Last change of the week!

This week was the last week of the change, so we were about to go pedal to the metal but we ended up hitting a brick wall.

We have been having a problem with bugs in our house. We have been using some bug poison but as would happen, Elder Breton got bit by something. We are thinking it was a spider but there was no way to confirm. But it was causing him some pain so we had to go to the hospital on Tuesday, where they cut it open to drain all the pus. It was pretty nasty. Trevin would have enjoyed it. The doctor told us he wanted to see it again on Wednesday so we had to go back and it got infected and so we haven't done anything this week. Elder Breton was ordered to rest for the week and go back everyday to clean it. So this week everyday we wake up, take an hour and a half collectivo rode to the centro, wait for it to be cleaned, then go back and study for the rest of the day. so it was pretty uneventful this week. But in good news we went to the hospital yesterday and it was looking really good. He should be ready to work tomorrow!!

Also, I learned how to say "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints" in Guarani. I have it on my plaque but I forgot to take a picture of it. You might need Kimball to help pronounce it because it is quite a handful.   Its "Hesukrísto Tupao marangatukéra arapahapegua" :)

Have fun with that one!!
and to say ball its: vakapipopo.

I hope you enjoy those words!!

with all the love from Paraguay,

Elder Jared

Suit Jackets, the sun, and soaking feet

 What do you get when you combine a suit jacket, the blazing sun and wet feet? You get one happy Elder Jared. This week has been the best week on my mission as of yet. You guys get a day by day review this week so enjoy it!

Monday-pday, they are always great. We played some soccer, ate some Burger King and wrote our familys. Pdays are always great :)

Tuesday- It was blazing hot. Another Elder who has a thermometer on his Backpack said it was 42 degrees celsius, which Is only 107 but it was hot. But then we got a huge rain storm. That brought it down to 20 celsius (68). So it was awesome to chill out a bit. But suprisingly this is not where the wet feet come in :) that will be later in the week :) so basically the week has been a week without the blazing sun beating down on us.

Wednesday- We were on divisions again. I was with Elder Zarabia in his area called Bella Vista. It's super Chuchi (it means rich :)) and after the 68 degree weather it was nice to get a warm shower :) but this day had a pretty good story. President McMullin has been pressing us to ask for references from the members and commit them to give us references. so we taught a lesson to the ward mission leader and when we committed her using a direct question, she said "you are the first companionship that I have seen to commit people like Preach my Gospel says!"
It was just neat to know we are doing something right :) but another cool thing is that after the lesson, she turned to me and said in very broken English, "Elder, you have the light in you" it was super neat to know that I am sharing light.

Thursday- this is the Highlight of my week. Its the first time this WEEK that I wear it (usually its once a month, but this week I wore it twice, I need to slow down before my suit gets worn out ;)). but WE WENT TO THE TEMPLE!!!!!! It was a great opportunity because we only go to the temple once a year in April. But we reactivated a 17 year old and got him to take his father's name to the temple to be baptized!!! It was super awesome experience, it was a sacred temple trip. but basically I was witnessing and sometimes I could feel a certain energy, or better a certin joy that filled the room when people were baptized. It was absolutely amazing!! My favortie temple trip yet.

Friday- we had zone training and interviews with the president!! So thats day number two with the suit jacket!! It was great to talk with President McMullin for a bit. But the best part was the training. They talked about the importance of goal setting and how thats how you become your best self. So they gave us the opportunity to think and set goals personally and as a companionship for our missions. It was awesome :)

Saturday- It rained all day and our feet were wet allll day. But we were super happy. I really don't know why but we were. It's the spirit of goal setting I believe.

Sunday- We had a family reactivate!! It was the third time in 4 weeks so it was great to have that family officially active!! The fact that they reactivated was kind of a miracle. They were inactive because they lived super far from the chapel and he worked on Sundays (so that meant the family couldn't go?). But then he broke his leg, leaving him free to attend. The only problem was his leg. He didn't want to go for many weeks because it hurt him. Then one day we visited him and he said he didn't want us to come over and that he wanted God to heal him. But God didn't so he wasn't super happy. But we told him to go to church and the next week he did!  And now he is active and happy again!

So a great week it was!! I am just super happy!!

