29th Letter

¡Hola Amigos!

I´m so happy because my companion and I are staying together for this next change! We were worried that one of us were going to leave, but thankfully we stayed together to help the people of Barcequillo. We are trying to make this change the best one that we have had out of our other two. We are ready to BAPTIZE BARCEQUILLO! J

This past week we set tons of goals and made plans, with the help of a little creativity we are off to a great head´start in making things happening in Barcequillo. We have made plans for establishing a ward mutual night/ branch activity night that will be held weekly, trying to get the ward members to know other members, and finding and teaching so many families that we lose track of them all! Man my mind is going a thousand miles a second but we are doing things like crazy to help this little branch we have! I LOVE IT!

The temperature down here gets hotter and hotter! With summer beginning to get at its peak we reach about 45-50 degrees celsius (110-120 degrees F)!!!!!CRAZY!!!! Water has definately become my friend as well as sunscreen and the nice little set up I have with a chair right in front of our fan to cool me down every night! When I get back you won´t even recognize me because of how tan I will be ;)

This week we had the opportunity to learn about the greatest commandment the Lord Jesus Christ taught while he was here on the earth. Love the Lord your God, and the second like unto it, Love your neighbor. I love to hear good stories like that of the Samiritan who helped one in need. We should always try to be a little nicer, better, and more friendly to our peers. When you develop this, loving everyone regardless of their faults, you will start to develope the pure love of Christ- Charity.

I love you all and hope life is going great! Things down here for my companion and I couldn´t be better! I pray for all of you and thank you every day for all of your examples and influences on my life! Keep true to the faith and live it!

¡Les quiero muchísmo!

-Elder Martinez

28th Letter

¡Hola Amigos!

Well I hope this message gets to you nice and safe! This last week was great as usual and my companion and I had some great opportunities to teach and preach to some new families.

First we have found 4 new families this past week. All of them have such great potential! 3 of the families are younger with 1-3 little kids under the age of 5. The other family is a middle-aged couple with 6 boys from 12-25. All of them were really great receiving us when we contacted them in the great grassy forests of Barcequillo, Paraguay. I hope I can stay to see all four of these great families progress to baptism!

I am so grateful for my mission. How many people can say that they have served a full-time mission in Paraguay! Not very many ¿verdad? It is interesting how the querky things that were once thought of as different, strange, and the unusual become the indifferent, normal, and usual parts of everyday life. Whether it is the crazy bus drivers blazing down the “empadrada” rocky-roads, the deep-voiced chipa-callers yelling at 4 in the morning, or the super-hot humid days with the sun just shining down on your heat-exhausted face ;) I love my mission.

My companion and I were talking the other day about how much the mission has helped us progress not only spiritually but mentally and physically as well. It´s kind of a “head-start” program for life we said jokingly. But the more I think about that statment “a head-start program for life”, it is so true. We are being tested in all ways possible to strengthen us for after the mission. The General Authorities today keep on telling us in general conferance how the Church needs strong, willing young-men to sustain the church. I remember hearing a quote from Jeffery R. Holland in the MTC and he said something like (referring to the last sentence) “so thats what we do…we take you 19-25 year olds and send you out to the diverse places of the world to preach the gospel.” It truly changes one´s capacities to handle whatever may come, with the help of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Anyways, I want you to know how grateful I am for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for his atonement, and for his example. I love sharing this message to all that will listen, even if its in a tin-can shack or a multi-level mansion! I love the scriptures and the guidance they give us! I love the mission! I love my parents and siblings! I love my friends and neighbors! I love Utah! I love the United States of America! And… I LOVE (RO-HYE-HU) PARAGUAY!

-Elder Martinez

27th Letter

¡FELIZ AÑO NUEVO!

I hope you had a great holiday and have set new goals for the upcoming year! I love this time of the year to think about what we can do better and improve with ourselves. We had a great new years down hear in Paraguay by eating some wonderful cow tongue, chipauazu, Pulp Naranja, chicken, ribs and other barbaqued meat. It was oh so yummy! (Maybe not the cow tongue, but everything else YES).

My companion and I had the opportunity to see all of the fireworks for new years up on our roof, which was the highest building in our area. It was so cool to see for miles and miles the different fireworks in the sky, the loud music playing, and all of the great stuff that made it unique. Needless to say our sleep that night wasn´t the greatest with all of the other partying going on. :)

My message is short and simple for this week- set goals for this upcoming year and write them down! A new year always gives us the opportunity to better ourselves. So do it!

I love you all! Hope you all are safe, sound, and enjoying the new year with your families!

¡Felicidades!

-Elder Martinez

26th Letter

Merry Late Christmas Everyone!

