Baptism

Hello!! Man this week has been a great week!! For starters, Fransisco did get baptized. He was super excited and he felt amazing he said. And when he got confirmed the spirit was super strong. It was absolutely amazing!! Man, I love the feeling when someone accepts this Gospel.. yeah It may be the greatest feeling ever! Man being a missionary is the greatest thing ever!

Not much has happened this week. Every night we went to Fransisco just to help him prepare for his baptisim. But other than that, just the same reactivating work. Sometimes it's super awesome because you'll reactivate a family and you can see the joy that comes with activity, but on the other end i'ts kinda frustrating too, you'll have people say they know they should reactivate but don't do anything... But I love them anyways. we get some really great lessons there. it's kinda like a puzzle, you just have to find what they are missing to complete the picture. Someday they will understand!!

Something funny happened this week... I was on divisions with Elder Shoemaker and we visited a family that is less active but reactivating and they lived in a ward in the south mission, the same ward as some of my friends in Juan de Salazar! It was funny because sometimes the world just seems so small.. haha

Spanish is getting better as always, It's fun speaking spanish 100% of the time. I really love the spanish language even if sometimes it is mixed with Guaraní. Haha

Love you all

Elder Jared

Talking with Spain

This week has been a good week for me, We haven't gotten out much because Elder Galdamez got the Flu on Wednesday and Thursday. but Friday he was fine, After weekly planning and lunch on Friday it started to rain super hard and our house leaks.. so we had to spend a good part of the afternoon cleaning up water.. there wasnt to much damage and we managed pretty good.

So talking with Spain... it was an interesting situation thats for sure... But we were at a less actives (but reactivating) house and Its a grandma and her granddaughter named Floriana.  Floriana's mom lives in Spain and we are preparing the granddaughter for her baptism in june. when she turns 8. But right as we were about to leave and Floriana's mom calls. And Floriana tells her that the "Elders are here teaching me, want to talk to them?" she then hands the phone to me.. It was kinda awkward if you know what I mean. But hey, It's not every day that you get to talk with Spain.

Fransisco is doing really good. I don't know if I filled you in on his situation but basically he's golden. He lives with his aunt and uncle who are active members. They have been teaching him a lot about the church and stuff. He knows that its all true and loves reading the Book of Mormon, Which is rare for a 15 year old, but he's awesome! Yesterday we were teaching the Word of Wisdom and he already knew everything. His aunt and uncle really have prepared him really well. He is super excited for this Saturday.

Other than that not much else has happened this week.. just a bunch of rain. I hear that we are getting into the "wet season" but it seems like its always been "wet" haha

I love you all!!

Elder Jared

Me fui!

Translation, I went or I left! So we had changes this week and we were pretty certain that we were going to have changes, It was a matter of who. And President chose me to go, To a city called Aregua. And would you have it, Its like 10 minutes south of Luque, so yeah still stuck in the warphole. But it's a really pretty place. Our area is super far away from the main road so there's basically nothing. Just people and Jungle. But honestly its a really pretty place. I'll send some pictures next week. My new Companion is Elder Gladámez, He is from El Salvador. He has one more change than I do but will go home with me (Spanish speakers have more time in the field, because less time in the MTC). He doesn't like some of the rules, but that's something we are working on, at least I don't have to motivate him to work. There's always a bright spot.

As for Aregua, There are a ton of menos activos. supposedly the ward has over 900 members but only 100 are active. There are also 8 missionaries in the ward. Its a ton. It feels like without the missionaries, the ward would crumple. Supposedly they rely on the missionaries a ton, have them give talks and be in charge of a lot of stuff, But we are working on that. Other than that, We do have one really cool investigator, His name is Fransisco and lives with a member, So yeah, He has a date for the 25th and he is super excited for it.

Also, Aregua has a ton of little hills so its a lot of up and down. Our area also has one of the tallest points in Paraguay, Its nothing like the great mountains of Utah, but it's something :)

All In all, I feel good about the change. There are always difficulties in changes but it's nothing I can't handle. It was rough leaving an area where you have worked so had and had started seeing the fruits and then go. I feel like 'Ive left a little destiny in Juan de Salazar, Some members that we reactivated renamed their cats after us. So one is Breton and the other is Jared. So I feel super happy about the work I was able to accomplish here.

