Hola
There really isn´t much to say this week. To say the least it has been difficult. I really want to try to be positive in my letters home but this week really was a test of faith for both Hermana Quartino and myself. Last night we came home crying. We lost one of our baptisms this week because one of the boys in the branch starting dating the girl that was going to get baptized and her sister freaked out and thought that the church is some dating system or something, she doesn´t believe that we actually follow the law of chastity or anything. Her sister is 12 and the boy that she is dating is 12 also, she is just worried that something bad is going to happen between them and so she doesn't want her sister to be part of the church. That was a challenge because she was golden, she has basically read the entire book of Mormon, has come to church and all the activities and already has a strong testimony but she isn´t allowed to leave the house and we aren´t allowed to come to the house and so thats, that. I´m going to try to pass by on January and see if her sister has calmed down a little bit. Well yesterday both Hermana Quartino and I gave talks and we both felt really inspired about what we talked about. Hermana Quartino talked about putting God first in our lives, no matter what and I talked about having Unity, Charity and being willing to do service for each other. Both of them were kind of strong and we taught doctrine and now our branch is mad at us. We tried to visit two different families (active families) last night and we watched the parents get up and leave the front room and send the little kids out to tell us that they weren´t there. It was heart breaking . . . we don´t have investigators and our branch hates us and then on top of it Hermana Quartino is leaving in a week and I don´t think I can do this without her. We planned two giant activities this week and invited everyone and had a lot of people that promised to come and well the first activity 4 people showed up and the second activity 2 people showed up and so that was hard because we focused a lot of our efforts on these activities this week and they didn´t work out. The most important thing is that we are working hard, we are being 100% obedient and trying to follow the promptings of the spirit. Hopefully things will get better, we know that the Lord is just preparing us for something that is going to come. I don´t know what it is but it´s going to be great because when we do our part the Lord does his part ALWAYS!!! We are just a little disanimados this week no mas. Hopefully things get better, especially for the last week of Hermana Quartino this is her last week and I really hope things work out, she has worked hard her entire mission and I just hope that the last week for her works out well. Well sorry for kind of the downer email this week. I´m going to try to have a better attitude for the next letter.
Love ya
Hermana Hubbard
Thursday, November 24, 2011
!!!!!!!!!Hola!!!!!!!!!!! November 14, 2011 Letter #15
Well this week was pretty normal, just the usual. We one thing great
is we found a place that carries by favorite alfajores which was quite
happy because I crave them every second of every day and no one carries
them around here. But we had some pretty awesome miracles Saturday
that I guess I can tell.
Saturday was pretty cool I guess, we had a meeting with Brian Garay
who is going to help us with this project that we are starting for the
youth because our branch has more menos acitvos than active members
and so we really need to work on activating them and the problem is
is that Hermana Quartino and I can´t do it alone and so we are having
little MTC's every other Saturday and every other Saturday the youth
are going to go out and visit the menos act ivoes and so hopefully it
works and everything pans out. And then we taught mutual which was
fun, all the kids liked it a lot. Then we headed out and all of our
appointments fell, we worked hard, walked a lot. We finally had an
appointment that we were sure was going to happen and so we headed.
We got to the apartment complex and to get to the st airs to go up you
have to walk through this one car garage to get to the stairs. So we
started in and realized that there were 4 super drunk guys sitting in
the back of the truck was in the garage. We felt a little uneasy
but thought everything would be fine. So we headed in and go up the
stair s everything was fine. We definately had some gross comments
made and stuff but that is normal. So we got to the second floor
where Adriana lives and then knocked and knocked and she wasn´t back
from work yet. The problem is neither of us felt good about walking
past these men again. We sat and looked around for other ways to get
out of the apartment complex and there wasn´t so we sat down and
thought for a second. We had other appointments to get to and didn´t
want to miss them because they were with our two girls that are getting
baptized next week, so we decided to say a prayer and head out. We
said a prayer asking that these men would leave and that we could
leave in safety. We go done praying and they were still there and I
was scared to leave being the blond cleared eyed girl, well we headed
down the stairs. We got to the first floor and I didn´t want to go
any further but Hermana Quartino said that she felt everything was
gong to be okay and that she would stand between me and them and
everything so we started down. Then the miracle. All the super drunk
guys stood up, and walked out into the street, we were able to leave
the garage and then they went back in, it was way crazy and really
shows that the Lord protects his missionaries we just have to have
faith that he will do so. Don´t worry mom and dad that is the worst
situation I have been in here on the mission, Hermana Quartino grew up
in an area really scary and is super careful about everything and is
teaching me to not be so naive about situations.
The Second miracle of the day, we headed to our other appointments and
we taught our girls and then all the rest of our appointments fell
through and we had nothing to do, we headed to contact some references but
never could find them and we still had an hour left of the day and had
nothing to do, literally. Well we stopped and prayed and then we felt
the Lord guide us to this super churchie house, and Hermana Quartino was
like, no Hermana they aren´t gong to let us in let´s go find a
different house. I clapped anyways and his sweet lady walked out and
let us in and she is so prepared for the gospel. She is so confused
about what to believe and is so ready to ask the Lord and do what
he asks. she is great and really wants to do what is necesary to find
out. Then our last miracle of the week . . . .our branch president,
elders quorum president, and mission leader went out and visited a lot
of the menos activoes in the branch yesterday, that is an absolute
miracle we don´ know what got into them but we are super happy about
it!!!! Oh and this week we have to correct our branch president and
we are not excited about but it has been placed on our shoulders.
The branch president has interviews almost every week with every
member and then talks with all the other members about the
confidential things that are told in some of the interviews. We have
a few recent menos activos because of this, people who has super
strong testimonies but don´t want to come to church because everyone
knows their sins, and if they are paying their tithing and how much
tithing they are paying and everything. We feel bad about this and
we have to talk to the branch president. We will see how it goes ....
but the mission is going great. Sorry I really don´t want to write
more because my keyboard sucks and that is why there are a lot of
spelling errors and spaces and weird stuff, I swear this thing is
possessed it´s writing when I don´t even touch anything, so yeah. Well
love you all!!!
Love
Hermana Hubbard
is we found a place that carries by favorite alfajores which was quite
happy because I crave them every second of every day and no one carries
them around here. But we had some pretty awesome miracles Saturday
that I guess I can tell.
Saturday was pretty cool I guess, we had a meeting with Brian Garay
who is going to help us with this project that we are starting for the
youth because our branch has more menos acitvos than active members
and so we really need to work on activating them and the problem is
is that Hermana Quartino and I can´t do it alone and so we are having
little MTC's every other Saturday and every other Saturday the youth
are going to go out and visit the menos act ivoes and so hopefully it
works and everything pans out. And then we taught mutual which was
fun, all the kids liked it a lot. Then we headed out and all of our
appointments fell, we worked hard, walked a lot. We finally had an
appointment that we were sure was going to happen and so we headed.
We got to the apartment complex and to get to the st airs to go up you
have to walk through this one car garage to get to the stairs. So we
started in and realized that there were 4 super drunk guys sitting in
the back of the truck was in the garage. We felt a little uneasy
but thought everything would be fine. So we headed in and go up the
stair s everything was fine. We definately had some gross comments
made and stuff but that is normal. So we got to the second floor
where Adriana lives and then knocked and knocked and she wasn´t back
from work yet. The problem is neither of us felt good about walking
past these men again. We sat and looked around for other ways to get
out of the apartment complex and there wasn´t so we sat down and
thought for a second. We had other appointments to get to and didn´t
want to miss them because they were with our two girls that are getting
baptized next week, so we decided to say a prayer and head out. We
said a prayer asking that these men would leave and that we could
leave in safety. We go done praying and they were still there and I
was scared to leave being the blond cleared eyed girl, well we headed
down the stairs. We got to the first floor and I didn´t want to go
any further but Hermana Quartino said that she felt everything was
gong to be okay and that she would stand between me and them and
everything so we started down. Then the miracle. All the super drunk
guys stood up, and walked out into the street, we were able to leave
the garage and then they went back in, it was way crazy and really
shows that the Lord protects his missionaries we just have to have
faith that he will do so. Don´t worry mom and dad that is the worst
situation I have been in here on the mission, Hermana Quartino grew up
in an area really scary and is super careful about everything and is
teaching me to not be so naive about situations.
The Second miracle of the day, we headed to our other appointments and
we taught our girls and then all the rest of our appointments fell
through and we had nothing to do, we headed to contact some references but
never could find them and we still had an hour left of the day and had
nothing to do, literally. Well we stopped and prayed and then we felt
the Lord guide us to this super churchie house, and Hermana Quartino was
like, no Hermana they aren´t gong to let us in let´s go find a
different house. I clapped anyways and his sweet lady walked out and
let us in and she is so prepared for the gospel. She is so confused
about what to believe and is so ready to ask the Lord and do what
he asks. she is great and really wants to do what is necesary to find
out. Then our last miracle of the week . . . .our branch president,
elders quorum president, and mission leader went out and visited a lot
of the menos activoes in the branch yesterday, that is an absolute
miracle we don´ know what got into them but we are super happy about
it!!!! Oh and this week we have to correct our branch president and
we are not excited about but it has been placed on our shoulders.
