After the big week-long trip, life went right back to normal here in Paraguay. Elder Crofts and I had a regular p-day, and then we went right back to working in our area, which has been great! I'm really excited about some of the people that we've found and started teaching!
P-day Grill Party.
After a great day of preparation last week, the office elders had a fantastic idea. Recently, upon deep-cleaning the office house, we discovered a cool grill/chimney tucked away into the corner of our back patio (it was hidden by all the furniture we had stored up for missionaries). On Friday, the office elders decided that we'd have a pre-Easter grill feast. We each put in 27,000 guaranies (which comes out to about 5 dollars) to buy the beef, pork, and chicken, and then, Friday night, Elder Cardenas, the computer/housing/funiture/
Self-Haircut #5.
My hair kind of started getting almost long again, so I decided I needed another haircut. By my own admission, the last two times I've cut my hair, it didn't really turn out all that great... I cut it too short, too high up my head and it sort of looked a little funny... So I had to prove that I could do it right! (I stand by my goal to learn how to cut my own hair). So I cut it... and this time it turned out alright. Little by little, I am learning the art of the self-haircut.
I Almost Killed a Man.
As part of our pre-changes preparation, Elder Crofts figured it would be a good idea to help me learn to drive his "loop" (the routes we drive missionaries on from area to area), so one afternoon, we went out and he taught me where to go, where to turn, what bad potholes to avoid, etc... All that went absolutely fine. But at one point, I was driving on the Trans Chaco, a gigantic international highway with four lanes of traffic on either side. As I cruised down the Trans Chaco (in the 2nd lane from the sidewalk), I saw a stop light up ahead; It was green, so I kept on driving to go through it. As I drove, looking ahead of me, I watched a man on a motorcycle pull out into the intersection from the right. I thought it was dumb of him to pull out into the intersection during a red light, but seconds later, realized that he was being more than just a little dumb and reckless because instead of just pulling out into the furthest right lane, he was turning directly into my lane! I had to slam on my brakes and yank the car over to the left, and I seriously think I missed the guy by just a few feet. I was a little shaken up afterwards, knowing that if I would have hit him he would have almost definitely died, but in the end, it was 100% his fault (Elder Crofts is my witness) and I reacted quickly enough to avoid the terrible situation... Motorcycle drivers are really annoying sometimes.
Elder Crofts' Final.
Well, as much as we both hate to admit it, Elder Crofts is wrapping up his mission. Within two weeks, he'll be on a plane bound for the USA. This week, in preparation, he had his final interview with President Evans. I don't know much of what went on or what was said or how it went, but the fact that Elder Crofts is leaving is starting to get really real for the both of us. I've never sent a missionary home before, so it's really weird for me to see it all happening knowing that someday I'll be going through the same thing... Luckily its a long way off though!
Back to the Area.
Now, to the important things: Missionary work in the area Mariano Roque Alonso "C." This week Elder Crofts and I were in our area almost the whole time, but, because of our trip last week, we needed to catch up on divisions with the Zone leaders. This week I went with two fantastic Elders: Elder Grey, from Honduras, and Elder Kelly from Pleasant Grove, UT.
Elder Grey-Day.
The day I spent with Elder Grey was a super rainy one. He and his comp arrived in Mariano early in the morning, and, seeing the grey clouds, I asked: you guys think it's going to rain today? The answered in the affirmative, but, thinking positively, I neglected bringing an umbrella or raincoat... I regretted that later. When the rain came down, it came down hard. The lucky thing, though, was that that day I decided I'd take Elder Grey to explore a chunk of my area that I don't know super well yet. We spent the majority of the morning contacting in that area, and every single time it started to rain hard, someone let us in and we taught until it stopped raining again. It was almost like the rain stopped for us every time we had to go to another lesson -- so we didn't get too wet. Over the course of the morning, we found 5 new people who seemed to be interested in our message and who agreed to receive us again. At this point, its too early with any of them to see if they'll progress, but I'm excited to have a bunch of fresh investigators to work with! After spending the morning looking for new investigators, we went to visit some of the investigators we know well... and literally every lesson we had planned fell through. The only lessons we had that day were lessons from contacts, but all the same, it was a great day!
 |
| Divisions with Elders Grey & Passos |
Elder Kelly.
