I'm doing fantastically in Paraguay right now. Now that I'm training and a district leader, I'm forced to really consider how I'm working as a missionary and what I can do to work better. It's a fantastic process, and I'm seeing tons of personal progress. This week was definitely a week of harvesting the fruit of all my recent struggles to learn and push myself to become better -- or in other words, it was a fantastic week.
Tuesday was my first district meeting with the missionaries from Horqueta, and it was great. They're a little different from my first district -- which makes the teaching completely different as well. (It's odd how drastically a change in the recipients of a lesson can change the process of the effectiveness of that lesson, but in a good way.) I'm only in charge of two other companionships--one companionship of sisters, and one of Elders--and they are more open to talking and discussing things in the meeting than my first district was, which takes a load off of my shoulders because I'm not left alone talking and trying to entertain 6 20-year-olds for an hour.
Later that day, Elder Smith and I passed by familia E (another one of our favorite families down here in Paragauy) to review the lessons with their recently converted children. We were in the middle of teaching when three of I's (their 16-year-old son) friends showed up (wanting to head out and play soccer). What ended up happening was that we taught a lesson with the family and the 3 friends and 2 of them accepted the invitation to investigate the church! I. has been a gold mine for us missionaries! So far, we've already baptized two of his friends, and now, we have 2 more to work with! Member-missionary work is the best kind of missionary work for sure!
After that, Elder Smith and I took a pretty long detour from our area to teach a lesson in the area of Elder Barreto. He was on divisions in Horqueta, but Familia B, the family that was just married and baptized last week, needed a priesthood blessing and a lesson, so he called us in to help him out. I love Familia B! They're such great, kind, humble family. Right now, they are very poor -- one of the poorer families I've met in Paraguay (which is saying a lot). But in preparation for our visit, they prepared us a dinner, juice, and kept inviting us to eat more and more. It was a really special moment for me to see their newly reactivated/converted family all together with such a great desire to learn the gospel and serve. They aren't my converts, and they aren't even from my area, but I'm sure going to miss them a lot when I leave.
I mentioned that lately I've been doing a lot of self-evaluation to see what I can do to be a better missionary. As a result, Elder Smith and I had some great experiences in the house as we studied and planned as parts of our regular routine.
First off, in my personal studies, I've been reading both the Book of Mormon, and Preach My Gospel more in-depth than ever before (it's something President has invited us to do with the promise that "the fruits of our labors will double if we become masters of the principles of chapter 8 and 9 in Preach my Gospel.") And as I did it, I felt the Spirit testify so strongly that what I need most right now is to keep learning how to be a better Preach My Gospel missionary. I've only been making this special effort to study Preach my Gospel for a week now, but it's already making a big difference in my teaching, planning, and the presence of the Spirit in my life.
Another cool thing that happened was that, after studying Preach My Gospel in personal study, Elder Smith and I discussed the things we in particular need to be working on to be better missionaries and we both felt that we need to focus on "teaching people, not lessons," a principle from Preach My Gospel that explains that we're not just supposed to teach the points of the 5 missionary lessons we have. We're supposed to think in the needs of each investigator we teach and adapt the lessons to each investigator individually -- even changing the lesson as we teach it according to the directions of the spirit. After spending an entire companionship study delving deep into that principle, Elder Smith and I learned tons and I'd say that since then, we've definitely gotten better at focusing on the needs of our investigators as we teach instead of just passing through the points of a lesson. Preach My Gospel is awesome.
The last cool study/planning success we had this week was our weekly planning. Every week, we as missionaries plan what we're going to teach the next week. I've felt so far in my mission that even though we take the 2 or 3 hours required every week to plan, me and my comps never seem to really impliment specifically our plan as well as we should. We teach our investigators and extend the invitations, but without the "big picture" in mind. This week, Elder Smith and I (again, using principles from Preach My Gospel) had the best planning session of my mission so far. We thought about each investigator specifically, what lessons, and invitations they need to progress, who we can visit them with, what days and times they are usually available, etc... and even though it's only been 3 days since the planning, we've already seen what a difference it's made. Right now, thanks to preach my gospel, Elder Smith and I are working a lot more effectively, thinking about the needs of each investigator and what we can do to help them.