The branch president has interviews almost every week with every
member and then talks with all the other members about the
confidential things that are told in some of the interviews. We have
a few recent menos activos because of this, people who has super
strong testimonies but don´t want to come to church because everyone
knows their sins, and if they are paying their tithing and how much
tithing they are paying and everything. We feel bad about this and
we have to talk to the branch president. We will see how it goes ....
but the mission is going great. Sorry I really don´t want to write
more because my keyboard sucks and that is why there are a lot of
spelling errors and spaces and weird stuff, I swear this thing is
possessed it´s writing when I don´t even touch anything, so yeah. Well
love you all!!!
Love
Hermana Hubbard
A Week of I Guess You Would Call MIRACLES!!!!!!! November 7, 2011 Letter #14
Hey Family,
Wow the life is great. I love this place. I had a dream the other night that I got transferred and I woke up crying. I don´t want to ever leave ENCARNACION!!!! It is a difficult place, there is a lot of work to do, the branch is up and down every week, but I love it with all my heart. We have our family here, the family Garay (the dad is the branch president) They have 3 sons and one little princess that rules the house. Barbie, I talked about her last time, she is hilarious. The whole family just runs when she says so. Like this week we were in the church and Barbie started crying by the girls bathroom or somewhere around there. We were with Hermana Garay and Brian (the oldest boy) was in playing ping pong in one of the rooms, the other son was in the chapel, and the other son was playing futbol in the field. All literally ALL came running when they hear her, "mom Barbie is crying, what happened" you would think that she was dying or something. But all the happened is her friend had to go home. It was quite hilarious, but they really are our family here and we love them to death. Are miracles come in the form of three people, Clara, Lorena, and Lidia.
Clara. Her Uncle just moved here to live with her family, she is having a really ahrd time in life because her setp mom hates her and her dad just kind of follows what the step mom says. She is super shy and great. Her uncle brought her to church one day and we taught her and then they went to a different branch the next week and then we passed by to teach her, taught her once and she cired through the entire thing and then the next time we stopped by her dad told us that we need to respect their religion and leave their daughter alone. Well we left wen to a different appointment and then on our way back to encarnacion we saw her dad and step mom leave in the car so we stopped by just to talk to her for a second. We invited her to read the book of Mormon from the beginning and then she asked if we could meet her the next night in the big plaza in encarcaion we decided that that was ok and so we met with her wiht the promise that she would tell her dad that we were doing so. Well she pulls out her book of Mormon and she is in 2 Nephi already, in one night, she knows that these things are true and she is super happy now. Her uncle is going to work with her dad so that she can get baptized because she really wants to, really bad, she is willing to put in jeapordy her family and everything which is crazy but it´s worth it. Hopefully something can work out because at the end of the month her dad is sending her to be a catholic nun and so she and us fasted yesreday that her dad would change her mind so if you guys want to pray for Clara and her dad Ramon that would be great!!!
Next we have Lorena. She is the girlfriend of Brian Garay the son of president Garay. She is great. Her family is super super super catholic (like all of Paraguay really) and well she has already read all sorts of stuff. We had our first lesson with her Friday and she walked into the room and said "all I want to know is what I need to do to get baptized" . . .ok let us teach you a little. Well we had a lesson with her yesterday and she brought "the miracle of forgiveness" by President Kimball and siad that she found it in her house when she was like 8 or 9 and read it and loved it and now she understands where it comes from and eveything. She is amazing. Her parents are making one requirement from her first that she is confirmed in the Catholic church and then after that it is her choice waht she wants to do. So her confirmation is in December and so she can start coming to church in January and she has picked the baptismal date of the 21 of January. She is amazing. The first lesson I thought she was just doing it for Brian but this last lesson she bore her testimony to us and everything and wow she is so prepared for this gospel. Brian leaves on his mission somtime around January because his papers are going in the first week of December and so we will see. She is great.
Last of all we have Lidia. She is the friend of a girl in the branch that has investigated almost every religion out there. She was born Catholic and when she was 9 she started studying the doctrine and found out that she doesn´t agree with a lot of things and then she studied with the Evangelical churches and doesn´t agree with them either because you aren´t accountable for your actions and then she studied with the Jehovah witnesses for like 2 years and now with us. We shared the story of Joseph SMith with her yesterday and she said that she feels like him that she has looked and looked and looked for the truth and FINALLY the Lord has lead her to the place that has the truth. Her baptismal date is in two weeks and we are excited for her. She is so excited about the gospel. She reads and reads and reads and prays and everything, she is so awesome. We have a strong young women group in the church and so we are really excited for her she already has a lot of friends in the church just from coming to the activities this week.
