This conference forever changed my way of saying prayers

Hola hola,

Increíble. Elder Bednar and Elder Arnold of the 70 came to Asuncion for a reunión guasú! The Paraguay North and South missions came together for the 3 hour meeting. The best conference of my life. Much different than what I expected. It was very interactive with the missionaries. At the end he gave us time to ask what ever question we wanted to. He advised us that this would likely be the only chance in our lives to ask a member of the 12 any question, so we all avoided questions like where is the sword of laban or have you seen Jesus Christ. He only took about 10 questions so I didn't ask anything. For curiosity, if you all had one question to ask a member of the 12, what would you ask?

He was very funny. The subject of the meeting is that the Holy Ghost is the teacher, not us. He helped us to understand more on how to help our investigators ask in faith. He started off by saying things like no matter how good we think we are, no one will join the church because of what a 19 yr old kid tells them. "are you kidding me?" He was very enthusiastic, animated and a little sarcastic haha.

This conference forever changed my way of saying prayers. He showed me a whole new power of prayer. My whole life I gave thanks for things and then asked for what I wanted/needed. He showed a whole new perspective. Por ejemplo,

We are going out to work today, give us the strength to press forward.

We are going to open our mouths to everyone, inspire our words.

We love you, help us show it.

Joseph Smith did not go to the Sacred Grove to find out which church is true.

Joseph went to the grove to know which church is true so that he could be baptized and join it.

The children of Israel did not sit and wait for the waters to part, they started to walk into the waters, and then they parted.

We need to pray with the desires to act. Ask in faith is asking with the sincere desires to act upon the answer we recieve. My focus now is to help my investigators ask in faith if this church is true so that they can be baptized by the proper authority. Elder Bednar said as members there are a lot of silly things we do in our church culture. Not in the doctrine, but in the culture. We often play guess what's in my head. I realized I do this a bunch. When I read the last 2 paragraphs of the introduction in the BOM, I often ask them, what 3 things do we need to do to know if this is true. Rather I should ask them simply, what did you learn from this?  Truly asking them the second question with the desires to know what they understood, will help me understand how to teach them. Theres about a billion other things that I learned but only one hour to write.

Randy, I can't wait to hear where you are going. If you get called to Paraguay I will talk Pres. Agazzani into letting me train you sí o sí.

Reece, thats puréte to hear that your doing rugby! That will take out any smudge of fear you might have from tackling people. After a season of rugby you will crush people in pads when August comes back around. I really did enjoy the few months I played. I never had a good grip on the rules but I loved playing the game. If no one is using them, you should use my diadora soccer cleates. They are kangaroo skin so they are small at first but they expand after wearing them a bit.

Robinson, suerte amigo with the tryouts. Soccer really is an interesting sport. It unites the world together. Paraguayans are CRAZY about their soccer teams. We have played soccer a few times with my district, the latino elders are sooooo good. Learn all you can from the Mexicans. I'll be excited to see you play when I get back.

We found a familia de oro this week. Some other elders gave us a reference of Santiago. He is only home late at night, so we went by his house at 8:40. He just came home from work but invited us in as he went inside to wash up. He came out and sat down and we talked for a minute. Then his son Francisco sat down as we talked to him for a minute. Then another kid came in, then another, then another, and another. Pretty soon we were sitting in a cirle with a family of 7 all eager to listen to us. It seemed like we were about to start a noche de hogar. The youngest is 10 and the oldest 20. The kids just got back from karate class, and speak fluent english. (this family has a lil more cash than the average paraguayo). After talking English for a few minutes we talked about the plan of happiness. When we were done, the mom brought us out 2 plates of.... lasagna! I told them it was my favorite food and its been over a year since I have had some. We are really excited for this family.

My kid is doing great. Elder fielding´s Spanish is very impressive. The Argentina MTC did wonders for him, and he has improved sooo much in the last 6 weeks. I have given him a lot of time to talk whether he liked it or not but now he teaches almost half of the lessons.

I saw elder Salinas, Allphin, Schone and all my old buds from the mission at the big conference. Unfortunately Eder Schouten told me a lot of my awesome investigators in Encarn did not end up getting baptized for one reason or another. Shocking because leaving that area I thought he would be baptizing every week for the next month. Elder Salinas and I talked a little about going to BYU Provo. It would be way fun living with him and some of my other comps at Provo. So I'm not sure which college I'm headed to. But I have a lil time to think about it. Salinas misses Hernandarias, his new comp is an interesting fellow. We had a ton of fun together though.