All the love,

Elder Jared

Stuffed to the brim!

Sent: Monday, April 6, 2015 2:38:47 PM
Subject: stuffed to the brim

What a week its has been!!! It was an awesome way to end this change. We are notified tomorrow about changes, so you get to wait a week to know!! But seriously. I have been stuffed to the brim this week. Physically and spiritually. But for starters, I'll start with all the yummy (mostly yummy that is) and unhealthy stuff I've eaten and I'll tell you about the adventures I've had this week!! This week will have to be a day by day type of thing.

Tuesday: yeah, We killed a pig,  Well, we didn't actually kill the pig. We more just watched, but still it was awesome!! The family that killed the pig told us they would start at 5 in the morning. We decided to wake up early to help! We get there around 5:15 and the pig is killed and skinned... They told us they had to start at 4 in the morning. Because the person that knew how to butcher the pig was called in to work so yeah.. still got some great pictures! Then we ate pig for breakfast. It's Called Kure shoruru. Its pretty dang amazing but to make it good you have to make Chichirron. To make Chichirron, you put a bunch of pig fat on a fire till it renders some fat and eventually fries itself. It yummy also. And to make Kure shooruru (It means fried pork in Guarani) you just throw it in the chichirron while its frying! Yeah that was breakfast..don't worry mom,, I'm eating fruits and vegetables too.

Wednesday: We made chipa! It takes a tooon of work and is super hard to explain, but basically you have this mixture that is super lumpy and dry, and you have to knead it forever to make it into a dough. It takes like 10 minutes and you get tired really quick. So we ate a lot of chipa.

Thursday: This is the day we ate and ate and ate. We had a super big lunch of duck (Its super yummy! one of my favorite meats here!) and pork with rice and cabbage salad. And then it was the national day of chipa so every house we went into, we ate chipa. and you cant say no!! so we had to eat a giant lunch and chipa through out the day. We also had a mystery dinner appointment that night, what was it? Pig head... Yeah I hate some pig head, most definatly not my favorite thing. They served it cold and it took forever to chew.. also, they didn't take the hair off.. so you end up chewing for like 3 minutes on cond hairy meat.... yeah not super appetizing especially when you are stuffed to the brim already.. My favorite part was the tongue because I could chew it and it didn't have hair... yeah. But after the lunch appointment we visited a less active family and as we get there, they are like, Oh we prepared and asado for you!! Yeah I was absolutely stuffed. It was to the point where the food didn't taste good, which for me, It means I ate A LOT of food.. 

Friday: Paraguay basically shut down for the day. It was the day of the crucifixion of Christ so everyone got the day off. But for us it was a regular day, working, and eating more chipa. I was still full from Thursday. haha

The weekend!: Now it's time for the spiritual side of things, which means General Conference!! It was fantastic, even if the rain made it so we couldn't watch the first session. As Elder Eyring was about to tell us a story, The satellite cut out and didn't come back till the closing hymn. So that was kinda disappointing but whatever. Thank goodness for LDS.ORG.  But Saturday afternoon was maybe my favorite session ever! Elder Bednar and his talk about overcoming fears with faith in Jesus Chirst was amazing, Elder Christoffersons talk Blew me away, I still have "Marriage is not a human invention" ringing in my ears. Then the dancing to the music. That one will be a classic. Haha I love that one too!!

Sunday was also really really good. But Elder Hollands talk really struck with me.. That story helped me realize the importance of faith and trust In Jesus Christ. It made me realize, That Christ will always be there for us. He will never go looking for a fictionary tree branch, he is waiting, waiting for us to take a leap of faith, a leap into his outstretched arms. He will catch us, he cannot fail in catching us. This talk was a favorite of mine. I will never forget the image of us hanging on a ledge, slipping to utterdoo, and then a pair of hands reach out and save us, the hands and wrists pierced. pierced just for us.

I hope you all had a great weekend too!!

Love, 

Elder Jared

 Surrounded by banana leaves making chipa. It is cornmeal dough, and you cook it in whats called a tatakua but its like a wood fired oven.