Waiting for a miracle

Buenos dias familia,

This has been an interesting week, we had the week planned out well, with a lot of appointments, and two days in that members would accompany us. On Monday, we had a member accompany us, and we taught three lessons with him. We also contacted a guy that is about 20 years old or so. He goes to some church that I don't even know, anyway we were talking to him for a while in the streets. He told us that he doesn't feel good about his congregation that he is in right now, but that he doesn't want to switch denominations. He also told us that he is constantly praying for guidance from God to know what he needs to do.... and that's where we come in. We are the third set of missionaries that have tried to talk to him. He has a very set vision of God, and the things that he does. He told us that God is going to answer him in his dreams, and that he knows the Holy Ghost, and that he wants a church that he feels the spirit in the congregation. We talked with him about the fact that he has to keep his mind open, we can't possibly tell God how he is going to answer us, or we will never recognize the answer. He is looking for guidance in his life, and we told him that we are that guidance, and that God is trying everything he can to help him. He still didn't believe us, and we set an appointment to go with a member that lives in another ward that he had heard about and wanted to meet. On Friday, we went to the house with him. The woman is a member, and has been for 8 years now. The thing is, that she is bedridden, and has been for 13 years. She has no legs, and her arms don't work, yet she is one of the happiest people I have met in my life. She attends church every week, regardless of her condition, and has such a powerful testimony. We taught a lesson with our investigator, and her, and she bore her testimony, and talked with him about the importance of this church. We feel like it went well, and we gave him a Book of Mormon to read and pray about. He refused however to set an appointment to meet again, but lives across the street from some investigators that we are teaching, and said he would come over to talk to us when he reads it.

Other than that, this week has been one of the harder weeks so far. Pretty much the last 4 days of the week, nobody was home, and all of our appointments were falling through. All of the 4 days we returned home exhausted, and drained emotionally and physically. I'm not sure why we weren't able to find a whole lot of people this week, but as I decided at the beginning of this transfer, regardless of what happens during my mission, I am going to keep going and pushing on with all the strength that I have left. If by the time we return to the house, we have absolutely no energy left, we may be disappointed in our investigators, but at least we can know that we did everything in our power to help them. This week we also had trouble trying to get members to help us. We have a couple of investigators that are women, and we can't teach them unless we have a responsible male present. The problem is that there are a lot of women who don't have husbands, or sons old enough, so we can only teach them if we have a member. The problem was, this week; the members weren't very willing to come with us to help us teach them. It is a constant battle here with the members, we have two or three that are willing to help us, and the rest just don't have any desire to do it.

Anyway, this has been a hard week, but I'm still fighting with all I’ve got to try and help the investigators. I know that as long as I do all that I can do, that the Lord will put in his part to help the people.

This week has been a little more rainy than usually, which is nice for the fact that it is cooler, but makes it hard because all the people hide in their houses because they think that 60 degrees is cold. Other days were nice and hot, and humid, which makes it a lot worse. The members have said that the heat hasn't even started yet, that it is January, and February that get up to over 40 degrees Celsius, or about 105 degrees Fahrenheit.... with whatever amount of humidity. I think you can probably just expect me to be black by the time that i return home.

Well that's about all for this week, I love you all, and hope everything goes well this week. Keep the people of Paraguay in your prayers! Thanks for the support, and your prayers. Hasta la proxima semana.....

-Elder Ryan Griffin
La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias