Email: Week#45 in Paraguay

It was a really good Christmas. We had dinner with the family Vera. Pretty much everyone here celebrates Christmas by eating a toooon of meat. We ate a ton, pretty much everyone says the same thing. They eat super late too, like at midnight or 11.

I also called about my package, and it arrived there, I bet it got there awhile ago, they just werent able to go to the post office for a bit. So I am excited!!

On Christmas day, we went over to the stake center and gathered together as a zone, like I told you already. We sung hymns to everyone in the hospital and then had a super nice dinner and SKYPED!!! That was super awesome, it just went by waaaaay too fast...

So this Monday we had a SUPER awesome baptism. It was a couple that were just so awesome that got baptized. My companion and I each baptized one, so that was really awesome!

So we found this really cool guy on Tuesday named Ovidio. He has a Book of Mormon from 2003, but he is really interested and is a really cool guy.Then, we also got to visit Inocencia. She is a super old woman who lost her eye (so one is blue and other is brown) and we foudn that she got baptized a while ago, but doesnt remember a single thing!

On Wednesday, we visited Everisto Rios, he is like the nicest guy I have ever met. We always feel super happy. Everytime we visit him he starts crying and says he is so happy that we took the time with him to share the word of God. He got in an accident and so he cant walk very much... so opa su asistencia to church. Then, we went to share with Mari Fernandez. She is a less active that we have been working with a lot, but just cant get her to come to church! BUt we met her daughter and she has interest in getting baptized! Today we are going to visit her again and have a Family Home Evening and make pancakes!!!!!

Thursday is Christmas... which I told already :)

Friday, we did weekly planning and it was a hard day, we had to scrape around to get some lessons that day. Later, we did some mission coordination with our leader.

Saturday was super awesome, six lessons! We first started to contact and we found a less active (that like no one knew about...)! She is 17 and doesnt go only because she doesnt have any friends. Then, we got another few contacts and found Ruben and Marcos. They were super tranquil guys who were super receptive to the lesson and willing to be baptized if they knw this church was true. But the best lesson we had was the last one. We taught Pedro, out golden investigator (who went to church again!!!!) and taught him the importance of getting married. Now he is going to pray about whether and when to get married to get baptized! He is super awesome and wants to get baptized.

Well... hope you enjoyed my week! Talk to all later! Rohayyyyhu!

Elder Crandall

Email: Week#44 in Paraguay

Hi!

Things are going pretty good. We had a pretty fun week this week. It is super crazy that Christmas is here, it really just doesn't seem like that at all here.

For Christmas, we are going to have a Zone Activity and I think that we are going to a children's hospital to sing to them and then play some games a zone or something like that.

So this week was really cool. We had a dinner for Christmas with our ward, and it was really cool. We had a ton of people come to that and it was like a huge dinner. It was full of food too because everyone brought something, so it was really fun to hang with everyone in the ward!

We also have a baptism later today for the hermanas, so it will be super awesome. Also, this week we went to the Christmas Devotional last night. It was really good, but it ended super late, after 9 o clock, and by then there were like no buses running! So our district got home like suuuper late around 10.30 because the Stake President took so long talking in the meeting before the devotional.

So as far as our top investigator, Pedro, he wasn't able to come to church last Sunday because he was working. But anyway, there is a huge problem with him. He needs to get married, but his girlfriends mom is highly against it. The thing is that they live with the mom, and she wont let them, so we need to find some way to let that happen, because Pedro really loves learning and wants to get baptized.

Anyway, a pretty good week, we found some pretty cool people!

Love, Elder Crandall

Elder Crandall has been working on his tan!..for his arms at least haha

Email: Week#43 in Paraguay

Hi,

Everything is going good. Today we had a game with all the missionaries that we played together at the church. Then, we went out to KFC that was just recently opened!

It is super crazy to think that Christmas is coming up, it doesnt seem like it. Some people put up Christmas lights on their houses, but not that many. Here in Paraguay, they just have a huge dinner super late. They gift presents on January 6, which is the day of the 3 kings..

So this week we lost some time looking for a ciber during the holiday. I didnt know it would be that bad, but everything was closed! For that holiday a lot of people walk to another city for like 12 hours straight! It is crazy.

this week was a super good week. We had the Zone Conference this week and it was pretty cool. I learned some stuff from the President. After, I had splits with the Zone Leaders, and that was fun. One of my Zone Leaders is Elder Day from Gilbert, so closeby. We have been working a lot lately with Christian, Pedro, Victor, and Gregorio. We have been trying to get them all to come to church, we went and passed by Pedro and VIctors house Sunday morning, but they both made excuses to not come. Then, when sacrament meeting was almost over, Pedro came in with his family! It was super awesome because he really seemed like he didnt want to come when we had asked him. 

