Semana 22!!

For this week, there was a disclosure at the end of Amberly's letter stating that I couldn't reproduce or distribute the email. I'll summarize her letter for you all, and you can fill in the blanks!

Hola Todos!!

This week was AMAZING!!! So, this Tuesday, we were walking along in Yukyty (the poor part of our area) and a truck passed by... I've picked up the habit of looking in the windows of all of the trucks that pass by because Hermano Flor works with these trucks. So I look up to check, and there sitting in the passenger seat is RUBEN FLOR!!! (haha) He's the 16 year old son! So, anyways, just like last week I was super excited to see him and he told me they're all doing great!! He also told me that they are always working in my area so I'll probably be seeing them here and there for the next few months! How cool is that? Anyways, it made my day! (haha) I love the Familia flor.

So I have to thank you all for your prayers for Karen this week because, WOW we have seen so many miracles with her! On Friday, we passed by and shared with her and then she was like, "Hey, my mom's free for a few minutes, do you guys want to talk to her about my baptism?" We were like, "Sure." So we go inside to talk to her mom, and I was just like, "So, your daughter wants to get baptized next Saturday, and we don't want to baptize her without your permission, what are your thoughts on that?" (haha) One thing I've learned here in the mish is that you've just gotta be straight up with people! (haha) I'm no longer the beat around the bush, shy person I was when I left... Anyways, so her mom goes, "Yeah, that's fine, I don't have a problem with it." She then told us she's going to try to get work off so that she can come! We were dumbstruck, and Karen was too!!! All I know is that Heavenly Father answers prayers! We also had a mini problem with Karen this last Saturday. We passed by to visit and she was like, "So what happens if I can't come to church tomorrow? Could I still bet baptizednext Saturday?" We were like, "Well, you have to come to church three times, so no, probably not." She was really worried and told us she had another commitment this last Sunday and wouldn't be able to come to church... Anyways, to make a long story short, we organized it so that she could go to another ward at a different time, and left worried that it wasn't going to work out... We prayed and prayed and prayed for a miracle Saturday night, andSunday morning, like a half hour before church, she called us and was like , "Hey, I'm not going to my other thing, and I want to come to church. Can you guys pick me up?" MIRACLES!!! Karen is going to get baptized this Saturday!!!!!!

Anyways, that's about all that happened here this week!! Life is good! I love the mish, and I love all of you!! Have an awesome week!!

Hermana Austin

All that was left out of this letter, was that they had a special visitor come to their ward and teach Relief Society. I'll not give any details, but I did receive this picture from Amberly this week. I sure do LOVE my sweet missionary!!!

Semana 21!!

Whoa, what a week! So this week was nuts! We got rained on a ton! But it was awesome... So on Tuesday, I had to use some of my hunting skills! We woke up at 6:30 like normal, prayed and then I went to the bathroom like normal. When I opened the door to the bathroom, to my surprise, there climbing up the wall was a LIZARD!!! (hahaha) It was just a little guy, like two inches long probably, but I jumped so bad... (haha) I had to go get the broom and kill it cause Hermana McDougal doesn't do stuff like that! (haha) The things that happen in Paraguay! I love it here...  

Also, Karen is progressing a ton!!! And, besides that, she's just awesome! She couldn't come to church yesterday because she had to travel with her mom to visit some relatives, but she's for sure coming this week! She´s just like this golden investigator that everyone dreams about. (haha) We taught her the Word of Wisdom this week and she was like, "Wait, we can't drink wine?" And we were like, "Nope." And she was like, "Okay, sometimes I drink a glass of wine on Sunday night after dinner but I'll stop." (haha) It never gets old watching people change their lives for the better! I could be a missionary for el resto de mi vida (the rest of my life)! She's got a baptism date for the twins BIRTHDAY!!!February 7th!!!

Oh, and we had an INTENSE lesson on Saturday! (haha) So we contacted this lady named Adibe. She's probably in her mid 60's, and she was like, "yeah, you guys can come back tomorrow and visit me." So we pass bySaturday morning and start teaching her Lesson 3, which is The Gospel Of Christ. We start talking about repentance and she asks, "what do you guys believe about forgiving people that do bad things OVER and OVER and OVER?" The funny thing is that I've had people ask hard questions like this one before, but I always would just let my older more experienced companions handle them! (haha) But this time, I looked at Hermana McDougal, and she looked at me, and I realized that this time it was my turn to be the older, more experienced one and answer the question... I can tell you right now, the Holy Ghost helped me know exactly what I needed to say. I don't even remember exactly what I said, but I KNOW it was what she needed to hear. I talked about the relief that comes when we forgive others and things along those lines, I even remembered a scripture off the top of my head which was also nuts. Anyways, when it says in D&C that we will know exactly what it is we need to say, it's true! We just have to open our mouths!