Our plans for the future. So we have been working hard trying to figure out what to do to make people happier in our ward, have more love, and be more united. So we have come up with two activities that we are really excited about. First we are going to take charge of the branch nights because right now they are just everyone getting together with the kids playing futbol and the parents sitting around and gossiping about everyone in the branch. So we have a lot of fun games planned, lessons, and commitments for everyone, hopefully that will bring more unity in the branch. Next we have something we call project attack! This is for everyone between ages 12 - 30 (that isn´t married) and it is going to be awesome. So we have A TON of less actives in our branch, like around 200 that we know of and so this is kind of like a mini MTC. WE are going to teach the youth every week about how to talk to friends about the gospel and how to share about the book of Mormon. We are going to teach them how to give lessons, have practices, and then every other week we are going to put everyone in companionships and then assign them a less active to visit. They are going to go out for 30 - 40 minutes and share a message with this family and then we are all going to come back and share our experiences. We are really excited about this and so are all the youth!!! It is going to be awesome and give some excitement to the youth and then hopefully in turn we can have some less actives coming back to church. We are working with so many right now that want to come back but they just don´t have the support of anyone to come back so when it comes to Sunday they don´t have strong enough desires to get out of bed!! So we are excited about this and hopefully everything works out well!!!!!
Me and my companion are great, we love our area. We have a lot of our area that is just fields of trees and such (not really jungle but kind of) that there are no one to talk to and so we have made some funny videos of us just talking, I have taught her some songs in English and she has taught be some songs in Spanish and Guarni and so I´m going to try to upload them. Right now I don´t know that they are going to work but we will see. At least I´ll send some pictures.
It´s not super wet here actually, there are a lot of rivers and to my surprise there are very VERY few mosiquotes. It is beautiful and I love it here. The people are SUPER catholic. I thought they were bad in Ita Enramada but not even close to the people here. All the people are very closed and doen´t want to listen but it´s ok because the poeple that do listen are serious and I like that better because I´m not wasting time. We are teaching people that want to listen, to change, and to really follow their Savior.
My companion once agian she is absolutely great!!!! I just love her to death, we have so much fun, are 100% obedient, work harder than I have ever worked in my life, we walk until we are ready to cry, and really understands our purpose here and works hard to fulfill it. she is incredibule. It is a true blessing to have her as a companion, the Lord knew that I needed her to find out waht a real missionary is . . . So yeah basically she is great. I´m just sad that she is leaving after this change, we only have 3 weeks left together. But oh well I´ll have another companion that is just as great . . .hopefully!!!
But yeah that is my life, wonderful . . . basically. I have never been so happy or felt so fulfilled in my lfie. I love spreading the word of the Lord everyday and watching as people find out the answers to every question their is to this life. It is just amazing, this church is definitely of God, there is nothing out ther that can give answers to ever question, except for God and his gospel!!!
Love
Hermana Hubbard
Wow the life is great. I love this place. I had a dream the other night that I got transferred and I woke up crying. I don´t want to ever leave ENCARNACION!!!! It is a difficult place, there is a lot of work to do, the branch is up and down every week, but I love it with all my heart. We have our family here, the family Garay (the dad is the branch president) They have 3 sons and one little princess that rules the house. Barbie, I talked about her last time, she is hilarious. The whole family just runs when she says so. Like this week we were in the church and Barbie started crying by the girls bathroom or somewhere around there. We were with Hermana Garay and Brian (the oldest boy) was in playing ping pong in one of the rooms, the other son was in the chapel, and the other son was playing futbol in the field. All literally ALL came running when they hear her, "mom Barbie is crying, what happened" you would think that she was dying or something. But all the happened is her friend had to go home. It was quite hilarious, but they really are our family here and we love them to death. Are miracles come in the form of three people, Clara, Lorena, and Lidia.
Clara. Her Uncle just moved here to live with her family, she is having a really ahrd time in life because her setp mom hates her and her dad just kind of follows what the step mom says. She is super shy and great. Her uncle brought her to church one day and we taught her and then they went to a different branch the next week and then we passed by to teach her, taught her once and she cired through the entire thing and then the next time we stopped by her dad told us that we need to respect their religion and leave their daughter alone. Well we left wen to a different appointment and then on our way back to encarnacion we saw her dad and step mom leave in the car so we stopped by just to talk to her for a second. We invited her to read the book of Mormon from the beginning and then she asked if we could meet her the next night in the big plaza in encarcaion we decided that that was ok and so we met with her wiht the promise that she would tell her dad that we were doing so. Well she pulls out her book of Mormon and she is in 2 Nephi already, in one night, she knows that these things are true and she is super happy now. Her uncle is going to work with her dad so that she can get baptized because she really wants to, really bad, she is willing to put in jeapordy her family and everything which is crazy but it´s worth it. Hopefully something can work out because at the end of the month her dad is sending her to be a catholic nun and so she and us fasted yesreday that her dad would change her mind so if you guys want to pray for Clara and her dad Ramon that would be great!!!