Christian is an investigator, whose spouse is a less active, Gloria. She is diagnosed with cancer and so she doesnt go to church much now because she feels bad a lot. This Wednesday she is going to find out how serious it is. If it goes bad, she said she is going to give up on life, so if you can please pray for her because she really needs help and is an awesome person. We have been teaching her two kids who are super excited to hear us now.

Pedro is the one who went to church, and he is the boyfriend of a less active too. We get along super well. He wants to learn and loves hearing from us. He needs to get married to get baptized, is all, but his mominlaw (who he lives with) is totally against him and his daughter getting married, so it is kinda complicated, we arent sure what to do.

Victor is some crazy guy we found the first day. We had an awesome lesson with him, but then could never find him again, so we left him. We just found him yesterday and it was awesome. He couldnt come yesterday to church because he had a lot of tooth pain and didnt sleep at all the night before. He is super smart and even knows a lot of English, so during the lessons he always says a bunch of phrases and words in English haha.

Gregorio was a guy we just barely found, but he is cool. He realizes that he needs to go to church and be rebaptized the correct way. I dont know much about him, but he seems like a perfect investigator. He couldnt come because he was in the hospital with his sobrino.

THat is basically it, but life is all good, crazy to almost hit a year! And I will send some pictures depending on if the other missionaries that ook them will send them :P

Elder Crandall :)

Email: Week#42 in Paraguay

Hi,

I wasnt able to write yesterday because they had a holiday yesterday in Paraguay to celebrate a virgin, so everything... literally everything was closed all day! So we tried again in the morning and there was no internet, so we finally found a place to write.

It has not been raining that often lately, we hav been pretty dry, but Paraguay has the craziest storms I have ever seen. It is really weird because sometimes it goes from totally uncloudy to a huge rain storm in 1 hour. But my clothes do get super soaked, but I have enough coats and stuff, the only problem is that I lost my umbrella, but I at least have my coat to help.

I have eaten just about every single Paraguayan food. My comp and I have been eating more creative stuff like making pizzas, soups, and other stuff. My companion is from Ukiah, California and he is 6'4.

This week was super awesome because we found some super awesome people to teach. Some of those people were just so willing to accept the invitation to get baptized, we just need to work with them that they come to church. We were able to find some golden investigators this week!

But sorry I dont have much time to write today because we couldnt write yesterday!

Love you and talk to you later!

Elder Crandall

Email: Week#41 in Paraguay

Hi!

We didn't really celebrate Thanksgiving at all haha, but it is all good.  I have a year and 2 weeks left and opa la mision.  They also haven't said anything about skyping yet, but they usually do like 1 or 2 weeks before we can do it. I need to decide what day would be better, I think it would be cool to do it on Christmas day.

The area I am in now is called Anahi (Ann - i - e). It is in a really big town called Capiata. It is starting to get super hot here now! The summer is beginning. The weather here is super crazy now. The storms in Paraguay are not normal. Like it will be the biggest rain storm you have ever seen in your life and then 1 hour later there are no clouds in the sky. That is how it is all the time, it is really weird. My area is really small too! I can walk from one end to the other in 15 minutes! Most areas take at least an hour.

We had a really successful week. We found some really awesome people in the area to start teaching. We started contacting a lot because we didn't have anyone, but got some luck... or really the spirit really helped us to find people. We have some neat contacts and were able to get a lot of lessons this week. The best thing that happened was that we put a fecha on Derlis for January 10th.! He is a super smart and awesome kid. He knows a ton already and we like barely even have to teach him. He is busy with commitments some Sundays but this Sunday we will try to lock him down early!

Paraguayans are really funny sometimes because once they see you they usher you to come in and sit down but they have never shared with missionaries or ever heard of our church before. So one time we were walking down the street and this woman said hello really friendly and said come in, come in! So it is kinda cool but funny that a lot of people do that. We have had that happen a few times.

Yesterday was really neat because the sisters had a baptism and it turned out super well. I really enjoyed it. And we also have changes coming up and I am preeetty sure that we will be staying together, but who knows...