Elder Jared

Fruits of our Labors

How is it in the states? I hope you guys aren't dying of heat in the beautiful spring weather there. Bottle up a bit and send it to me ok?? :)

This week has been a lonng week. Tuesday and Wednesday Elder Breton was out sick. I haven't gotten it though so that's lucky. I had my share of sickness these past few weeks. Now mom, I dont want you to worry when I say my share, I feel like the FLU and Strep was fair enough for me. So that was kinda dissapointing because last week our attendance was at an extremely low for the ward. We had 87 (Its low for our ward but pretty high compared to others). President McMullin wrote us asking if there was a problem because we have been constantly around 110 or so and last week it dropped. So this week the pressure was on. So we thought that we were done for this week because we lost 2 days. But we Decided to be suuper obedient and stuff. Every night the light was out at 10:30 on the dot and on at 6:30. We were able to get a solid 4 days of work in and on sunday we got to see our fruits. On Sunday our attendance was at an all time high for us we hit 130 (That's a difference of 43 people!! but the cool thing is we had around 15 less actives from our area there, and heres the best part, 10 investigators were at church!! 6 were from our area and 4 from the area of the hermanas. So we saw our fruits in the way of a miracle! It was great!!

So now its time for the spiritual thought. This week I studied the book of Ether (I've almost finished the Book Of Mormon in Spanish now, with help from English when I didn't understand very well). So basically Its just the history of the Jaredites and there was a constant cycle. There was a king, sometimes righteousness sometimes not, and his son rebelled and took over the kingdom, and then a different son would take back the kingdom for his father. But the thing that I noticed is that every time a king was righteous, Mormon said " y él vivó hasta un edad muy avanzada" Which basically means he lived until her was very old. I don't know what it says in English. From what i studied, Mormon said that for every righteous king and for the wicked king he says nothing. So moral of the story be righteous and you will be blessed :)

Love you all, Elder Jared

Satan don't kick no dead dogs....

I hope you all enjoyed the subject line, Ill talk about it more later in the letter, so don't peek!! haha I hope you are curious though :)

So this week has flown bye. for some reason this week was unreasonable quick. Maybe it was because I hit 6 months last Saturday! Wow! these 6 months have been the most fulfilling 6 months of my life. I don't think I have ever been busier! It is easily the best experience of my life.

This week has been pretty regular. Sweating lots and having some funny experiences, well just one funny experience that I can remember. Haha I know there are more, I have the written down in my journal, I just cant remember them right now. Thank goodness for journals though!!

So the funny experience for this week. It comes from Divisions. I was with Elder Stutz who is from Washington state. He is has one less change than me and is stuggling with Spanish a little bit. But he is a really hard worker and is always improving! He is one of my mission buddies :) But anyway, both our primary plan and the back up plan fell through, so we decided to do some contacting, The very first house we talked to was this old lady. She claimed to be super catholic (lots of people say they are but they do nothing about it) but she had some back problems and  was cooking from her chair so she couldn't to let us in. So through the chain link fence we share a quick spiritual thought so we could lift her spirits a bit. I think It really helped her because she told her little son to go get some cold water. We just thought that she was going to give us something to drink but nope, her son brings out a pail, dips her necklace that has a cross on it and flings water at us saying " Les Bendico, Les Bendico" Which translated to " I bless you, I bless you"
I do have to say I have felt the Lord Blessing my life a lot :) whether its because of her or because I'm doing what I'm doing, but igual no mas. jaja.

I hope you enjoyed that a bit. I thought it was pretty funny. Another awesome thing we were able to do was go to the Family History Center with a member that was less active that we reactivated. He Is 17 and so we prepared some names for him to take to the temple. He was super excited to start and to have the ability to do baptisms for his dad. He was super excited about that. He's also starting to think about a mission now :) he's pretty cool :)

So that was my week so now it's time for my spiritual thought. (this is where the subject line comes in)

One night we were listing to a talk by Jack Christensen. He started off by telling us that " Satan don't kick no dead dogs, I could say it grammatically correct but you would forget it easier" He goes on to say that those that are choosing the right are the main subjects of his attacks (for example, Joseph Smith, Moses, And Jesus Christ himself). But he also is the main focus on us the people who are choosing to be good. he goes on to tell us why he attacks us and not the people who believe in 2 Nephi 28 7-8 (eat drink and be merry :)), He shares something that I thought was really interesting. He said "Perhaps the purpose of the temptations of Satan are not to make us sin, But rather to keep us from applying the Atonement of Jesus Christ in our lives."

I really believe that is the reason Satan tempts us, If he did it for numbers he would be focusing on the others that don't apply the Atonement. When we truly apply the Atonement, we are clean. And if we are clean and worthy we receive glory. And that makes Satan super jealous. So Remember "Satan don't kick no dead dogs"

Love you All!!

Elder Jared