I have to let you know that although I wasn´t home this Christmas, I had the opportunity to Skype my family all the way from across the world. How amazing is technology that today in a small Cyber in Paraguay, I can see and hear my family in our home! I love it! I´m so grateful for it!

Anyways I hope that your holiday season is going great! We have a lot of work to do down here and I am so grateful to share it with so many people! We had our branch Sunday Christmas Sacrament meeting combined with another ward and we all sang Christmas Hymns, and listened to a member give an amazing special number at the very end of the meeting. We ate with many members and were stuffed! To end the night well, my companion and I listened to fireworks go off all night long- yes they were loud ;)

I´m so grateful to have members who took us in as their own and made our Christmas a great one! I hope you all have the opportunity to help someone out this week (not necessarily the missionaries) but remember that the “Christ” in Christmas is about following his example. His teachings of being a good samaritan and feeding the hungry, helping the sick, and clothing the naked are what we should all try to emulate this holiday season!

I wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEARS and hope that you stay safe!

¡Les quiero muchisisismo! ;)

Elder Martinez

25th Letter

¡Hola Amigos!

How crazy to think that Christmas is this Sunday! I´m SUPER excited to talk with the family! I hope you all are having a nice cold time of the year there in Kaysville (or where ever you are reading this ;)

This past week was good! We taught a lot of the people we found and shared our gospel message with all of them. We had one family that we taught that was just, well... DIFFICULT! We found them last week and decided to go back and contact them again to verify what they read and thought. We had no idea that this family were all either lawyers or studying to be lawyers. My companion and I walked in to their home where about 7 people of this family (very kind) welcomed us and invited us to share with them. We had left a message about the Plan of Salvation with a member of the family we contacted earlier, and each member of this family literally had a notebook filled with verses in the Bible, questions for us, passages highlighted in the pamphlet- pretty much a full court case. We began with a prayer and asked them if we could teach them first and any questions that they had would be answered at the end of what we had. So...we started! It was such a powerful lesson, until the father of the family cut right in and told us that he didn´t believe one word. My companion and I had come prepared to answer and questions they had, but instead of them listening to what we were telling them, the father destroyed all the progress we had made with the rest of the family. After that my companion and I were getting frustrated because every time we would try to explain something he would rudely cut in and start Bible-bashing with us. Finally I looked at my companion and both of us were wondering what it would take to help this family realize what we were teaching was true. We both explained that we could sit here and continue trying to argue with him, but that wouldn´t be what God wanted. We then bore our testimonies of what we had taught. They persisted to try and argue afterwards, but we politely told them we needed to go and asked them to say a prayer for us. They did, and we left.

My companion and I had never been so frustrated. We saw so much potential in this family, right until the head of the household ruined everything for his wife, sons, and daughters. Leaving the house, we only hoped that one day they would finally realize what we had taught them is true.

This time of the year is the best time to reflect on our personal lives, and the lives of our families. We have the opportunity to live and follow the example of our Savior Jesus Christ. We BELIEVE, having an "eye perfect to the glory of God", knowing that "faith without works is dead", and that "every knee shall bow" to the glory of our Eternal God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.

I love to be a missionary and a representative of Jesus Christ. Sharing this message with all who will listen and those who will not is a blessing. I have seen myself grown closer with the principles of the Gospel and hope that I will be able to continue to grow to be my best self.

I love all of you and hope that you have a GREAT CHRISTMAS!

With all my love,

Elder Martinez

24th Letter

¡Hola Familia y Amigos!

This week was fantastic! After our week of "Dengue" that we had, this week was the best week we have had in our companionship! Earlier this week we had decided to work in a few areas that we haven´t worked as much in, hoping that we could find someone or at least new contacts.

This week in total we have found 15 new people, 3 potential families, 6 future elders, and the rest children and women! Not only are these just new people, but they all are interested and accepting of the Gopel! HOW COOL!!!!! My companion and I are working really hard trying to get them all prepared to be baptized before the end of this month, and with how great they all are, we feel like we can do it! Man I feel good!

I gave a talk yesterday in Sacrament Meeting which was really simple- all focused on Jesus Christ. I read D&C 19:1-3 and part of the Living Christ, and bore my testimony. I felt the Spirit so strong, every time I bare testimony of Jesus Christ I can just feel it! That is what I need to do more often if my investigators and people we contact know that we are truly his representatives.

Don´t worry about me and the Dengue! The Lord has his hand in this work and I know that with the mantle that we hold as missionaries he is taking good care of us.

Sorry this a little short this week!

Love you all and pray for you always!

-Elder Martinez

23rd Letter

¡Hola Amigos!

Well I can´t begin to describe what an excellent week this was! Definately a humbling experience...

