A shark in the tank

Hola hola,

Short on time today, last Monday of the month the zl´s have consejo with the president. Takes up most of pday but well worth it. I am really getting to fully understand how to fulfill my responsibility to the max.
so.. special changes.. SAN LORENZO! this was part of the north mission but now belongs to ours. We opened up a new zone and I am training a new ZL again. Elder Gomes from Sao Paulo Brazil! He is a stud, he is going to teach me to do capoera, does Ben know how to do that? he is teaching me a lot of Portuguese, my favorite is whats up kid, yay muleki.
He also did kickboxing for a few years, it sounds like an intense sport. But he is also a super comic fan and knows a ton about computers. I think Ben and elder Gomes would get along great. There are a ton of different rules in our mission so he is trying to adapt. President Callan made Paraguay Asuncion the most obedient mission on the planet. In the North they are a lot more loose on different subjects. Elder Gomes is very humble so when I tell him of a new rule that he has to obey he easily agrees and changes. Although it is hard for him to break the habit of speaking in tú instead of usted. His last comp was a macanero so he is happy to be in a companionship were we obey, have fun, and baptize. We have started from 0, finding new people every day, I love this place. San Lorenzo is like fresh powder on the slopes, ready to fly. Lots of members ready to work. I have a ton more to talk about, but basically this was the shark I told you about last week. I love challenges.

Much love y amor,

Elder LaFaye

You are here to baptize

Family!

Muchas historias para decirles.

To continue with the patience story, it's really paying off. The Baez family are great. We pass by just about every day and they are never there, just when we are about to give up hope we find them and they tell us about how great they feel with the Book of Mormon. Then another week or 2 goes by and we are about to lose hope, and then he tells us of an awesome dream he had about baptism. And so on and so on, it's a roller coaster with them. We are waiting for them to move, right now the house owner doesn't like us so we can't pass by their house, but this week they should be heading to their new place. Please pray for them that we can always stay in contact with them and help them go to church. Since the dueño doesn't let us pass by, Richard goes with us to the house of a member to teach him there.. that's every missionaries dream. i heard some stats a while back on a study someone did, Randy take notes:
when missionaries work by themselves, they baptize 1 out of 2000
when they receive a reference from a member, its 16 out of 2000.
when they receive a reference and then visit them with that member, over 600 are baptized out of 2000.
and finally, whey they receive a reference, and teach the reference in the house of that member, more than 1350 of 2000 are baptized. That's the key to success. Teach people in the house of the member. I'm not sure when or where this study took place, or how accurate it is, but the fact stays the same.
I was thinking the other day, on average I find about 10 people a week. That equals 1000 people in my mission. according to this statistic, I could baptize 700 in my mission.
that. would. be. incredible.

Randy for your personal study tomorrow: DC 31. the hour of your mission has arrived.
I should have told you this last week, but I'm sure by now people have asked you 100 times "why are you serving a mission?"  My first day we went around the room and everyone gave their answer, some said my mom told me to, because it's a commandment, to set a good example for my brothers, to help other people be happy, etc. All good cute answers (except maybe the first). Then our teacher replied, let me tell the real answer. You are here to baptize. Everything you do in the mission is to baptize. You wake up to baptize. You eat breakfast to have strength to baptize, You study to solve doubts of your investigators to baptize them. That teacher was pretty direct with us, but I remember it till this day. I'm not saying other answers are wrong, one of my favorites is because I love the lord. But it's just to make a point of why we are here.

Love you all, see you Monday at 4:30 Paraguay time.

smile!

Elder LaFaye

My younger brother entering the MTC this week

Family!!

