Gotta get the investigators married

Hey,
That’s crazy to see how much snow we have there in Utah. We have pretty much the opposite here in Paraguay. Almost every day is hot. It rains every once in a while, which just makes it more hot and humid. This week it’s been pretty hot, and I’m getting a nice tan, and haven´t been burned yet. Right now I’m darker than half the natives here, well my arms and face are anyway. I have some major tan lines already that are just worse and worse every day. One where my collar is, and the other where my sleeve ends.
This week has been a good week. It definitely wasn’t one of our best weeks, but we found a couple of new investigators that we are now teaching.
One of the new investigators that we have now is named Ramon. He is about 14 or so, and we found him a couple days back. We taught him this week, and for the first lesson that we taught him we set a baptismal date for the 18 of December. We left him with the commitment to read and to pray, and we are going to return tomorrow. Also he knows a member that is about his age that lives a couple houses up, so we are going to bring this member with us the next time so that he can help him go to church and everything.
Also this week we have continued teaching Miguel and Paula. Miguel has completely stopped drinking, as far as he has told us, and seems to be doing better. The problem with them right now is that they still are not married, and as of right now don’t have the desire to get married. We have talked to them multiple times about matrimony to try and help them, but usually it ends up in a fight, and they just say the things that the other one needs to change before they get married. We are going to bring a couple from our ward this week to talk to them, because obviously we have absolutely no experience with marriage.
Also this Sunday we talked to our bishop about doing Ward council. In our zone conference, and everything they are pushing really hard to start doing ward council more in the wards. We talked to him about doing it every other week, like the presidency has asked all wards. We are constantly trying to get our leaders here to do stuff, because they are always really lazy, but we are trying to support them, and show that we are here to help them, not to be a burden. We want to start doing ward council so that we can actually involve the ward more in the work. Out here it feels more often that we constantly have to beg and plead the members to give us references, accompany us for lessons…. And we want to have it so that the ward has more of a desire to help the missionaries. We have one leader, the 2nd councilor that does pretty much everything in the ward. He does all the responsibilities of the bishop, he just lacks the calling. Anyway, he is helping us a lot to talk to the bishop, and start working more efficiently with the wards here.
My companion right now is….. interesting. He is one of those missionaries that wants to have fun on the mission, and sometimes just doesn’t know when it’s enough. He is usually willing to work if I tell him lets go or whatever. It’s kind of frustrating, because I just find myself getting annoyed with him a lot, so it’s hard to feel unity. Anyway, he is good at teaching when he is serious, and he is willing to work when I push him along a little bit. For the most part he knows really well how to be effective in the days and use our time wisely. Although it’s difficult sometimes, I am trying to learn to love him so that we can have unity and not impede the spirit from teaching the people.
Anyway, love you guys, and I'll talk to you later. Thank you for everything.
Elder Ryan Griffin

Elder Cow?

Hola otra vez mi familia,

This week has been a good week again. Elder Gutiérrez already had 4 changes in this area, and so of course we had a change. He went to Cuidad del Este, and left 2 days ago. I now have a new companion, named Elder Vaca, or in English.... Elder Cow. He is from Ecuador.... the third native companion in a row. The other elder in the same apartment as us had a change as well. We now have two elders from Ecuador, and two from Utah. The other elder from utah has 3 changes, one more than me, and he is from Layton, his name is Elder Merrill. Anyway my companion has 1 year and 5 months in his mission, a little bit more than my last companion. He is a great elder so far, and speaks a little different than the people here, but for the most part I can understand him.

Also this week we had our zone conference with Elder Foster of the 70. He is the area president here in Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay. Him, his wife, and the callans all spoke to us during about 3 or so hours. Elder Foster talked to us about this mission. In the past 5 years or so in this are of the three countries, the attendance of members has decreased by 3000, but the baptisms have increased the membership constantly. The problem here is that we constantly are having oler members stop attending, and a lot of the converts stop going to church. We talked about how we need to start doind ward council every other week so that we can start keeping the members in the church, and keep the converts active. The president had all the stake presidents have meetings with the bishops to train them about ward council and everything, unfortunately our bishop in our ward was too busy to attend the meeting.... so we have to train him on how to do it. The other problem, is that he is not all the excited to start doing it. Anyway, we talked a lot about how much the mission is struggling, and that we need to start increasing the memberships and everything else here.

This week I have to know all the investigators and members and the routes of all the collectivos, and all that good old stuff after being here for 6 weeks. Our area is huge, and I still haven´t even seen about half of it, but I know where all of our investigators live, and all the members, and everything pretty well. It's kind of weird having to be in charge of it for now, because my companion doesn´t know any of the people, so i have to pretty much teach the lesson.

The investigators are doing pretty good for the most part.....

Miguel and Paula- They still have to get married before they can be baptized. She wants to be baptized, and he kind of does. The problem is that they don't want to get married. they have four children, so we can't try to seperate them either. Every time we try to bring up marriage, they start to argue, and say that they don´t want to get married until the other one changes. we have tried just about everything that we can think of to help them to want to get married, but honestly can´t figure out what to do. We are constantly praying for guidance that we need with them, and I know that if it is the will of the Lord, that we will find something to help them

Jorge and Ruth- They are a couple that we found more recently. Ruth is the cousin of the two girls that we baptized a little while back, and she attended their baptism. She told us she really liked the baptism, and that it was all really good. She attends some evangelical church, but hasn't been baptized. We have taught them a couple of times now. Jorge is Catholic, or in other words he attends the catholic church sometimes. He has told us that the catholic church does a lot of bad things that are against the bible, but that he thinks that they are the only churhc that teaches true doctrine. Of course we responded that the doctrine of a church is the things that they do and the things that they teach, not just the things they teach. We also told him that the true church of Jesus Christ should not have anything contrary to the teachings of Christ, or have any bad fruits (Matt. 8) Anyway we committed them to pray about the Book of Mormon (they had already read the part we had left earlier) Tee next time we returned they had done it, but they told us that they didn't feel anything. She however told us that she thinks our church is true, and that she feels good when we teach them and when she reads the Book of Mormon. I think that part of the problem, is that Jorge doesn't want to recieve the answer that the church is true, but we are still working with them to try and help them to gain the testimony they need

We have another one named Jonny, who has read and prayed, and is great. All we need to do with him right now is have him attend church. He works a lot, so it is hard to do that part, but we are trying to find a time that he can come to church when he doesn’t have to work. Other than that, there is a whole lot of new stuff that has happened. Everything is going really well, and I still haven’t been sick yet. Spanish is going fantastic, the president and Elder Foster complimented me on my Spanish during the zone conference, although it’s not really thanks to anything that I did. It really is amazing to see how the gifts of the spirit are manifested during our misisons. I cna not believe how fast Spanish came, and how much stuff I could remember from the little bit of Spanish that I had in Junior high. I have started studying Guarani now, becuase there is a book of Guarani in our apartment. But I haven’t learned a whole lot yet. It is a lot harder because you have to use your nose to speak. I hope that I can learn it before i’m done with my mission so that I can bear my testimony in Guarani.

Elder Ryan Griffin

Baptism Pics

Little update on Ryan and Paraguay

Well our weather has been nice and hot, and humid pretty much the entire week. The area I'm in right now is more city, but there is hardly such thing as paved roads here. Paved roads means they threw a bunch of rocks down and threw some sand on top of it, it is quite fun to walk on. My pair of shoes from Liahona are already falling apart because the rocks just destroy the shoes and our feet. I have been really humbled living here for the past two months because i realize how blessed i was to be living in America. The people here pretty much just work to eat, and eat to live. My health has been fantastic. I will let you know if I get sick or anything though.

Horray, 3 baptisms

Well this week has been a fantastic week. The Lord has blessed us more than we deserve, but we are very thankful for the blessings that we recieved. We had three baptisms this week, and all three were confirmed. Two of them are sisters, named Monica who is 16, and Ana Laura who is 12. They are Korean, and their parents are less active members. The missionaries have been teaching them for quite a while now, and we were blessed to be the ones to baptize them. Monica had been baptized in another church earlier, and has had a testimony of the church for quite a while now, but just had something that was keeping her back from being baptized. We taught them the 3rd lesson, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and talked about how you have to recieve the Holy Ghost after a baptism for it to be valid. We read the scripture in Acts 19 about when Paul asks some people if they have receved the Holy Ghost after they were baptized, and that he re-baptized them and then confirmed them with the gift of the Holy Ghost. After the lesson, we set the date, and then we kept talking to them every day, and did the interview, and then this last Saturday they were baptized. Emilio, our other baptism, is 18, and has a girlfriend that is a member of the church. He has wanted to get baptized for a while now, but we haven't felt that he has a testimonio of the church yet. We talked to our zone leaders and District leaders because we felt like it is wrong to deny somebody a baptism, and so our district leader interviewed him. He said that he thinks he is ready to be baptized, and so we baptized him this saturday.

