(No Subject)

Email Received March 25, 2013

 

Hola familia,

 

Espero que todo esté bien con ustedes. What a week huh? It was a little bit tough because the adversary has been working a full como se dice aquí, but it was still a pretty great week. So as far as the Argentine pope the Paraguayans are thrilled. I guess the pope said something about how great the people from Paraguay are and that it´s one of the first countries that he´s going to visit. It´s kinda funny because we´ll be teaching a lesson and have just explained about how we have a living prophet hoy en día and his name is Thomas S. Monson then the people ask us if we think it´s weird that the new pope is from Argentina and they ask us if we believe in him. Oh how I love my Paraguayans. They´re such a funny people. I can´t tell you how many times I´ve heard that song ¨Girls just wanna have fun¨ playing on the streets, including all sorts of remixes. They just love that song here. So as far as Easter goes, they celebrate the semana santa here by making tons of chipa. Chipa is kinda like bread sticks with cheese inside, just a lot better (sometimes they even put meet inside too so i´m pumped about that). While we´re on the topic of great foods here I´ve got to tell you about these things called Lomito Arabes. Every time I eat one I think about Dad because he would love these so much. What they do is they put beef and chicken on a big stick and put like an onion or some kind of vegetable like that on top, then they let it slowly cook like that all day and it absorbs all of the juices. Then then put it in this pita bread type tortilla and grill it for a little bit. Then they give you this garlic salsa that is just so good. Mom you´re probably gagging right now but I think I might try and take a picture of one and send it home to you because Dad you would love this so much. Also before I forget, I got a package this week but a different Elder picked it up for me so I´ll get it tomorrow in district meeting.

 

Well like I said, this week has also been pretty great spiritual. We found some pretty great investigators, but my favorite part has been being able to help out the new Elder in our house. He´s having a really hard time adjusting to the mission life and he´s super homesick, but for some reason he and I get along really well. So I´ve been able to talk a lot with him just about things that have helped me in my mission. I realized that I think the best way to find joy in the mission is be obedient and work as hard as you can. If you do that, and always humble yourself before the Lord and ask him to make you better than you are, then you have no regrets and you receive amazing blessings. I read a scripture this week in Helaman 10:4-5 and I replaced Nephi´s name with my name. I can´t wait for the day when the Lord can tell me that He´s proud of my work. A lot of time we work hard and it seems like no ones watching and that we´re not even making a difference, but the Lord is watching and He´s able to make all of our work worth while in one way or another, that´s why it´s important that we always work hard and be obedient. Right now we have some pretty golden investigators, and each one has great desires to get baptized and follow the commandments, but each one also has at least one huge obstacle that they have to overcome, but I know that if I do all that I can, the little bit that that ends up being, that the Lord can make miracles happen in His work (which is exactly what we need, miracles). I´m hoping to receive some revelation about what to do for them this week because we get to go to the temple on Thursday! I´m so excited, I miss being able to go to the temple every week. I love you guys and I hope you have great weeks. I so pumped for you Spencer, getting your call dentro de poco and as long as your ready to dedicate your whole heart to the Lord, work hard, and be obedient you´ll do great.

 

Con muchísimo amor,

Elder Hulsey

This is a picture of the cows that graze in front of our hose, I literally took this picture from inside the gate to our hose. Also a picture of a Lizard that always sneaks into our house and helps take care of the bugs

 

 

 

 

 

(No Subject)

Email received March 18, 2013

Hola familia

 

Whats up everyone! We had another great week in Paraguay. But holy cow my cousins are so lucky meeting all of these basketball players, I couldn´t tell you one thing about whats going on in the NBA right now, but if you´re wondering about south American soccer I hear all about it. Gosh this week was pretty insane. There were changes last week and Elder Williamson and I are still together, but he was made the district leader. They split our zone so the other elders that we live with aren´t even in our zone anymore, it´s kinda funny. Anyways my new district is me and Elder Williamson and two companionships of hermanas, so it´ll be pretty tough keeping up with them because the hermanas work a full (all of the Paraguayans say that phrase). But the Elders that we live with had changes. The one that left was named elder Dickson and he was replaced by a new missionary who just got here so he´s being trained. It´s kinda fun seeing him getting trained because I hadn´t realized how much I´ve just grown into the mission but seeing a new kid I remembered having all of the same concerns and everything. The new elder's name is Elder Mechaca and he´s from Monterey Mexico and he used to be a boxer before the mission. He´s pretty funny and he speaks Mexican, it's a little different than Paraguayan Spanish. Paraguayan Spanish is pretty simple and mixed with a lot of Guarani (any kind of phrase like what you sent me dad is said here in Guarani) so I´m really glad to have a Mexican in the house because I´m learning tons of Mexican slang and phrases. So we had a couple of miracles happen last week. Benigno has been hiding from us lately so we were about to drop him, then we were teaching these two girls that live with a member family but they didn´t really have desires for baptism either, so we were at the point of loosing all of our best investigators. But Saturday we were able to talk with the girls and then again on Sunday and they want to get baptized this week! Then we talked to Benigno and it just so happened that this branch president from a branch in the stake was visiting and he helped Benigno a ton in this lesson. At the end of the lesson we asked Benigno what he thought about baptism this Saturday, he said he doesn´t want to this Saturday, he´d rather do it this Wednesday! The only problem is that each of the investigators have some hurdles that we have to get over so we´re praying a full for some more miracles, but I fully believe that this is the Lord´s work and that if I do all that I can than he will make sure whats supposed to happen happens. Anyways so yeah we might have three baptisms this week or we might have 0, I´m so nervous. But the work out here is great, we´ve been trying to work more with the part member families and contacting houses closer to ours. A lot of the part member families have members that are super strong and active so I think that a lot of the missionaries that were in this area before just assumed that others have tried with their non-member family members so maybe they didn´t bother, same thing with the neighbors that live close to us. Pero no es así. We talked to one of the neighbors and she was so excited that we finally stopped by, she said for years she´s seen us leaving the house everyday and sometimes even wave at her but they never arrived at her house. This week is looking pretty good.

 

So like I said they split the zone. I was a little bummed because I have some friends that just got taken out of my zone and my old zone leader was super awesome (he was almost exactly like good´ol Elder Otterstrom. He was telling me stories of his high school days and the things he did and the way he told his stories was just like Jeff. Elder Johnson, the zone leader, is one of the greatest examples of a missionary that I´ve ever met and I imagine Elder Otterstrom is the exact same). But anyways the new zone leaders de repente decided to do a division with us last Friday and I went with my new zone leader named Elder Harward. He´s from Orange County, California and a spitting image of Russell Allphin (he doesn´t know nearly as much about music as Russ but he´s got a great love for it and he´s picking up the piano). It was such a fun division and it made me a little envious of all of Russ´s companions.

 

Bueno, les quiero mucho. Espero que tengan éxito esta semana y que toda salga bien. La semana pasada me dí cuenta otra vez en cuánto al amor que he ganada por el Señor, su obra, y su gente elegido acá en Paraguay. Yo sé que esta gente realmente es especial, es una gente loca pero la quiero demasiado igual. Yo sé que vive mi Señor, y que cada misionero que hace su parte y trabaja duro va a poder acercarse mas a Él y disfrutar la misión. Ya no quiero volver a la casa aun después de que cumpla dos años acá, me gustaría aun mas tiempo porque la obra misional da mas gusto que cualquier otra cosa que hay. Que tengan una semana maravillosa y disfruten todo!

 

Con amor,

Elder Hulsey