Chile, chili, ¡¡¡¡¡CHILLY!!!!!

5/26/14

Things got a little chilly this week... 

Lunes: Dont remeber where i left of last time but we went to TGIF (good thing i had to go all the way to paraguay to go there right hahah) it was super good after that we ran to the office swung by for a cyber part two, and thn headed out to teach we went and taught gloris which went well, its a young couple that just moved into the area and all of our other visits got cancelled so we went contacting until it was time to make our way home and goot the clothes from the family lopez. 

Martes: Started today wth a good ol district meeting, that went well, and then i had a division with elder yauney, he will be home on june 17th so hes almost done. but it was a good day i found a sweet charolette hornets hat..  yeah i know that team doesnt exist.. i got it for 3 dollars.. a steal! We had a good lesson with my boy luis who needs to focus more on reading the book of mormon and going to church if he really wants an answer from god. He is doing well though,we also got to meet a super cool couple who are 24 and 25 and the man got in a huge accdient and is paralytical.. they arent married yet but are trying to find god in there life right now and said that they would come to church this weekend, it was super awesome. then we went and had  good lesson with lorena and matias and ilsa, followed by a FHE with the familia prieto about the importance of doing missionary work as memebrs, it was really good and they promised to help us by bringing new faces to FHE and by inviting more people to church. So hopefully they are able to come through with that.

Miercoles: We made a switch-a-roo in the morning and then me and elder phippen hit the road running we went to visit lucy which went really well she is our next planned baptism, and then we visited sandra who is a less active making a really strong comeback, and then we had a good visit with the familia silvero who should be having a baptism in June if the family can make a comeback to church. after that we found some new people, Tobías and Edith... they were pretty cool, after that we went and had a really good lesson about the book of mormon with the familie arsadin.. a family that could be a great adition to the ward they just have to go to church a couple times and establish that habbit. that was the day though.

Jueves: Today started off with another division i went with Elder Molina from columbia to his area and we started it off with him having to go to another elders house because his house doesnt have water. so he showered and then we swung by the church where a guy from south africa helped him understand how to use the famliy search program because he has some converts he is trying to help use it more. It went well, then we went and studied. after that we went and hit lunch, and then the streets to contact and teach the world. It went well we had some good lessons and founf a couple new people. highlights from the day would be a family we visited with a girl who was in the middle of packing here bags to leave the house and run away and then she stopped listened to us and decided to just go hangout with grandma for 2 days because she had already packed. So that was intresting the other was that we found a memebr who went around with us for about 2 ours it was super awesome. We got some good work in with him, he is 19 has tw years left of highschool and then is going on a mission. Oh it also got pretty cold and chilly wand was sprinkling all day, it was windy too.. let paraguay winter beging.

Viernes: went back to laurelty and got some studying in and then some lunch and then we hit the cold streets of paraguay. We visited Luis who seems to be truggling a little bit with recieving an answer, but he will get one if he does the things we leave him to do. After that it seemed like a day of teaching pretty solid catholics although one lesson stood out in particular. We went by and she let us in but told us she loved her religion and she wouldnt change, but then by the end of the lesson she said that if god answers her prayers that she would totally change, it was super awesome. It just keeps getting colder over here, but we ranto one more visit with Lorena and Matías and Ilsa which went well an then called it a day.

Sabado: Today started with Zone meeting, which focused on planning and on using time wisely. We also had intrveiws with president. Mine went well he congradulated me on being a Zone leader and let me know that the weight of the zone was now on my shoulders and i need to do evrything in my power to help it grow. so that was good, next interview i have with president ill have over a year... crazy... then we went and visited Edgar and Marta the people that wanted to come to church this sunday from tuesday and that went really well. After we visited Sandra who has made the descion to talk to the bishop to help her through her repentance process. and then we went and met a new less active memebr who said that they would be at church tomorrow and after that we tried to go get a lesson with the family arsadin and they were sick and said on monday we could, but that they would go to church this sunday.. all except for the mom.. so that was good. AFter that we contacted some more and called it a day.

Domingo: well today we woke up to a freezing cold rainstorm outside.. luckly the last zone meeting we went ot on saturday they gave us heaters.. yeah who would have thought that heaters were necesary in paraguay... but it rained all morning and through church.. which destroyd our church attendance... there was a total of 43 people there with 1 les active and 0 investigadors. It was a struggle, we had the mornig class, where they tlaked about the word of wisdom and how amercans are all in good shape and that they should be more like them.. that was cool and then we had sacrament meeting.. so it got cut a little short. Me and elder phippen where in charge of giving the talks though so that was good, elder phippen spoke first about keeping the sabbath day holy and then i spoke about the need and the duty that memebr have to invite there friend to church.. it went well. after that we got to go work out in the rain.. it was good we taught a few new people manuel and the vera family whose dad was a little intoxicated but super nice, and then we went and visited lucy who didnt go to church for the weather but is doing super well and will be baptized for the 14th of june. After that we went and visited rafeal, the less active that came to church today and is having relationship problems with his wife. He asked us to help teach her and to help them get back together so watch out cupid is coming.. hahah. 