Oh, I almost forgot an intersting event friday night. So we have been without a cell phone for 2 weeks now. We weren't sure when we were meeting up to head to Ciudad del Este to take a collectivo to Asuncion. We arrived on our bikes at the other elders pension at 10:30 at night thinking we had plenty of time. Well we got there and no one was there. Long story short Elder Bowers gave a 100 mil Guarani to a taxi driver and raced over to pick us up. We threw our bikes in the back of a field with tall grass and hit the road. Bowers picked us up at 11, exactly when the collectivo left Ciudad del Este for Asuncion. So we took a different route to head off the bus. On the way we ran into a place where cops where checking EVERY car. I knew if we would have been stopped we wouldn't catch the bus in time. But sure enough the Lord provides and the cop waved us through. We pulled up to KM 7 exactly when the bus arrived, so we hopped on and 20 other missionarys were all surprised to see us. They thought we were not going to make it. Milagro.

side note: I survived the next day on cold empanadas, not fun.

well gotta go baptize,

much love y amor,

elder lafaye

(la fe)

We were without agua y luz for a few days

Hola hola,

We have some great people progressing. Flia Santacruz is amazing. We found them a few weeks back, after teaching them the first time we didnt think they would progress so we didn't plan on going back. A week and a half later we passed by again because ALL of our plans fell on a Monday night. God works in funny ways. Monday we had appointments for every hour and back ups to visit. Every single one fell, so we thought for a moment who else we could visit. So I decided to give this family Santacruz another try. Turns out they have both read the lesson 1 pamphlet and were waiting for us to come back and teach them more. They were waiting all Sunday morning for us to come by to pick them up for general conference. That Sunday morning we ran all over town trying to get people to come, only bringing Valdomiro to church. We only forgot that we said we would pass by Flia Santacruz. Somehow God led us back to them. They live in the poorest part of our area, all mud. Because of a recent storm it is a lake all around their house. So to visit them we threw in big rocks and logs to cross the water. Now Nohelia Santacruz is in the hospital about to have her baby. They have fecha to be baptized on the 3rd, hopefully she will be recovered by then to be baptized.

We played futbol for our district activity, again haha. We can only do one activity por cambio, and our district leader is from Argentina so we have played futbol twice in a row. Futbol is great an all, but I'd much rather seed Iguasú (one of the biggest dams in the world) or go to the big waterfalls by Ciudad del Este. I was sooo sore after playing, my body is not used to that kind of activity.

My ZL Elder Bowers asked me to give a 10-15 minute presentation on how to find more success through the members. It turned out great. I learned a lot just preparing it and loved giving the presentation. I´ve come to like being the guy at front teaching people, It's pretty fun. I think I´d be a good highschool teacher. Although I like teaching on how to be a better missionary, not math or english. (our bishop also asked me to give a talk in sacrament meeting 3 minutes before we started sacrament. At the start of my mission I would be terrified of doing that, but now not a problem.)

We had a big storm down here that caused a bit of havoc. We were without agua y luz for a few days. I'm fine with out light, but no water is miserable. We walk downstairs and fill up a bucket for our shower and dishes.

My MTC comp Elder Alphin is in my first area, Guarambaré. I was able to see him at the terminal (bus station) a few weeks back. Cambios are the best, you get to see all your buds together and share stories of the mission. I was so excited to hear he was going there, I showed all the fotos of my converts, telling them how awesome they are.

I dont know what to ask for Christmas. I have accustumed myself to live off of whatever they have here. But some maple extract, peanut butter, and tiger milk bars are always helpful. What I loved most of all last time was the foto collage that Cait put together. I will try to think of more stuff.

bueno bueno love ya mucho,

elder lafaye
(la fe)

¡TUCSON IS GETTING A TEMPLE!