Next we have Lorena. She is the girlfriend of Brian Garay the son of president Garay. She is great. Her family is super super super catholic (like all of Paraguay really) and well she has already read all sorts of stuff. We had our first lesson with her Friday and she walked into the room and said "all I want to know is what I need to do to get baptized" . . .ok let us teach you a little. Well we had a lesson with her yesterday and she brought "the miracle of forgiveness" by President Kimball and siad that she found it in her house when she was like 8 or 9 and read it and loved it and now she understands where it comes from and eveything. She is amazing. Her parents are making one requirement from her first that she is confirmed in the Catholic church and then after that it is her choice waht she wants to do. So her confirmation is in December and so she can start coming to church in January and she has picked the baptismal date of the 21 of January. She is amazing. The first lesson I thought she was just doing it for Brian but this last lesson she bore her testimony to us and everything and wow she is so prepared for this gospel. Brian leaves on his mission somtime around January because his papers are going in the first week of December and so we will see. She is great.
Last of all we have Lidia. She is the friend of a girl in the branch that has investigated almost every religion out there. She was born Catholic and when she was 9 she started studying the doctrine and found out that she doesn´t agree with a lot of things and then she studied with the Evangelical churches and doesn´t agree with them either because you aren´t accountable for your actions and then she studied with the Jehovah witnesses for like 2 years and now with us. We shared the story of Joseph SMith with her yesterday and she said that she feels like him that she has looked and looked and looked for the truth and FINALLY the Lord has lead her to the place that has the truth. Her baptismal date is in two weeks and we are excited for her. She is so excited about the gospel. She reads and reads and reads and prays and everything, she is so awesome. We have a strong young women group in the church and so we are really excited for her she already has a lot of friends in the church just from coming to the activities this week.
Our plans for the future. So we have been working hard trying to figure out what to do to make people happier in our ward, have more love, and be more united. So we have come up with two activities that we are really excited about. First we are going to take charge of the branch nights because right now they are just everyone getting together with the kids playing futbol and the parents sitting around and gossiping about everyone in the branch. So we have a lot of fun games planned, lessons, and commitments for everyone, hopefully that will bring more unity in the branch. Next we have something we call project attack! This is for everyone between ages 12 - 30 (that isn´t married) and it is going to be awesome. So we have A TON of less actives in our branch, like around 200 that we know of and so this is kind of like a mini MTC. WE are going to teach the youth every week about how to talk to friends about the gospel and how to share about the book of Mormon. We are going to teach them how to give lessons, have practices, and then every other week we are going to put everyone in companionships and then assign them a less active to visit. They are going to go out for 30 - 40 minutes and share a message with this family and then we are all going to come back and share our experiences. We are really excited about this and so are all the youth!!! It is going to be awesome and give some excitement to the youth and then hopefully in turn we can have some less actives coming back to church. We are working with so many right now that want to come back but they just don´t have the support of anyone to come back so when it comes to Sunday they don´t have strong enough desires to get out of bed!! So we are excited about this and hopefully everything works out well!!!!!
Me and my companion are great, we love our area. We have a lot of our area that is just fields of trees and such (not really jungle but kind of) that there are no one to talk to and so we have made some funny videos of us just talking, I have taught her some songs in English and she has taught be some songs in Spanish and Guarni and so I´m going to try to upload them. Right now I don´t know that they are going to work but we will see. At least I´ll send some pictures.
It´s not super wet here actually, there are a lot of rivers and to my surprise there are very VERY few mosiquotes. It is beautiful and I love it here. The people are SUPER catholic. I thought they were bad in Ita Enramada but not even close to the people here. All the people are very closed and doen´t want to listen but it´s ok because the poeple that do listen are serious and I like that better because I´m not wasting time. We are teaching people that want to listen, to change, and to really follow their Savior.
My companion once agian she is absolutely great!!!! I just love her to death, we have so much fun, are 100% obedient, work harder than I have ever worked in my life, we walk until we are ready to cry, and really understands our purpose here and works hard to fulfill it. she is incredibule. It is a true blessing to have her as a companion, the Lord knew that I needed her to find out waht a real missionary is . . . So yeah basically she is great. I´m just sad that she is leaving after this change, we only have 3 weeks left together. But oh well I´ll have another companion that is just as great . . .hopefully!!!
But yeah that is my life, wonderful . . . basically. I have never been so happy or felt so fulfilled in my lfie. I love spreading the word of the Lord everyday and watching as people find out the answers to every question their is to this life. It is just amazing, this church is definitely of God, there is nothing out ther that can give answers to ever question, except for God and his gospel!!!