Lunes: This morning sutdies were dedicating to trying to figure out how to have a more successful zone, and then we left the house and played soccer.. looksl ilke thing are warming up a little bit but the weather is pretty nice today. WE went and got some lunch and now im writting you guys...

Crazy how fast each week goes by right! well hope all is well and that everyone is doing good adjusting to the summer!

Love ya all!!!

Elder Jace Gummersall

Another Week Down

5/19/14

It just keeps flying by heres what happened....

Lunes: We went and visited thefamilia silvero had a good lesson they are getting close to coming back as a whole family, and then we went and had a really good nochede hogar with the family lopez, we played pictionary, it went really well.. it was a homade version but they liked it.

Martes: We had district meeting which went well, nice to not have to teach haha, and then had lunch and went to teach, no one was home at first, and then we went and took care of ovejas, after that we went and visited juana, and then had a crazy lesson with adrianas famliy members, not her...they are very far off from the teachings of jesus christ and basically couldnt get over the fact that i had blue eyes so we just had to duck out of there.,.. it was un poco awkward, but im getting used to it. Then we thought we had a noche de hogar with the familia prieto but they were almost all gone so we helped one of the daughters who just decided to leave on a mission know what she has to do to prepare herself for it.. it was a good day.

Miercoles: today we started a division and i wented over to isla bogado with elder alulema.. we have the same birthday. We got a ton of work in and ened up teaching lots of people. we got 7 lessons which is something i havent had in one day since i came to laurelty. It was a real good day and then we switched at the end of the day and i went back home with my boy elder phipdaddy.

Jueves: Another division today (life of a zone leader) i stayed in my area this time and went with elder ellefson. He is super awesome and is considerding going to BYUI when he gets home, he is from the new jeruselum.. misuri (sorry thats how its spelled in spanish dont remmeber how it is in english haha) we got alot of good contacting in , had a really good asado mothers day lunch.. today was mothers day in paraguay so happy mothers day again mom! and we foud some really good new people to teach after that. Then we went and visited the familia martinez, follwed by cintia, follwed by lorena ilsa and matías, and then went and found two more new investigadors that seem super awesome. in totally we had 5 new investigators today it was super awesome. 

Viernes: we made the switcharooski andthen headed home and did some studying and planning. Then we had lunch, and went and visited luis who accpeted a bautism date. It was super good, then we were able to commit sandra to come back to church with her mom on sunday. Sandra is moronis mom, the kid i baptized last cahnge. So that was super good, then we taught cintia and went to visit eva to find her son there that i had never met. It was super cool and we had a really good lesson with him. 

Sabado: Today we studied left a little early, and then went ad visted some new people that we recently found that went well, then we came home and made our selves luncha nd had language study, after we went and contacted a crazy catholic lady who said even if god told her that our church was true it wouldnt chage the fact that the catholic church and any other church was true. it was a little hard to understand but everyone has there choice to choose, its just sad when people arent even willing to ask, or verify with god. then we went and found a new guy to teach named sergio, followed up by verifying that sandra would be coming to church, she said yes, then we found a nother family that looks like they could be coming to church after we taught our best progressing investigator lucy, and then we went and taught some more people and had a super good day, including 7 lessons in our area, and finding 6 new people, it really seems like things are starting to crank on all cylinders here in laruelty. 

Domingo: We waited for many but few came, its alright though, because most need a little bit more of a push to come for the first time. WE did have 70 in church with 7 less actives, and 1 investigator. It was a really good sudnday. Oh i also hit 10 months today!!!!! wow super rapido right! Then we study and had lunch, AFter we had a couple more good qualtiy lessons to end the week and then we called it a day. It was a pretty sgood week overall.

Lunes: Today we went to the Ciber in the morning, wrote for half the tie and then we went to TGIF it was super good, pictures to come next week. After that we ran to the office, over to super6 and then made our way home to finish writting you guys.

Love you all so much!! thanks for all the love and support! Stay sweet ;)

Love

Elder Jace Gummersall

ARÁ SYGUI

5/12/14

Happy Mothers Day MAMA!!!! Che ROHAYHU!!!!!!!