Yea, I'm pretty stoked as I'm sure you all are. I was sitting in a room with 20 other elders when conference started, a few elders shouted out their guesses of what was going to be announced. Such as where the temples would be built. About ten seconds before he announced it I shouted out Tucson AZ... I almost couldn't believe it when Pres. Monson gave the news. Me and another elder from Florence jumped with joy and the rest of the missionaries applauded and thought I had the gift of revelation. Now they will probably just be breaking ground by the time I get home, but I don't plan on getting married right away. But that is my goal someday, to find mi lindo novia and get married in the Tucson temple. I really am excited to have my own family some day.

I loved the first session of conference, every talk had to do about how to be happy. Like Nefi says, hombres existen para tener gozo. We are here to be happy. Families built around the gospel bring us more felicidad than anything else. I would write my famous general conference highlight reel, but I forgot my notes and don't remember everything... so next week. Sunday I watched in Spanish, I understood everything but its hard to pay attention for me when its not the real person talking so I didn't get as much out of it. My companion tampoco. When he wasn't sleeping he was reading the scriptures in English, haha.
Randy! how do you feel big dog? It would be pureté y té to be watching that 18 yr old announcement when you are 18 yrs old. cuando se va? invierno o el verano? I will be praying that you come to Paraguay so I can train you. Just a heads up, I will be the toughest trainer ever so that the Lord can turn you into the best missionary Paraguay has seen.
p.s. set the cute girls aside and make sure you finish the Book of Mormon before you leave.

Give bishop Gardner my thanks for his letter. It was a big help, I shed a tear or two after he connected that little pioneer girls story to me in the mission. It's true. The Lord takes us to our breaking point before he grabs us in his arms. I wish I could share it with you but I forgot the talk. Thanks for your support bishop.

Valdamiro came to conference. He has had a mighty change of heart. His wife is a menos activo and their relationship has been a disaster for the past decade. No happiness. But since we began to share with him his faith has grown a ton and now he has a corazón quebrantado y espíritu contrito. We visited him last night and had a great lesson. They told us they had a talk and they don't want to fight anymore, he wants to change. We noticed that she made a nice home meal for Valdamiro, something that hasn't happened in years, so we could tell right off the bat that things are better with them. He drinks and smokes a lot but committed to drop them both. Drinking would be easy he says, but he has a hard time going to sleep with out a smoke. But before we could even teach about how to drop it he told us he knows the Lord will help him if he shows his faith. He has a baptism date for this Saturday. Please keep him in your prayers.

Sweet Bridge

random stuff:
I had my first dry heat day in Paraguay. It was one of the weirdest experiences ever, it felt so strange because I've been living in humidity for awhile, and yet it seemed so familiar as it reminded me of Tucson. (not quite as dry as Tucson, but dry for Paraguay.)
Elder Fielding has been living it up his first 2 weeks here, it has been near perfect weather. But now in October it started to get hot again and I don't think it will die back down... here comes el verano!

preguntas? dudas? chistes? chismes?
(questions? doubts? jokes? gossip?)

Giant ant hill!

okay, much love y amor

Elder LaFaye

Half way mark

At the mall on p-day

Hola,

Soooooo close to another baptism. Adriano is listo pá to get baptized, but no dice. Friday we did divisiones with the district leader to have the interview, but we couldn't find Adriano all day Friday or Saturday. But LaFaye and Fielding fight till the last bell so we found Adriano Sunday morning, got him to church and started preparing everything. While waiting for Elder Garcia to do the interview, we had the font filled up, half the congregation waiting to watch the baptism (30 minutes before sacrament started), and Adriano and I were all dressed in white. I had a lot of faith that he would pass the interview... but turns out that he has been under house arrest for the last 7 months, so we had to cancel everything. It felt like being the guy to announce that the bride flew the coupe. Adriano is very humble and wants to get baptized, but he has to wait a few more months. Hopefully I will be here to see him get baptized.

Every Sunday morning we go round up all our investigators. This Sunday I went looking for this guy Cipriano. He lives out in the boonies, and next to his house a pastor held his Catholic service in a field. I saw Cipriano near the back of the crowd so I went on over to invite him to the true church. On my way over, EVERYONE was watching me. This was right in the middle of their sacrament so the pastor was not pleased with me. I tried to be discreet but there was no helping it. After talking to Cipriano for a minute he said he will come. So we left and on the way out the pastor guy gave me a death stare like no other. I'm glad I didn't turn to stone

It's crazy to think that I have already been out a year. Time is flying by. I also just realized that because I completed a year in the mission, that Caitlyn and Ben just had their 1 yr anniversary. So ¡Felicidades! did you do anything exciting or fun?

random cosas:
Can you send me a recipe to make peanutbutter? I have ground up peanuts to experiment.
no hay mucho tiempo hoy.

much love,
elder la fe

New Companion, Elder Fielding

hola hola,
buenas nuevas!

