Hola Familia!
They have peanut butter here, because I bought some this week. It is however fairly expensive, a normal sized container was 17 mil Guaraní, or about 3 dollars. It's not that much, but in comparison to the other foods and stuff here, it is pretty expensive.
Well once again it has been a good week. We had a baptismal date for this week, but it ended up falling through... The investigator's name is Jorge, and he is about 19 or 20. On Friday we went to his house to go over the baptismal interview questions, and when we showed up, he told us that he isn't ready. We talked to him, and come to find out that he doesn't know if he believes in Jesus Christ, and a bunch of other things. We are still working with him this week to try and get him prepared (for real this time) for baptism.
We have continued teaching Miguel and Paula. Miguel again this week had a relapse, and drank.... but the good news is that they went to church with their three kids. We gave Miguel a blessing that he can be able to overcome his problem with drinking, and taught them the blessings that their family can receive if he will do all that he can to leave it behind.
We also taught Francisco again. He had told us that he was going to come to church, but come Sunday, he wasn't there. We went to his house after church to see why he wasn't there. It turned out that his wife (a less-active member) had a really bad fever, and so he couldn't come. He had prepared everything to go with us, his shirt, shoes, pants, tie and all, but wants to go to church as a family, and didn't want to leave his wife there being sick. We asked if she would like a blessing, which of course she accepted. Before we did it, we taught her about the important things in a blessing that is the faith of the person receiving the blessing and the will of the Lord. We told her that we know that if she has faith that she will be healed, that the Lord will help her.
We are also teaching an investigator named Juan Carlos. He always receives us very well, and loves when we teach him and everything. This week, we committed him to go to church (we also did last week, and he said he would next week). This week, once again he replied, the next week I will go. We talked to him and asked what it is that impedes him from going to church, he told us that he doesn't feel prepared enough to go to church.... to which we replied that church is for the people who need healing, the people who need help, not for the people that are perfect. Regardless of this, he was relentless that he didn't want to go this week. We know there is some underlying objection, and we are still trying to figure out what it is.
We also taught a woman named Christina. Her son is a member, and the Elder's quorum president in our ward. My companion and the elder before me had been teaching her, and had supposedly taught her all the lessons already. We talked to her, and found out she hadn't been reading the Book of Mormon. We taught her the restoration, and the Book of Mormon, and during the whole thing she was asking us really good questions (which is unusual here). In the end we committed her to read the Book of Mormon, and attend church this coming week.
The interview with President Callan was really good. We talked about a successful missionary, and what it means to be successful. We talked about how baptisms are not necessarily the thing that we should use to judge our success. There is a chapter in Preach My Gospel, which talks about the things that if we are doing as missionaries, we can know that we are successful.
After the interview, we went to McDonalds... yes there is a McDonalds here, also a Burger King and Pizza Hut. I think that is the only restaurants that are from the US. The McDonalds here is about 5 times better than in the United States. For a meal of fries, a hamburger and a drink, it was 20 Guaraní, which is pretty pricey in comparison with the other food here. As missionaries however, if we show them our receipt, we get a free ice cream... pretty cool huh?
Also this week I bought a Book of Mormon in Guarani, but I can't say I have tried reading it quite yet. I also ordered two more nametags, one in Guaraní, and another one that is in Spanish, but is magnetic.
Well that's all for this week, once again we have seen the Lord's hand in our work, and know that he is guiding us in the things that we do every day. I know that as we do the things that the Lord asks of us, that he will bless us and direct us in all our paths.
I love you all, and hope you have a great week. Also tell Grandma that I´m sorry I haven't written yet, it costs 9 mil Guaraní to send a letter to the US, and so I would rather not send a whole lot of letters.
-Elder Ryan Griffin
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