Happy 4th from Paraguay

Hola Mom!!!!!

First, sorry that there won`t be any pictures this week because the computers we are using don`t have a place to connect my camera to be able to send pictures, but I will try next week to find one that does. I wanted to thank you for always sending me lots of updates and pictures, I really enjoy reading all that is happening with you and the family, and seeing the pictures too. I`m glad to hear that Dad is okay despite the car accident, the first thing I looked at was the pictures of him in the hospital, but I`m glad nothing major happened. I always keep you guys in my prayers, and I know Heavenly Father is protecting us as a family.

My week was good, not many people came to church, and no investigators either, but Elias, the son of Leonida is very excited for his baptism. He had to get permission from his dad so he went to his house to get his signature and told him his testimony and why he wants to be baptized since his dad was against it. We are also working with a girl named Luz who was a referral from a member, she is going through a tough time in her life.  Her mom and dad recently got separated and she was open to hear more about the church.

The zone conference was the highlight of the week, it was great seeing my old companions and seeing how they are doing and how they have changed.  Also hearing from President Wilson, I always leave the conferences with a new energy to work hard and search for new people to teach! They talked a lot about obedience, because of the mission rules and everything, when we are obedient we are blessed in our work and we will have success.

Hope you guys have a fun 4th of July, I had forgotten all about it until I read today`s date! I`m not sure what I will do here, maybe I`ll make some hot dogs or something haha.  in Paraguay they celebrate their independence in the month of May, but I don`t know if there is a specific day, they mainly just eat a lot of typical food and hang the Paraguay flags up everywhere. Anyways, sorry again for the lack of pictures! Hope you have an awesome week and hope dad is feeling better fast! Can`t wait to hear from you soon!

Rohayhu!

Elder Spiro

New area:Thompson and new comp:Elder Requejo

¿Como esta Mom??????? I hope everything is well, I`m good and getting to know my new area better, my companion`s name is Elder Requejo, he is from Peru and he has about 5-6 months in the mission. He is really animated to work and it helps me to focus more too. The area is more country than my last area, if you want to look up my last area, it was in a city called J. Augusto Saldivar. The houses are pretty much all made of wood panels or tin, and the people are very humble and kind. The church attendance each week is about 50-60 people, and it's mostly all ladies that attend church. Our branch mission leader is really helpful and is preparing to leave for his mission, so he is always going with us to lessons and giving us references.

Right now we are working with a lady named Leonida and her son and daughter Elias and Leila, but Leonida has to get married before she gets baptized, and her boyfriend doesn`t want to hear anything about the church at all, they are attending church and they told us they feel like it's true.

There are a lot of less active members in this area so we are searching for them to help reactivate them and strengthen the branch. Today, we get to go to the temple to clean it again, which will be awesome, and on Wednesday, we will have a zone conference with most of the mission.

Not much else new, just trying to learn more Guarani now and getting to know the members and others in the branch. Hope you guys have a good week, and enjoy your summer, it has been cold here, it's weird to get used to the cold when it's June and July. Thanks for the pictures and emails as always, I will try to take some more pictures of my area and my companion and I, can`t wait to hear from you soon!

Rohayhu!

Elder Spiro

Saying goodbye to some families in Posta Leiva

A baptism and news of a transfer

Hola Mama!

Thanks for the emails and pictures as always, we had a busy week and a quick one too, it is still cold here but during the day the sun is warm, so its only a little cold at nights, but no worries. Today we will find out if we have transfers, so while writing this email I will most likely get the call. I`m glad to hear Dad had a good fathers day, I wanted to send a card but I don`t know in how much time it will get there, because the mission doesn`t send our mail now, we have to search a place in the city to be able to send it.  I got the package of treats you guys sent for Hump Day, and none of them were opened or eaten, so thanks!!!! I will be sure to eat all of them most likely this week.

We also had Celia`s baptism on Saturday, and it went good, we had to wait a little while for a few members to come, but in the end it all turned out well.  I had the privilege of baptizing her, she had been waiting a long time for her baptism.  She has a brother on the mission, and she had been living with her boyfriend before, so they had to get married but he didn`t want to, but recently she got separated from him. She is really excited to learn more though, she always shows us what she has been reading in The Book of Mormon and the gospel principles book we gave her.

Everything else has been good, we are working hard and Oliver came to church yesterday. He is a really humble guy and always goes with his friends who are members to visit other less active members after church which is super awesome.

Well I just got the call and I will be leaving the area, I will be going to an area called Thompson, I think its close to here, I will be senior companion to an Elder that has about 6 months in the mission, so we`ll see how that goes. Next week I`ll tell you more but I`m excited for the new area! Hope to hear from you soon and thanks for everything!

Rohayhu!

Elder Spiro

Alex's district

Quidditch?

I have no idea what's happening in these pictures but it looks like they are having a blast :)

Celia's baptism

Week of 6/13/16

Hey Mom!

Gracias for the emails and pictures. Looks like you guys had a fun time at SeaWorld, that sounds pretty crazy sleeping next to the tanks. I am doing good, we have been working hard and we will have a baptism this Saturday the 18th. It is for a lady named Celia, the two teenage girls weren`t able to attend church this weekend so we will be planning for a different Saturday, but they are still progressing! We also had another investigator named Oliver that come to church, he is friends with a few members so they had been inviting him. All is good though, Celia is really excited and she has been inviting a lot of people this past week.

Silvio unfortunately moved last week to a different city, but we encountered another investigator with the same situation, he is working on his addiction to alcohol. He expressed his desire on Saturday to attend church and to change his habits, but he didn`t come to church and we passed by on Sunday and he was drunk with a friend that was at his house. But it's alright, we just need to be patient and diligent in working with him.