I guess that is it. I totally cannot remember what happened this week and neither my companion haha. But today was a pretty fun Pday. We went to this random museum that we found and then went to McDonalds and later found this crazy huge Catholic church.

But yeah and here are some pics..

 

Love,

Elder Crandall :)

Email: Week#40 in Paraguay

Hi,

We haven't had much success with Adan this week, but we talked to the Sanchez family again. The dad wants to start coming back now. He realized how much better his life was when he was going to church, but now the thing is that we just need them to get to coming to church! But we are trying to start working with the youth to befriend the young kids to help them want to come... but the key is really the Dad, Valentin.

So something else super awesome is that we were talking with a less active, Everisto, and then his nephew came over to his house. We talked to him and set a visit with him later. In the lesson last week we found out that he wants to get baptized! So the next visit tomorrow we are going to put a baptismal date and see how that goes. But he is super ready and I am super glad that we were able to find him!

So something weird that happened this week was on Wednesday. We found this family contacting and asked if they were members because they knew a lot of stuff and they said no that they never were baptized. Then, the next visit we challenged them to be baptized and they said they never were! It was kinda awkward afterwards... but basically no one knows them so we are a bit suspicious because we haven't found their records.

We also found someone super awesome this week. His name is Wilson. We found him contacting and he then just invited us to sit down so we talked and taught him a bit and he has desires to learn more... just that he works a LOT and isn't home very often.

And also on Sunday we did visits with the ward, and that was super cool. This ward is really cool, like once a month they all gather together and do visits together and see all the less actives.

AND YES I GOT MY PACKAGE! Thank you so much for that! It was super awesome.

(I have proof here)

Email: Week#39 in Paraguay

Hi,

Things are going super good now. It is starting to get super hot here now because the summer is coming up. Now that I am back in the field full time, I am getting sun burnt a lot now. Before, I only left at night, so it never even could have happened.

This week was like a super long week! It finally came to an end. On Tuesday, we had the Zone Conference... but I had it again for the second time! Because I had it in my old area and then I got switched and had it again... but it was all good! So this week wasn't that exciting, we are still trying to get to know the area since we are doing a whitewash. So my companion came into the area, then two days later his companion got sick and went to the hospital and then I came. So neither of us know like anyone to go teach. BUT, we started a big project with the ward, and that was to animate all the members to visit the menos activos. We decided to share Mark 2:1-5 about bringing others to Christ. It may be hard, but we have to work hard. We are visiting the members and sharing this and all of them are super animated to start working now with the less actives. We are like assigning them to visit certain people and bring them to church. We think it will work super well!

Hmm... we also did a service project to dig a really big hole to put earth in another spot,. so that was fun, we are going to come back some other day this week to finish. Also, we found this one cool guy named Adan (Adam). He doesnt believe in the idea of having religion, so at first we thought ahh man... he is not going to believe anything, but we later found out that he really just believes in god and all but doesnt believe in the conecept of religion. It was really interesting to talk to him because we just exchanged a bunch of Bible Verses to explain our lesson, he was totally accepting of it... unlike some Catholics haha.

So we had this super strange lesson yesterday. There is a recent convert in the area, and so we visited her and started to teach her from the Book of Mormon, only to find out that she leftin the middle to start smoking and then through out a rage on the Book of Mormon. She now hates the Book of Mormon and thinks that it is a lie... so she turned super apostate. Then we asked her about her Baptism to make her happy again and then took advantage and left with a prayer haha.

So we tried so many times during the week to try to find the Sanchez family and yesterday we finally found them! After being so dang persistent... we got them. We are trying to focus on the father more, because we think that he is the key to getting them all toward baptism, but he is a hard man to find!

So that is what we are working on basically... talk to you next week!

Email: Week#38 in Paraguay

Hi! 

Things are doing super super super good! So as you know that my news is that I am now OUT OF THE OFFICE! I am now a free man and I have never been so much happier! I am now with Elder Eaquinto... my first real american companion! But things are just super awesome. My new area is called Anahi, Barrio 1. I love the area so much we have been working so hard and I just love it. I have never had so much motivation to work so much at one time. So we have been getting to know the ward a bit, but my companion has 2 weeks in the area and half was in the hospital! I left to Anahi because a missionary got really sick so I replaced him.

I am super happy now! I have never been so motivated to work. The first day we got there I was so motivated to contact that we got 40 contacts in one day! ANahi is such an amazing area and I am so happy to be here. I really have grown a lot in the mission, as a person.

