14th Letter

¡Hola Amigos y Amigas!

First off before anything else I want to wish a late "Happy Birthday" to my Grandma Martinez! I love you and hope you had an amazing birthday! :)

Now....let´s start!

I know I have said this over and over again in almost every single one of my emails that I write, but the time is unbelievably fast! Cambios (changes) were this last week and my companion and I are still together until October 19th for sure. Who knows??? We could stay together longer than that! But anyways crazy how time goes by! I love to here from you and know how things are going up there in Utah! I loved the nice, cool Fall weather! Down here we are just beginning to get into Summer! Every so often we´ll get these rain storms for a day and then its usually cooler for about a day or two, but then after that it can be blistering hot! I love it! The members that we have feed us so well. You probably got the picture last night of my companion and I eating a chocolate icecream cake to celebrate my first month here in Paraguay! They are the best!

We have been working really hard down here and trying to find inactives, new investigators, and trying to help our progressing investigators pull through to baptism. It was kind of duro (hard) this week when we found out Thursday evening that 8 of our 9 progressing investigators are not progressing and have regressed a bit. But, what do you do when life gives you lemons? MAKE LEMONADE! :) So we focused on that one person who was progressing and tried to find 16 menos activos miembros en la iglesia. I don´t think I have been so tired in my life hahaha. Its so great though, that proves to me that I´m working and not just doing nothing. Its good! Sorry I don´t have alot of new things to share....

Anyways, I love this work and I know that I am here and I have been called to serve these people. I know that God helps us with anything- even with learning a language! Day by day it gets better and better here!

¡Les quiero muchisimo!
-Elder Martinez

13th Letter

¡Hola Familia y Amigos!

Un otro dia aqui en Paraguay y la vida es perfecto :) Gracias por sus correos electronicos (email). ¡Los quiero muchismo!

This week was pretty eventful and to help my memory of what has happened throughout the week I have a list of things to remember to talk with you about. Here they are:

• This week was my first week of divisiones with one of the Zone Leaders- Elder Hernandez (from El Salvador). I was really anxious and nervous to do it, seening that I hadn´t even had a full change yet, but regardless I had no choice :) No, it was actually a great experience for me. I learned so much from Elder Hernandez. He is the only boy in his family out of 5, his father died when he was younger and him and his sister are the only members of the Church. I was most worried that I wasn´t going to be able to understand what was happening in our lessons, conversations, and all of it really. But, we went to work and taught eight lessons for the rest of that day, committed each of the people we taught to be baptized, and every single one said that they would. It is amazing that although this area is only 10-15 mins away from ours, the people are so different. Yeah this area where I am am is a challenge, but the good news is that we have 9 investigators that are on their way to baptism if they keep progressing they way they are. Hopefully everything will continue to get better with them :)
• So some interesting animals that I have seen so far in Paraguay include:
• Monkeys on houses (only when I went out of my area for divisions with Elder Hernandez)
• Bats (they fly in trees as common here as the birds do in Utah)
  
• Parrots (In the trees tambien)
  
• and Plenty of Dogs and Cats (People try to get rid of these animals because they are EVERYWHERE)
• Some interesting foods that I have eaten include:
• Baby squid
• Crocodile (here is called Cha-ka-rey Chacré)
  
• Chicken hearts (just like they have at Rodizillos y Tuscanos)
• and Plenty of Empenadas
• My companion and I helped our branch president´s family move this week. We were both fasting and sick with the cold and it was just awesome :) We could definately feel the burn afterwards for the next few days but we were blessed with our investigadores for our service.
• Its the end of the first change this week and I still have one more to go with my companion. Can´t believe how fast things are!

Things are going great down here in Paraguay! I love it here and I love the area I´m in. Sure its a challenge, but this place is my home for now! We are working with the members and the Church is improving dramatically!

Thanks for all of your love!

Les amo muchisisisisisisisisisismo!
Elder Martinez