Christmas In Paraguay

Following is a condensed version of our Christmas Phone Call:

For Christmas Eve "La Buena Noche", Tyler and his companion visited a lot of members. He said they ate a ton of food and it was the first time on his mission he's been full. At every house they visited, the people fed them some sort of food. At one house they had a full meal. At the house of La Familia Arana the Elders said, "We can't eat anymore!" However, Hermana Arana was very disappointed and insisted they eat because she'd been planning this dinner for a month...so they had another dinner. They ate Melanesa (Chicken strips) Asada (barbequed beef), a lot of rice, a lot of noodles, bread, and Mandioka which is similar to mashed potatoes, but bland, stringy, and has no taste. At first he really didn't like it but it has grown on him. He really likes ham and cheese Empanadas.

For Christmas Day, the missionaries had a zone activity where they watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional together, then they went to a hospital to sing to children and give out candy, then they played football together and had a barbeque. For Christmas the President sent them a microwave. They haven't had a microwave until now.

Tyler has been very blessed to be completely healthy so far on his mission. He's had no problems with his stomach or any other issues. The Paraguayan people are very laid back "tranquilo" and friendly. The members love the missionaries and take great care of them. The members wash their clothes and feed them every day. The people are generally very poor. Many people often don't have enough to eat and the missionaries feel bad eating their food, but the members beg them to come eat with them and feel bad if the missionaries don't come. There is very little crime in Paraguay. It is extrememly unusual to hear of someone stealing or breaking the law.

Tyler loves his Mission President. He said President Callan is a very happy guy. He loves the missionaries and wants all of them to succeed and be happy. President is very in tune with the spirit and is often guided to help missionaries at critical times. Tyler also loves his companion, Elder Stokes. They work very hard together and are doing a lot of teaching and getting a lot done. They are planning on focusing more on getting new people to teach. They set high goals and work well together to accomplish them.

Tyler is now able to understand the language very well. He said all of the sudden he could understand what everyone was saying. He has also learned some of the native language "Guarani" which is not even similar to Spanish. The people love it when Americans can speak Guarani and it's easier to get into houses when Missionaries speak the people's language. In some areas of the mission people don't speak Spanish, only Guarani.

Tyler loves his mission. He said he hasn't been home sick. They've been keeping so busy that they don't worry about home. He's now been out six months. 1/4th done!

A House in San Antonio Paraguay

Everything is good here, we got our goal of 40 lessons this week, it wasn´t nearly as hard as I thought it would be. We got to Sunday and only had 3 lessons left to teach before we hit the goal, which was good because my companion was sick so we got out taught our 3 lessons and went back home to let my comp rest. That's the way the work goes haha.

Really besides teaching a fetchin' ton, not much else happened. We are still working with Dina, Gervacio and Fernando, and with Junior's family, and another family that just popped up this week, Zunilda and Dario. They both have ancient attendances at church so if they come this week we can marry them and baptize them. It should be great, but thats really all.

I did have one strange experience yesterday. We were talking with Gervacio and he was raising all sorts of infierno (Spanish for heck) about how the church needs to stop building chapels and start giving the money to the poor because "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter into heaven" (he quoted that scripture like 80 times.) and the 80th time i received inspiration about the actual meaning of that scripture. The whole story popped in my head and the spirit said "that scripture isn't talking specifically about the money, it's talking about the focus of the heart." At the moment I knew what I had to say to Gervacio, I explained to him what the spirit said, I told him that how much we own doesn´t matter, that rich guy couldn't enter into heaven because his heart wasn't right, better yet he couldn´t give up his wealth. He defined himself by what he had. Without that he not only had nothing he was nothing. If we are rich or if we are poor doesn´t matter. what matters is if we are willing to give it all up to follow Christ.

Apparently Christmas Eve, "La Buena Noche" is more important in Paraguay than Christmas Day and we have like 40 million members saying "hey, you want to come hang with us en la buena noche?" So does that work if we do the phone call 4:30 ish Paraguayan time? (12:30 Utah time.) We will be waiting in our house on Saturday the 25th of December of 2010 (how specific I am haha). My companion is going to use the cell phone and I will use the house phone, (the number i gave you.) So there is no chance of interfering on one anothers phone calls. so yeah. I'll do my best to have a ton of Christmas pics to send.