Love
Hermana Hubbard
Monday, November 7, 2011
A Little Bit Better.... October 31, 2011 Letter #13
This week has gone a lot better, we are still working hard but we have already seen miracles open up in our paths. Monday or Tuesday, I can´t really remember we came up with this lesson plan to go through with all the less active members that have strong testimonies and it has worked miracles. This week we worked with Hermana Baez, Hermana Almada, Hermana Aguirre and Hermana Carmen to try to get them to come back to church. Hermana Baez and her husband were the first members in Encarnacion and quite coming to church about a year or so ago and we are still working hard with them, hopefully someday she will come back to church. Her husband comes about every other week and only to sacrament meeting so we are still working with him also. The other Hermana Almada was baptized in 1982 and hasn´t been to church in 8 years. She stopped coming when her health got really bad about 8 years ago and then just has never come back to so we have been working hard with her. Her daughter is one of the really strong members of the church right now and we just love her (she does our laundry), so she has a great help there from her daughter to be able to come back. The next is Hermana Aguirre, she and her whole family of 6 children were baptized about 3 years ago, they were active for about a year and half and have been inactive for about a year and a half because her husband decided that he wanted to go to a different church that allowed him to drink and so she followed. Now after a year and a half she realizes that she is miserable and she misses the church really bad she just doesn´t have the guts right now to tell her husband that she isn´t going to go to church with them anymore and is going to go to our church. We are still working with her, she has a really strong testimony and I´m pretty sure that she is going to come to church this Sunday. Then the last is Hermana Carmen, she has been out of town for the past week and a half but we finally found her yesterday and we talked and tealked and talked with her. She doesn´t come to church anymore because her grandson (who she raised from age 3) fell away from the church and moved in with some girl and such and so she just feels alone now when she goes to church and so she doesn´t like to walk alone to church. She was one of the first people baptized in this area too and so we are working hard, we are positive that she is coming to church this Sunday so we are really excited. But it was amazing our assistance number last week was 23 or 24 somewhere around there and this week we were at 38 or 39, we were really happy it was nice to see the fruits of our labors. The miracle of this Sunday was Hermana Almada came to church. We were sitting waiting for some of our investigators to show up and then all of a sudden Hermana Almada walked up to the chapel door. We were so excited to see her, most of the people in the ward don´t know her, the branch president thought that she was just visiting her daughter or something and announced that we had a visitor over the pulpit and pointed her out so that was kind of hard for her but all the people that did know her in the ward just were so so so happy, we were really happy. When they walked in the doors her daughter came to us and told us that we just watched a miracle happen. It was the first time that she had walked into the church in 8 years, we were just so happy. After that meeting I went up and talked ot her about her experience and how she liked it and she said that she loved it and was so happy to be back. Then she said "thank you so much girls without you inviting me and inviting me I would have never came, because i just felt like no one cared whether I came or not". So we are watching the miracles happen. We are having a hard time with investigators. We had a couple with baptismal dates but they don´t want to so we are starting again from scratch. We are still working on going through all of our old investigators that are in the area book and finding them and talking to them. It has been nice to go through that and clean it out because a lot of the housing around here is just renting apartments and stuff and so people move a lot and so most of the poeple don´t live in the same place anymore. So we have been working hard, walking a lot, losing a lot of weight. Almost none of my clothes fit me anymore, no one feeds us here and we don´t have time to stop and eat ever so we just take a piece of bread with us or and apple and eat it while we are walking. We are tired and happy with what we have done here.
