Determined to Finish Strong - July 2, 2012

Dear Family,

 

I really enjoyed hearing from you this week! Sorry I don´t have a whole lot of time to write. With the new Mission President there was a change in the website of how we write to him and I had to figure out how to use it. Apparently Elder Snow is not very computer savvy.

Haha anyway, we have had a really great week. This week we focused a lot on getting investigators in church because we have been struggling a lot with that in Minga. We worked well with the members to committ the investigators and to make arrangements for them to come to church. On Saturday we had a lot of people committed. But then on Saturday night and Sunday morning several of them called us to tell us that they weren´t going to be able to attend. At least they remembered the committment, that´s a step forward. But we still need to do better to help the investigators to put God first and make attending church a priority.

We are working with a really cool Brazilian family right now. Their last name is Folgiarini, something like that. They are Italian descendents. It´s been fun teaching them. I realize that I´ve come a long way. When they speak Portuguese I can understand most of it. If it´s a really closed Portuguese with a heavy accent I don´t understand much. But anyway, this Brazilian family is really great. They are really receptive to the Gospel. They are a few of the ones that were committed for church but then couldn´t make it. They are pretty active in the Catholic church so that is kind of a challenge. But they feel the Spirit every time we are there and they are recognizing that what we teach is true.

We continue working with the Lesme family. They are the family that lives really far away. We went to visit them this week and they are really close to being baptized. They know all of the commandments, committ to live them, have testimonies. The challenge is church. They have been twice but now it´s been two Sundays that they haven´t attended. The dad has been sick the past few weeks and that is why they haven´t gone. We need to work with them more to help their testimonies grow as well.

To answer a couple of questions:

About saying hi to President and Sister Callan: Yes, please just tell them that I love them a lot and that I appreciate them so much. Tell them that I am 100 percent determined to finish my mission strong and to be a blessing for the new Mission President.

Another question about the baptism of Pedro and Felisia: From what I can gather, I think Pedro got baptized but Felisia no. Every week there is a weekly inform that they send us with numbers from the mission and the zone leaders. According to that, it says that Elder Ramos and his new comp baptized and confirmed one. So it seems like just Pedro got baptized. I´m sure that Felisia will be soon to follow.

About the meaning of Iguazú and guazú. Guazú means grande in Guaraní. Or big in English. So the Iguazú waterfalls literally means ¨big water¨ in Guaraní. Kind of funny, huh? Minga Guazú means big something. I asked my companion what Minga means but he said it is like really closed, ancient Guaraní so he doesn´t know the meaning.

About the change in President (of Paraguay). I didn´t write anything because I didn´t want you to worry and it wasn´t too serious. We had to go home early on the day that the President was taken out of office. But there haven´t been any problems really. It´s not good for missionaries to talk about politics so I really haven´t mentioned anything to the Paraguayans. Everything seems to be just fine.

I am so grateful for my mission. I feel the growth that I have made spiritually. I am really grateful to be with a young missionary in my last change to help him have a great mission experience. I am so grateful for the constant Spirit that we can feel as missionaries. I really am grateful for this work. I love you all very much!

I hope everyone is well. Say hi to all of the family for me!

Love,

Elder Snow