New companion, Elder Fielding

Well... José María and María José were baptized!!!
And I´m training! Mi hermano se llama Elder Joseph Fielding. No relation to the prophet though. He is a stud. One of the most Christlike elders I've met. He went to the MTC in Argentina but didn't speak any Spanish before the mission. Supposedly from now on everyone that is going to Paraguay will go through the Argentina MTC. He speaks and teaches much better than I did when I began. Elder Schone would teach most of the lesson and then look at me, I would stumble out a few words and then look back at him. Now I will teach one principle and give it to Elder Fielding and he goes for it. He makes a bunch of mistakes but has no fear to talk. This is how you learn the language quickly, I wish I was a little more like that when I started. He was really excited to hear that we are having 2 baptisms his first week.

José and María are doing great. They love the primary, and they always compete with each other to see who can do the better prayer or read the Book of Mormon better. Maria can't read yet but she will learn quickly.

This week we have a baptism planned for Adriano. He went to church several times, a year ago, but then moved here. We found him last week, came to church yesterday, and is excited to get baptized on Saturday. He is a miracle. We were riding our bikes down the street and on his motorcycle he rode up next to me and asked if we were the Mormons. We pulled over, talked for a few minutes and asked if we could visit, so we just followed him to his house and had a great lesson.

I've stayed pretty much the same weight. We go to a barber to cut our hair.
Yea, I still eat a bunch of oatmeal. But I spice it up by adding yogurt, granola, bananas and crushed up peanuts. I just found some worchestershire sauce and some other cool stuff so we will start getting more creative with our almuerzos.

Well gotta go, much love y amor

Elder LaFaye

Luis Pa Benitez (member from my last area) became a local missionary

ps: how many times can you see yourself in the mirrors that face themselves? 2000?
and about how many volts does it take to knock someone to the ground with a tazer? mine shocks pretty good, but i was hoping to find one that will take someone down. not that i am planning a hit on anyone.. just wanted to know

Bilaporte Presidente,

Estamos muy felices con el éxito que el Señor nos da. Elder Fielding estaba muy animado para poder bautizar 2 personas su primer semana. este semana tenemos un bautismo para adriano. él tiene muchos asistencias hacia un año pero se mudó aqui y perdió contacto con los misioneros. él vino a la iglesia ayer y está muy animado por su bautismo. vamos a seguir bautizando cada semana para que elder fielding sepa que es posible. aunque no habla castellano muy bien, elder fielding no tiene miedo de enseñar. nuestro enfoque ahora es encontrar una familia de oro. hicimos una ayuna con una familia el la rama para encontrar oportunidades de enseñar el evangelio con sus amigos. tenemos mucho fe y esperanza que vamos a encontrar una familia bien preparado para recibir este evangelio.

le quiero,

elder lafaye

AND ONE!

bautismo de Blanca y Freddy Garcia Cantero

bautismo de Fernando Gois Peralta

Alright so I know last week I told you I would do better to tell you about the investigadores before they get baptized.... but miracles happen.

So Freddy and Blanca are hijos of a part member family. Their parents are less active. We have been teaching them for almost a month now. They have been wanting to get baptized for a few weeks now but their challenge was getting permission from their parents. The parents didn't want them to get baptized because that would mean that the parents would have to go to church with them, and they work on Domingos. We have visited the parents several times but we didn't have any success trying to get them to come to church with the kids. But on Thursday we received permiso from the dad, so on Friday we had Elder Bowers and Knudson come and do both of the interviews. Knudson finished Freddy´s super fast in 3 or 5 minutes. Bowers took a while with Blanca. While we were waiting for them to finish  the neighbor kid sits down by Blanca to see what they were doing. Next thing I know I hear Elder Bowers teaching him the restoration and the commandments. When they were all done he introduced us to Fernando and said he wants to get baptized.
So we talk to Fernando´s mom, turns out she is a less active member also. She was cool with it so she signed the registro, 2 baptisms became 3. Elder Knudson from Argentina said "what do you call it when someone fouls you when you make a basket? AND ONE!"
So the baptism went great, except the cake was a little burnt. So I bought all the kids alfajores. Kind of like a twinkie or ho-ho, only 10 times better.

