Email received April 1, 2013

Hola familia,

 

Oh boy, what a great semana santa! We had chipa a full (I believe that is the translation, that´s what everyone literally says here is "a full". They use it in many sentidos, but I´m sure you guys already thought of some other translations, one thing that I say instead of a full sometimes is simply mucho or depending on the situation bien duro or something like that). So I got my Easter package last week and it was awesome! It was exactly what I needed and in the perfect time, it´s starting to cool down here so the sweaters are perfect. I haven´t lost too much weight (just about 12 pounds would be the translation into American Standard) so the sweaters should fit just fine. The package arrived in plenty of time to participate in the countdown and that was really fun. Also I´d like to thank Adam a lot for my calender, I have been looking for one and they´re kind of hard to find here so I was really glad when I got that in the package. So as far as investigators go we have a couple that are más o menos progressing but it´s been pretty tough. A lot of people travel for the semana santa but we still had some pretty great lessons. Friday was interesting because pretty much the entire nation fasts from eating meat so they were all pretty afraid to leave outside because they would be too zapped of energy. It was pretty funny. Benigno decided to go back to his Evangelica church and we happened to run into his dad I believe on Saturday it was and he´s a missionary for that church. The guy was very anti Book of Mormon (Mormons in general) and pretty much has the Bible memorized. Elder Williamson couldn´t resist a little Bible bashing but I just kept my mouth shut because I already learned that you don´t have the spirit when you Bible bash. I finally just bore testimony of the Book of Mormon to end it because things were starting to get a little heated. Elder Williamson and I talked after and we decided that nobody won that time because nobody convinced the other of their error, we also decided that Bible bashing is a pretty big waste of time. But we did teach this other girl that was super Evangelica as well but with her we were able to reason a little better and she was actually curious in the Book of Mormon a little so we were able to teach a cool lesson to her and her cousin.

So as far as the new missionary in our house, he´s doing great. We´ve all been trying to talk and help him and he´s getting feeling a lot more comfortable now. We went today and bought recuerdos (I bought you guys some super sweet stuff. You´ll be able to see it dentro de poco ¿que raro verdad?) and I think that helped him gain a bigger appreciation for Paraguay. His trainer is super awesome. His name is Elder Funk and he actually reminds me a lot of Dan Lillywhite (he even kinda looks like him). He loves working out and he and I have been waking up a half hour earlier together to do more exercises. He´s sure kicking my rear but he´s nice and patient and it´s pretty fun. We´ve got these ropes that we suspended from the ceiling and we use those to exercise (Elder Funk actually has a lot of cool exercise equipment). We´re lucky because we´re all getting along pretty well.

 

The temple was super awesome! I took some sweet pics (also some in my new Easter ties) but I forgot my camera, so next week I´ll have to send them home. It was cool doing a session in Spanish and it got me super motivated to get even better at Spanish. I´m at a point with the language where grammatically i´m doing okay, so now I pretty much want to focus on expanding my vocabulary. Also I talked with this Elder that has the same amount of time as me and he pointed out that in a little more than 4 months we´re hitting our year mark! Holy cow that caught me by surprise. I didn´t realize how fast the time has been passing, but I hear it passes even faster in year two! Darn! I really like the mission. It´s really nice having such a clear purpose and not having to worry about anything but helping others. Sometimes I think about school and things before the mission and I really enjoyed those too, but I just love the whole mission program and not having to worry about school, money, anything really, just testifying and doing what the Lord wants (it´s really simple but it´s got a whole set of difficulties of it´s own as well. It´s not all peaches and roses (is that even a phrase?) but it makes you feel really good when you do it so I guess the difficulties seem more worth it I guess, it´s hard to explain.)

 

Well I love you guys a whole lot. I´m super pumped that Spencer should be getting his call soon. I´m going to send an email to my president and see what he thinks would be best, I´m assuming he´ll either just want me to wait until Monday to read it with my emails but he might think it´s fine to just have you guys call the office and someone from there can tell me. I´ll let you guys know next week what he thinks and if the call comes this week, just call the mission office and they´ll direct you in what to do. I´ve sure been learning a lot about how this is the Lord´s work and how we need to rely on Him for our success. I started thinking about what we´re lacking in this area and I think it´s humility, to a point where you´re relying on the Lord for everything. We have fine numbers and everything, but we´ve been loosing investigators and we haven´t had any baptisms in this area. I think I let myself get a little too prideful again and I wasn´t as focused on letting the Lord do His work and I´m just the instrument in His hands. Whenever we can recognize that as missionaries, then we start to have more success. We´re nothing but instruments, and as soon as we try to be anything more, we actually become less. Funny how it works. Have a great week and good luck with Spring Break.

 

Con Amor,

Elder Hulsey