(No Subject)

Email received November 4, 2013

Hola apreciada familia,

That´s great that halloween was a smashing success. Elder Beus and I successfully pulled off dressing as each other, he has the pictures on his camera and we´re actually on division right now so I´ll try to get those to you next week. This week was tough because due to a handful of things we had like no time to work in our area, but the time we did have you used the best we could and the Lord helped us a ton. We had 6 investigators in church! We were super scared because it was super rainy all day Saturday but by the time Sunday rolled around it was the most perfect weather. Elder Beus is 19 but he came out straight from of high school. I really like the 18 year old missionaries. A lot of them are pretty shy but they have amazing testimonies and they`ve brought such a cool spirit into the mission that it´s just incredible. We have so many hermanas in the mission and continue getting more but The Lord loves Paraguay because He´s been sending the best hermanas. I had always heard bad things about the hermana misisonaries before the mission and before I had any in my district or zone but so far all of the hermanas that I´ve been able to work with are amazing missionaries and do amazing work each week so I´ve got no complaints about them. We´re planning a big baptism for the 19th of November where we´re going to need some serious miracles happening so that everything goes through, but I`ve got faith that it all can. In jopara (that´s guaraní for "mixed" which they use to describe their language here because hardly anyone can actually speak pure guaraní so they mix it with a ton of spanish) what we´re planning is a bautismo guazú. It should be pretty fun. So this week we had tons of service opportunities which was super fun. One of them we got to do on Halloween so that was super nice, getting to shake things up a little bit. Then at the end of the night on halloween we went over to this house and started talking to a lady that we had been fore-warned about was super into her church and wouldn´t like to share with us. Since Elder Beus and I were wearing each others plaques we had a great conversation starter in explaining why, how it was a holiday in the states and this was a tradition kinda thing. She loved that and invited us in to talk a little about some of our other traditions and holidays and then she started explaining some of the ones they have here in Paraguay. Eventually she started talking about some of the bad traditions of Paraguay like drinking and smoking and how no body goes to church anymore or reads the scriptures. That was a great lead-in for us to start talking about the gospel and we ended up having a really spiritual lesson and the lady even accepted the baptismal invitation and an invitation to come to church (except in the end she didn´t actually come, but I suppose that´s why we have next week right). So then to finish the night off we came home and as we prepared for bed we had juice and dulce de leche on bread rolls and watched the scariest church movie we have (the one where Martin Harris loses the 116 pages of the Book of Mormon). It was a pretty fun night. yeah so as far as package stuff goes maybe thrown in some beef jerky, I kinda miss it, but other than that just whatever you want, I´m not hurting too bad for anything but pens. Well I´m pretty much out of things to say. I´m sorry if my letters are super boring, my life here is actually quite the opposite of boring there just is so much going on that I don´t even have time to process it all then put it in an email home. Just know that I´m super safe and super happy. Oh I just remembered one of the coolest things. So this less-active young man named alejandro that re-activated after one tiny visit from us and tons of sweet fellow-shipping from the ward went up and bore his testimony yesterday in sacrament meeting! He talked about the day before he went and did baptisms for the dead for the first time in his life and how it was super special. He talked about how he knows that this church is true. Since he´s been back he´s brought with him a less-active aunt and mom and siblings that still need to be baptized and he continues inviting all of his friends to come to church and talk with the missionaries. He had dropped out of school but he started his studies again so that when he turns 18 in three years he can leave on his mission! He was also just called as the teachers quorum president! When I first got here there was 1 active young man and last Sunday there were two benches full of them all in white shirts and ties. It is super powerful and the spirit radiating from them was indescribably strong. They´re all still crazy paraguayan teenage boys but they´re different because they hold the priesthood of God and they are part of a quorum, that´s a super special thing that I feel like I didn´t really understand just how special and powerful that was before. I love this work and I know it´s true and the Lord´s. I hope this week passes well for all of you!

Con amor,

Elder Zachary J. Hulsey

P.S. Mom your spanglish went right past me the first time I read through the email then as I re-read it I totally noticed it and felt super embarrassed that I didn´t catch it the first time.

(No Subject)

Email received October 28, 2013

Hola familia!

How´s everyone doing with their halloween preparations? I´m thinking this year I´m going around as Elder Beus. I´m going to wear his plaque and his tie and be him, it´ll be a great time. I really have no idea if they´ll celebrate it a little better here in Asunción than in Luque. It´s called día de las brujas (witches day) or they just say halloween (which I suppose they probably assume it´s spelled jalouín).We were thinking about going to this place called God´s Pan (that means God´s bread) with the asistentes for lunch but we´ll see how that turns out. It has been doing a lot of heat down here but I love it. Everyone is always sitting outside and since it´s so hot they don´t have enough energy to run and hide from you when you come up so you can get into a lot more lessons. The bugs are everywhere but I learned a long time ago to always carry around bug spray with me so when I start to see them I lather up. It always makes me feel like I´m camping. The other day we were sharing a lesson and this giant mosquito just plopped itself down on my scriptures. I´m not even kidding it was at least the size of a 50 cent piece! It was so massive but it didn´t get me don´t worry. Our teaching pool is doing well. We received some super awesome referencias from some recent converts this week which was super cool. Also since we´ve been working so much with the less actives it turns out a lot of them have children that never ended up getting baptized but our now more than old enough to be baptized. It´s a great way to reactivate the family by helping them help their children prepare for baptism. We´ve been seeing tons of success working with the less-actives. yesterday we had 19 of them return from our side and about the same from the other elders´ side too (including their children and babies)! It´s really been a huge blessing seeing so many of them return because the branch is getting super excited about it so they´re working even better with us now because they´re seeing real growth and success. I feel like our job as missionaries has been made so much easier because we pretty much just have to go and teach them and they all pretty much want to hear it. The Lord has been doing a lot of work here in Trinidad because the hearts of many have been pretty softened and humbled and they are feeling the need to come back to church to make things better and all we have to do is help them realize that´s what they need. I´m really excited to find out what Elder Christofferson has to say about all that to help us when he comes on the 13th! As far as interesting people that I´ve found there have been some strange ones but mostly just normal paraguayans. They are really cool people that are so generous and really over all friendly. They definitely have some big time quirks about them but so do I so we get along pretty well. For example the cyber we´re using right now the lady just brought us out sopa paraguaya (it´s kinda like corn bread but different, I´ll have to make it for you guys some day) and a giant glass of sprite each to me and my companion. They are super good sharers which I definately think was something that I had to learn how to do better from them. They are always greeting you with a friendly yell of something in guaraní and they always seem to be pretty happy even though they don´t really have much of anything. I imagine in some ways their lives are pretty stressful because they completely rely on their health, the weather, and everybody else for money (the majority of the people either sell stuff, recycle plastic bottles from the street, or work construction) and if they don´t have work one day there is a great chance they don´t eat, but they don´t worry about that too much. They´re kinda just in the moment kinda people. I don´t think that always being like that to the degree that most of them are is right, but I definitely think they have something with not stressing so many things all of the time. Tranquilo no más. I can´t really remember anything super specific last week that happened so I´ll just try to make something super sweet happen this week and let you guys know how that went. I love you all and Feliz día de brujas.

Con amor,
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey

I hope this photo comes through. It´s of me and this other elder in my zone named Elder Gunther and this kid named Ruben. We met him at the operation smile thing and he was hilarious.