We recently just found a family that wants to get baptized here! THey are the family Sanchez. He stopped going to church when his wife left him, but his kids never got baptized. So we had a lesson witht he family, and it honestly was the best lesson that I have ever taught in my entire mission! ... Elder Eaquinto says the same. We were so blessed by the spirit to visit this family and find them. Somehow, we just clicked so well with them and it was amazing, I really just wanted to cry because we were so blessed by the Lord.

This ward is just so awesome. I love the people, and I have already grown to love the people and the area. We have found some really promising contacts. We are doing pretty good since we started basically with a whitewash! Both my companion and I are getting to know the area.

So I cant write toooo much because we got home late from all the special changes of me moving areas!!

But I will inform you well next week... Love you!

Elder Crandall

Email: Week#37 in Paraguay

Hi

 Missionary moms is a really funny page. it is weird because all of the moms are becoming friends on facebook and starting to do things together like go out to lunch or see each other.One american sister that lives nearby came over and gave us some candy... but we didn't get to do much :P. The people here think that Halloween is super funny that everyone can just get a ton of candy. I am super excited to head out of the office to work more. It is planned on happening in 4.5 weeks, but you never know for sure, something crazy could happen.

Today was a pretty fun Pday. We first went and bought stuff, then we went out to Shangrila. It is this chinese buffet. It costs a lot, but is honestly some of the best food that I have ever eaten in my life. It was super good. So I took advantage of the buffet and had 4 plates of food... haha. Then, we played some ping pong for a while and now have just started to write. So i will send you a picture of us at that one restaurant.

So the stuff cool this week was that we had a lesson with Hermano Cabral. I was in the area for a long time until I got to know him, but he is actually super cool. The thing is that he was in an accident, that his truck rolled over and he was in the hospital for a while. Now he wants to come to church now, but he is in a lot of pain now, but he wants to come especially to have his new baby blessed, but he is really cool. I also found some really awesome people contacting. We were walking past this guardia and I just passed by, but I felt like I should contact him, so after we knocked on a few doors, I headed back over to him and started talking to him. He said he never met missionaries before, but really thought it was really neat and had 0 problem having them come over. It is really neat when you get to find references to pass like that!

Marcelo is also doing super good now! We were able to see him a few times and now he is coming to church and it is so awesome! He said that he just feels soo good when he comes now and that he wants to start coming all the time now.

Anyway, so now that there is 4 missionaries in Mburucuya, it is super hard. Like I am with Elder Ramos training him, and my old comp is training the new Financiero too, so there are 4... but now my area is suuuuper small and it is hard to work. We have to contact a lot and work with old investigators more. But it is all good, I am getting to know the area super well!

Email: Week#36 in Paraguay

So... super big news from me! To make things short, I am going to leave the office! Well, kind of... So I got changes last Wednesday and found out that I am getting my replacement, Elder Ramos. I am going to train him how to be the new Cartero (Mailman) and then I will be going off to a new area and back as a full time missionary. I am not sure where I am going yet or how long I will be training, but it is here now. So the current plan is to stay for 6 weeks, the whole transfer, but crazy things could happen. Now I am just excited to get back out into the field and work full time again. I didn´t get put into the office for like 7 or 8 months like some other office Elders, but I know for sure that it is because someone needs me out in the field. Before the changes, I felt like I might get changes, and I didn´t really want to leave, so I knelt down and gave a heartfelt prayer that whatever thing would happen, that it would be HIS will, not any man, but by his will alone. And well... that really helped me to be ready for this change coming. Elder Ramos is super awesome and I am busy training him all day.

So this week was a super fun week because we went around helping all the new guys coming in the mission. I went off to the airport to pick up the new missionaries, where I saw Justin Garner. It was pretty cool. So I had a good time with the newbies, it was a lot of fun. I also was super busy getting ready for transfers coming up and preparing everything for the next day, so I was super busy. We never actually got out to work on Monday or Tuesday because I was so busy, but it was a really good two days. Ah, so also something cool is that Elder Turley is going to train Elder Garner.

So on Thursday we had a super cool lesson with Bartolomeo. It was super neat. I really like working with Elder Ramos, we get along a lot better. He enjoyed the first lesson we taught him and then he accepted the baptismal invitation. We are planning on seeing him again today. Also, we had a super awesome lesson this week. We went over to visit Hermana Vicenta, but she wasn´t home, so we started talking to her son Christian. He is super cool, but he talks SO MUCH! It was kinda funny though. But we had a super awesome lesson about faith, repentance, and baptism with him, and he enjoyed it. He also said that he had no problem going to church on Sunday, that he would call us before he gets there so we can be outside waiting, so that would be awesome if he were to come!

