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| The neighborhood |
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| Leaning tower of milk, aka the Rammyumpton |
Monday, January 30, 2012
He got his mission call
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| Edgar Varon just got his mission call to Dominican Repuplic! He leaves in May. |
A wedding and baptisms
Hola!!!
I have a ton of stories but I'll try to make em quick. First off, familia Reyes and Monce got baptized!! It was incredible. Last Thursday we were filling out some papers for their baptism, when I asked the Reyes parents for their marriage date, they said no. I thought they didn't understand me so I repeated the question. Answer, no todavia. Now out of pure panic I tried rephrasing the question again hoping they were married, because they can't be baptized if they werent married. And their baptism was in three days. So for the next 3 days we scrabbled around putting this wedding together. Very stressfull but it all came together at the end. Nery Reyes has such a strong testimony of the book of mormon, he is going to be a great member and leader of this church.
So we went on intercambios with other missionaries again. I was with Elder Nelson who has been in the mission for a while but is new to his area. When coming back from Ita to Guarambare we took the wrong collectivo (bus). Ended up going way up north into the Paraguay Asuncion North mission before realizing, haha. Now I can say I served in two missions! It took us 2.5 hours to get back home when it was only a 40 min trip.
Had another mishap in the kitchen, boiling eggs and left the stove on when we left. Pot ruined, ten eggs down the drain, house reaks, low on gas. Got your package last Tuesday, it came really fast. Thanks a ton. I LOOOOOOVE the peanut butter. Paraguayos don't like it so its hard to find. And someone in the ward gave me their white pants tie and belt so i am good on those. My camera broke so I'm only sending ones from my companions camera till I travel to a city and buy one. Ya we have one family who feeds us once a week so its nice to get a break from my pancakes, omelets and pasta/rice.
Thanks for the letters, I love just hearing about whats going on with you guys. My Spanish is good and I can finally understand people haha. Yesterday someone was complimenting me on my spanish saying it was menos peyor haha.
love ya
Elder LaFaye
ps: look up my yearbooks from Bloomington Elementary and find Kimball Chase Nelson. He is one grade above me. He's my zone leader right now.
pps: go giants
I have a ton of stories but I'll try to make em quick. First off, familia Reyes and Monce got baptized!! It was incredible. Last Thursday we were filling out some papers for their baptism, when I asked the Reyes parents for their marriage date, they said no. I thought they didn't understand me so I repeated the question. Answer, no todavia. Now out of pure panic I tried rephrasing the question again hoping they were married, because they can't be baptized if they werent married. And their baptism was in three days. So for the next 3 days we scrabbled around putting this wedding together. Very stressfull but it all came together at the end. Nery Reyes has such a strong testimony of the book of mormon, he is going to be a great member and leader of this church.
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| Mr. and Mrs. Reyes, officially getting married. |
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| Dressed in white. Ready for the waters of baptism. |
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| The Reyes Familia |
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| 6 new members |
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| Monce gets permission from mom and grandma and chooses baptism |
So we went on intercambios with other missionaries again. I was with Elder Nelson who has been in the mission for a while but is new to his area. When coming back from Ita to Guarambare we took the wrong collectivo (bus). Ended up going way up north into the Paraguay Asuncion North mission before realizing, haha. Now I can say I served in two missions! It took us 2.5 hours to get back home when it was only a 40 min trip.
Had another mishap in the kitchen, boiling eggs and left the stove on when we left. Pot ruined, ten eggs down the drain, house reaks, low on gas. Got your package last Tuesday, it came really fast. Thanks a ton. I LOOOOOOVE the peanut butter. Paraguayos don't like it so its hard to find. And someone in the ward gave me their white pants tie and belt so i am good on those. My camera broke so I'm only sending ones from my companions camera till I travel to a city and buy one. Ya we have one family who feeds us once a week so its nice to get a break from my pancakes, omelets and pasta/rice.
Thanks for the letters, I love just hearing about whats going on with you guys. My Spanish is good and I can finally understand people haha. Yesterday someone was complimenting me on my spanish saying it was menos peyor haha.
love ya
Elder LaFaye
ps: look up my yearbooks from Bloomington Elementary and find Kimball Chase Nelson. He is one grade above me. He's my zone leader right now.