I went on divisions with Elder Kelly on Thursday. It was still a little cloudy and wet, but the weather was good enough that we had high hopes that people would receive us. We spent the day visiting our old investigators, checking up on them and teaching lessons like that. On of the cooler things that happened, though, was that when we passed by one family of investigators, they told us that "the earth was eating [their] house." My initial reaction was confusion, but they invited us to look behind their house where we saw a gaping hole in their concrete patio where years of rain must have eroded all the dirt until the concrete started collapsing. Seizing the opportunity, we offered ourselves as volunteers to help with the re-filling of the hole. So after lunch we changed down into service clothes and went to work. It was super cool because they called a sand company and a gigantic tractor/bulldozer thing dropped off a huge mound of sand right in front of the house. Bucket by bucket, we carried the sand to the back where we slowly filled the hole. I don't really think it will be a permanent solution to the erosion problem... but it sure was great to do some hard physical labor-type service. It's been a while!
 |
| Divisions with Elder Kelly |
People of the Week:
N.
N is lady that investigated the church about 2 years ago with the local elders of the time. When they taught her originally, she liked the gospel and the church, but in the end, she decided not to be baptized. Recenlty, speaking with her neighbor and good friend, Aura (the Relief Society President), she said that she's made her decision and now is the time for her to be baptized. Soon after that, Hermana Aura got ahold of us, and we started teaching her. We had our second lesson with her this week and she's doing fantastic. She's attended church twice already and is really excited to be baptized. We recently invited her to prepare to be baptized on the 20th of May, so if all goes well, MRA "C" will see another baptism after quite a while!
V.
We received the reference to visit V a while ago from another investigator (I've mentioned her before). In a 4-month span, we've had 3 lessons with her. After each lesson, we leave so excited because she seems so ready to receive the gospel and be baptized, but she's so busy with work that she's never home. Just yesterday, we passed by her house again (for what I figured would probably be the last time) and to our astonishment, she came out! We entered and had another wonderful lesson with her. She explained that right now, her father is having some serious health problems and that she needs spiritual help more than ever. After we taught a little about the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how it can help her personally, she readily accepted the invitations to attend church, to read the pamphlet about the Restoration we left behind, to pray about what we taught to know if it's true and to ask God whether or not He wants her to be baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The best part? We have another confirmed lesson for tomorrow (Saturday), so the chances that we'll actually see her again and that she'll progress are much higher. I'm really excited to teach V.
Goyo.
It's been a while since I've spoken about our multilengual friend of German descent hasn't it... Usually in divisions, Elder Crofts is the one to visit him, so he has the majority of the information and funny stories, but this week we got to visit him together and... we had an interesting visit. This time we learned that in addition to "only drinking once a year," being a private investigator, practicing Judaism, and speaking 7 languages, Goyo believes in werewolves... So we tried to have a discussion about the Book of Mormon and the Gospel, but we ended up learning a lot about the mythical creatures instead! At this point I've pretty much given up hope that Goyo will progress to investigate the church at this current phase of his life, but he sure is fun to visit!
So, in a pretty large "nutshell" that was my week. I guess the last thing I'd like to share though is something that hit me really hard during my personal studies this week. I think I mentioned before that the one big message I got from General Conference was "get to know the Savior Jesus Christ." One morning this week I was reading in James E. Talmage's book, Articles of Faith; I was reading about the 11th article that explains the church's belief in freedom of religion. I expected the chapter to be kind of boring, but once I started reading about worship, some things I read drove the same message from General Conference right back into my heart. I read: "Knowledge is essential to worship; man cannot adequately serve God in ignorance; and the greater his knowledge of the divine personality, the fuller and truer will be his adoration." I don't know if that will mean much to you guys, but when I read it, to me it said that I need work harder to develop a real relationship with God and Jesus Christ. I can go to church, I can pray daily, I can read the scriptures, but if I carry out those external actions of worship without actually having or developing a real, personal relationship with my Savior, I'm kind of missing the point. From here on out till the end of my mission (and probably beyond even that), that will be my focus: to "know... the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [He] [has] sent." (John 17:3).
Things are going great here in Paraguay! I sure do love you all and if there's anything I can do to help you out, anything you'd like to hear about life here down south, or anything else, let me know! I love hearing from friends and family too, so if you have time, shoot over a short message!
Love,
Elder Fairbanks
 |
| "Down by the river" |
 |
| "A gigantic, weird-colored grasshopper" |
No comments:
Post a Comment