Pues, eso es todo. Nos vemos despues!

Love Elder Crandall

Email: Week#35 in Paraguay

Today was just a bad day... I just woke up this morning super sick, so I have been sleeping like all day.

So I found out that one of the speakers that spoke in Spanish for General Conference was actually the bishop in the ward I am in now like 20 years ago! That is really neat, I thought. I am in the middle of Asuncion, the capital, so the houses in this area are super nice. We ate with them before General Conference.

So this last week was prettty good. On Tuesday, we had our reunion de districto. So the cool two visits we had today where with Alberto Medina. He really has never been going to church despite all the times we invited him and he said he would go. So we had a lesson to bajar la caña to him! But I started to teach the lesson after the prayer, and somehow the spirit lead me to say something else, and we started a lesson on true obedience and attending church, but a lesson with love. He told us that he wanted to start going again, and said his true desire was really to come back, so we told him that we could pass by his house Sunday and accompany him... and he told us no. He wanted to start going for himself now, and he was going to esforzarse, but we are going to see him again today.

So something crazy is when we did divisions with the Zone Leaders... but man, those guys really know how to teach. They are just some of the best in the mission. We only worked 5 hours that day, but still got 5 lessons that day! It was crazy. We visited an investigator, who is the brother of a recent convert, and had a lesson with them, then we visited the house next door and contacted, they were justo his aunts! So we had a super awesome lesson with them, and it was a really good one, people that we definitely are going to visit again. So then, we went down the street and taught another lesson, some joven who wasn't sure if God existed, so we gave him the way to find out for himself, because you can't force anyone to believe anything, that is something really important to remember. It was really funny because after the lesson, we found out he was the dad of someone who was in the last lesson we taught! So another relative of our recent convert... haha.

But this week has been super good, we will be super busy the next week for all the new missionaries coming in! I am going to the airport to meet all the new missionaries.

Love you guys and talk to you later!

PS These pictures are of our last district meeting this change (the hermana on the left is from Arizona too!) and then we took a picture before Elder Billings left the office.

Email: Week#34 in Paraguay

I had a less active week last week because of Conference. I could have watched them in English, but for me I have enough time that I can watch it in Spanish and understand it igual. The only thing is that it is I miss the same voices in English that I am used to hearing haha. But Conference was just so super amazing! It honestly was like the best thing ever, I really enjoyed it and it sure helped me a lot.

But so this week was super amazing! It honestly was one of the best weeks. Normally, our numbers aren't like the best because we are in the office and don't get to leave very often, but we had SO MUCH SUCCESS! It was honestly to amazing to see our area grow. I started this area in a whitewash, so we started with basically nothing.

On Tuesday, we were able to find David. He is super awesome, he told us that he shared with the missionaries when he was super young, but never found contact with them again. So he was interested that we could come in and teach him. We started to teach about The Plan of Salvation, and how that he could one day come to see his grandma that had recently passed away, as he told us. He enjoyed the lesson a lot, only that he had a ton of questions. But, por fin, we found someone that was able to easily understand what we taught so we taught a little deeper in the lesson. He is a super awesome guy. He accepted the baptismal challenge, and is interested in learning more.

We also were able to find another awesome investigator that we have been trying to meet with for months. For some reason, there just were a lot of problems, like we would fail or he wouldn't be home when we had a cita with him. But we finally found him this week! It turned out to be a super awesome lesson, honestly, he loves to talk. He talked for most of the time we were there haha. But he is a really sincere guy that told us he loves reading the BoM and is already sure that it is true. He really does want to get baptized, but he has a hard time attending church because he is a guard for a house, so he has no set schedule and is set to work on a lot of Sundays. He has trouble with that, but he really wants to come. We are going to work with him that he can come as many Sundays as possible, because he really wants to get baptized. It honestly was super awesome to find him... we almost gave up on him, but I just wanted to keep trying, and we were rewarded.

Yesterday, was really a super awesome day too. We got a reference to teach a family, the family Jimenez. They really were super awesome to go meet. We only taught the mom, because she was working during the lesson, but he really is a sincere guy. He spoke with the missionaries  before, and knows a lot. He told us he already knows the church and BoM is true, but didn't baptize because he lost contact with the missionaries because of a whitewash and change of Mission President a year ago. So we taught him L1 and he is awesome! Then, his wife came from work a little after we finished and then they drove us over to the church, and we showed the wife a tour of the church, who had never attended before. It was super awesome, and we expect to have quite a bit of investigators in church this week!

