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Ryan James LaFaye Tel 595 21-601-392
Paraguay Asuncion Mission Mission office phone
2881 Del Maestro c/Caballero
Barrio Herrera
Asuncion
Paraguay

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Monday, December 19, 2011

Which club do you belong to?

Hola!

We are going to Skype Saturday at 3pm our time. So I think that's 11 your time. I sent a friend request to cassilafaye, so please accept, it would make me muy feliz. 

Another baptism fell through this week :( 17yr old Caesar is soo ready to get baptized, but he had to go somewhere last minute on Sunday. When they don't come to church we push their baptism date back. Still having problems with Monce´s mom, she does not like us at all. Hmna Flecha´s family couldnt bring her to church again. so we haven't been making our baptism goal of one per week so far, but they will all get baptized before I leave Guarambare. Just takes time.
lots of soccer fields
 
If you live in paraguay, youre either a fan of Olympia or Cerro, (soccer teams). Olympia just won the league and Cerro came in second. So the whole town errupted with fireworks, music and drunk people. It was impossible to find people to teach during the games, so we literally plan around soccer games. I'm Cerro, red and blue, but my companion is Olympista so he is super feliz. Cant wait till the olympics next year, that will be interesting. yesterday we were teaching hermano Vega, 90yr old who can barely walk, see or listen. But his testimony is very strong and is always happy. While all the fireworks were going off we asked him if which club he belongs to, Olympia or Cerro. He looked at us for a moment and then pointed to my name tag and said "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, thats my club." I love that guy.

Les amo muchisimo, tengo un muy pudette familia. (pudette=cool in guarani)

Love,

Elder LaFaye

See you in a week!!!

Monday, December 12, 2011

God speaks to her in her dreams. . .

Hey Familia,

I´m doing great. But we didnt get to baptize Monce again. This time we had water, a cake, members, everything but Monce. We went to find her at her grandmas house, her grandma loves the gospel but doesnt go to church so she is less active. But she still fully supports Monce in her baptism decision and is excited for her. When we get there she was saying a bunch of stuff I didnt understand. Through translation I found out that the grandma and the mom (also a less active) had an argument 30 minutes prior about her baptism. The mom was saying Monce is too young to know if she wants to be baptized so she took off on her motorcycle and took Monce to her aunts house like 30 minutes away. Very discouraging. So we are going to work with the mom and get her another baptism date. We had 7 other baptism commitments but they fell through again because they didnt come to church. That is the hardest thing to do, get people to come to church. I love the people here in Guarambaré, but it is hard to get them to come to church. I can get over 20 commitments to attend church from non members and less actives, but when Sunday comes around they are no where to be found. Anyways, I will try to make the rest of this letter a little more uplifting, haha.
I have to tell you about some of our investigators, they are definitly people the Lord has prepared for us. We have been teaching hmna Flecha since before i got here, she has the faith of Moses I'm sure. She is very old and blind so she cant come to church very often, and she lives out in the jungle so its a good 30 minute walk to church. Every visit she will tell us of her dream she had the night before. One was about when she was washing her clothes in a bucket of dirty water, then saw a bucket of clean water and wanted to wash her clothes in the clean water. I'm almost positive God speaks to her in her dreams after the things she has told us. Oh and she has an awesome pet monkey. I was afraid to hold it because they said it might bite my ear, so here I am close enough to it.

Thomas is my newest golden investigator. he came over as we just started a lesson with a recent convert and sat down with us. We couldn't teach the restoration fast enough. He was fascinated with the Joseph Smith story so we read JS history also. Just when we thought we were done he asked about why we cant drink coffee, so we gave him a quick overview of the word of wisdom and he loved it. The only bad thing is he lives 30 minutes away so we can only teach him when he comes to David´s house.
Real quick, if you have room in that package can you put in my addidas sandals? shopping around here is interesting. Fruit is extremely cheap, but things like a box of cereal or sunscreen is rediculous. i just bought 50 eggs for the week for about 3 or 4 bucks. But a box of frosted flakes is almost 5 USD, weird. I cant find any tortillas around here so i miss my mexican food. But im a king at making empanadas.
Love you all, your awesome. Gracias por todo.

Love,

Elder LaFaye

(they have the hardest time reading my name)
ps i can only send 3 pics at a time.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Our goal is to baptize one person each week

Buenos dias familia!

It's been a pretty crazy week. I was sick the first few days from some bad chicken I had on the flight from Brazil to Paraguay. I threw up like 10 times. Bet that wasn't the first thing you wanted to hear from me, haha. Anyways, my trainer, elder Schone is awesome. I couldn't have asked for a better trainer/companion. My area is about 2 hours south of asuncion, a super small town called Guarambaré. We are the only missionaries in this area so we kinda run this place, ha. Dirt roads, all kinds of different houses, tons of chickens and dogs, ox pulling carts, everyone drives a motorcycle here, very poor people but very humble and always willing to talk. We almost never tract but we do a lot of contacting. Everyones outside so we just stop and talk to people on the street. we dont knock on people doors, mainly cuz half the people dont have one. so you walk up to their yard and clap a few times. We were going to baptize a little girl Monce on saturday, but after we started to fill up the font at 1:00, we came back at 6:00 and the plug came loose and all the water was gone. She was soo sad. So we will get her going next Saturday. Our goal is to baptize one person every week. It's do-able but we have to work hard. We don't have a big church building like in Tucson because we only have like 30 active members, so we have a meeting house. There are a ton of less active members here so half our time goes to them and the other half goes to finding new investigators. I am learning a lot of spanish and a little bit a guarani. I think Guarani was the language of the Lamanites cuz its just a bunch of one syllable noises. Just went food shopping, I miss Frys and Walmart. I hear sending a package is really expensive and takes 1 to 2 months to send, but if you were planning on doing so, can you send some of this stuff, big tub of crunchy peanut butter, trail mix, sunscreen, white baptism pants and a white tie, power bars or cliff bars, recipes for syrup, pancakes, speghetti sauce. If it costs too much to send don't worry about it. Well, got to go preach the gospel. Love you all, hope you are doing buenicimo. I´ll send some pictures later. Talk to ya next week.

Love,
Elder LaFaye


Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Ryan Arrives in Paraguay

I made it to Paraguay!!!. Left 10am yesterday and arrived here at 6pm. I love it. It is super humid though. Can't talk long, I am at Pres. Callans mission house. Just ate an amazing dinner and conducted some interviews and a welcoming intro kinda thing. I will email you again on Monday for my pday.
Love you, Paraguay rocks.

Love,
Elder LaFaye

Thursday, October 6, 2011

at the MTC in Provo




Hola!
Just got my email situated, usually i can only email on mondays. Conference was awesome! Best conference i've ever watched, (and the only one i've watched all the way through.) We watched it in the MTC on a big screen, President Holland was my favorite. 
Everything is going great, the first 3-4 days were super long, but now things are picking up and i'm actually speaking spanish! My companion is awesome, it's only been a week and he's like a best friend. We've been teaching an investigator a few times now and its going great now that i can actually carry on a conversation rather than read a one liner from my notes. Highschool spanish has ACTUALLY helped a lot! I was suprised on how much quicker i'm picking up the language than the rest of my class.
Randy, keep kicking those 60yrd field goals and dunking the basketball.
Reece, run faster and enjoy my room.
Robby, keep studying so you can get into BYU. Provo is Awesome
To all of you, (yes, Mom and Dad too), keep studying the scriptures. This has already been one of the best experiences of my life. Can't wait to go to Paraguay!
Hasta Luego!
Elder LaFaye