I cant believe this week has come.. Randy is entering the MTC, and my trainer Elder Schone gave his farewell testimony in his last consejo de lideres. I'm probably entering my last month in Ybate. Time flyyyyyys by.
It was a good/interesting week. In my mission I have learned that I have a lot of patience with investigators.. sometimes this is good, and sometimes bad. This week it turned out good. We have been teaching Derlis for about 2 months, he has a problem with crack, and many times fails to read his assigned chapter in the BoM. I'm sure many would have dropped him by now, but por suerte we didn't give up. He came to church this week for the first time, in a suit jacket and all. He stood out in the Sunday class of gospel principles like a genius. He made an analogy of the story of Naaman y Eliseo (a movie from the old testament we watched with him last week) connecting it with tithing, leaving me and the class astounded. The teacher replied "I hope you get baptized soon so you can stand and teach the class while I sit and listen." I have to say watching that movie was revelation. To heal his leprosy, Naaman simply had to dunk himself 7 times in the river. Naaman (war leader) was expecting the prophet to do something miraculous, but rather gave him a simple task to do. What impacted Derlis is when a soldier asked Naaman, if the prophet told you to do something extremely hard (like climb a high mountain or other difficult task) and you would be healed, would you not do it? Applying this to Derlis, he would do anything to break his addiction to crack if he knew it would heal him. He just needed to have the faith and attend church on Sundays to prepare for baptism, and he came!!!
Okay I love you all. Randy you are going to be a stud missionary cherá. Always be humble with lots of energy to baptize. Learn as much as you can, but make it fun. The MTC will pass by super fast. Make it the funnest month of your life. If you are not having fun, your doing something wrong. Have fun by studying hard with your comp, have fun by practicing teaching each other, have fun by baptizing. Te amo hermano,

Elder LaFaye

Election Day in Paraguay

Hola que tal cómo está?

Randy!! I'm super excited for you bro. Do you know how long you will be in the MTC? I heard it was cut down to a month for foreign languages. You just have to love every minute in there. You will remember that first day forever.

Well, yesterday was the weirdest day of my mission. It was elections day in Paraguay. Horacio Cartes v.s Efrain Allegra. Cartes won as president. He is a well known drug lord in South America and owns the biggest cigarette factory in the country (which by the way was in my last area, Hernandarias.) A great guy to have as president of your country. Anyways, election days are pretty crazy down here so president Agazzani told all the missionaries to stay inside all day, except for church. We didn't know what to do with ourselves, after deep cleaning the place for 2 hours, we spent the day playing uno, watching church movies and planning for the zone. Torture.

We have some great investigators right now. Pascual has 2 friends and his uncle that are preparing for the 11th to be baptized. A while ago we found Claudio in the street, we thought he was a little crazy so we didn't go by his house. He is a huge fan of Bob Marley kind of guy. After running into him a few more times he found us walking by his house so he came out and invited us in. Funny how God is so persistent. We taught him the Restoration and surprisingly he understood it perfectly. 2 days later we passed by to see how his reading went in the Book of Mormon. his reply "i read, i prayed, and received an answer. The next day I faced a big challenge which reinforced my answer." He talks super fast, it's as if his head is set on fast forward, he thinks a few steps ahead of the rest of us. From what his parents tell us he is really good at thinking 7 steps ahead but forgets to do steps 3 and 4. He is in his late 20´s, I really think this guy would be a super genius if he was sent to a good high school and college. It's hard to describe his personality, but it's a lot like those TV show sales men. He can make anything look good. The second time we met him in the street I wrote down his number but my pen ran out of ink, he pulled out his pen and showed me all the different uses of a pen. I didn't know how useful it could be. Okay, enough about him... what else...


Painting a house with Companion Elder Garcia

My comp Elder Garcia is a stud. It's weird being with a Latino at first, often when he asks me a question while I'm doing something else, I answer him in English without realizing. He just stares at me like I'm dumb, haha.

Well got to go. Randy anything you want to know or what to bring email me before next Monday. Not sure if I told you already, but sí o sí read this talk before going in. "The 4th missionary"

les quiero mucho!

Elder LaFaye

¡que hermosa es el templo!

Rando!

I like the new name. Much more manly than Randall. That's great to hear you went through the temple. ¡que hermosa es el templo! I believe we should be going to the temple this month, its been almost a year since we went last march. What cool stuff have you found out about Italy? Send me a picture of their temple por favor. I think I will get another scripture case and put the Paraguay temple on it, and on the other side the picture of el día del pentecostes where 2000 people were baptized, its going to look amazing. Caitlyn you should start practicing drawing on leather, if someone knew how to make great leather scripture cases and moved to Utah, they would make bank. the guy that does it here draws on the leather using a tattoo pen and sells them for 30 bucks each, just an idea.

