Hey family,
First off mom don´t freak out and start calling the mission office and everything, I am completely fine and life is good just a little sick. So yesterday I wasn´t feeling the greatest in the world. Then last night around 2 in the morning I woke up with a 102 temperature that stuck throughout the night and it felt like my bones were crushing under my skin and my joints were about to explode!!!! I hurt so bad, I have never experienced anything like this, take like really really really bad body aches, times it by like a 1,000% more pain and you have Dengue!! It´s not super fun but I´m super druged up on Tylenol and Ibprofen and we are going working today, I am determined!!! At least to one lesson tonight with a great little family we found!!! But anyways Paraguay is great, and I love their random sicknesses.
Well this week was a little bit of a difficult one. We woke up Monday with the determination to have a baptism every week because president said we could do it, so we were going to do it. Well we found a girl of a menos activo that has been to church a million times and love hte gospel and was going to get baptized like a year ago and then moved and now she just moved back in wth her mom, we got a baptismal date set up for saturday and we were really excited. The lessons were going great and we were all really excited. Well Thursday night at around 1030 we got a call from Paola (the sister of Antonela, our recent convert) that said that Antonela´s house was packed with police and she was scared to go down there because she didn´t want to see anything. Antonela´s husband has a bit of a problem drinking and so we were really worried. We wanted to go down there ourselves but we knew that the district leader wouldn´t let us but we decided to call him anyways. We asked and he said no so we called the bishop to go down and see what was going on. We were worried that Antonela was dead or something, Richard is big guy and we were sure that he beat the crap out of her. Well the bishop and his wife headed out and said that they would call us as soon as they knew anything. Well we stayed up until around 1130 singing hymns and reading the scriptres and praying like mad. We then decided to try to get some sleep before the bishop called. Well the bishop called around 1230 and Hermana Knapp answered and didn´t understand a thing that was said and hung up the phone. I was kind of irritated because she didn´t understand because i was really worried but we just ended up going to sleep and decided to just head there at like 9 the next morning. We knew that shew as alive and that the bishp asked us to stop by so that was what we were going to do. So the next mornin we got up studied a little bit and then headed out. Expecting Antonela to be beating up pretty bad and their house to be a little bit of a mess. (And what I mean by house is a little 15X15 foot room) Well we get there and Antonela is beat up with her face and head a little swollen and a few bruises on other parts of her body. She told us that Venus was in sleeping still and so we went in to see if she was ok. We walked into their house and there was motor oil everywhere!!! Antonela began crying and telling us that Richard and tried to start the house on fire last night with them in it. It was super scary and we all can see the hand of the Lord in this because all he had to do was light a match and they would have been gone. So Antonela started crying and was really upset talking about how she didn´t have anythings, which she doesn´t because almost all her stuff got ruined by the oil, then she showed her faith, she just kept saying over and over again, I have my faith, I have my faith, I have my faith and that is all the matters, I have my faith and I still have Venus. She is such a strong woman!! We just love her to death. Well we called the elders that work in the other half of our area and they immediately dropped everything and came running to give her a blessing and to help clean. We grabbed a bunch of cleaning supplies from the church, moved everything out of her house and started cleaning up oil. We worked from aroun 1030 to 2 and got a lot of the oil pulled up off the ground. We got all the clothes and blankets and pillows but in piles to be washed and just tried to help her as much as we could. We sat on a blanket for awhile and sang hymns and read the scriptures and then the elders gave her a beautiful blessing!!! Anotnela had like 3 pieces of bread to her name and so we called a ward member and they made all of us lunch and so that was really nice and then Antonela (while we were walking her back to her house) sat down and just started talking about how all she really wants is a strong united family. She has never had that with her family and she definitely didn´t have that with Richard. She just started crying and talking about our families and how they are so united and loving and how she just wants something like that in her life. It made both me and Hermana Knapp step back for a moment and realize how great both of our families are. That we have parents that are strong in the gospel, have taught us what is wrong and right, and helped us because great people. It´s just amazing tyhe blessings that coem from having the gospel. Me and hermana Knapp were talking after wards about how big of a blessing it is just to have a dad that has never come home drunk at night, that we know is faithful to our moms and doesn´t look at pornography and such things, we are so grateful for number one having the gospel and the doctrines and principles that are taught and then number two to have faithful dads that have tried to hard to live by those doctrines and principles and by doing so they have been great examples for their kids and for generations to come. So thanks dad for being so great, thanks for living the gospel everyday, thanks for keeping the commandments and trying to follow the will of God, thanks for raising me in this gospel. It is the greatest blessing in my life, I´m so grateful that I know what a healthy relationship is, that I can have a husband that is faithful, that doesn´t drink, and I don´t have to worry about him beating me. Because of the gospel and being raised in a wonderful gospel centered home I have this hope in my life!!! But anyways the next day we headed out in the morning again to go and help her clean the piles and piles of clothes that she had. We called our district leader this time and his companion to come and help. We had them bring bleach because even thought we had gotten all the oil up there was still a really nasty oil smell in their house, which has no windows to air it out. It´s just basically a cement box with a door. so the elders came and cleaned up the floor again with bleach while we sat and did laundry (by hand) for about 2 hours. I do have to say that I am an expert at hand laundry now and getting stains out. We played with Venus, the ward went and bought Antonela food for the next week and we had the relief society president come and visit her and give her some advice. We were happy that someone had the guts to give her a frank talk about how if he does come back (even though Antonela doesn´t think he is) thtat she needs to request that he goes into a alocoholic rehab place down the street before she lets him back in. The ward ahs been so great everyone is looking for jobs and houses for her and it is just great, everyone has just pulled together. The best part has been watching Antonela´s testimony grow, it has grow so much in the past two days it´s incredibule. We gave her a lesson last nigth about the power of the Book of Mormon and how it helps all the aspects of our lives and she was like, "yep, I´m good at praying everyday multiple times a day but I suck at reading the scriptures so I am definitely going to do better at that" we are really happy that she is working hard toward becoming better and I know that someday she is going to get that happy strong family that she wants, if she just keeps doing waht she needs to do and being faithful in the church the Lord is going to bless her. But that was the experiences this week, a lot of my clothes have oil all over them but it´s ok it just made them less chuchi and my clothes were a little too chuchi for Paraguay anyways so I´m cool with it. but that was the adventure this week and it made me so grateful for the gospel, for repentance, for the Lord, and for a strong eternal united family!!!
Now to answer some questions real fast. So transfers are the 19th and I really think I´m leaving even though I don´t want to because i Love Antonela so much, we get instructed by our mission president about twice every six weeks in person and then a letter from him every week, Mom pray for the Lord´s help in your class and teach pure and simple doctrine. Speaking of which will you send me the talk "teaching true Doctrine" by presdient Eyering from the April 2009 ensign and you should read it too for your class because it´s awesome!!! We see the elders that share our area probably every other day, we have district meeting every week and so one. oh and conference was amazing, and I understood a lot of it!!!
Well that is all the time I have, keep Antonela in your prayers please she needs as many as she can get!!! Here is a cute little picture of Venus, she is a cute little stinker!!
Love you all, oh and the girl we were going to baptize we missed our lesson with her because we were with Antoneal so she couldn´t get baptized because we hven´t taught her everything yet but this Saturday she has a baptismal date so we are excited!!!
Love ya
Hermama Hubbard
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