Dallin's Blog (Paraguay Asuncion North Mission): Christmas Week!

Dear Friends and Family,

I feel like my mission has been flying by so far. That trend didn't stop for Christmas. This week passed in the blink of an eye for me! But Elder Rodríguez and I still had a ton of things to do and lots of people to teach, so... here we go.

This week I had my first "divisiones" (they're called splits in English -- I think) in my own area. I've been on splits before, but always in the areas of my district or zone leaders. At Elder Rodríguez's request, this last Tuesday, I stayed in our area with Elder Requelme, our zone leader. That meant a lot more responsibility! I was completely in charge of who and what we were going to teach, and I was also responsible for getting us where we needed to go. Good news: Everything went perfectly smoothly. We taught 4 or 5 lessons... and we only got lost once! And it doesn't even really count because I was looking for a house Elder Rodríguez and I haven't actually visited yet, and the map he drew for me was terrible. So all in all, I'd say it was a pretty successful division! I feel more like a real missionary now.

As this past week was Christmas, we had a Mission Christmas Conference on Wednesday morning in Asuncion. From what I understood, half the mission attended on Wednesday and the other half... on some other day. It was really great though. We watched a bunch of Bible videos about the Savior, and a bunch of missionaries were given the chance to bear their testimonies about the Savior. The conference ended with a lunch and a meet and greet with Santa Clause (the fourteen-year-old son of President and Hermana McMullin).

Here in Paraguay, Christmas is basically just an extra New Years. They don't do much to celebrate on the 25th except relax. But on the 24th, they stay up till midnight, and when the clock strikes twelve, they light off a bunch of fireworks. As missionaries, we weren't allowed to stay out past 11 though, so we missed all the "fun" haha. Before 11 though, we had some fun with the familia Burgos, a member family. We sat and talked with them, ate with them, and drank a drink called clériko (or something like that). Clériko is basically fruit cerial. You cut up any and every type of fruit you can find (except watermelon or mango -- I don´t make the rules) and then you put them all in a big bowl, jug, or container of cider and there you go! Traditionally, clériko is done with alcohol, but members just use grape soda or cider without alcohol. I really enjoyed the stuff and it's a Christmas tradition I think I might actually bring home from Paraguay!

Christmas was THE BEST. Being able to talk with my family was the best Christmas gift I've ever received, and what's even cooler is that it worked flawlessly. For the past few weeks, I've been stressing a ton about this call. So far, I haven't had much luck with computers in Paraguay. I've lost one memory card to a virus, I couldn't send pictures home for weeks, and I just really don't get along well with South American computers in general. But early last week, I had the thought "I'm a missionary. As much as I love my family, I can't afford to waste this whole week stressing about Skype. I'll pray that everything will work out and then I'll wait and see how things work out." So I stopped worrying and went to work. I literally didn't have to stress about the Skype call at all because Wednesday night, Elder Rios, another Elder in Villa Hayes, called us and said he has a camera and that I could call from the chapel. That's what I did. Without any work, or stress, or searching on my part, I got to call my family and it worked flawlessly. The Lord really does bless us when we trust in him!

This Sunday was kind of a hard day though -- well... it was a good day, but it ended poorly. We had a zone activity in Mariano and I split with Elder Granados, a super awesome elder from Columbia. We taught a woman who gave us enormous mangoes (that I'm super excited to eat) and then we taught the most ripped guy I've seen in Paraguay. Turns out, he's Columbian, but he's a professional soccer player here in Paraguay. Yeah, he was really big; taller than me and with bigger muscles than the paintings of the stripling warriors! You don't see many people like that here in Paraguay! haha. So Sunday was cool for that, but when the zone activity ended and we went home... it took a pretty harsh turn.

We wrapped up our day with a lesson with a recent convert: S. His younger sister Sa. was baptized last month, and his older Sister G is an investigator. His life has been kind of rough, and he could really use the peace the gospel brings. The problem is that last night, he told us that he doesn't want to hear from us anymore. He said that he thinks he imagined the peace that he felt when he first started learning about the gospel and that he hasn't felt the Spirit that everyone is always talking about, so he doesn't believe the church is true. Wow. There isn't much in life as devastating as hearing a recent convert tell you that he's giving up on the church. Leaving that lesson, Elder Rodríguez was pretty broken up. I hope I'm not breaking his confidence, but a few weeks ago he told me he's only cried twice in the mission (I've cried around 20 times -- I'm the official companionship onion cutter and we eat one with every meal). Anyways, last night was the third time. It was a really sad night, but all the same, it was really cool to see how much love Elder Rodríguez has for S. He may have given up on the church, but we're not giving up on him! We're actually going to do a "noche de hogar" (family night) at his house tonight, so we'll see how that goes next week!

Going through that with S brought the scriptures Ether 12:6 (about the trial of your faith) Alma 5:26 (about spiritual witnesses and "can you feel so now") and Doctrine and Covenants 6:22 (when the Lord tells Oliver Cowdery to think back to the night he felt peace spoken to his mind). At some point, every single one of us is going to have a trial of faith like S; we're all going to run into a time (or many times) in our life when it's hard to believe in God -- when it is hard to believe that he exists or that he cares. But if we continue pressing forward, trusting in the spiritual experiences we've felt in the past, eventually the darkness will leave and we'll receive a greater spiritual witness (as is promised in Ether 12:6). Basically, keep the faith guys! The church is true. In the end, choosing to believe will always bring more happiness than choosing to doubt and falling away.

I love you guys! Keep letting me know about your lives.

Elder Fairbanks

14 year-old Santa & Elder Fairbanks

Christmas traditions

Christmas with la familia Burgo

Elder Fairbanks' house

"I finished reading the Book of Mormon for the first time in Spanish! The mission is going to start over reading the Book of Mormon together this January, so I had to finish before then! I actually understand pretty much all of what I read now...My Spanish is getting better!"