Derek and Jessie are leaving on the mission at the same time? Que puréte. I´d love to meet up with you at the MTC Randy, but its a long flight from Paraguay. I am excited to hear from you every week once you get in the MTC. It's a crazy place but you just have to love. Once in a lifetime experience.
And thanks for the BYU update, I am leaning towards going to Provo so I'm glad they will accept me. Before the mission I wanted to study business and get super rich, for some reason being in Paraguay has made me realize that I need to do something that I enjoy... so I've decided being a football coach sounds pretty fun :) I'm hoping to pull of a miracle and walk on the football team or be involved one way or another so I can get some more experience. Then I´ll study to be a PE teacher or something so I get hired by a high school.

Anyways. Back in the work of the Lord, here's whats going on..FAMILIA ESTRADA is going to get baptized this week!!!!! Over the last 2 months they have been to church 4 times now, they always love going on Sundays. Ignasio´s work has been a challenge, he enters at 8pm, leaves at 7am, goes to church at 830-1130, then sleeps like a baby. Their conversion hasn't been your ordinary process. We can only teach them on Saturday nights, but sometimes things happen and our only appointment with them falls. We went over 2 weeks without contact at one point, but they read every day so they don't need us really. This Saturday was a crucial lesson, it turned out super bien. They are excited to get married and baptized. We announced it at church so we should have quite the turnout. And our new ward mission leader is gung ho with his calling so it should be well organized. One member is letting her borrow a white dress and shoes.
In the zone we are doing fantastic, so far in march 6 have been baptized, 5 are scheduled for this week and 7 for the next week. If all goes as planned we will meet our goal of 18.

La familia Marmalejo were super prepared for their baptism on the 30th, but we just found out that Gladis needs a divorce to get married. Divorces are suuuuper expensive and take months to do. It's a shame, we were so excited to baptize 2 families 2 weeks in a row.

We did a service project at a military hospital. It was good, not very well organized, they didn't have enough stuff for us to do. But we all went out to eat lomitos afterwards, que rico.

I have been going by the name elder lafáshe, as it is read in Spanish instead of elder la fe recently. But I feel weird saying my name a different form, so I will go back to the English way of saying it.
Dad, thanks for the t-shirts, they are perfect. how was talking to a Paraguayo?

oh time to go. mucho love,

¡¡¡ÉXITO!!!

ELDER LAFAYE

here's my letter to the presidente for those who want to read Spanish.

Presidente,

Estamos muy animados por la zona 2. ya tenemos 6 conversos, 5 se van a bautizar este semana y 7 para el 30. asi vamos a lograr la meta de 18. elder dockstader es un capo, es muy bueno en animar a su distrito.
hice divisiones con elder rupp de porta pabla y elder tileman de villa policial. elder rupp tiene mucho animo y quiere aprender todo. le hablé mucho en cómo llevarse bien con su compañero. he tenido un compañero que no me cayó muy bien en el principio, pero los dos estábamos muy enfocado en tener éxito y bautizar. este deseo que tuvimos de bautizar nos ayudó mucho a ser amigos, fortalecer uno al otro y aprender mucho juntos. le dí algunos sugerencias que puede hacer para evitar la contención también. espero que su compañerismo se fortalecerá y siguen bautizando cada semana.
elder tileman es increíble, sabe las cosas. cómo encontrar, cómo enseñar, utilizar su tiempo eficazmente, trabajar con los miembros, estudiar personalmente y con el compañero. me impresionó mucho su capaz de manejar la obra, yo sé que él fue llamado de servir en villa policial. el barrio allí necesita mucho organización, y no hay nadie mejor en eso que él. la única cosa con que pude ayudarle es tener más animo. me gustó mucho la reunion el martes, desafiámos a todos a tener alguién planeado en cada semana cuando se van para rendir cuentas. así sí o sí vamos a bautizar cada semana.

le quiero mucho!

elder lafaye

tambien, este familia de 5 que usted conoció en el bautismo hace algunas semanas se van a bautizar este sabado a las 7:30, está muy invitado!

Such a blessing living close to the temple

familia mía!

Thanks for the letter Robby, I love hearing how you're doing. Sounds like your tearing it up at Marana! Keep it up at school, always enroll in the honors classes. That was my mistake freshman and sophomore year. I later realized that the bigger difference is not the harder homework or the harder tests, but rather the different class mates. In the honors classes you can avoid getting stuck around the macaneros and cabasuros (knuckle heads and troublemakers) and instead sit around people that are tranquilo and smarter than the average Joe.

