Ryan turns 20!

 

Hoooollllllllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Thanks for the birthday wishes, I hope your enjoy my cake. I would choose german chocolate as usual but most of you dont like the frosting so go for the vanilla or whatever you kids without good taste eat these days.
Last week we did email on Tuesday due to the temple trip. But yeah having your bday on a pday is the best. Wake up, work out, eat, study, write families, shop, and then sleep the hot hours of the day away. Yes the siesta is huge here, you can't find anyone in the streets and all the stores are closed from 12 till 3 or 4, its rediculous.

Congrats on the cub scout calling mom. That is the perfect calling for you, you always made cub scouts fun for us. Treats, games, and pine wood derby cars is really all I remember from those years though.

When I read where Bracken is going, I had that feeling of "that's exactly where he should go" kinda thing. He will do great there. I can just picture Mark Bennett in a 5 gallon cowboy hat haha. I cant believe Keaton and Ian are coming home already, que rapido pasa el tiempo. That's awesome that Tyler is going to sing in general conference, I'm super jealous. I cant sing for beans but I still wanted to go.

Caesar's baptism

We ended a bit of a streak for not having an investigator in la reunion this Sunday. Caesar was a former investigator with 2 asistencias, we dropped him back in December because he became somewhat lazy and stopped coming to church. Recently we picked him back up again and he still has the desire to get baptized because of his testimony of the Book of Mormon. It was great to introduce him to the mission president at church. I'm not sure how much he got out of the talks but he liked the presidents testimony at the end. Due to general conference we will prepare a baptism service for him this Friday. Yeah!
Another investigator almost came but had to go to the hospital for his knees. He is excited to go to general conference this week though.
We have really focused on finding families this week. We found an amazing family yesterday. The dad is studying with the testigos de jehovah, the mom is evangelico, and the daughter is catolico, but are all really open to learning about which church is true because there is a lot of confusion among them. My heart was pounding as i gave the first vision, the spirit really testified the truth to them, it was one of the most spirtitual lessons of my mission. The dad could really relate to Jose Smith and his situation saying he has had these same questions and wants to find out for him self. He told me I planted a seed in his heart and has this desire to help it grow and see where it takes him. He says he is a dificult person to find, por eso missionaries have dropped them before after teaching 2 or 3 lessons a few years ago.
We visited Hmna Flecha otra vez este semana. Her faith amazes me every time I go there. Since she is blind I am going to order a book of mormon audio and buy a cd player to help her read.
I am reading the book of mormon like crazy trying to get on track to finish it antes Junio. Reading out loud has helped my spanish so much its incredible.

Estamos un poco mojado pero el fuego adentro nuestros corazones nos da las ganas para trabajar.

con mucho amor,

Elder LaFaye

Started teaching a clase de ingles

lomitos despues el templo

Hello!

We didn't have any investigators in church, but I am very confident we can bring one to district meeting this week. Miguel Nunez has made a lot of progress with the palabra de sabaduria. He has dropped alcohol completely but is still smoking a few at night. Last week it seemed like he was going through some pretty bad withdrawls and couldn't walk at all nor stand up from his bed, but is fighting through it. His knees have always been super bad, por eso he uses a palo to walk. Last Domingo we gave him a blessing de salud and now he is walking like a champ. He knows this miracle is from God and is so excited to be baptized. We have tried to get a moto for him but the only member with one has been inactive for almost 2 months now, for the past month he has told us he would run to church if he could. We have taught him everything and he has a good relationship with our presidente, so I am very confident he will be baptized.
Not sure if I have mentioned anything of Eber Gonzalez recently. He was our best investigator after coming to church twice in a row, but he got drunk with a buddy and tried to steal a moto from a cop... not very smart. So we visited him several times while he was in the carcel, super humble and tiene las ganas para cambiar su vida. I love the guy to death, but when he drinks he is a completely different person. He had a court date and the Juez sent him to the Pen in Asuncion for who knows how long. From some members we hear its like a living cemetery in there, (basically exactly like the Panama prison from the show prison break for those of you who have seen it), highly recommended show btw. So keep him in your prayers because he is a really good person who just got caught up with the wrong friends and doing bad things.

Por conversos recientes, Familia Reyes are doing great, Nery is excited to recieve the socerdocio mayor next week. we gave him a list of scriptures to look up to learn un poco mas de este socerdocio y darle mas animo. We visited Antonia Flecha this week, she is old and blind so I want to find an audio libro de mormon for her. Even though her family doesn't give her much support, she has faith like the brother of Jared. The sociedad de soccorro are trying to bring her to church at least once a month.
We are visiting more menos activos with nuestro presidente, not sure how much progress we are making with them but we will keep trying.
Just studied in the book of mormon the part where Alma and Amulek go and baptize a full in his hometown. Me encanta este parte because it really relates to our situation here as missionaries. We are both rubios and blanco y té, but if we use the help of the members, we will have much more success.
We started teaching a clase de ingles every Miercoles. We are not the best teachers but we speak english pretty well so they don't know the difference. I actually really like teaching, its pretty fun. Last week we got a new investigator out of it so vamos a ver.
Elder Bowers and I are great. This week we had a rough companionship inventory en la calle, but after talking through it we are better than before. We are still working hard teaching by the spirit, and we are very confident to see some more success at the end of this change.
We went to the temple today, it was amazing. We did endowments and then some baptisms for the dead. I felt like Alma baptizing a thousand souls in the waters of mormon, tan pudette. It was super hard to do the endowments in spanish though.
My diet doesn't really change, neither of my companions cook very much so I usually make pancakes and omelets in the morning, for lunch either pasta, rice, baked potatoes, lomitos (burritos), or just bread and jam. usually too tired to make food at night so we just sleep. But I actually really enjoy cooking, not for a job though because when I cook something tan riquisimo I want to eat it right after.
Oh and happy super late birthday randy, perdoname for forgetting but you cant get mad cuz i bought you a pretty sweet soccer jersey. and whats the latest scoop, tiene una linda novia ya? Reece? Coming up on 16 pretty soon, I'm sure the girls are lining up at the door but do you have any early picks?
Alright so this week I really want to encourage you to do your home teaching. This is one thing we lack in Guarambare, only a few members really go out and fulfill their callings, and when they do they see a lot of success and can definately see a difference in the familias they visit. Just bake em a few cookies, visit for 20 minutes, share a message from the Liahona, and if your really up for the challenge invite them to make a small commitment for the week according to your lesson (do more service for uno a otro, give a libro de mormon to someone, invite someone to church) algo asi. sincillo pero poderoso.

