Hola familia,
Hows everyone doing? Don´t worry I was only sick for a few days and only sick enough to stay in bed once so this whole week I was able to work really hard. Man last week after I finished writing you guys it started raining super hard, within about 10 minutes the floods in the streets were up past my ankles so I decided to go buy some of those stylish rubber rain boots, they helped a lot. The rain here is funny because normally it´ll start and it´s the strongest craziest rainstorm you´ve ever seen, but it usually finishes within about a half hour. I can only think of about one time where it pretty much just rained all day. It rained a couple of times this week which was nice because it cools things down but it´s hard because nobody lets you in in the rain, they all pretend they´re not home. But man this week was super great. Elder Williamson is super awesome and we´re getting along great! I´m getting a little lazy and I speak more English, but it´s cool I´m improving my language in other ways. So Elder Williamson and I got our goals everyday this week! Even though we had zone conference (which was Amazing! President Madariaga is so great, but we just got the name of the new president, I´ll explain that in a little). That´s something that is called 7/7 because we count how many days (out of 7) we get our goals. One cool experience that we had was we were working with this guy named Aladín. Elder Williamson had taught him before and he´d been to church (because he lives with his brother who is the 1st or 2nd councilor in the bishopric) but they never really found his main concern or could get him excited about the gospel. So before the lesson and during the whole thing I was just praying that we could find his concern. I realized that we really needed to invite the Spirit and I´ve found that the best way for me to invite the Spirit and get people to open up is by sharing a personal experience and following that immediately up with a testimony and what I learned. I shared something, I don´t really remember what, then the ward mission leader (He´s amazing, leaves and does lots of visits with us) shared an experience too. Aladín then told us that he hasn´t ever had a spiritual experience but that he´s really wanted one his whole life. He said he tries keeping commitments and doing the things that member/missionaries tell him but he doesn´t get the experiences. I felt really inspired to commit him to read Alma 32 but I doubted at first because I couldn´t see how that would help him recognize the Spirit, but eventually I just gave in and left it with him. The next day I studied Alma 32 for my personal studies trying to read it as if I was Aladín and it was way cool. It talked a lot about patience on the Lord and having faith, it was a super neat experience and we´re going to follow up with him tonight about it so I´m really excited about that. Piro´Y is a little bit smaller than my last area (Marambure B was HUGE), and the ward has about half as many people show up (about 40 each week). The members are way nice and we have about 3 lunch appointments which are pretty good. The members are pretty helpful here if we just encourage them a little bit so it´s very nice. The teaching pool is great! We´ve found some very nice part member families through working with references and menos activos. We have this one guy named Benigno who's been coming to church and listening to us that I think will probably get to baptized here in a week or two.
So there is some pretty huge news about my mission. President Madariaga will leave in the end of June and the new president, Presidente Garn H. y Hna. Pam McMullin from Utah will be coming in July. He served his mission in Ecuador and she served in Spain, they have 5 kids. However there is a possibility that they will not be my mission president/wife. They just announced a new mission in Argentina, I think it´s called like pasados or something, and this new mission is taking a couple of staked/districts from the Paraguay Asunción mission. So the Paraguay Asunción mission is taking a couple of stakes/districts from the Paraguay Asunción North mission. Any missionaries in those stakes/districts that the south mission is taking on July 1st will be switched over to the south mission. I´m not going to lie, I´d be a little sad if I had to switch because there´s just something about here that I like and I want to go to the places that I´ve heard about in this mission, plus I´ve got stuff that says north mission. But I´m ready to do what the Lord wants me to do without complaining. There would definitely be some cool things about going to the south mission too, there are a lot of really cool things down there. But Yeah pretty crazy stuff. We also are now allowed to use two strap backpacks which is really nice because my back was starting to hurt, but now i´m nice and comfortable with my two strap. The one that we got at Big 5 is perfect!
Well I´ve almost run out of time again and I forgot my camera so I can´t send home pictures, but I´ll try to next week. This church is true and I love it so much. Being a missionary is the best thing anyone can do, it has changed my life so much and given me a whole new look on life and the consequences our choices bring, but the joy that the gospel can restore into lives. We were teaching this one guy, Davíd, and he told us he was looking for peace and happiness in drugs and alcohol but that it lasted an hour than was gone. He said he wants the stuff that lasts, the stuff only God can give us. That is so true, God loves us and will provide for us the peace and happiness that lasts forever, even after this life.
con amor,
Elder Hulsey