Lunes: Today after we wrote you we went back to our area and then tried to say goodbye to a couple people but they werent home, so we swung by eva, said goodbye to her and then headed back home and my comp packed up his things or started too.

Martes: Had district meeting, it went well, the last one that ill have to teach for probably a while. Then i had to help teach Elder Menchacka how to do the computer stuff for district leaders and then we headed out to lunch. It was good and turley said bye to her and then we went home and packed and cleaned until we went and said bye to everyone. Not everyone was home but we got to say goodbye to the majority of the people we were able to get to. then we headed home and ate pizza and packed and cleaned until turley was ready.

Miercoles: Well started the morning of with changes and getting to work with elder Phip(daddy)pen we ran to San lorenzo real quick to go shoping and then made our way back home for lunch. it was good and then the work began. It is definaqtely working with someone who you arent training. Basiclly the first time thats happened in the missin. The work just got alot more effective and effient really fast. So thats super awesome, after that we got a new investigator from rafela Lopez a super awesome member.. so that was great. then we met up with juana who is so close to being active again. after we visited the familia florentine who is all doing well, they are super great converts they just need to get there dad going to church and baptized hahah. 

Jueves: Today was filled with contacting which was good, because our investigators are not super flashy right now. after we went to lunch with lopez and carlos the son had a great lesson and hopefully we will be able to help him prepare himself for a mission. Then we visited galeano for the last time unless they go to church.. we´ll head back over there in a couple weeks. After we visited Adriana and Sandra, and had a super awesome great law of chastity lesson with them which is there biggest struggle. It went really well and hopefully they are baleto have the strength to better there lives and then come back to church. After that all our plans feel through so we decided to have a good lesson with ariel and comit him to be released from being a missionary, since its been 4 months now.. then we went home called some people in our zone and called it a night.

Viernes: today we did some weekly planning and then ate some home cooked lunch.. i hada double chicken patty, double egg ranch sandwich and a grapefruit which was super good, and then we headed out to work. We met with luisone of the first investigators that we found here and he seemed super awesome, he had traveled for a while and thats why we couldnt find him. then we were contacting and we got called over by a group of kids and there was a memebr from y´berá that introduced us to his friends and told us that he wanted to help them get baptized so that was super cool, then we did some contacting until we made our way out to San lorenozo to skype you gvuys!! it was so good to be able to hear and see all f you and went way better than the christmas time hahah after that we went and visited the familia martinez and then we went and visited Lorena and matìas they both went really well, but the highlight of the day was talking to you guys.

Sabado: Today was good we went and visited the familia silvero who said that they would be at church tomorrow which was super good to hear they are a family that is so close to coming back and being really strong. After we went to bishops house for lunch which went well, and then we went and contacted... it went well we found a couple new people and had some people freak out about how blue my eyes are.. thats always fun... its great to when they ask if all americans have eyes like me and then i say no my comp has brown eyes.. and he is from the states too.. paraguayans though jajajajajajaja, then we had a church activity and it went really well we had a whole bunch of games that we where in charge of, i ran the casino and played 21 for a couple hours.. it went really well and we had a good turn out and then we pretended to all get in an airplane and crash and die and then we talked about the plan of salvation and how what we do in this life really does matter and that we cant just go runnign around mindlessly all the time but there are times when we do have to sacrifice ourselves to do what right. It went well after we tried to pass by evas house but she wasnt there.. so that was the day.

Domingo: well we went ot church and then enjoyed a great sunday. There was about 63 people at church and 5 less actives with 1 investigator there. then we had lunch studied and put together a great sunday. We taught adriana, and then taught ariel and his sister, and then we found two new families that we could teach which could be a super great opportunity for us!! so pray for us hahah :)after that we rendired with the district leaders and called it a night.

Lunes: today we got some studies in and then headed to go play some basketball but all the courts were busy because there were paraguayen independance celebrations for this week, so we went and playd soccer instead. It was really good, just a little hot. After that we went to Mcdonalds and then we made our way to the cciber and now im writing you guys... crazy how that happens each week right... 

Well this week was a good one looking foreward always, love you all so much!!!

Love Elder Jace Gummersall

Changes

5/5/14

well we got some changes this week... but heres what happened this week...

Lunes: Well we got back to our house and had a super great night planed out but then almost all of those plans fell through and we taught Fabiola, who should be baptized this sunday, and then we had a FHE with an active member family inviting them to invite friends to a fireside that we were having with a seventy, so that went really well, we ate pizza after, it was good.