pps: go giants
Monday, January 23, 2012
My testimony has been strengthened
Bilaporte familia cueró,
First off Reece that is the SWEETEST running back photo I've ever seen. I am so excited for you my man, I cant wait to see you play your senior year, stoked!!!! Robby tell Ms Finch hola for me, she's awesome. I'm not sure if we won too many games, but we always had fun. Good job with the eagle project Randy! Having to make up your mind of which scholarship to take is a good problem, keep up the good work and fill out those aplications already!! Oh, if you get a facebook request from Joanna Valdez (not sure how to spell her name), she is awesome. She's one of the strongest youth we have in our ward, I told her you know a little bit of spanish so hopefully you can communicate with her. If not just plug it in to google translate haha. Good job Caitlyn! i bought you something one of my members made a few days ago, hope you like in 2 years! Oh tell Nate Tenney not to mess up in his new stake calling... and congratulations. when he becomes a general authority I expect front row seats w/ a back stage pass at general conference. And tell Rustin that I love him and not to get sick anymore. Ron, we parked the arc around back.
Things are going well here in Guarambare. Its been a difficult week but the future´s looking great. The Reyes family is getting baptized on saturday as well as a little girl Monce who we finally recieved permission from her mom. After running in to a lot of problems on our part. I'm really glad she will get baptized after all. Nery Reyes and three of his kids will be baptized, his oldest son and his wife need to come to church one more time, so we`re going to try to let Nery baptize them, that would be fantastic. We have had some of the most incredible experiences with this man. I can't write them all but just recently he was in his hammack reading the book of mormon, when he finished the whole thing he knelt down to pray as he had read from Moroni ch 10. That night he had a dream that Jose Smith came and visited him at his house. He didn't recognize him at first but after a while he ripped out the picture of Jose Smith in the Book of Mormon and showed it to him saying "Is this you? are you Jose Smith?"
"Yes I am, I saw Jesus and the father when i was 14" Jose Smith was speaking in english but there was a translater there with him.
"Where are the gold plates? We need them to show everyone proof that this is the truth." - Nery
"You found it, everything is right here in your hands, (the book of mormon). You found the truth" - Jose
Nery has such a strong testimony of Joseph Smith and the book of mormon. Teaching him has strengthend my testimony so much. its amazing what this gospel can do for someone who honestly is seeking for the truth.
I just finished studying lesson 4 the commamdments and am almost finished with 2nd nephi. Spanish is getting better and better each day. I'm confortable giving talks in church and teaching investigators and members, the understanding is getting better the more I can feel the spirit. healthwise im great and ready to keep working.
thanks for everything.
con amor,
Elder LaFaye
First off Reece that is the SWEETEST running back photo I've ever seen. I am so excited for you my man, I cant wait to see you play your senior year, stoked!!!! Robby tell Ms Finch hola for me, she's awesome. I'm not sure if we won too many games, but we always had fun. Good job with the eagle project Randy! Having to make up your mind of which scholarship to take is a good problem, keep up the good work and fill out those aplications already!! Oh, if you get a facebook request from Joanna Valdez (not sure how to spell her name), she is awesome. She's one of the strongest youth we have in our ward, I told her you know a little bit of spanish so hopefully you can communicate with her. If not just plug it in to google translate haha. Good job Caitlyn! i bought you something one of my members made a few days ago, hope you like in 2 years! Oh tell Nate Tenney not to mess up in his new stake calling... and congratulations. when he becomes a general authority I expect front row seats w/ a back stage pass at general conference. And tell Rustin that I love him and not to get sick anymore. Ron, we parked the arc around back.
Things are going well here in Guarambare. Its been a difficult week but the future´s looking great. The Reyes family is getting baptized on saturday as well as a little girl Monce who we finally recieved permission from her mom. After running in to a lot of problems on our part. I'm really glad she will get baptized after all. Nery Reyes and three of his kids will be baptized, his oldest son and his wife need to come to church one more time, so we`re going to try to let Nery baptize them, that would be fantastic. We have had some of the most incredible experiences with this man. I can't write them all but just recently he was in his hammack reading the book of mormon, when he finished the whole thing he knelt down to pray as he had read from Moroni ch 10. That night he had a dream that Jose Smith came and visited him at his house. He didn't recognize him at first but after a while he ripped out the picture of Jose Smith in the Book of Mormon and showed it to him saying "Is this you? are you Jose Smith?"
"Yes I am, I saw Jesus and the father when i was 14" Jose Smith was speaking in english but there was a translater there with him.
"Where are the gold plates? We need them to show everyone proof that this is the truth." - Nery
"You found it, everything is right here in your hands, (the book of mormon). You found the truth" - Jose
Nery has such a strong testimony of Joseph Smith and the book of mormon. Teaching him has strengthend my testimony so much. its amazing what this gospel can do for someone who honestly is seeking for the truth.