This week we also taught 40 lessons, 12 of which were with a member present. We are still trying to get the members more involved in the misisonary work here.... Out of our bishopric, we couldn't get one of them to attend the baptism, which is kind of frustrating, but I'm trying to more patience with the members here.

This last week they had some elections of mayors in all the cities. With the elections here the people camaign like crazy. Almost every day there was lines of cars with flags and stickers that would go around in our area just honking, and blasting music.... quite the fun time. For the elections here, the people gound and pick people up to go and vote, and then they color all the peoples' fingers so that they know who has voted and who hasn't. Our asistencia en our iglesia was really bad this week, because apparently the members think it is more important to vote than to go to church.

I have been reading in the New Testament for my personal study a lot, so that I can be better aquainted with the scriptures in the Bible. It is amazing reading the New Testament, how many things there are that are against every other religion except ours. I don't understand how the people can say that they believe in the Bible, but have teachings that are so contrary to the Bible. One of the things that I have been learning here in the Mission, is the importance of reading the scriptures every day. The members that read their scriptures here are the same members that actually want to help us in the misisonary work. They go to church because they want to instead of out of obligation. It is just amazing to see the difference it makes in people when they just read the scriptures every day.

By the way, just a side note, if you want to hear what Guarani sounds like, you can go into the conference talks and go to Guarani, and listen.... quite an interesting language.

Well I love you all, and I will talk to you again next Thursday. Hasta luego, les amo!

-Elder Ryan Griffin

The rain becomes a blessing

Well it´s been a bitter sweet week.... there have been some ups and downs, but overall it has been really good.

We taught Rodney again, the one that i talked about in the last email. We arrived at his house this Saturday, and started talking to him. He wasn't really too intent on letting us try to come in and try to teach him. Luckily for us, we had the help of the Lord on our side..... it started raining, and when it rains here, it really rains. The streets are like rivers, quite fun trying to get home in after it has rained. Anyway, when it started raining he let us come in. We taught him about the Restoration, and found out he had read 10 chapters in the Book of Mormon starting in 3rd Nephi 11. This of course was a surprise, since usually we can't even get people to read two verses in between visits. Anyway, he had a doubt about the 21 chapter.... because it says something about that the people who don't accept the Book of Mormon will be destroyed. We talked to him about the fact that if poeple reject the gospel that they will be destroyed. We cleared a lot of questions up that he had, and overall it was a really good lesson.

We have been working this week with Hermano Pando and his family. He is one of the members that is actually willing to help us. He is constantly seeking to share the gospel with his neighbors, and friends. Unfortunately we have had trouble finding people at home still.

On Friday, the day started out perfectly clear. After a little while however, the skies started getting darker and darker. When it was about 5 it started raining, and since we didn't bring our umbrellas, we had to seek shelter in one of the members´ houses. We went to the house of the Tabel family, who are really helpful as well with the missionary work. Anyway, it started just pouring for about 30 minutes, and then literally out of nowhere, iceballs started falling from the sky, about the size of golfballs..... quite the weird experience. After a while of that, it finally stopped, and we got to walk through the rivers, i mean streets back to our house. About 2 minutes after we arrived, it started the downpour again.

This week we set 5 baptismal dates.... unfortunately none of them came to church. We had about 20 investigators that told us that they were going to come to church, and we had one actually show up. One of the baptismal dates that was for this week fell, because the investigator moved. Two of the others fell because they didn't attend church. The other two are still good because they already had there 3 times of going to church.

One of the dates we set is named Fransisco. His "señora" is a member that is less-active. He is the one that had the dream of his grandpa holding a Book of Mormon in his hands. Anyway it is difficult with him because he still has his wife, and they are still trying to get divorced, but it takes forever here in Paraguay. Also of course he has to get married before he can be baptized, so we are still praying and trying to figure out what to do with him. The problem right now as well, is that there is an election in here in Villa Elisa this next Sunday, and they are working for one of the candidates. The people here go all out for the elections of what is the equivelent of a mayor in the US.

Another one is named Victor Huesped. He had met with the missionaries before we found him. When we found him, he had recently been in a motorcycle accident. The Sunday before this last one, he attended church, but we didn't even see him, because it was the Stake conference. The problem with him is that he works a lot.

The other two are two daughters of parents that are members.... that are less active of course. They are a korean family... yes there are koreans here, and Germans as well.... I'm not sure why, but there are quite a bit of them. Anyway the two daughters want to be baptized, they are 16 and 14. The one that is 16 wants to be baptized, but has some kind of doubt.

Anyway, this week was a good week, thanks for all the support and the love! I love you all, and hope all goes well with you. Que le vaya bien!

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

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