Martes: Started the day with district meeting, it went well we focused on baptism and a goal we could set and how we would reach it, it became a simple lesson really, Jesus taught that we have to be baptized, we are baptized in order to recieve the remision of our sins, or to be cleansed of all the things weve done wrong, baptism must be done by someone with gods authority or permision to do so, and if we do it we have the chance to return to live with him. The lesson was to make sure the people we teach understand that and that we understand that they cant be saved and that we really have the love for those people. it was good. I also got a package from you guys!!! thanks a ton!! it had hair gel sweedish fish and a ton of ranch.. one packet exploded but it wasnt too bad to clean up... it was good! thanks sooooooo much!! afterwords i went and did sheeps, and then we headed out to teach. WE had a lesson with a girl that is the girlfriend of a less active memeber, and it was super awesome, we applied what i taught/learned and it worked super well, then we went and taught fabiola again who is cerquita to being baptized. and afterwords we went and visited lorena matìas and ilsa who are doing good but matìas is sick. They plan on going this thursday as well to the seventys fireside.

Miercoles: Today it RAINED!!!!! so much i really didnt know if we would be able to leave, but after making a few phone caalls we left igual. we made it to lunch and it continued pouring the whole time, and then left lunch to enter a river, it was crazy people were yelling at us telling us it was super dangouerous (mainly becuase paraguayans dont know how to swim, but we were careful. The best was when an old lady yelled at us you guys need to pray more, this is not good, this is not from god it was funny cause it was like, well you can pray, and actually everything is from god, or else he isnt all powerful. jajaja then we made it to the next lesson with juana and the rain stopped after we visited the martinez family and then we went to a bunch of houses were people were either not home or not wanting to leave there house to let us in because of the mud. we tried to visit with fabiola again but there were abunch of drunk people at the house and they kicked us out when we got there, so that was fun, then we got pizza and headed home.

Jueves: today we headed to lunch, taugh the galeano family, and then contacte a bunch to help grow our pool of investigadors, we contacted a guy who said he was an acholholic and that he wanted to change, and we found a lady and her grandson who were very catholic, nice, and gave us a bag full of grapefuit. Then we went and waited for the colectivo that took us to see elder wilhelm from the seventy, it was super awesome we had 4 investigadores and 2 less actives show up and the talks were great, it was hard to focus completely because lots of kids were trying to play with us, but better that we were distracted then the parents and older siblings of the kids. After we got a ride home from members in our ward, in a mercedes, and they bought us dinner, they areone of the richer families in paraguay so it was super awesome and a great way to end a great fireside.

Viernes: WE started today by going back to the luque centro chapel to have zone meeting with elder wilhelm, it was good, an AP spoke (15 min), then Sister McMullin spoke on using preach mygospel more (30 min), then president spoke about baptism (30 min), and then listened sister wilhelm who spoke on preach my gospelk and praying with faith (1 1/2 hours!!!!!) and the Elder Wilhelm spoke on using the mission agenda and praying with faith (1hour) then we took a photo got luncha and headed home. It was super good.. just a little long but i really did learn a ton!! after words we did a little bit of studying helped the home owner decorate beneath our house for a quincineta for a girl this saturday... that was good, then we went and visited adriana and she seems to be progressing, and then we passed by a few more people and had the last lesson with fabiola and she is super ready.

Sabado: Today we started the day witha super awesome plan! and then as we left the house we realized there were many things that we did not plan for.. namely prepare the baptismal font.. so that was fine we went and taught un poco contacted un poco and cleaned and prepared the font. Then we had the baptismal interview, and she passed after we got a lesson in and put the next fecha for the end of may and called it a day.

Domingo: TOday was super good, we had 76 people at church and 10 less actives, and fabiola came, so that was awesome because after church we had the privelage to baptize her. It was awesome after we went to lunch, and we got changes, early. On a sunday. Me and Elder turley are seperating he will be five minutes away but in the other zone and with a latin comp, i will be comps with elder fippen, the zone leader, i also will be going up as zone leader. Crazy i was not ready to hear that one but i guessif thats what president wants then ill do it. after that we went and taught a little more, we went to some old investigators and had some good bible talk, its just all the scriptures i used from the bible werent as true as all the scriptures they used from the bible so that was frustrating, but oh well, then we went and visited camila for her birthday, and her cousin was there who we taught lesson one.,.. looked like a golden investigator, but then after eveerything said she was a member, it was funny haha then we went home and called it a night.

Lunes: Today was good i got some watches in luque, i also got a guarani bible, then we ran to the office, and then we went and got mcdonalds...  then i ran into elder hall who is going to my first zone as zone leader this change to, im soo excited to be able to actually se him now that he isnt lejos.. after we came and wrote you!!

Well that was my exciting week.. we´ll see what happens with this whole zone leader thing.. cant wait to see you this week, love ya all tons!!

Love

Elder Jace Gummersall