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!