We had a stake conference by satellite on Sunday for everyone in Paraguay and Uruguay. Speakers: Sister Reeves from the relief society, Elder Anderson, of the 12, and President Monson, prophet, seer and revelator. It was awesome. Espescially because we had 5 investigators there to listen to him. You can always bank it on the prophet to convert someone.
I felt really bad for Sister Reeves. She and Elder Anderson gave their talk in Spanish  Pres Monson had a translator. Anderson´s Spanish wasn't bad, but it wasn't fluent like the guy who conducted. Sister Reeves sounded like a 3rd grader. She tried really hard, but was very nervous and a little emotional. I was kind of embarrassed to be one of the few Americans in that room, thinking to myself  "I hope I don't sound that bad". But the message she wanted to get across was good. Although I understand everything and can say just about whatever I want, I still sound like a gringo. I have lost hope of one day being able to roll my r´s. But on the bright side the first time I listened to the Book of Mormon in Porteguese I understood about 80%. Just speaking will take a lot of practice. In my area right now the majority of the people speak 3 languages, Spanish, Guarani and Porteguese.

Wednesday is cambios and it looks like Eder Salinas is going. This has been the fastest cambio ever. Salinas and I had fun and we worked hard. I hope he takes this ánimo to his next area and tears it up. Everyone is telling me that I will probably train a newbee, so vamos a ver. It will be interesting to be on the other side of the training program. I feel like I just got trained, but I also feel like I'm ready for a new challenge.
I have learned a lot on how to look at numbers and decide how we can become better missionaries and baptize more people/families. This last change we taught 200 lessons, found nearly 100 new investigators, and extended 120 baptism invites. In the end came up with 4 baptisms. We are going to work better with the members to find people instead of on the streets. That way for the next 6 weeks we will find 100 new people and baptize 100 new people. The baptism rate of references we receive from members skyrockets above that of people we find on the street.
Yesterday a member brought his friend Reuben to church. We taught him yesterday, golden. He is a stud and has the desires to change and get baptized. His date is for the 29th. This week for the 22nd, we have José María and María José. They are twins. Their dad is great, he wants his kids to get baptized but is not sure if he wants to quite yet because he was baptized in the Catholic church. We brought José and Maria to church yesterday and they liked it. A little boring for them because they are 9, but they will love the primary more. So they are all set to get baptized this Saturday, hopefully we can get the dad for this week with them or for the next. I am really striving 100% to keep up the the mission standards of excellence  bautizar cada semana. With faith and hard work, it can be done.

With Elder Bowers on divisiones

random stuff:
I went to the world's biggest black market in Ciudad de Este last pday. Bought some pretty cool stuff, a night stick, a tazer, bronze knuckles, some x box games that haven't come out yet, and a super strong flashlight. I have heard you can get everything there, even a baby, but I didn't see any.
That happy smile I had last week about having bikes is now completely gone. These bikes are garbage, I have blown through 3 tires and had a few other repairs that are burning my pocket. On Saturday I took it to a bike place to get a new tube, 5 minutes after riding away my pedal fell off. It's just been a headache. I wish they gave us all motos or scooters. Besides the cost and the headache, they have been pretty helpful. We can visit more people across town now.

Gotta go. Any questions? Anything you like or don't like about the letters I send? I was reading some of Tyler's letters and they are very spiritual so they were fun to read. I will try to add some more of my spiritual experiences in the future.

