Rollercoaster-Type Week - March 14, 2011

Excited to preach the gospel!

Dear Family,

We´ve had another great week here in Santa Rita! Sounds like your week has been full of cleaning, yard work, all that fun stuff.

Happy Birthday to Tate! That´s crazy he´s already 6 years old. Time flies when you´re playing with spider man action figures. Hopefully everything goes well in that area and that they like it lots.

I can hardly imagine mom bonding with the puppy, haha, after hearing her horror stories of growing up with big dogs. Speaking of dogs, there is this amazing two legged dog here in Santa Rita that I see sometimes in the street. He´s my new hero. He just walks on his front two legs, he´s so strong it´s really impressive.

Congrats to Mason on his baseball and basketball wins. That´s always a highlight in the letters haha.

Congrats to Talmage Jones also, tell him I say hi. I love Talmage, he´s such a good guy. When does he report to the MTC?

We´ve had another rollercoaster type week here! It´s been full of awesome experiences and a couple "days of patience" as Elder Woodruff called them. But all in all, we´ve seen some great miracles of the Lord this week.

Hernán and Sandra finally made it to church again, it was so great to see them there. I think they really enjoyed it. It was a special meeting because we had a member of the Stake Presidency from Ciudad del Este there. His name is President Gonzales, he gave an incredible talk and focused a lot on preparation. I felt the Spirit very strong and am grateful to have such great leaders here in Paraguay. It´s a great testimony to me of the strength of the church in foreign countries, that it really is a world-wide church.

Anyway, back to Hernán and Sandra. Earlier this week, there was kind of a panic. They wanted to buy some things they need for the house, but their circumstances are pretty humble and they didn´t really have the money to buy it. Hernán was trying to sell his motorcycle to buy furniture and things they wanted, but they couldn´t find a buyer. So Sandra was getting pretty upset and wanted to move back to Brazil with Nayeli, the 2 year old daughter. So we talked with them more about the important things and how much the Lord has blessed them. All the while, she was still having trouble quitting smoking because she was really stressed. But by about Saturday they had really settled down a lot more and were focusing a lot more on the important things. They are doing great now, they made it to church, Sandra hasn´t smoked in a couple days, and they are excited for the marriage and baptism this Saturday. They are such amazing people and we are going to work so hard this week to help them be super prepared. I really love their family, Nayeli is so great. She always waves to us and shakes our hand. She recognizes us all the time now. When we leave, she always says "chau, hermano!" She is still learning to talk so it comes out more like hermao- so great.

Maico is doing great as well. He also made it to church yesterday and hasn´t smoked for a couple days either. He is really seeing the blessings in his life by living the Word of Wisdom. We are working really hard with him as well for his baptism this Saturday.

Also great news from yesterday! Isaías and Mariela made it to church. After, we watched a movie about Joseph Smith with Isaías, Mirta y Mariela and they really loved it. Mirta and Mariela had already received testimonies and we were kind of waiting on Isaías. Yesterday he felt the spirit really strong during the movie and said after that now he knows Joseph Smith was a prophet. It was so great to see. They are also preparing to get married and baptized this Saturday. If all goes well, it will be a baptism guazu! Elder Bazán and I are praying and hoping so much, and we have felt so blessed these last few weeks.

There were also a friend of Sandra and her 3 kids that made it to church the first time yesterday. It was so awesome! We had a really good attendance and it was so perfect because President Gonzales´ talk was so great. We´ve been really blessed from the Lord

Oh random question. I heard a bunch about some big earthquake/tornado deal going on last week. Did that reach California? I´ve been kind of curious. You´ll have to let me know.

Thanks for being such a great family! I love you all very much and am doing great down here. Next week I won´t write till Thursday because it´s change week. I´m kind of nervous, I really love Santa Rita and it would be sad to leave. We´ll see!

Love,
Elder Snow