I just finished studying lesson 4 the commamdments and am almost finished with 2nd nephi. Spanish is getting better and better each day. I'm confortable giving talks in church and teaching investigators and members, the understanding is getting better the more I can feel the spirit. healthwise im great and ready to keep working.
thanks for everything.
con amor,
Elder LaFaye
Monday, January 16, 2012
Monday, January 9, 2012
Hola, que tal?
Hola familia!
Short on time today so I will try to recap my week real quick. Had 4 investigators come to church yesterday, pudette. Hmna Flecha was brought to church by a member since she can't see, but we have a baptism date for her this Saturday! Nery Reyes and his family are awesome. He has seven kids, their ages are 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, and 2. We contacted and taught him my second day here but couldn't find him for about a month. Finally he got a week off from work so we taught him almost everday this last week. He read all of First Nephi in 4 days, since then he read all the intro, Joseph Smith history, and 3Nephi 11. He is soo ready for baptism, I love it. We have some other great investigators that I`ll talk about next week when we teach them more, Jose Maria Mendoza and Miguel Nunez. So this last week we tried something a little different to get an inactive member to come to church. We made pancakes and omelets and brought it to him and ate breakfast. Don't think he liked my pancakes too much but he still came to church, success! I dont know if I told you this already but i watched 17 miracles, its the church's new movie about the pioneers, it is amazing. You gotta watch it. We just started working on building a volleyball and futbol field for the youth in our branch. Tough work but it will be great to have something for them to do.
Oh dad, my companions dad started the company LifeStrength. It's like Power Band but he says his is a lot better. I can't explain it but they use a different element which makes it more effective. He showed me a watch that has the same stuff in it, its sweet. So I told him I´ll try to get my family and school to support it and maybe he`ll give me his watch haha.
Oh 2 more stories, while I was eating lunch at a members home, my wooden chair broke in half and i hit the deck. I'll show a pic next week.
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| Greese fire when it was still small |
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| Writing in the soot before cleaning up |
So the pic with a bonfire in our kitchen was an interesting story. We were boiling oil to make empanadas, but we made the mistake to put the top on the pan. After a few minutes a lot of steam was coming out so E Schone called me saying my oil is burning, jokingly. When he took off the cover, spontanious combustion sparked a flame about 2 feet high. So I thought it was hilarious so i took a picture. When Schone tried to put it out, he thought it`d be a good idea to blow on it. This just sprayed oil all over the wall and fueled the flame so its about 4 feet high. At this point black smoke is filling our house and we have no idea what to do. We had to do something fast before the cabinets caught on fire so Schone told me to fill up a bowl of water. I knew water wouldn't put out an oil fire but if we just sat there our house would have burnt down. So I filled it up gave it to him, when he threw it on, the fire went so massive it touched the roof and walls. I booked so fast in our back yard I was 15 yrds before I could say anything. When I came back the flame disapeared into nothing. A miracle! I still have no idea how that flame went out. I think it was God blowing it out saying ``you stupid missionaries``.
Anyways gotta go. Tell that story to bro Parris, he`ll get a kick out of it haha.
love ya,
Elder LaFaye
Monday, January 2, 2012
Happy New Year
Hola familia,
(most of his letter this time was responding to dad about his job and football. Leaving that out)
I make pancakes and eggs for breakfast every morning, and sometimes for lunch. It was dulce de leche in my Christmas pic (caramel). Because we shop on Mondays, by the time we get to sunday night i sometimes run low on food, hence the apple and caramel haha.
I can't believe Keaton gets home this year, that was extremely fast. Tell Mark to just have fun, its the only 2 years you get to have these amazing experiences, some bad but most are good haha. You can give my email out to close friends, some days i might not get to answer them but i love reading about them. I'm not sending out any letters, too expensive.
Dad I'm trying to make the best of my half hour work out time to be able to beat you in an arm wrestle contest when I get back haha.
Te amo,
Elder LaFaye
(most of his letter this time was responding to dad about his job and football. Leaving that out)
I make pancakes and eggs for breakfast every morning, and sometimes for lunch. It was dulce de leche in my Christmas pic (caramel). Because we shop on Mondays, by the time we get to sunday night i sometimes run low on food, hence the apple and caramel haha.
I can't believe Keaton gets home this year, that was extremely fast. Tell Mark to just have fun, its the only 2 years you get to have these amazing experiences, some bad but most are good haha. You can give my email out to close friends, some days i might not get to answer them but i love reading about them. I'm not sending out any letters, too expensive.
Dad I'm trying to make the best of my half hour work out time to be able to beat you in an arm wrestle contest when I get back haha.
Te amo,
Elder LaFaye
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| Strippling Warrior |
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