Email: Week#57 in Paraguay

Hi,

Well today was my companions birthday today so we went to a fancy Chinese restaurant to celebrate. It is called Shangrila. It is really fancy and expensive too! I only went because it was my comps birthday... So the cool thing is that they have Panda Express food there too! 

So this last week was planned to be a crazy baptismal week, but they all fell. All 3 of them! Well the first wasn't that sure to happen, but the other one was a big surprise. Arami and Araceli still aren't ready for baptism so we had to push their date back until later. We are thinking of sometime in April, but still don't know when. And also for Jesus, his dad just unexpectedly didn't give his son permission to get baptized. We went this whole time thinking he would. But all is good because in 3 weeks he turns 18 and can sign for himself. That will be awesome, because Jesus really is like the coolest person I have met and may be the best member ever. He truly knows that the church is true.

But all is good. So I did a division with the Zone Leader and it was super awesome. Because my comp was gone, I was to lead everything. So I took it well and we ended up with 10 lessons that day! We worked a ton and it was really neat. We found some less actives and finally had a lesson with some recent converts we could never find. It was super awesome. We did a lot of work that day.

So something funny that happened this week was that we were waiting in front of the church one day and a car drives by and rolls down their window and yells super loud, ''Laman and Lemuel!''. Haha, it was funny because it was just super random.

Well, so the changes are coming up super soon now. Only one more week until the General Conference. I am super stoked for that. It should be awesome. It is always fun, especially here in this stake.

So we also went on Saturday to clean the church. We decided to be nice this weekend and help the ward... well it is a good think that we came because NO ONE ELSE DID! It was ridiculous! Not even the bishop came...

But nothing too interesting has happened this week, so I guess that's all. Just super excited for General Conference.

Email: Week#56 in Paraguay

Hi,

This week was pretty good. Today for Pday we went to my companions old area and we cooked some lunch there, which was super good!

So this week is gonna be crazy! We won't even have any time to get out and work! Tomorrow we have a baptism for Arami and Araceli, the two younger sisters of the girl we baptized last Saturday. They are going toget the baptismal interview later today, so I hope that all goes well!

Also, we are going to have to clean and refill the font again! We have the baptism for Jesus Perez this Saturday, and he definitely is going to be ready. We are going to visit him again today to prepare him.

Also, it was super awesome yesterday because Michell came and got confirmed! I was super glad that she came this week, plus the twins came too! Things are all going super good now!

So changes are coming up soon (in two weeks) and si o si my companion is going to get changed. He has almost 6 months here, so it will be interesting to see who I get next, because it is pretty fun with Elder Anton now.

But not really much has happened, we have been working like crazy to try to get all these baptisms ready!!

Love, Elder Crandall

Email: Week#55 in Paraguay

Hi,

Things are going super well! I have some good news and bad news... well teh super amazing awesome news is that Michell Cañete finally got baptized after so long! So we had to keep pushing off her date so now that it came it is just amazing! It is super awesome. BUT... she didn't come to church on Sunday to be confirmed! That surprised us a a bit. So we went over to their house to see what happened and apparently the mom had no idea! Like what? It was a surprise because she and her family was baptized and confirmed too... so now they promised to come next week! Also, the dad of the family got into a huge fight and left before, but now he is back and said he wants to prove that he is willing to change. He went to all the neighbors and asked for forgiveness and promised to start coming to church. It would honestly be a miracle, because he never wanted to go to church and stop drinking. Also, now that Michell got baptized, her younger sisters got jealous and now really want to get baptized too haha. So we are thinking of putting them for the 24th too.

Also, I think I told you about Jesus Perez already. He is the boyfriend of a previous less active member. So he apparently started going to church a bit and never got baptized just because no one else told him about it! So that is pretty neat. He is super prepared to listen and we put a date with him for the 28th. It is crazy we started with nothing this month and now we could have 4 baptisms this month!

Also... yesterday at church we had this random lady come in to church for the first time. Well, she went a long time ago when she was 14. Now she just wants to get baptized now! It was kinda crazy... but we just have to get her married is all. But she is 22 and the guy she is with has like 40 something, so kinda weird.