Well Bianca and Pascual (brother and sister of recent convert Esteban) were baptized yesterday! Esteban baptized them, he is too funny. He brought them down by the neck and dunked super fast, then he turned to us and flexed for a quick second, that's Esteban for ya. We held the baptism on Sunday so their mom could go, but she ended up not going, very lame. The mom was upset last time because apparently Esteban didn't tell her when his baptism was. But now she is a bit of a hippocrit. But the three kids are doing great, living the commandments and loving life. They are good examples for their parents. The mom and step dad need to go to church, stop drinking and smoking, but they haven't put forth the effort so far. They love having us over, so we are just going to keep being patient and they will come around. The 3 kids, my comp and I helped Esteban's mom do the laundry on Saturday so that there would be nothing in the way to attend church. It was kind of exciting, my first time washing clothes by hand.

Oh exciting news for Esteban! he went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead! Fernando would have gone to, but he needs the priesthood first, next week they will go again. Such a blessing living close to the temple.

We did a home makeover in Esteban's room. I took a bunch of pictures from the liahona and taped them to his wall. I will show you a pic later, the theme for this year for the youth is stand in holy places, so I want his house to be a holy place. I also gave him my liahona from 2008 that talked all about temples, the pictures in there are incredible. I think the Washington DC is one of my favorites.

I'm glad you enjoyed the video, the bench bar is filled with cement. no idea how much it weighs but I don't think I could do any more than one the clean and jerk. We also put 2 chairs together and I benched 25 reps. I will have at least 3 more months here, we will see how high we can take that number.

bueno, got to go
love to all,
elder lafaye
ps familia estrada came to church for the 3rd time! still preparing for their marriage and baptism on the 23

What do I do with a whole chicken?

My little brother's mission call

(after reading about his little brother's mission call)
ITALY ROME!!! cherá áh that is puréte y té. I'm soo excited for you. My comp and I watched that video like ten times, we loved seeing moms face. Priceless. I'm a little bummed your not coming to Paraguay, I was going to ask prez Agazzani to let me train you. But that's where the Lord wants you, there are hundreds of people waiting for an elder LaFaye to find them and baptize them. Mom you need to send me a Book of Mormon in Italian. I'm going to learn Italian so I can visit Randy in Rome. Randy keep up the Book of Mormon reading, I'm super excited to hear your experiences in the field. I don't know how much I can help you through email, but I'm here for you man, any questions you have I will do my best to help you. I highly suggest that you go out with the missionaries and learn from them, I wish I did that more.

Well things are going great here. I don't have any news more exciting than Randy's call, but we do have some great investigators right now. Marciel is the homeless guy we have been teaching. Unfortunately he didn't come the last two Domingos. He is super humble and super listo to get baptized, just needs to come to church. 2 weeks ago he was 100% set on going to church, but didn't show, we were a little bummed until we found out why. Saturday night he was sleeping in the park and some cops came and woke him up. They beat him up pretty bad. The cops down here are worse than the crooks from what I hear from the members. Makes me thankfull for the US police force. So he wasn't in shape to come to church. But one good thing came from it, his mouth hurts too bad to smoke cigarettes. Now he has gone 9 days without smoking.
Esteban came to church this week, he is 19. He partys all the time but is really interested in our message and wants to learn a lot more about Jesus Christ. He and his uncle have a fecha to be baptized on the 19th. So does Marciel and 2 other investigadores. The 19th is Elder Geary's last Saturday in Paraguay so it would be great if we can have a bautismo guazú. (big baptism).
Our zone is doing great. 2 elders and the hermanas are tearing it up, but there are a few elders that need some help. But we have some ideas to help the zone find new investigators that will progress. I will tell you how they go.

I haven't recieved the package yet, but I'm sure it will be in by next Tuesday.

les quiero mucho,

Elder LaFaye (Ryan)

Randon I'm so proud of you!!


Fiberglass sculpture of San Jose




Nativity. I am holding a rhino.





sporting the sombrero

 


P-day game of Uno with Elder Geary