Catching Up...

It has been a very busy few weeks for our family so I have been slothful at catching up my missionaries' blogs. Here are a few excerpts from Kaitlin's last few emails!

 We had interviews this week as well.  I really love President Callan and his wife.  I know they were called of God.  President encouraged me to continue to develop attributes of Christ and work to live a consecrated life here in the mission and afterwards, and I'm committed to do it.  A consecrated life is a happy life.  I'm so grateful for the gospel.  I had such a neat experience in church yesterday.  I felt the Spirit so strongly in sacrament meeting, especially as the sacrament was being passed.  The Spirit that can be felt in that sacred meeting weekly is a powerful evidence of the truthfulness of the gospel and of the reality that this is Christ's church.  The Spirit felt in sacrament meetings, in the temple, and in the homes of faithful followers of Christ just can't be felt anywhere else.  Pay attention to the Spirit and follow His promptings.  And then share this gospel in whatever moment and in whatever small way you can so others can have the opportunity to feel it too. 

I love my Savior.  I love my Father in Heaven.  I want nothing more than to serve Them and to return to their presence along with all of you. 

And....

It's been a fabulous week!  I just love the mission... It's my way of life now, and I'm not really sure how I'll function in the real world here in a couple of months.  Thankfully, the Lord has answered my prayers and has really made it so I don't even think about the end of my mission.  A lot of missionaries have a hard time focusing their last little while, but I am thankful that Heavenly Father is helping me in that department.  It hasn't been a problem at all.  I just love, love, LOVE to work as a missionary, and I continue to enjoy every minute of every day.

Hna. Ramos and I have a lot of fun together.  She's hilarious.  And she's hard-working.  This week was an interesting one because we had a lot of rain come our way.  We discovered some old rubber boots in the apartment (who knows how long they've been there) and tromped around in those, which caused plenty of laughs on our part.  Gosh, it just feels good to get outside and work every day, no matter what the weather is like. 


José is doing really well. We witnessed the coolest thing this week.  Early in the week, I was reading an article from a Liahona by one of the seventy (Elder Kikuchi or something like that) that talks about the importance of having a morning devotional time...of reading the scriptures and praying and meditating every morning.  He said that that's the formula to open the windows of heaven.  Since José's difficulty has been receiving an answer, we invited him to get up early every morning and read the scriptures at that time, accompanied by prayer and reflection.  And he said he would do it.  And he has done it.  It's incredible the visible change we can see in him...there is a light in his countenance now that wasn't there before.  He is still afraid to accept an invitation to get baptized because he doesn't want to upset his mom, who is sick, as you know, and is not a fan of the church.  But I know he'll come around.  He hesitantly accepted the invitation to get baptized on the 5th of May.  PRAY FOR HIM.

Note:  Jose' did NOT get baptized May 5 because his mother withdrew her permission after pressure from her husband. But...
Saturday was a good day.  We watched "Finding Faith in Christ" with José in Hno. Britez' house, and he really felt the Spirit.  He expressed very openly his desire to be baptized, and he's excited.  It's so wonderful to see his excitement!  His mother said he could be baptized if he wanted to, so that's a miracle.  We want him to talk to her one more time before his baptism to make sure she understands what he's going to do and that he'll be getting baptized this Saturday, because I don't think he told her that he had plans to get baptized this coming Saturday.  But yes, we're excited.
 

We taught José on Tuesday with a young couple in our ward, Linda and Buenaventura Vera.  They are just about the funniest little couple I've ever seen.  I love them.  He's a tall, quiet, humble man who struggles speaking Spanish (he grew up speaking only Guaraní).  She is literally just 4 and a half feet tall, talkative, and sarcastic.  They got married about 6 months ago.  They are faithful, good people.  Right now they're reading the Book of Mormon together as a couple, and she's helping him with his reading skills as they do so.  They bore a sweet testimony a couple of sundays ago about the power of the Book of Mormon.  Anyway, I am straying from the point a little.  We taught José with them, and it was so funny.  José and his family are still working on building their house, and we usually go up to the second level to share with him.  It's beautiful up there...it's unfinished, so you can see the whole block and the trees and the sky, and it's just lovely.  So we climbed up the stairs to share with him, and Linda started having a bit of a panic attack once she got up there.  She clung to her husband during the entire lesson, and when it was time to go, she descended the stairs sitting down.  Oh, how we laughed and laughed!  She was laughing too.  

 
A little description of some food.....um, yuck...
Friday we visited Clara and she taught us how to make mbejú, a typical Paraguayan food.  Wow.  Not diet food at all, that's for sure.  I don't think I'll be making that one for you.  It's just starch, butter, oil, and cheese, all mixed up and cooked in a frying pan.

Friendships formed...
Zone conference was also a neat experience because I was able to see Hna. Paipa. She walked in as we were practicing for the musical number (this was about 20 minutes before the conference started) and just threw her arms around me and started to cry.  "I miss you so much!" she said.  It was a sweet moment.  I'm so grateful my Father in Heaven helped us really learn to love each other those last couple weeks together.  She has changed so much.  She's humble.  At the end of zone conference, President Callan asked each one of us to bear a short testimony (there were about 50 missionaries present), and Hna. Paipa whispered, "I don't want to go up there...please tell me I don't have to go up there and bear my testimony..." but she did, of course, and the Spirit was very strong.  Her health is doing well.  The blessing Pres. Callan gave her that she'd be able to finish her mission strong is taking effect.  I was also able to see Hna. Hubbard, which was also an incredible experience.  I'm surprised at how deeply I love people here--my companions, the members, my investigators.  It's neat. 

Missionaries get to call home on Mother's Day so we got to talk to Kaitlin yesterday. She is so happy and so grateful for the experience she is having. She has 39 days to go! We can't wait until she comes home. She is excited, too, but she is not having a problem staying focused. She is, however, having a little problem speaking English.