Things might be super hard in your area sometimes, but never stop working or contacting, the Lord will bless you in the time and WILL put people in the way that are ready to hear.

Rohayhu!

Elder Crandall

Email: Week#33 in Paraguay

So this week was super good. I don't have much time to write today, because we have General Conference today like all day and it will be a bit of a pain to return back from the stake center to do ciber... idk if we will or not. But it is alright because General Conference is super awesome! On Monday, I did a division with Elder Billings and we weren't able to get a lesson out, but we found a lot of super awesome contacts... but it still was a good day.

The next day, we found Leonardo and had a super awesome lesson with him. It was a super interesting experience, we first went to teach about prophets, but he was really against it and thought it wasn't true, so it turned out to be a lesson that the spirit wasn't in because it was a lot of contention. BUT... I just started to testify that if he really wanted to know that what we say is true he needs to read, if he really is willing to know, he will let the Lord know that he is willing to do whatever thing posible to learn. The mood of the room really changed and you could tell the Spirit was with me. It was really neat to see the difference. Then, my companion decided to tell him to say the last prayer to leave. He prayed... sincerely to know if what we were teaching was his will... and it was just super sincere, like he really did want to know. BUT JUSTO, his neighbor was calling his name like 10 times to ask him something, so it hurt the spirit a bit, but after the prayer, he just stood there, kneeling. It was kinda unexpected, but he definitely felt something there, like 10 seconds after the prayer, he didn't move. It was one of the most interesting lessons I have ever had before in my mission. The difference of having the spirit in the lesson really makes a difference, that we can know what to say to open the hearts of others, is really just super amazing.

Wednesday we were able to have a lesson with Marcelo about being more sincere in his prayers, that he could keep up reading and praying, because he stopped doing that. Then, we also had a lesson with a menos activo, which was Hno Vasquez. He is a really funny guy to talk to. We taught him about having his faith grow like a seed (alma 32) and he needs to nourish it like going to church and such. It was awesome because he said he would be able to go to conference... but we will see.

Thursday the highlight was a lesson with Jose Gomez and his wife Antonia. They are both less active members, but super awesome. Antonia has a bit of a hard time remembering things that we teach, so we have to teach at a super slow pace, but she is progressing :). We retaught her about prophets and Christ's time on the earth, so that she can understand it well.

Yesterday, we went over to Marcelo's house in the morning to do service with him. We helped him clean his lawn, and man... his lawn is like super huge! It took us a while to get it all, but we eventually got it. It has been so long since I have done yard work, so it was good to get into the habit again haha. But, after we finished we sat and talked with him for a bit and then his mom came out and she talked to us too. We then got invited to eat lunch with them! So that was super awesome. We had lunch with him, his mom, and grandma (all 3 live together). So remember that marcelo is the one that can't get baptized for his mom, right? Well, today was super awesome because we were able to gain some confidence with his mom and grandma, and we became super good friends with Marcelo too! :)

Then, we did a division with the Zone Leaders. I stayed in Mburucuya with Elder Page, and my comp went off to another area. We first visited Marcelo again, and taught him the importance of doing all the little things and keep Obedience in all things. It was a super awesome lesson, and it was good to keep him going on. After, we were able to find Juan Castillo, who was a cool contact we found one day. We asked to come in and share and so we shared about the BoM with him and explained it to him. He is super neat, and so I decided to read 3 Nephi 11 with him to explain the coming of Christ. Then, we challenged him to pray about what we left him. It was a pretty good lesson with him.

So today... we have GENERAL CONFERENCE! I am super excited. We raelly hope that some of our investigators can come, or some of our less actives we invited. It would be super awesome.

Well... that's my week! Love you and talk to you next week!

Email: Week#32 in Paraguay

Hi.

Things are super good. Today was a good day, but you may find what we did a bit weird... but we went to a chair museum. It's kinda that one random thing that you do just because. But it actually was really interesting. I thought it was cool to see all the different designs and everything. So then, we went out to Dominos Pizza, they just barely opened up here and it just happens to be sorta close to the office, so we went there... and their crust is like super good, it was awesome. Now, we are just emailing and chilling now.

