Elder Olson's mission (Paraguay Asuncion North Mission): REMEMBER TO LOCK THE DOOR

Mon., 5/8/2017 (Yby Yau)

Well we have had an interesting week. Tuesday in District meeting we had to say goodbye to all of the missionaries that were going to leave. It was hard to see Elder Villacresses and Elder Andrango leaving, as well as the others. Elder Villacresses ended up as the new assistant! Elder Andrango ended up going to my first area, Juan de Salazar, my first area! We went back to Yby Yau and had a pretty uneventful rest of the semana. Our investigator, Fernando, was planning to get baptized in 2 weeks, but we went to talk to his grandparents about signing his form and they said no. We´ll have to keep working with them. We spent most of the week finding new people to teach. With the time, Elder Castro is improving drastically in his biking skills which is helpful because we can get so much more done! He is honestly a great example for me, because he never had experience with a bike and he went straight to mountain biking. That's a big change and he just went right in. He´s also not afraid to talk to anyone. Nobody really showed up to church this week... we had attendance of 12 including us ahhaha. That did however include 2 investigators. The highlight of the week, though happened at home. We took out some chicken (we bought in bulk, so it was actually 2 full chickens) and put it in a bowl of water to thaw, and put that on the table in the kitchen. We went into the bedroom for studies, and the door was closed. Our back door was closed, but not locked. Out back, there are 2 cats and a bunch of chickens wandering around. Well, we went into the kitchen 2 hours later and the chicken was GONE. The back door was open. We thought wee´d been robbed, but we walked to the back door and there was a cat, tearing apart the chicken on the ground. Elder Castro chased the cat away. We were content until we noticed there was only 1 of the 2 chickens accounted for. Turns out the other cat took the other chicken further into the backyard and was eating it behind a bush. Don't ask me how they got in but we ended up being a little short on chicken for the rest of the week. A few minutes after we thought it was pretty funny what had happened.

I have one quick spiritual note. When we pray (EVERY DAY, of course), God is listening. Like a dad here on earth, He is our father and wants to hear all we have to say. Our prayers are answered by the Holy Ghost. Many times we know things are true when we feel a good feeling in our hearts. If you want an answer to a prayer. Please look for what the Holy Ghost WHISPERS to your heart, and don´t wait for a big dream or theatrical angelic visitation, because for the vast majority of us, that doesn´t happen. Listen to the still small voice, and you´ll be able to realize he truth of all things. Thanks for all that all of you do, and I´m sorry I can't respond to every email. I´m trying but the computers are slow and the minutes are few. I will definitely read every email though, I take pictures of them. Thanks for the emails AND pictures, I love them all! It turns out a picture I had taken of my companion made it onto a church social media site (in spanish hahaha)! Random but kind of cool. His sister sent him an email with a screenshot.

1 Saying goodbye to Elder Andrango! He is now in my first area, Juan de Salazar! It´s kind of funny because his first area , Huguito, was right next to Juan de Salazar.

2 Picture of the zone PJC

3 Saying goodbye to Grandpa(Elder Villacresses was my second trainer´s trainer). We did a lot with the zone leaders here, and I had a couple of divisions with him. He also speaks better English than me(and some German too). He´s now the new assistant.

4 All those little speckles between the camera and me are drops of water. NOTE: In Paraguay, the roof isn´t guaranteed to be waterproof...
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