do for my investigators?" There was something in every talk that I identified. But the favorite among the missionaries was Elder Bednar's. Absolutely perfect for Investigators. Speaking of investigators, the ones who promised to come didn't come. We even called them right before the last session and they said they were coming. So that was really disapointing because the last session was perfect for investigators! Talking about profetas and such (I forgot how to spell it in English. HAHA!) also the sacrament and ending with Elder Bednar's PERFECT TALK! But too bad for them, we will keep trying to get them to keep their commitments.

So funny story about recieving answers to questions, on Wednesday we were talking with a member about a movie called ¨Gifted Hands¨ and nobody could remeber the Doctor's name! As it turns out, Ted R, Callister talked about him! His name Is Ben Carson. So if God would answer something as trivial as that (which I hadn't even prayed to know), Why wouldn't he answer something that you had prayed for? Of course he would!! Man I love Conference.

Not much else went on this week. Elder Torres was sick and we didn't proselyte on Tuesday. but he is working though it and is such an inspiration to me. Always working and thinking of the investigators. so neat.

I just want to add my testimony to those that we have heard from our general authorities. I know that this church is true. I have seen the Gospel of Jesus Christ change lives. Including mine. I know that Joseph Smith saw God and his son. and through the priestood, restored the authority to baptize. I know that Thomas S. Monson is the profeta on the earth today. He cannot and will not leave us astray. I love this Church and I love my older brother Jesus Christ.

I love you all and pray for you constantly.

Elder Jared

This is the Collectivo. Super scary and fun!