I got 3 letters last week, and they were from Grandma, Monte, and the Carpenters. They were all super awesome and made me happy to see those. And I was super amazed to hear that the PHX temple was almost done, I like never heard anything about it like I heard a lot about the Gilbert Temple while being built.

But this week was a pretty good week. We had a super sick visit with Jose Gomez (a less active) and his wife and daughter. We never taught them all 3 before, but she is like super cool. We definitely are excited for her to continue on in the gospel. She definitely has support because her dad and daughter are both members that we want to reactivate now. We taught her the restoration but she keeps saying we need to be patient with her while teaching haha. After, we were able to visit Leonardo. He is this super cool 16 year old kid we found who just suddenly became super interested in what we were teaching. We have been working with him lately and he is a super awesome guy. But after, we taught Claudio about obedience and it was a super good lesson. He has a moto shop in front of his house, and a ton of people go there, so we always find some super awesome references to pass on.

So... the 'funny' thing that happened this week was that I slipped on a banana peel while leaving the church... haha. It was pretty funny. I never thought that it would be so bad as it was really. I thought I just stepped on something and but I just kept falling. :P 

Then, another cool lesson we got in this week was with Bartolomeo. He was a contact from the assistants. We just finally contacted him, and he ended up being like the coolest person ever. he really enjoyed the story of when Christ came to the Americas. He was totally imagining it while we were having him read verse by verse of Chapter 11, it was kinda funny to see. He is a super chill guy, but the only problem is that he needs to work on the Palabra de Sabiduria and then we think he is kinda set to progress as he learns and reads poco a poco.

But that is pretty much the highlights of my week. So here is a photo of the Zone Activity we did last week.

Email: Week#31 in Paraguay

Hi!

It was a super good birthday. We started off in the morning when Elder Harris made us some chocolate pancakes! They were like super good, especially because it has been so long since I have eaten it. It is crazy that i am 20 now, I know... haha. I only got the 2 letters that you guys sent, but I haven't been able to go to the mail place in some time now, but it was super awesome to read those letters.

I went on a bus to my old area, really. But, it was like super cool to be able to do that. They knew I was coming because I called them before to make sure that they would be there. 

So this week was a pretty cool week. We had a pretty nice meeting on Sunday, and then after we went off to visit a few people. One of the lessons was to drop cane on one of our recent converts because we found out he was living with his wife, so we taught him the law of chastity that he can't do that no more! We are working with him to get a goal to divorce his other wife and save money to get married again. After, we went out to visit Leonardo, a young guy who we found. He is super cool, and we were able to have a really awesome lesson with him about praying to know if the lesson we teach is true. He is really an awesome guy and we think he really could progress.

On Monday, we had a zone activity. We work in the office, but we still got to hang out at lunch. It was super fun to get to know the zone and hang out with them for a bit. One of the hermanas found out that my birthday was coming up, so she made the whole zone sing happy birthday to me... haha. It was neat.

Then, later in the week I did a division with Elder Valenzuela. We went over to visit the family Bueno to have a noche de hogar with them, but it turned out they were kinda busy so we just taught a little lesson on prayer. After, we went to visit the Meza family and taught an investigator at their house. She is the girlfriend of their son, so  we think she can progress pretty well in the gospel, but the elders there are afraid that she will only baptize for her boyfriend, no mas.

Thursday, we had a super cool day. We first visited Marcelo, and then after teaching him, he went to teach some lessons with us!! It was super crazy, because that usually never happens. We were able to visit the Vasquez family and also we talked with Erik, who is a futuro misionero, si o si. It was a super aewsome day, and Marcelo is definitely going to get baptized when he turns 18 and give himself permission to get baptized in January... I hope to be there for that!

And so... my birthday was pretty awesome. It was a fun day to wake up and have everyone say it. But we started off, as I said earlier with an awesome breakfast. Then, we got to the office and Hna Fuller, the nurse got us a big lunch. We ate some beans and rice, but basically a mexican meal. It was awesome, but we also had some cake! It was a super awesome day. Some people called me and sung happy birthday to me haha. 

Love, Elder Crandall.

Email: Week#30 in Paraguay

Hi,

Things are super good. I had a super awesome week and today was the best. 

It is crazy that it is my birthday on Friday, it is also someone else's birthday in the offices on Sunday, so we are both celebrating on Saturday, it will be super fun. 