Our other project of the week, we got ot know our other city that we have in our area. Yeah we have two cities, well one is super city, like downtown Encarnacion and then we have a little town that is super super country called Cambryte or something close to that if you want to look it up on the internet and look at pictures or something. It´s really pretty. and it is quite large. It took us an hour and a half to walk there, a fell hour and a half in a fast walk. All the natives thought we were crazy to be walking that far. We got there went to the city hall to see if we could somehow get a map to be able to find our way around because there are no street names you just have to know where you´re going, so basically the knowledge is passed down from companion to companion, well for us we had no one to pass it down to us so we just have to figure it out for ourselves. So we got to the city hall the printed us off a map and then this nice guy sat and told us all the neighboor names and where all the points of interest are and such so that we could better find our way around. It was really nice of him. Then we headed off to find our branch president´s house, got a little lost, walked like 20 minutes past their house had to turn around and walk back, it was really funny. They finally had to send their son to find us. Then we had one ofthe most delicious meals i have eaten here, like it was so so so good, it might be the fact that we have been eating bread and apples for the past week and we were actually eating real food but it was so good!!! Our branch president´s wife is basically amazing. She took us around the all hte active members houses in the area and some of the less actives and some of the people that were investigators before. This is a funny story. So our brach president´s wife (Hermana Garay) has a 4 year old daughter that is super super super attached to her, like more attached than I have ever seen any child to a parent. Well when we were getting ready to leave the house after lunch Hermana Said that she was going to go take a shower, I was like what we need ot leave we have a lot to do, but then her son pulled us into the kitchen and told us that she was hiding in the bathroom and that we needed to get Barbie (the 4 year old) to take us upstairs to show us her toys and then Heramana Garay was going to go wait out on the street. Well we talked Barbie into taking us upstairs and then we said we had to leave, Brian was there (the 18 year old son of Hermana Garay) and siad that their mom was still in the shower so Barbie could hear, then we headed out. We found Hermana Garay hiding behind a bush and she said ok girls ready to run, and so we took off running, ran about a block where we were sure Barbie couldn´t see us anymore and then went off to learn about the area San Miguel. The area is beautiful. It´s a little hard because it is so far away from our house and such, but there are a ton of investigators and less actives out there, and we can´t be out there after dark because it is a little dangerous after dark, like most of our area. Really at night we can only be in like a 10 block radius of our apartment at night, the rest of our area is dangerous at night. We went to a members house the other night that we thought was okay to go to at night and after the lesson two of their sons walked us out of their neighborhood and so now we know that we can´t go there at night. The branch is super protective of us I think because our investigators that live in those areas say that it isn´t even close to dangerous at night but we are following the counsel of our branch presidency and the members because they know what is best for us. So at night we do a lot of wandering among the same 10 blocks because all are apartments and we can´t get into them without someone telling the guard that we can come in. But we are working on it, we have learned that street contacts are really important in this area because without them we wouldn´t get to talk to anyone that lives in the apartment complexes.
My companion is great, I´m loving having to speak Spanish all day everyday, my Spanish has gotten really good in the past 2 weeks because i have to speak it all the time. I never thought I would be told this but a lot of the members think that I have been out a year or more and when I tell them 3 months that are surprised, I tell you the gift of tongues is real because 2 weeks ago I couldn´t talk to anyone but I have to hear, one person can´t do all the work here because there is way too much work here for one person to do it!!! My companion is such a hard working, we are funny because we push each other really hard because both of us think the other is a harder worker then we really are and so I won´t stop because I think Hermana Quartino doesn´t want to quite and then Hermana Quartino won´t quite because she thinks I don´t want to quite so we just go and go and go and go. But we have a lot of fun, the mission president has given me the challenge and getting her speaking good English because she only has this change to learn better, she already speaks really really well but she just needs vocabulary and pronuncion help and so thats what I´m doing. She was baptized 7 years ago and so never got to be part of primary so I have been teaching her primary songs in English and she loves it!! So we have alot of fun, I suspect that she is going to be my favorite companion of my mission because she is just awesome, completely obedient in everything, loves to work hard, and knows what her purpose is here. I don´t know if I said this in my last email but she is so strong. Her dad died when she was out for 6 months and she stayed out, she is just amazing, I don´t think I would have the strength to do that, I actually know I wouldn´t. She is amazing!!!
Well that's about it for now, the work is moving on, this is hard, the mission president wrote me an email today and said to be patient and that everything will work out and that he knows that this area is for me and Hermana Quartino! We love the work here, it´s beautiful and it is not hot here!!! . . . YET!!!