Something cool that happened this week was when we gave a blessing to Rafael. So he wasn't feeling good when we visited. He was sweating like crazy and felt bad. So we gave him a blessing and right after, he told me, ''come look''. I thought he was going to continue on about how much he was sweating, but instead he said, ''it all dried up''. I looked and I was just super amazed. He just like instantly healed up. It really is amazing to see that some people have so much faith!

But my companion got super sick with the flu so I had to fill and clean the font by myself because he was like dying! But it is all good. We spent almost two days filling the font because another missionary broke it! Remember that we have to do it manually?! Yeah so also I was barefoot while doing it and I hit my foot on a chair really hard and so it bruised super bad and I had a hard time walking for a few days... so cool stuff there. But all is good now.

Chao!

Email: Week#54 in Paraguay

Hi!

This week was such a good one! I am not sure what happened inside of us both, but we just had a ton of energy to work and had so much desires to get out and visit people.

So the first news is... we finally are going to get Michele baptized! After working with her and her family for months... we got a date locked in and it should be good for sure. We are visiting her every day to teach her and help her to be ready. Hopefully, her younger sisters will have the desire to get baptized too and want to come to church too.

We also have a new super awesome investigator! His name is Jesus Perez. He is the boyfriend of a member that my companion activated right before I came here. So it is super awesome. He has been going to church for a bit and never got baptized just because no one ever said anything to him or ever taught him about it...:P. But it is pretty awesome!

We also started teaching a sister of a recent convert. She is only 11 years old but wants to get baptized... only the mom says no. The recent convert had to wait until she was 16 for her mom to say yes... but who knows. But she really is an awesome person and it is amazing that she understands everything we say! Soem people here you explainj something 20 times and they barely understand it...

We also did our youth activity too. I made a game where it was like a scavenger hunt, but with the scriptures. They read a scripture, which was a reference to where the next clue was. The scripture would mention food, so they would look in the kitchen and so forth. It was pretty fun.

Our Zone Activity was today. We played volleyball but with water balloons, it was pretty interesting. Then, we played volley and soccer. It was a fun time.

I just need to think of another crazy story to write about haha.

Talk to you next week!
Elder Crandall

Email: Week#53 in Paraguay

Hi,

Happy 14 months to me today! Like I said, time is just going fast.

So this week was pretty interesting from all the changes and such. For some reason, my comps camera is broken so I can't really send out alot of the pictures we took... but I will get them to you sometime.

So because Elder Vielman was going to his house we partied it up a bit and he burned a little dummy he made of trash and a pair of clothes. That was pretty cool, and we almost also burned the house because the air conditioning almost lit up! Haha... good times.

We also got a new guy in Huguito. He is Elder Burger, who is a German that moved to Paraguay like 6 or 7 years ago. He is pretty cool.

So some crazy stories I got to tell that happened this week. So one was when we were leaving the supermarket at night and suddenly all the lights shut off and it was completely PITCH BLACK! It was crazy because you could see absolutely nothing and people started screaming. Luckily, it was only for a few seconds, so nothing that bad, but it made my heart jump.

Also, we were at the other Elders house in Limpio and they have a house on the second story and we were going to leave so they threw the keys down the stairs to us to unock the very front door, but the keys fell and slipped under the door! So I looked under the door to see that a girl grabbed the keys!! So I had no idea what to do, so I told my comp to run up fast to the balcony to tell them but he didn't get there in time. So we ran over to the owners side of the building and had him open the front door and there we no keys there! So my companion decided to run and look for them. We went forward and asked the people in the corner who gave us some help. We went to the next block and asked someone else there and told us to turn where we found them! Everyone was super surprised that we had found them. It was super awesome to be a detective that day... and people say videogames don't help with anything. It was because I played them that gave me the idea to ask everyone if they had seen that person. Haha, but it really was awesome. It is just like in our lives where we need a guide, because if not we can get lost and not know what to do, but luckily we can have the Holy Ghost with us :).

We also had Stake Conference this weekend which was super awesome! We had a ton of less active members there... which was awesome I just want them to start coming to church regularly too! We basically were working this whole week to invite people to come to church.

Now, we are working with Michele Cañete to have her baptism this weekend, so we are hooooping a ton that it will happen, but it may be pushed off for later... again. Also, we are trynig to put a date on Nery and Cristina who I am pretty sure I told you about them before... but they are cool, just need to go to church is all!

But I guess that is all. Things are going great!

Love, 

Elder Crandall