Some other fun things that happened this week:
I finally got an alfajor (delicious South American cookies) recipe! I've been trying to get one my whole mission, and finally this week one of the members in my branch wrote the recipe down for me. So tonight, I'm definitely going to be trying to bake some... We'll see how they turn out!
We had a crazy big rainstorm this Friday as well! The skies were clear with a few clouds, a few minutes later, there were big dark clouds above us and then we saw on the horizon a thick dark wall of clouds flying towards us... and 5 minutes later it was raining and thundering super hard. Even with protection, Elder Smith and I got completely soaked (but our scriptures didn't because we were prepared). A big storm is nice every now and then.
Normally on Saturdays us Concepcion 3B missionaries have a priesthood excecutive council at 7:00 in the morning. On the missionary schedule, that only gives us half an hour to prepare and cuts out our exercise. This Saturday, Elder Smith and I both wanted to burn some extra calories, so we woke up an hour early and ran down to the river (about a 20 minute round trip). It was a beautiful place to see (the river, that is) and it felt great to get up early and get the heart pumping.
On Saturday, we ended up doing a "service project" in the chapel ALL DAY. We got there at 2:00 and started cleaning the chapel in a way I've never seen the inside of a chapel cleaned out before... with a hose. Chapels here in Paraguay don't have carpet, just tile floor, so I guess when you deep-clean, you pull out the hose and spray all the dirty stuff out. The problem was that no members showed up to help us, so it was four missionaries and our branch president (Presidente Gabi Benitez) cleaning the whole chapel. Because of the lack of help, it literally took us six hours to clean everything and then to push all the water out of the chapel with squeegies. Hard work!
Last fun thing: After cleaning the chapel all day with Elder Barreto, he was super excited to learn English, so Saturday night he called me and we had a 45 minute over-the-phone English class. I'm definitely going to have to explain to him that before calling me he needs to consult the dictionary... haha.
Investigator News:
This week we got an awesome new investigator L. She's a woman I found in divisions with Elder Barreto when we taught about the Restoration of the church. When I went back to teach her with Elder Smith, she remembered everything from the first lesson! That never happens! And she was super curious about the church and says that she shouldn't have any trouble attending church each Sunday. We're pretty excited to keep working with her!
This week we're going to be preparing another one of our investigators for baptism! Her name is M and is the daughter of a once-less-active member named A, who is awesome as well. This Sunday we passed by to review the lessons with her and explain what she's going to have to do this week to prepare for baptism,and, in general, it was a great lesson. But the coolest part was that M said that she's seen a big change in herself from the time that she started talking with us, the missionaries. When she said that, her mom laughed and explained that before, when the missionaries stopped by to visit the family, M (a 21-year-old woman) would hide under a table in their house and say, "Tell them I'm not here" to avoid speaking with them. The gospel really does change people!
The coolest thing we saw this week with our investigators/recent converts was that this Sunday, I., the recent convert I mentioned above, conferred the Aaronic priesthood to his friend, L. It was such an incredible feeling to watch two of my converts take such big steps in their spiritual progress!
Seeing I. confer the priesthood to L really made me think about the joys of serving a mission. The truth is, the work we do isn't easy. Maybe we don't have to worry much about providing for a family, or having a job, or anything like that, but it is stressful out here in the mission! There are a lot of times when we, as missionaries, feel really sad because after working as well as we can, we don't see much progress sometimes. But the truth is, there are moments of such great joy, that it makes all the struggling, worry, and prayers worth it. Standing in the room when I. conferred the priesthood upon L was one of those moments. The Lord's promise in D&C 18:15, "And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!" is true. The greatest joy that a person can feel is the joy of helping someone come to know their Heavenly Father.
I love you all, and I know that the church is true! Keep reading the Book of Mormon!
Elder Fairbanks
Here are some photos of me cleaning the house, and the storm rolling in last Friday:
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