Dallin's Blog (Paraguay Asuncion North Mission): Christmastime in Asuncion (Moroni week# 4)

Note from Mom: We received an email from President Evans last week letting us know that Elder Fairbanks has been called to serve as a zone leader. This happened with Dallin's transfer to Asuncion about a month ago, although the president's letter was the first we'd heard of the call.

Dear Friends and Family,

Elder Schmidt and I just worked our way through another odd week in the captial of Paraguay. We've got some pretty good stories... so be ready!

First off: my birthday party

This tuesday (the 6th of December, my birthday) I went to a three-zone Christmas conference in the mission office. There were some great testimonies born, some great messages shared, some amazing songs sung, and it was just a great meeting in general. I can't think of a better way to spend a birthday in a mission!

During the meeting, President Evans focused a lot on cleanliness as missionaries. He said "I know that your shoes get muddy the second you step out your door (mine don't anymore -- perks of life in Asuncion), but you are representatives of the Lord and I want you to polish your shoes at least once a week." In addition, he also said we need to wear suits in Sacrament Meeting from now on. If sacrament meeting is one of the most sacred meetings we have in the church, why wouldn't we dress as well as we can for it?

Another really cool spiritual part was a musical number prepared by Elder Olsen and Elder Hunt of the zone. They arranged Come Thou Font of Every Blessing and translated an unofficial spanish verse. Elder Olsen has a serious talent for the piano and the translated lyrics were beautiful, and it was nice to not be the one playing piano for a change!

Also, halfway through the zone meeting, we had a lunch break, but I was called up to the front to say the prayer to bless the food. (I totally saw what was coming next) As soon as I ended the prayer and turned to make my way off the stand, President Evans was at my side announcing to the three-zone crowd that it was my birthday, so I got sung to by a group of about 40-50 missionaries in a chapel -- interesting experience to say the least.

Wednesday:

Last week I wrote about the housing miracle... well this week, Elder Schmidt adn I recieved the news that while Elder Parada was trying to get all the papers signed, our (almost) future rentors actually broke their promise to save the house for us and ended up renting it out to someone else... so we were left without a house again...

But the good news is that that opened the door for "housing miracle number 2." Luckily, on the day last week where we found about 8 possible rental houses, one of the better houses wasn't quite for rent yet. The owner said "the current occupants are moving out and it will be open for renting on the fifth of December, so call me then. But call me fast, because I already have other people asking for it." When we started looking for houses again it was the 7th (two days past the date we were supposed to call), but we gave it a shot anyway, and the owner said it's still open! So we visited the house (and it was probably even nicer than the first one -- and cheaper too) and said we wanted it, so now, our office and the owner are working to get all the papers signed. Once again, we are looking pretty set to move out of our little, ugly, box-house pretty soon. I sure hope this owner keeps her promise though. I'm getting kind of tired about writing house-finding miracle stories.

Another really interesting thing that happened on wednesday was that Elder Schmidt and I did divisions with President Evans... On monday I saw that President had responed to one of my weekly emails. When I opened it I was shocked to read "Maybe I can come on divisions with you and your companion sometime soon to discuss these things and to get to know your area -- would Wednesday around noon work?" So when wednesday rolled around, Elder Schmidt and I met up with President Evans at the chapel of Moroni and then left to do some visits. It was a really cool experience to see how well President Evans worked. He talked to pretty much everyone we passed, trying to leave them with a message. At one point though he said "wow. You guys were right. These people aren't very receptive!" We walked from house to house, after each lesson fell, looking for someone to teach, but coudn't find anyone until it started raining. Then a family took pity on us and, with President's help, we shared a really awesome introduction to lesson one. Even though we didn't have tons of numerical success on our divisions, President Evans sure did help us a lot, telling us that because it's harder to get into lessons here, we should take advantage of all the opportunities we'll be having to talk to people and really learn to contact well. We're excited to put all those principles in Practice.

After that, not too much exciting stuff happened. Thursday the 8th was "Dia de la Virgen de Caacupe," which is a catholic holiday in Paraguay that I don't understand super well... but our ward had a christmas/new year lunch that we helped prepare for and eat at, so that was fun.

On Saturday we also had a "capilla abierta" (or "church open house.") An elderly couple of missionaries (the hansens) had all these cool banners and stuff, but almost no one came. Over a 3 or 4 hour time period, we had a total of 7 non-member visitors. The cool thing is that one of them (someone that was just invited in from off the street) actually accepted the invitation to be baptized. We'll probably trying to do the capilla abierta again though, because this one just wasn't announced well enough I guess!

During the tri-zone conference this week President Evans also drew our attention to the scripture Alma 26:27. It says that if we repent, exercise faith, produce good works, and pray, that we can know the mysteries of God and that we can be the means of bringing thousands of souls to repentance. When President Evans read that to us, he promised us that if we follow those four simple steps, when we finish our missions and have reunions we will literally be able to say we baptized thousands of converts and brought them to repentance. I love how simple the gospel is. All God asks of us is that we do our best to become better and do good things, always trusting in Him. If we can accomplish that, he has tons of blessing waiting for us.

I love you all, and I hope you're enjoying the fantastic north-american winter for me!

Elder Fairbanks

In a more light-hearted spirit, Dallin writes: "I found a cool thing on my camera that helps you make your face prettier if you forgot to put your makeup on one day. Here are some fun shots featuring the elders of Moroni..." (These young men are good sports.)

Elder Glasgow

Elder Villacreses

Elder Schmidt

Elder Fairbanks

"Elder Schmidt and I rifling through his Christmas package and getting it all set up waiting for Christmas..."

"A mini birthday party we Moroni missionaries held together in McDonalds, where we ate Kitkat McFlurries that really didn't live up to the unrealistic expectations the advertisements all over Asuncion established."