But about my week, so this Sunday was super crazy. We had a ton of people come up, more than usual. Then, randomly, about 20 people walked in 15 minutes late that no one knew. It turned out the Mission President from Uruguay came with a bunch of missionaries and so we had a huge attendance haha. It was cool, I asked him about Chase, but he said he finished a few years ago, but his name is President Peterson.

We had all the new people come on Tuesday, and they are all super cool. It was a lot of fun with them, we went to a baptism later for the assistants with them, so that was super neat. It was neat to hang out with them and get to know them all. The next day, we had changes, and it was super crazy. I got up at 4.30 to prepare for it all. We were all just totally exhausted, though. It was super tiring, and we are glad that it was over haha, but it went over super well. We got a new office Elder too, the old one is training a new one right now, his name is Elder Harris, and he is really cool.

So today, Elder Monzon and I, we went over to my old area to visit some people there. It was like the funnest time ever. We visited the Del Puerto family and had lunch with them. It was like super weird to be in my old area again after so long. But it was super cool to see them again because they are like my favorites. Then, we visited the family Cano again, and it was super awesome to see them again, and then after them was the family Gonsalez. By then, time was already acabado (over).  So we went back here to write, but it was the coolest thing ever to visit everyone again because i just got along so well with those people in my area and it was the best to see them again.

Elder Crandall

So I heard that there were some like record rain over there? What is that all about?

Email: Week#29 in Paraguay

Hi!

This week was not the most eventful. We were stuck in the office for a few days doing office stuff.

Sunday, we had Stake Conference, which was pretty cool. It was super awesome because one of our investigators, Marcelo, was able to come and he really enjoyed it. Also, we had one of our menos activos come who is becoming active again and about to get the mequisedec priesthood. We are helping him get ready for the mission! So that was super cool that he came too. Then, we had some really huge lunch at Hermana Fuller's (the mission nurse) house. She makes a tooon of food for us, it really is like we feel super full after. After, we went home and relaxed for a bit to do our studies. Then, we went off to see Claudio, he is a RC, but also a LA. 

Then, we found some super cool contacts, it is actually a funny story... we once asked this girl for directions one time and then after she said it was cool that we could visit her sometime. So, we came to her house this day and someone else came out and said they would see if she was in the house. Then, some guy came out, but he was huge and muscular guy walked out shirtless, and said "Who is looking for my little sister?" and Elder Salazar got kinda scared haha. Then, his twin got out who was like the exact same. But, they turned out to actually be super cool contacts and we left them with a Book of Mormon to read and a future visit scheduled. But after that, we just went back and did some weekly planning.

The next day, we were in the office for a while as I waited for my companion to finish his office duties as financiero. Then, we went over to have mission coordination with our mission leader, so that was super neat. Hmm... also on Thursday we had a Zone Capacitation. We learned how to better teach some lessons as we did some practices. Also, I had my interview with President McMullin, and man, he sure has some great words of wisdom to tell, he helps a lot.

Today for Pday, we went out to the Botannical Garden. We first went off to the Zoo, and it was super weird, it is like really easy to get lost in there, but it was pretty cool. We got to see some weird animals there. After, we played frisbee for a bit, then went home and showered and had some lunch... now I am writing :).

But I hope that everything is going good with you guys and everything.

Rohaihu,

Elder Crandall

Email: Week#28 in Paraguay

Hi there,

 

Things are super good. We had an interesting week. So this week, there was this crazy experience. We visited Marcelo, and then as we were walking home, we saw this car that had gotten stuck. There was some construction on this road, so it was blocked off, but the cones and everything were moved about, so the car went in, but it was not smooth, like a small hill, so the car fell and got stuck. So we came by, super late at night, and helped him get his car out. We had to keep lifting the car up with a jack and placing a lot of large rocks to make like a pathway for the car to be able to back up. It was super crazy.

 

We also have been finding some super cool contacts. lately, we have been having a lot of success finding cool people that are super willing to listen to what we have to say. But also, we celebrated my comps birthday (there are the pictures), the hermanas make a cake and we celebrated after our district meeting. My companion is actually turning 27, he is really super old for a missionary, but he was a convert, so that's why. So today we have Stake Conference, it is at a different time because there is a broadcast or something like taht. My companion actually has to give a talk today and so does one of the assistants. So he has been preparing for that for a while now.

 

But really that is all that has been happening. It is crazy to think that I already have been in the mission office for over two months now and that it is almost September and my birthday! I can't wait to be 20...

 

But love and miss you guys a lot!

 

Love, Elder Crandall

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