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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

Monday, July 9, 2012

Oatmeal is delicious

(I told Ryan that we had the local missionaries over for dinner last night and asked him what he has been eating lately. So part of this is his reply to that. Cassi)

hola, hola,
That sounds like an exciting sacrament meeting, not that there are boring meetings, but I'm sure Keaton and Ian were stud missionaries. It is weird to think that I'm almost halfway through the mission. I can remember vividly coming off the airport seeing the assistants waiting for us at the end of the tunnel, that image is somehow engraved in my mind.
I have a member working on my camera to get it fixed, hopefully he doesn't delete all the fotos. I recently got some 5 gallon water jugs to have clean water. I have had a sour stomach for the past 3 months from drinking the water here. Here's my basic diet, breakfast- pancakes or oatmeal. lunch- pasta, beans and rice, ham cheese sandwhich, or oatmeal. dinner- oatmeal. My comps always give me a hard time for eating so much oatmeal, but with yogurt and bananas it is delicious. The yogurt here is super liquidy like milk.
In some aspects I am pretty jealous of US missionaries. Dinner w/ a member cada dia (we usually have 1 or 2 each week, but its usually flavorless rice or noodles), always a walmart close by, a hot shower in the mornings, to have a car seems like a dream. I wish I could know how many miles we walk each day. To be in a 3rd world country has its sacrifices, but the people make it worth it. The members and investigators are amazing. It's crazy how strong of a relationship you can build with these people in just a few months.
Last week we had the weirdest contact ever. My comp went to shake this guys hand that was walking towards us, but he totally ignored him and walked by. So I said suerte and carried on my way. A few seconds later he shouted back to us to come back. So we came back and talked to him a little bit. After introducing ourselves and what we do he invited us to his house, so we walked a good 15 minutes to his house and sat down to teach a lesson. We started to teach lesson one, the Restoration, but something didn't feel right. Halfway through explaining profetas, Elder Schouten cut me off and asked an inspired question from God. "after totally ignoring us at the beginning, what changed your mind when you called us back to talk to you".... super quiet. ... "I need God in my life. I have a lot of problems that I can't handle on my own, I have made many mistakes that I can't forget, and I know that Christ can help me". Sergio is 19 yrs old, loves the gospel. Every lesson we end up talking about the atonement of Jesus Christ. Yesterday we taught him as well as his 3 sisters who had many questions about why there are so many churches. I love those kinds of questions. They accepted the invite to church rapidícimo. But with every golden investigator there is a gigantic obstacle. You never have an easy baptism. We almost lost Sergio to la iglesia belen, so we had to fight a bit. But we have the truth, so its easier for us to win.
We have had some incredible lessons with Bernardino, Fernando Villaba´s dad. Him and his 3 kids are all ready to get baptized, but he has one doubt that we are having trouble with. He doesn't think that he is ready to get baptized, he wants to know everything first. He has a testimony gigante and wants to get baptized. We have taught him everything there is to teach. but he still wants to know more. We used a story from Acts 8 where the apostle Philip baptizes an eunuco.

(out of time. I'll finish Bernardino's story next week)

much love y amor

Elder LaFaye

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