Know I love you and I'm super excited to talk to you guys Saturday.

Love you tons,
Elder Brown

The Paraguay River in San Antonio

Junior's mom has a baptismal date so we are excited for her. Everything is going well here. We are getting ready for the Christmas season the best way missionaries know how. Kicking it in and working that much harder. It should make the time pass more quickly and we will be able to help more people and by so doing miss our families a little bit less. We have a goal to teach 40 lessons this week which really shouldn´t be that hard considering all things (there are 52 proselyting hours in a week). Let's hope we can get the goal.

I'm glad to hear your talk went well in sacrament meeting. I'm glad to hear that you learned and keep learning a lot. As you said Alma has a deep understanding of the Atonement and I know why. He understands it deeply because he needed to use it. We don't gain testimonies nor understanding on principles of the gospel unless we use them, and the more often we use them the more deeply we understand them. This doesn´t necessarily mean we need to mess up big time to understand the Atonement. Repentance doesn't always mean you did something wrong, really it's just a change of heart. For example right now I am repenting of my attitude as a missionary, I have been an obedient missionary so far in my mission, I've kept the rules done my best, but my heart was in a different place. My heart was in that blue chair in our basement playing video games and watching TV. I was doing the right things because it was my duty as a missionary, but I recognize now that my heart wasn´t in it. I wasn´t having charity. In the bible, I think it's Paul that teaches that no matter how much good you do "if ye have not charity it availeth ye nothing". I was doing good things but my heart wasn´t in it, so now I'm repenting and gaining a deeper understanding of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Note I wasn´t doing bad things before and yet I still needed to repent. Really repentance needs to be more an internal thing than an external thing. Repentance is only aligning our will with God's, so in more than a few words that's what I learned this week. So now we both understand a little bit better how Alma knows so much about the atonement. I'm grateful that you got to speak in church and see how Kevin grew from his mission. Right now I need to finish this up quick and go do the letter to president, but know that I love you and look forward to next week and the phone call in 12 days.

Te quiero mucho
Elder Brown

Questions:
1. What do you do on P-days in this new area and companionship?
Not much. We usually dont have much time. Usually deep doctrine discussions and naps.

2. What kinds of food are you eating (besides Pastas)?
um..... rice?

Junior and his Family When Junior Baptized his Sisters

Everything is good here. Things are going well with our investigators, I'm worried about Ediberto, he has his 4th baptismal date Tuesday. I'm worried he won't show. I know now why he let the other fetchas fall. I got inspiration that he is afraid that when he gets baptized the missionaries won't pass by anymore. We've been trying to find him all weekend and he hasn´t been home but we're going to try tomorrow. Let's hope it works. Zunilda (Junior's mom) got back from vacation today so we are going to go talk to her and get her baptized this month. Let's hope all goes well. Next we have Gervacio, Dina and their son Fernando. They are a great family with a ton of doubts. We are trying to work with them but Gervacio works a heckofa lot. So pretty much we teach them when we find them. That's all our progressing investigators, so we will see what we can do with that.

Elder Stokes is a great guy. He really is a fun guy to be with. Yeah it's good to finally be able to understand Spanish. I can fill in sometimes when my comp whose been here for a year doesn't understand something, its pretty cool. I really have been eating. I've been eating a lot. It's just really hot, and the whole walking all day thing doesnt help. You'll just have to pray that I get transferred to the office so I can gain some weight, haha.

Thats all I got for this week but know that I love you and look forward to emails next week.
Love Elder Brown

Questions:

1. I'm so glad you understand Spanish. Are you able to speak it well enough now to say pretty much anything you need to?
Yeah, grammatically not always correct but I do ok.

2. Tell us about Elder Stokes. Do you have similar interests? How long has he been out? Are you getting along well?
He's been out on his mission for a little more than a year, he is a gamer too so we get along great.

3. How's Jr's family? We pray for his mom to accept the gospel.
Problems with that, his dad isn't the greatest guy, he has another ¨wife¨ and a year old baby with her. She has fasted and prayed about what she should do and we are going to find out what she's going to do tonight.

4. How many missionaries serve in your ward area?
4 Elders