We also had a MIRACLE happen this week! So, I was looking through our Area Book and there was a Ficha Bautismal (The paper we have to fill out when we have a baptism) totally filled out with a signature and everything. The only thing that was missing was her interview and baptism! It was a 9 year old girl named Yanina Ugarte, and we had no idea who she was... Sad thing was that the Ficha was missing an ADDRESS!!! Of all the things the missionaries could have forgotten, they forgot to write the address!!! Anyways, we decided we would try to find her by some miracle and started asking the members at lunches if they knew her, no luck... We weren't gonna lose hope though. On Thursday, we were in Yukytu teaching a Menos Activo family and there were a ton of kids sitting around us. After the lesson we were asking the kids their names and their was this girl that said "Soy Yanina." I did a double take and said "Que?  Usted se llama Yanina Ugarte?" She was like yeah... Anyways, by some miracle we were led to this little girl, and she's awesome! She wants to get baptized this Saturday!! All we have to do is talk to her mom about it! We're praying for another miracle because we know that we were led to her for a reason!  

Anyways, that's about it for this week! Life's good here in the mish! I love it! I love all of you! Hope you have an awesome week!  

Hermana Austin

Semana 20!!!

Hola Todos!!!

Wow what a crazy week! So first things first Michel...(haha) We´re not exactly sure what happened, but she kind of fell off the face of the earth! We couldn't teach her at all last week because she was never home! (haha) We passed by on Saturday and she was there, but she didn't want to listen to us anymore... Not exactly sure what happened to be honest, guess its just not her time!  

BUT really this week was awesome!!! We've been working with this 16 year old girl named Karen and she´s AMAZING! Literally a golden investigator. To start off this week, we taught her about the Book of Mormon and invited her to read and pray about it. She said she would and so we passed by on Saturday and were talking to her and she was like "Yeah Hermanas. I got my answer, I prayed and I just felt this awesome feeling of peace. I can't even explain it." That's literally the BEST thing you can hear from an investigator as a missionary! Anyways, she's really been wanting to go to church these past few weeks and hasn't been able to get permission from her mom, so we asked her about church and she was like, "I dunno wanna ask my mom for me?" (haha) I was just like "yeah why not?" So she goes and gets her mom and I'm just like, "Hey your daughter wants to come to church with us tomorrow is that cool?" (This entire conversations is in Spanish btw)  And her mom goes, "Sure, when will she be back?" (haha) We were just in shock, and her mom left the room, and I kid you not, Karen starts jumping up and down of excitement! I've never seen anyone so excited to go to church in my life! It was probably one of the coolest moments of the mish, not gonna lie! She came to church yesterday and loved it and ¡Si o si va a bautizarse el 31 de Enero! (She could be baptized January 31!)

We also had a Zone Conference last week and learned a TON!!! The whole thing was themed off of D&C 101:55-57 and it was awesome. The theme was "Toda la fuerza de mi casa" or "All the strength of mine house." We're really going to start focusing on working a lot more with the members! It was awesome, and I literally learned a ton!  

(haha) One more thing, this Sunday we contacted a woman named Norma, her mom, and her two daughters, and they all accepted a baptism date for the 31st of Enero. Anyways we set another appt and passed by on Tuesday. They let us in again and we sat down and they were like, "We have a question for you guys." We were just like, "Okay whats up?" And Norma goes, "We're just wondering what time our baptism's going to be on the 31st?" (haha) We just about died! This family is awesome, and si o si they're gonna get baptized. The sad thing is that their CAR, (yeah almost all the people have cars in this area... THAT'S been an adjustment from Costa Bonita) anyways, their car broke down Sunday and they couldn't come to church... BUT they for sure are coming next week!  

Anyways that's about it for this week! Life's good. I LOVE THE MISH!!!!  Hope you all have an awesome week I love you all!  

Hermana Austin