Love you all
Hermana Hubbard
Our other project of the week, we got ot know our other city that we have in our area. Yeah we have two cities, well one is super city, like downtown Encarnacion and then we have a little town that is super super country called Cambryte or something close to that if you want to look it up on the internet and look at pictures or something. It´s really pretty. and it is quite large. It took us an hour and a half to walk there, a fell hour and a half in a fast walk. All the natives thought we were crazy to be walking that far. We got there went to the city hall to see if we could somehow get a map to be able to find our way around because there are no street names you just have to know where you´re going, so basically the knowledge is passed down from companion to companion, well for us we had no one to pass it down to us so we just have to figure it out for ourselves. So we got to the city hall the printed us off a map and then this nice guy sat and told us all the neighboor names and where all the points of interest are and such so that we could better find our way around. It was really nice of him. Then we headed off to find our branch president´s house, got a little lost, walked like 20 minutes past their house had to turn around and walk back, it was really funny. They finally had to send their son to find us. Then we had one ofthe most delicious meals i have eaten here, like it was so so so good, it might be the fact that we have been eating bread and apples for the past week and we were actually eating real food but it was so good!!! Our branch president´s wife is basically amazing. She took us around the all hte active members houses in the area and some of the less actives and some of the people that were investigators before. This is a funny story. So our brach president´s wife (Hermana Garay) has a 4 year old daughter that is super super super attached to her, like more attached than I have ever seen any child to a parent. Well when we were getting ready to leave the house after lunch Hermana Said that she was going to go take a shower, I was like what we need ot leave we have a lot to do, but then her son pulled us into the kitchen and told us that she was hiding in the bathroom and that we needed to get Barbie (the 4 year old) to take us upstairs to show us her toys and then Heramana Garay was going to go wait out on the street. Well we talked Barbie into taking us upstairs and then we said we had to leave, Brian was there (the 18 year old son of Hermana Garay) and siad that their mom was still in the shower so Barbie could hear, then we headed out. We found Hermana Garay hiding behind a bush and she said ok girls ready to run, and so we took off running, ran about a block where we were sure Barbie couldn´t see us anymore and then went off to learn about the area San Miguel. The area is beautiful. It´s a little hard because it is so far away from our house and such, but there are a ton of investigators and less actives out there, and we can´t be out there after dark because it is a little dangerous after dark, like most of our area. Really at night we can only be in like a 10 block radius of our apartment at night, the rest of our area is dangerous at night. We went to a members house the other night that we thought was okay to go to at night and after the lesson two of their sons walked us out of their neighborhood and so now we know that we can´t go there at night. The branch is super protective of us I think because our investigators that live in those areas say that it isn´t even close to dangerous at night but we are following the counsel of our branch presidency and the members because they know what is best for us. So at night we do a lot of wandering among the same 10 blocks because all are apartments and we can´t get into them without someone telling the guard that we can come in. But we are working on it, we have learned that street contacts are really important in this area because without them we wouldn´t get to talk to anyone that lives in the apartment complexes.
My companion is great, I´m loving having to speak Spanish all day everyday, my Spanish has gotten really good in the past 2 weeks because i have to speak it all the time. I never thought I would be told this but a lot of the members think that I have been out a year or more and when I tell them 3 months that are surprised, I tell you the gift of tongues is real because 2 weeks ago I couldn´t talk to anyone but I have to hear, one person can´t do all the work here because there is way too much work here for one person to do it!!! My companion is such a hard working, we are funny because we push each other really hard because both of us think the other is a harder worker then we really are and so I won´t stop because I think Hermana Quartino doesn´t want to quite and then Hermana Quartino won´t quite because she thinks I don´t want to quite so we just go and go and go and go. But we have a lot of fun, the mission president has given me the challenge and getting her speaking good English because she only has this change to learn better, she already speaks really really well but she just needs vocabulary and pronuncion help and so thats what I´m doing. She was baptized 7 years ago and so never got to be part of primary so I have been teaching her primary songs in English and she loves it!! So we have alot of fun, I suspect that she is going to be my favorite companion of my mission because she is just awesome, completely obedient in everything, loves to work hard, and knows what her purpose is here. I don´t know if I said this in my last email but she is so strong. Her dad died when she was out for 6 months and she stayed out, she is just amazing, I don´t think I would have the strength to do that, I actually know I wouldn´t. She is amazing!!!
Well that's about it for now, the work is moving on, this is hard, the mission president wrote me an email today and said to be patient and that everything will work out and that he knows that this area is for me and Hermana Quartino! We love the work here, it´s beautiful and it is not hot here!!! . . . YET!!!
Love you all
Hermana Hubbard
A Whole New World!!! October 24, 2011 Letter #12
Cherysh just wrote a family letter this week, so there won't be a blog. She has been transferred to Encarnacion, Paraguay, it is a 6 hours bus ride from the Mission Home. Hermana Hubbard and Hermana Quartino has just opened a new Sister Mission area. Hermana Quartino is from Uruguay, and has only been a member of the Church for 7 years, she is very hard working and completely follows all of the mission rules, Hermana Hubbard loves her. Hermana Hubbard loves speaking only Spanish with Hermana Quartino and her Spanish has greatly improved. There is a lot of inactivity in Encarnacion and so they really have there work cut out for them. Their area covers a very large area and they do a lot of walking.
Hermana Hubbard is so thankful to be in Encarnacion because the weather is not so hot!!! She also stated that it is very beautiful there and is surrounded by rivers.
Hermana Hubbard says, "we love the work here, it's beautiful and it is not hot here!!!....YET!!!!"
Hermana Hubbard is so thankful to be in Encarnacion because the weather is not so hot!!! She also stated that it is very beautiful there and is surrounded by rivers.
Hermana Hubbard says, "we love the work here, it's beautiful and it is not hot here!!!....YET!!!!"
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