I forgot to add in my past email that we ate pig head. The Aguayo family invited us and the other missionaries. It wasn`t bad at all, just a little slimy, but the taste was really good, and I would eat it again. We also performed some service this past week, which was nice. I can`t remember the last time we had a service project, we always offer but usually nobody takes us up on it.

This will be the last week of this transfer, so next Monday I will let you know if I am changed or not, or if I have a new companion. Thanks again for your email and I hope you guys get home safe and have a great week! Can`t wait to hear from you soon!

Rohayhu!

Elder Spiro

A service project, apparently moving a large cabinet from one house to another

Adventurous eating 6/6/16

Hey Mom, 

It's strange to hear of the heat because its still pretty cold here, and no worries about the sweaters, I can always buy one here if I need another one.

We had a bit of a tough week to be honest, most of our investigators are females, and we always need a man that is 18 or older to be able to teach them. None of the members were able to help this week, so that resulted in lots of walking and contacting.  I can see how obedience brings blessings, because we had an old investigator named Celia who came to church on Sunday.  She wasn`t able to be baptized before because she was living with her boyfriend and they had to get married for her to be baptized, but he didn`t want anything to do with the church. They got separated about a month ago, and she now just lives with her kids. We passed by after church and she accepted a baptism date for the 18th of June.

The other two girls we were teaching had to live with their grandma in a different city for a week because their Mom is having her baby and she is in the hospital. We haven`t been able to find Silvio to teach him, he is always away from his house (hopefully not with bad influences).

My talk was about commitment, mainly focusing on the covenants we have made and being faithful. I used a lot of quotes from the book you guys sent me. Not much else new, we are about 2 weeks away from transfers again and I would like to stay in the area.  It's a bit difficult at times, but I`m learning a lot and I`m grateful for the trials I have had.

Hope you have a good week, and enjoy the heat haha, sounds like you will have fun in San Diego. Thanks for the pictures and emails as always! Hope to hear from you soon! Love you!

Rohayhu!

Elder Spiro

Getting ready to enjoy pig's head for dinner!

He said it was delicious

"a funny 'tree for sale' sign"

Beautiful picture of his area

Making soup from a recipe book we sent him

Semana de 5/30/16

Hey Mom! Thanks for the emails and pictures and updates! The P90x didn`t work but I will try to download it again and see if I can format it or something. The videos didn`t work for some reason either, but I`m sure the concert was awesome!

A normal week in the mission, we didn`t have any investigators and a lot of the members didn`t come either, it wasn`t raining or anything just cold. I also had a talk in sacrament meeting that went better than I thought it would. Speaking has gotten a lot easier for me now than before, I looked down at my watch at the end of my talk and I had been talking for 15 min too, when it felt like only 5 min. 

We have been working with 2 teenage girls that attended church with a member, and their Mom is also a member, less active. They weren`t able to attend church this week though because their Mom had her her baby, so hopefully everything went well, we haven`t been able to talk to them in a few days. We invited them to be baptized for the 18th of June, and they accepted, we just need to help them keep progressing and maintain the spirit that they have been feeling.

We have also been working with a man named Silvio who has attended church 2 times, and we have been teaching him very simply because he doesn`t understand much Spanish. The other night we were visiting another member who lives next door to Silvio, and we heard a dog barking so we went to look what he was barking at and we found Silvio passed out on his porch from drinking, so we went and woke him up and helped him into his bed. He told us he felt bad about not going to church that Sunday, and he remembered what we told him, that he needs to put in his part if he wants to work on his addictions. So we are going to work hard with him and help him. 

Not much else new, no worries about sending clothes Mom, I have 2 sweaters that I use, and a member helped us find some more white shirts with long sleeves. On Pday, we wear white shirts and ties like all the other days, the only time we really can change is if we are playing soccer or we have a service activity. Thanks for the email again Mom, hope you guys had fun camping and all the family is doing good too! Say hi to the Allbees for me! 

Rohayhu!

Elder Spiro

Cooler Weather 5/23/16

Sorry if my email is missing a few c´s because this keyboard is not very great. But its good to hear from you as always, and its crazy to see the pictures from Abby´s graduation! She looks so grown up haha. I had a good week, we had a zone training this week and I learned some good stuff, I was thinking a lot about the mission rules this week because they just gave us a new rule that we can only wear white shirts with long sleeves, and I was a little frustrated, but I learned that a lot of the times we need to be obedient even when we don`t know why or what the outcome will be, especially with the mission rules. We also had the mission president and his wife come to our house, because the mission president now does his interviews in our apartments, so that was kind of weird but cool. We cleaned a lot before they showed up so luckily there was no problems haha. 

We also had 3 investigators come to church this week, the little girl (Delci) that didn`t get baptized came to church again, but we decided that we are going to baptize her when she has a responsible adult to go to church with her, because we want to make sure she stays active. We are also working with the girl that wants to get married and baptized, but she lives really far from the church and they only can walk, and its a little cold and they have a young baby, so we are helping them to attend church and read the Book of Mormon and pray as a family. 

Everything is good, I enjoy the cold weather to be honest, so hopefully it stays this way for a while. To answer your question, sometimes we have to take a collectivo to attend church but we normally walk. Hopefully this week will be good too, thanks for all the emails you sent, I was only able to see the pictures though but I think the P90x works. Hope you have a great week and have fun camping! Can`t wait to hear from you soon!

Rohayhu!

Elder Spiro

Elder Spiro and another Elder in his zone (no name given!)

Zone Conference