Any ways, hasta luego

Elder LaFaye

we devised a plan... se llama snatch/grab/and baptize José

 

Dear LaFizzles,

Milagro. José Baez was baptized! I'm not really sure if I've told you about him, but I will get better at telling you about the investigators that are progressing. We found José about 2 weeks ago, he is 23 and lives with his parents. 5 years ago he crashed on his moto and broke the growth plate in his left leg so its shorter than the other, so he walks on crutches. We took him to church last week by bringing a member with a car to pick him up. In our district meeting last week my zone leaders really encouraged us to baptize someone this Saturday. So we thought really hard as to who is ready to be baptized this Saturday. Salinas and I both thought of José, so we went over there that day, we asked him if he remembers his baptism date (previously set for the 22), his reply -
"sí claro. el 8" - josé
"quiere bautizarse el 8?" - me
"sí claro." -josé
Soo, we went over all the commandments and the baptism preguntas. He was listo pá. (in Guarani you just add pá or y té to the end of a word to give it the extra umpf) in other words, he was listo y té to get baptized. So we did divisions with the zone leaders Wednesday to do the interview. Everything was all set till we passed by on Thursday, his parents are super Catolicos. They don't have a problem with him going to church, but they don't want him to get baptized "a second time". The mom went a little crazy on us, but we were able to sit her down and share with her why José wants to get baptized. We explained baptism by immersion, baptism when we are older, and baptism by the authority of God, she could find an answer for any of these except for they do baptisms the Catholic way because of tradition. So she told us to come back later to talk to her husband because supposedly he knows the bible like the back of his hand. So we came back and surprisingly had a decent lesson with him. In the end he was pretty stubborn, so we invited him to pray and we will come back on Friday. We show up as the dad just finished talking to his pastor, and the guy just yells at us for a few minutes saying we are trying to destroy his family. He forbid us to come back to his house ever again, I'm sure he would pull out some kind of gun to prove his point if we did come back. So we had to leave without talking to José. We were pretty down for the rest of the day... till we devised a plan... se llama snatch/grab/and baptize José. José usually takes a morning walk around the block to stretch his legs. So Saturday morning we go out and find a curb to sit on around the corner from his house at 8 in the morning. After waiting 2 hours we finally see José walk by. We go talk to him and ask him if he still wants to get baptized today.. "sí claro"
So we called up Hmno Miranda, the only member with a car, and he came to pick us up. Our baptism font wasn't working so we called some other missionaries ahead of time to fill theirs up. Gave him some clothes and baptized him. Forgot my camera, I will send the foto next week. It was a really spiritual experience. The water was super cold and his foot was hurting really bad as he entered the water. I thought he was going to back out at first, but he knew it was important so he went through and was baptized by elder Salinas. Afterwards I bought him an ice cream since we didn't have a cake and then dropped him off near his house. It was a crazy day.

Thanks a ton for the LaFaye baptism story. The example of those missionaries is exactly what I needed right now. I find myself getting very frustrated with people who don't understand something when I teach it very clearly and simple, or when people of other faiths are stubborn. The 4 religions that I usually find down here are Catolicos, Evangelicals, and some 7th day Adventists and Jehovah Witnesses. I usually just avoid the latter two because there is very little success with them. But all the Catolicos want to talk about is the virgin María, and the Evangelicals only care about the bible and nothing else matters. I get irritated more than I should with some of these people, but I will try to be more like Elder Hernandez and be more patient with their beliefs.

I did divisiones with my old companion Elder Bowers, he is the man. If someone would have told me back in March that we would become best friends I would have laughed. But he has been one of my favorite companions, it was like a blast from the past working with him for a day. I will be in his zone until he goes home in December. Hopefully we will do a few more divisiones before then. Their area is a little slow so we spent the whole day looking for news. Within an hour we found a family of 8.

"I want to ride my bicicle, I want to ride my bike". -queen. WE JUST GOT BIKES! some other missionaries had them but never used them, entonces los aprovechamos. It's like starting a whole new mission. We can visit dozens of people every day. The only down side is that 90% of the streets are empedralla (rocks). and the bikes are pretty low quality so my butt gets pretty sore.

Presidente forgot to assign talks so he asked us to do it Sunday morning. We were running around getting investigators to church so I didn't prepare anything. So I just started to teach the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ from the pulpit. it turned out really well, I basically tried to inspire everyone to talk to their friends about the restored gospel. Hopefully we will get some more references. That's our weakness right now, working off references  so this morning we studied a bit in ch 9 in PMG and set some plans to work more with members.

Real quick, Mariella is doing great. She just doesn't feel like she is ready to get baptized, but we are going to help her feel prepared for this Saturday. I will tell more about her next week.... and hopefully I will have 2 baptism fotos to send :)

gotta go. much love y amor,

Elder LaFaye

bautismo de Jose Baez