gracias por todo,
les amo muchisimo!

Elder LaFaye

Miguel Nunez sus sobrinos

6 months out

6 months is crazy, I cant believe a quarter of my mission is over!
Thanks for the shoes! My rockports are still rockin but the inside is rubbin away so I re-inforced them with mole skin. Looking forward to the peanut butter haha. Oh I actually found some pb in Asuncion! I stopped by a huge food store down there and came across some, but the paraguayos make it super sugury instead of with salt, so i do miss the good crunchy american stuff. I bought a camera here for about 100 bucks, its pretty legit. I could have waited and bought a 20 dollar one in Cuidad de Este but I didn't want to wait. I guess Cuidad de Este is some kind of import city so everything is super cheap.
So my companion is Elder James Bowers from Wyoming. He has about 14 months in the mission so he speaks a little better than me. Elder Skyler Schone was my trainers name, he is the man. I learned so much from him. When he finished my training he was called to be a zone leader in Asuncion with only 7 months in the field, that's almost unheard of. But cambios are April 4 so i could leave then or stay in guarambare. i love my little town but i do like change so vamos a ver.

Todavia haku here, don't think it will cool down till May :( but im slowly getting acustomed to the humid heat. Good job with the Rubiks cube and science olympiad teams mom! One kid on the streets was playing around with a Rubiks cube thinking it was impossible to solve. I forgot most of the pattern but I solved one side in under a minute and gave it back to him. (think i busted his brain a bit).

Bien hecho con su nuevo trabajo papa! and i think reece has officially beat my record in long jump, way to go man. robby if you do everything dad tells you to your are going to get ripped up like rambo in no time. randy, walk on basketball would be sweet, just make sure I get court side tickets. Benjamin feliz cumple año! haha good job with the 80s theme Caitlyn, send me some pics if you've got some.
Thanks for praying for Miguel, he has dropped alcohol and cigarettes completely, but is going through some crazy withdrawls and can barely stand up.

Alright so I'm super excited for this weeks challenge for you all. For family home evening do whatever you need to do to feel the spirit: sing your favorite hymns, pray on your knees, listen to church music in the background, anything. Then think of around 5 people you would like to the missionaries to go visit. (or however many you can think of). Then of those 5 pick 3 who would be most likely to progress and accept the Gospel and circle them. Then of those 3, choose one person whom you think is the most ready/likely to be baptized and put a star next to them. when done all of you give your papers to the missionaries with names, phone numbers and addresses if you have them. Missionaries absolutley love references, they should report back to you how the contact went, but if they dont just ask them. Have fun and suerte!

Tambien any news on my patriarchal blessing? Do you know how to get a copy? Also if you could ask bro Cook or Tenney how to get my priesthood line of authority, that would be fantastic!

Oh and those of you who are friends Johanna Valdez on facebook, she is awesome. (i think her name is paula or something of fb). But she is like my little sister down here. Feel free to ask her any questions, just type whatever into google translate first or ask randy.

les amo,
Elder LaFaye

Working with the menos activos

Bi-tu-go-pio!

Not a great week for us in Guarambare. We didnt have any investigators in the reunion. Our best investigator quien tiene 2 asistencias just went to the penitentionary in Asuncion for robbing a moto. He knows he needs to turn his life around and knows that the book of mormon is true, when he gets out he told us he wants to be baptized as soon as he can. But for now he has a lot more time to read the Book of Mormon.

We are working a lot with the menos activos right now. We went around with our presidente to a few menos activos this week but we are planning on doing splits with presidente and the first counselor this week. we want to get them more active in home teaching so they can get the other priesthood holders more involved.

Nuestros conversos recientes are doing great. Familia Reyes were out of town when presidente Callan came, they were really looking forward to meeting him too. We have taught them the charlas, and Nery Reyes is preparing to recieve the socerdocio mayor at the end of this month. He always loves to share his testimony, he is going to be a great teacher.

Right now I'm studying in the end of Mosiah. I love the story of Alma the younger when talking about arrepentimiento. I still need to improve on getting my investigators to read un parte del libro de mormon in the first lesson, so i will focus on this as well as getting them to pray on their own. I was reading through my notes from the mtc and the first day i learned that in the first lesson your goal should be to help them read some of the book of mormon, pray on their own, give some thought on baptism, and help them recognize the spirit. Once I can get these 4 points down, I think our first lessons with nuevos are going to be much better in the long run.

Elder Bowers is doing a good job as district leader, always thinking of how we can improve our weaknesses. I went on cambios con Elder Vasquez in Ita this week. It was great to have a latino comp and work in a new area. I always enjoy change, when I don't add change I tend to fall into a routine, but change always makes me work harder. Adapt, Improvise, and Overcome!

Gracias por todo,

les amo
elder lafaye