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
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