Dallin's Blog (Paraguay Asuncion North Mission): Week 9 in Aregua "C"

Elder Smith and I had another great week here in Aregua. The weather has been colder and super nice to head out and teach in; hopefully, it stays this way for a while!

I got to see a bunch of little miracles this week. One of the more surprising to me was that a young girl, about 14 or 15 years old, stopped us one day and asked us, "When are you guys going to stop by here again? I want to talk to you." More than a little confused, Elder Smith and I asked "Why?", to which she responded, "I want to be baptized in your church." Still a little skeptical, Elder Smith and I went to teach her and--wow. It was incredible how true her desires are. We left her with the Book of Mormon, and she started reading it that same night. It was really cool to see someone with such a desire to come to know the truth that she came to contact us! We're kind of used to luke-warm commitment keeping here in the mission so far.

We also had a great experience teaching la Familia S this week. They are a less active family that has a 21 year old daughter with cancer. Not wanting to take a ton of their time, Elder Smith just decided to read Jacob chapter 4 from the Book of Mormon with them. When we read verse 10, "Wherefore, brethren, seek not to counsel the Lord, but to take counsel from his hand. For behold, ye yourselves know that he counseleth in wisdom, and in justice, and in great mercy, over all his works," the Spirit taught me a quick one-on-one lesson about trials. If we were in charge of our lives, we would never say, "I need these trials to learn and grow." We'd say "I need money, a nice car, a healthy body, and a perfect family so that I can be happy." Well, God knows better than us what we need, so sometimes, he gives us trials we would never give ourselves because He knows these trials will help us grow. When difficult times come, we shouldn't turn from the Lord and say, "Why did you give me this burden?" We should "take counsel from [the hand of the Lord]." After sharing that thought, A, the woman with cancer, expressed her desire to reactivate as a member of the church. And her boyfriend, who has been there every step of the way with her, expressed his desire to become a member of the church. It's super awesome to see their progress!

Another cool thing that happened was a zone activity we had this Saturday in Luque. Our whole zone was divided up and assigned a small area in the city of Luque to contact, try to have lessons, and mostly to get awesome referrals for the missionaries in those areas. I got to spend the morning with an elder named Elder Albornoz -- picture a short, bolivian Asher Rummler and you'll have a pretty good idea of what he looks like. He only has about 3 months in the mission, but it was really cool to walk around with him, contacting and having lessons. We had a really great lesson with a family about the church of Jesus Christ, during which I realized that Ephesians 4 pretty much perfectly explains the organization and purpose of the church that Jesus Christ Himself established. Using those verses, I was able to answer every single question they had about why there are so many churches in the world, whether or not it is important to attend church or not, and whether or not Christ's church still exists in the earth today. After explaining those things, Elder Albornoz wrapped the lesson up powerfully with an invitation to pray about which of all the churches is God's church. If we know that there should only be one true church, and we also know that God loves us and wants us to find that truth, then we'll have faith enough to receive an answer through prayer.

The last thing I want to do today is brag on the amazing members here in Aregua. Understanding how important skyping with our families was on the 8th, a group of members spent almost all day on Sunday trying to make skype work on the computer. After hours, it still didn't work, so a member named Dani Gonzales loaned us his laptop and just hung out with us missionaries in the chapel almost all day just to let us call our families. The Church is the same throughout the whole world, and I love getting to know the strong, loving members here in Paraguay.

I love you all! Thanks for all the support. The Church is true!

Elder Fairbanks