So earlier this week on our way to district meeting (takes about 1 hour by bus), my companion was really sick. I felt so bad for him, he was nauscious and had already thrown-up earlier that morning. Anyways we got through the district meeting and came back to the pension for lunch. He stumbled to the bed, laid down, and couldn´t even sit up! He was tired, sweating, throwning up, all the fun stuff! We decided that we just better wait it out for lunch and by the end we would see if he felt any better. NOPE! It actually got worse, he got pain in his back and it was just uncomfortable. We took all of our precautions and called the people we needed to to let them know what was going on. All of them told him to just take it easy and wait until the next day. So.... the next day guess what? I THREW UP! :) It was so fun! And then I got all the symptoms that he got as well- back pain, nausia, headache, etc. But before I got sick sick the night before I had asked my companion (who was already sick) to give me a blessing.

I remember crawling to the edge of my bed and got as close as I could so that he didn´t need to get up and move, he then placed his hands on my head annointed me and gave me a blessing. After that I could finally get some sleep. I still got sick, but the temporary relief to get some rest made all the difference.

From that day I was so grateful for the power of the Priesthood. When we are worthy to hold it, we can literally act with the authority of God. I was so grateful even when he was so sick and tired, my companion willingly gave me that blessing.

This past week my companion and I had a great case of a pest similar to "Denge" (DANG-A) or as some call it the "The bone-crushing disease".

This past week has once again humbled me to remember the pains and sufferings that Jesus Christ went through for each one of us. His atonement was something that I will never be able to fully feel or understand. It really changes my perspective to think that even with this illness I had, he knows the struggles and pain far worse and far greater.

Now that my companion and I are fine, with a long (AND I MEAN LONG) week of resting, we are excited to get back to work and find more people!

Never think that God doesn´t hear your prayers...

¡Les quiero muchismo!

Elder Martinez

22nd Letter

¡Hola Familia y Amigos!

Another fine week down here in Barcequillo, Paraguay! Man is the heat coming! I keep on forgetting that we are just in Spring down here. The members keep on reassuring my companion and I that the worst is about to come in a month! YEAH! FUN FUN FUN! J

My companion and I have been working with trying to find more of the less active members of the branch. We have went limit to limit in search for these people and still haven´t been able to find them home. Regardless vamos a ver y hacer las cosas que El Señor quería de nosotros.

We had stake conference yesterday with our Mission President and his wife attending as well. For our branch they had a bus go around and pick up everyone to and from conference. It was such a powerful conference! The whole theme was missionary work. They had about 4 or 5 kids who were about to leave on a mission bare their testimonies and the whole congregation followed up by singing “Called to Serve”.

I hope that I will be everything that the Lord wants me to be out here . Time flies by and I just hope that I will be able to the teach the people the Lord has prepared and that all will go well.

I hope you all have a great Christmas season this next month! Remember to think about the real meaning of CHRIST mas!

¡Muchismo amor!

Elder Martinez

21st Letter

¡Buenas Dias!

What a great rainy day here in Paraguay! We are lucky that the power was turned back on this morning because of the crazy storm we just had! I love it!

Thanks to everyone who has written me in emails, letters, Dearelders for your support and kindness! I love to get them and wish I had enough time here on the computer to respond to each and every one of them! But always know that I read them and treat them like GOLD!

This week we had Zone Conference with our Mission President and his wife. I played the piano and we sang some Christmas songs after being spiritually fed and uplifted with both of their messages.

This week my companion and I have been searching and trying to find new people to teach. We have been working with references but mostly the funnest part of the work- GOPLEANDO PUERTAS (KNOCKING DOORS)! It´s so interesting to knock on a door and find someone and then just start teaching. As far as effective, its not the greatest form of finding, but as for our other options we´re just going to do it and see what happens. We´ve found a few people but continue to try and find more.

As for some information on what it is like here in Paraguay, I have finally figured out the reason why people just start random fires on the sides of the street. They do it because the smoke keeps all the mosquitos away. Another fun fact for you- every day there are dogs in the streets everywhere some vicious some not, but the best way to get rid of them is pretend to pick up a rock from the street and before you are standing up straight again they RUN! Its so funny. The area I am in now has cows, dogs, horses, chickens, pigs and other farm animals just roaming through the streets. It isn´t uncommon to find any of these animals in the middle of busy roads, homes, schools, etc. Everyone also has a thermal strapped to the side of them with a little metal cup with a straw drinking a type of tea if hot called "mate" if cold "terrere". Hopefully when I get back I´ll be able to speak in 3 languages and not just one like I was thinking I was going to learn. The people here can all speak Guarani, Spanish, and some even speak Portuguese. Can you imagine being able to speak all 3??? IT IS A GOAL OF MINE! ;)

Anyways, another "tranqí" week out here in Paraguay! I hope all of you have a great Thanksgiving!

¡Les quiero!
Elder Martinez